What's worse is that the Red Army was still unaware of the danger they were in. The Red Army generals, including General Vaduddin, the commander of the Southwest Front, unanimously believed that the Germans had been beaten to death after the large-scale counterattack. As long as the Red Army continued to pursue them, they would escape the Dnieper River, as for counterattack, it was impossible.

Stalin, the commander of the Red Army, who was equally optimistic, also recognized Vaduddin's lower-level Red Army officers expressed their optimism during radio calls, while the Germans recorded these optimisms on the case as the basis for Li Mo's decision-making. It should be said that Li Mo himself had carried out the German retreat on the southern front to lure the Red Army alone to go deep and far away from the logistics base.

Li Mo's combat plan formed first. The 4th German Armored Army will attack the right wing of the Southwest Front Red Army from Krasnograd with the strength of the SS Panzer Army from Krasnograd and then attack Pavlograd with the second armored army to cut off the Red Army's retreat route. At the same time, the 1st German Armored Army will attack the 40th Armored Army and the 333rd SS Viking Infantry Division. The 333rd SS Viking Infantry Division attacked the *husband group of the fast corps of the Southwest Front.

After the attack was successful, the German 4th Armored Army will turn around and join the Kempv Campaign Group to gather heavy troops to eat the Voronezh Front's left-wing group in the southwest of Kharkov.

In order to strengthen the troops, Li Mo not only tried his best to supplement the ammunition and medicine resources, but also transferred two infantry divisions from the Western Front as a reserve force. The 167th Division was deployed in Poltava. The 17th Division was deployed in Dnepropetrovsk. According to the order, the two divisions must arrive at the designated departure location from February 20 to 22. As an armored army composed of Hitler's favorite three SS divisions, the unit commanded by Hauser, can be said to be well-equipped and well-trained. The members of the group were mostly stubborn. His behavior was famous for his bravery and tenacious combat operations.

The SS's troops were also relatively sufficient. According to statistics in July 1941, Hitler's division had 678 officers, 20166 soldiers, 20166 soldiers, skeleton division and Imperial division, and 17417 and 14097 respectively. Although these three divisions were nominally armored infantry divisions, they had tank regiments like the armored division, and they were all leopard tanks that ordinary armored divisions dare not expect. In the Kharkiv counterattack, another unit with many leopard i-type heavy tanks was the German Wehrmacht Motorized Infantry Division, a total of 97 tanks. In addition, the German Armored 671117th Division will also invest a considerable number of tanks No. 4 and a small number of leopard tanks.

On July 19, 1941, the German leopard heavy tank began to rotate the heavy armored turret. The tracks were running quickly. The deep traces were rolled over the vast white snow in the Russian land. The battle was about to be fought.

For the 6th Army of the Southwest Front of the Red Army, the German SS Panzer Army Imperial Armored Infantry Division and Skeleton Armored Infantry Division launched an unexpected and fierce attack on the weak flanks of the army. The dive bomber group of the 4th Air Force poured bombs into the Red Army positions that lacked air cover, while the German armored cluster launched a fierce attack under the guidance of the leopard tanks.

The early models of the Red Army T-34 tanks that just appeared on the Soviet-German battlefield in the tank battle between the two sides suffered heavy losses. The 76mm tank guns equipped by the Red Army were not only unable to penetrate the 102mm thick front armor of the Panther tank, but also enhanced the protection of the German IV tank. The front armor of the IV tank was almost helpless 400 meters away. The 76-diameter 88mm cannon and the long-barreled 75mm cannon of the IV tank can easily make holes in the front armor of the T-34 tank at a distance of 1,000 meters and 700 meters respectively.

As for the standard 47mm anti-tank gun of the Red Army, it was impossible to use German tanks. With the dull sound of German tank guns, T-34 tanks were destroyed on the battlefield. Some of the turrets were blown into the sky with ammunition that exploded. Then they hit the ground heavily. Before the T-34 tanks were dominated by the battlefield alone, they encountered major setbacks. The Germans' Leopard-style main battle tank era will be replaced.

The absolute advantage of tank quality and proper tactics made the German team win one-sided victory. Their powerful armored wedges quickly opened a large gap of more than 30 kilometers on the position of the 6th Army of the Red Army. Following this gap, the German SS Imperial Division of the 4th Army of the Red Army advanced more than 100 kilometers south at an astonishing high speed. The German army quickly met the SS Armored Army in the Pavlograd area and cut off the traffic line of the 6th Army of the Red Army. Then the 40th Army of the German army, with three armored armored infantry divisions, sent a fatal blow to the Red Army's Armored Cluster, which had no fuel.

After a fierce battle, the Germans claimed that in the counterattack against the Southwest Front of the Red Army, the German army defeated the 8 armies of the 6th Army, the 1st Guards Army and the 7 special brigades of the 8 armies. It is said that 23,000 Soviet Red Army were killed. However, on the other hand, the German troops did not form an absolute advantage, so they could not form a tight encirclement. In addition, the cold weather was mostly restricted between the various villages, so only about 9,000 Red Army were captured.

After being hit so hard, the Southwest Front of the Red Army had to retreat quickly from July 21 under the strong pressure of the German team rushing from three directions. However, the Red Army Voronezh Front, which was fighting in the Kharkov area, was under the threat of the flank of the German armored forces.

The combat operations against the Germans' sudden attack on the Southwest Front were initially not taken seriously, neither the Supreme Command of the Red Army in Moscow nor the Voronezh Front operating on the flank of the Southwest Front. They still stubbornly believed that the German counterattack was just to cover their retreat from the Dnieper River. Therefore, during this period, the Voronezh Front was still pushing desperately westward.

It was not until the Southwest Front was driven by the Germans to cross the North Donets River that the commander of the Voronez Front found that he was in a very dangerous situation. At this time, the 4th Armored Army of the German Army, who had just defeated the Southwest Front, was heading north to prepare to attack its own troops with the German Kempv Campaign. In this way, the 3rd Army of the 3rd Tank Army of the Voronez Front on the left wing of the 3rd Tank Army of the 4069th Army of the 44 elite German divisions, including 4 armored divisions, 3 SS Armored Infantry Divisions, 1 motorized infantry divisions, and 3 infantry divisions. The Red Army could use about 70 tanks in this direction, and there were no less than 370 German tanks.

Faced with such a bad situation, the Red Army General also urgently asked his superiors to provide supplements to his troops that consumed heavily, but it was completely impossible to reinforce because the nearest supply base was also far away 200 kilometers away.

…(To be continued)

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Chapter completed!