At 4:35 am on May 25, 1943, at the command center of Smolensk, Hoffman issued a confident order to officially launch the "Castle" campaign, which was symbolic. Before that, this order had been passed on to the commanders of every army carrying out the mission.

This is a sunny and good day. The front-line airports ushered in the most crowded and busy moments. Amid the roar of the sky, the bombers took off and formed first, and then waited for the escort fighters to set off together. In order to increase the strike, the b-219 and -190a, which have become the backbone fighter of the Eastern Front, have been hung up.

At 5:17, with the light of dawn, the first batch of aviation troops would throw them around the target. Those carefully arranged anti-tank positions, permanent or semi-permanent fortifications, and aerials were lined with antennas, which seemed to be the place of the command center, artillery positions, especially anti-aircraft gun positions, were hit by a covering blow, and the most important thing was the enemy's entire field airport within 200 kilometers of Tambov.

In order to achieve good offensive effect, this air strike mainly used two types of bombers, ju-188 and he-218. The former mainly threw the ball, while the latter mainly threw 250 kilograms. It was once popular and the dominant Stuka was almost no longer visible. They were replaced by light swans like the he-218. The newly-served ju-188 also performed better than the original ju-88.

With Middle East oil guarantee, the German army finally had the luxury of playing tactics. They had better destructive effects on soft targets, and at the same time, they could use their arson characteristics to form secondary killing. More importantly, the burning flames and smoke can also indicate the direction for subsequent shelling, which can be said to be a killing.

Although the Red Army's ground air defense firepower tried its best to fight back, it was still useless. Except for a very few unlucky aircraft that were shot down by ground air defense firepower, most of the positions that were prepared to be destroyed based on recent aerial photography were hit. The poor Red Army Air Force's 15th Army originally had insufficient aircraft. Under the fierce German air raid, nearly 200 were destroyed in the airport and warehouse.

At 5:30, the German army began to shell the enemy's positions, and the large-caliber artillery fell on the enemy's positions with a scattered momentum. The dust and smoke caused the entire sky to cover the entire sky, so that the sky was getting brighter, but it seemed to be getting darker and darker. Only the continuous flashes of the sky and the rumbling roar made people realize that they were in the battlefield. The fierce firepower that exploded in the air and the ground almost melted the Red Army's positions into the steel storm.

To ensure the suddenness of the attack, Moder made many adjustments and feints: First, insisting on setting up the command center in the Smolensk command is unconcealable, and it will definitely be very dense, but it will be placed in Moscow instead of approaching Voronezh, which has a clear confusing effect; second, let Weix's Oriental Army launch an attack, and the combat command issued to them was May 27. Except for a very small number of people, all the troops of the Oriental Army Group thought that this was a real order, with plans, supplies, schedules, and combat area allocation. They did not know that they would give them a supplementary command to "delay" later on May 26. Model believed that the spies lurking here would try every means to send "information" out; third, let Voronezh remain stationary, and any behavior that could cause misunderstanding or alertness would not be carried out, including mine clearance and pre-war investigation.

In order to block the attack of the German armored cluster, the Red Army laid a large number of anti-tank mines on the front line positions, with dense and sparse density. Once the German army accidentally entered the minefield and was trapped, it could carry out precise strikes with the anti-tank position. Therefore, in the past battles, engineers would usually send in advance to clear mines in order to pull out a passage for the offensive troops as much as possible and reduce tank losses. This kind of mine removal operation is difficult to be completely concealed. The Red Army on the opposite side would often check the mine laying situation and judge where the German attack direction was.

But this time Model decided to use equipment to break through and not clear mines before the war, but his confidence was the hundreds of mine demining vehicles. The German and industrial departments have been thinking about using machines to clear mines to improve efficiency. At the beginning, they built a small micro tank box like Goliath with ********** inside. Once it touched a mine, it would detonate, causing all mines within 50 meters of the surrounding area to be detonated.

Goliath initially used wire-controlled and electric motors, but because the control technology was really troublesome, it was later changed to a gasoline engine. Although the whole thing looked quite fun and was not expensive, only about 1,000 marks per vehicle, which could still give soldiers some fun in their spare time, but Hoffman thought Goliath was too low in efficiency and slow in speed, so he asked to develop better things. Then the military department forced the SDKZ301 to va/b heavy-duty remote-controlled blasting car Graben Wolf to improve the mine removal efficiency of this thing, although the mine removal efficiency of this thing increased exponentially than Goliath, it was still very troublesome because it still relied on the release of detonating landmines.

Finally, Hoffman issued a clear order. In view of the poor effect of the blasting vehicle, the front line sent the combat engineers to use the seized and poor performance t-34s of the service tank. Inspired by the talent of "universal transformation", the t-34s that removed the turret were transformed into a rumbling mine decompression vehicle. The body usually had 2-3 mine-sweeping mills in front of the vehicle and slowly advanced. Steel clamps similar to the lifting arm would be erected in the middle. Under the control of the engineers, the land on both sides of the tank was constantly slapped to detonate various mines. A mine-decompression vehicle can usually open a path of 8-10 meters around, and the mine-sweeping speed is twice that of Goliath, at least 12 kilometers per hour.

When the mills on the front are almost destroyed, these tanks will use the body of the vehicle to rush to mine until the two tracks are completely blown up and cannot move. Then the engineers can give up the vehicle and prepare to retreat. If the T-34 mine-decompression vehicle is not enough, the captured Sherman, who have served as the service tank, will continue to rush forward and use their bodies to continue to rush to the thunder.

In addition to the T-34, the seized tanks, such as the M3 tanks famous for the coffin of the 7 brothers, the Stuart tanks and BTT-26 seized from the Soviet army, have tried to transform them one after another, and finally found that the T-34 is the best. This guy has strong carrying capacity, good mobility, and the fault level is within an acceptable range, and his defense is not bad. Even if he encounters anti-tank mines, it will not cause danger to the crew. At most, he will not be able to move. Sherman's performance is also not bad, but how can their seized amount be as large as the T-34?

In order to quickly open the offensive channel, Model arranged a total of 200 mine-decompression tanks for the front line and told the combat engineers below not to worry about these things, and they would not blow up after hitting the mine. As long as they can control the battlefield, they can clean the battlefield and recycle and repair it, they can continue to use it.

Such a spectacular mine clearance method is unheard of. Looking at the minesweeping vehicles rumbling forward in the front line, Colonel Fritz Baker, the commander of the 6th Tank Regiment of the 3rd Armored Division, who was observing from a distance, couldn't help but sigh: "I didn't expect that we are so generous now, and we actually use tanks to clear mines..."

"Yes, what is even more unimaginable is that if you don't build a tank or anti-tank destroyer, you actually build an infantry combat vehicle. Alas, you're really not dreaming, right?" Major Otto Zorrenkov, the battalion commander of the 1st Battalion beside him, was also very moved.

After the development and mass production of the Assault Tank Destroyer equipped with 88mm artillery, the production of the Scholar Tank Destroyer, which was rebuilt with a 38t chassis, gradually stopped. In addition to continuing to use this chassis to convert it into cricket self-propelled artillery, the military industry also began to build rhino infantry combat vehicles with the direct intervention of the head of state.

This is a draft drawn by Hoffmann from the BMP infantry fighting vehicle. When it finally became real, it made some changes to adapt to the 38t chassis. The modified infantry fighting vehicle was 4.9 meters long, 2.2 meters wide, and weighed about 11 tons. When combined with the 140 horsepower engine, the maximum speed can reach 45 kilometers per hour. A standard infantry fighting vehicle can accommodate 10 people (2+8). There are 8 soldiers with full weapons in the crew cabin, 4 people on each side, and ride back to back. There are 4 hatch covers on the top of the crew cabin, and 4 perforations on both sides of the vehicle body. Personnel can enter and exit through the double doors behind the vehicle, and can be deployed quickly when encountering enemy situations.

According to the application idea, this chariot will be used for armored grenade regiments in the Armored Division, just one per squad. Although the number of people in the organization is 2 less than the standard 12 people, its power is much stronger than half-crawler infantry conveyor vehicles such as SDK251 or 250. Not only is it fully tracked, it has better off-road performance, but it also has a much higher firepower. In addition to a G42 general-purpose aircraft, it is also equipped with 20mm machine guns. In some vehicles that are clearly fire support squads (1 vehicle per row), this 20mm machine gun is replaced by a 75mm recoilless gun and is fixed on the body when traveling, and once it enters the position, it can be easily removed.

The armed forces in the hands of infantry are not spared. The newly renovated 10-person squad is a combination of 4 stg43s and 6 g43s, which is no less than the previous K98 firepower. However, due to insufficient time and production capacity, the output of new infantry fighting vehicles is still very small, and only more than 600 vehicles have been completed. Only the first batch of ace troops like the 3rd Armored Division, which have completed the reorganization, have this honor. Even so, there are only two grenade regiments equipped with one infantry fighting vehicle battalion, and the other battalions are still equipped with 12-person squads of SDK251.

To facilitate the distinction, the Armored Grenadier Assault Battalion, with a strange name such as the Armored Grenadier Assault Battalion, will be the first batch of infantry to cooperate with the Armored Battalion to enter the battle.

"Sir, the minefield has been cleared!"
Chapter completed!