When Yang Mingzhi's 6th Army carried out the "Lechicha Defense Battle", the German troops deployed in Smolensk, hundreds of kilometers away, encountered a large-scale counterattack by the main force of the Soviet army.

The commander of the Western Front Zhukov and the commander of the Kalinin Front Konev planned a strategic counterattack, which was called the first Rzhev-Sychovka offensive battle in 194. The agreed time for the attack was July 2

Three o'clock in the morning on the 19th.

With Rzhev as the core, the Soviet army has carried out two counterattacks in the past fourteen months, and the operation at the end of July was the third.

The new operation was an open secret, but the date of the attack was kept extremely secret. Even after the attack began, the operation was not publicized. Therefore, when the Guerrilla Republic learned the exact news that the Soviet army had launched this large-scale counterattack, it was already early August.

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For a time, the main force of the Soviet Kalinin Front, which stretched across hundreds of kilometers of fronts, launched a strategic counterattack. The attack was directed at the German 9th Army entrenched in the Rzhev salient. In order to cooperate with the friendly counterattack, the Western Front in the southern part of the salient,

Elite troops were also assigned to participate in the attack.

Because of the disastrous defeat of the Soviet 9th Army, the German army expanded the convex angle of the Rzhev salient. In this tug-of-war, the German army achieved a tactical victory.

Zhukov, who had suffered a defeat, had a far-sighted vision. He knew that if the strongest German 9th Army of Model was annihilated, the door would be opened for the Soviet army to advance westward.

Model's troops are the main force of the German Army Group Center. At this juncture, a bloody meat grinder-style battle has begun in southern Russia around Stalingrad and the surrounding areas. If the German army mobilizes troops from the north to join the war, the Soviet army will

The defensive pressure increases.

In order to prevent the German army from dividing its forces and moving south, and to compress the front line, it was reasonable to launch a strategic counterattack. The Soviet army had been preparing for this counterattack for more than two weeks.

The officers and soldiers had only one wish in their hearts, which was to break the deadlock in Rzhev, break through as soon as possible, and liberate the ancient city of Smolensk from the clutches of the German occupying forces.

As early as 181 Napoleon invaded Russia, Russia and France fought a bloody battle in Smolensk, and then in Borodino. More than a hundred years later, the road from Smolensk to Moscow once again witnessed bloodshed, and the Soviet Union

The German and German sides deployed a total of more than two million combat troops on a 500-kilometer-long front!

The newly formed troops of the Soviet Army include a large number of young people from remote areas who have never seen modern warfare. Most of them are in their early twenties and the oldest is no more than thirty years old. They are the first generation born in Soviet cities, and many of them were born in 1919 or 19

Born in 2010, they were willing to defend the Soviet Union and their accustomed way of life from the bottom of their hearts.

After just one month of recruit training, the new infantry division formed by the recruits quickly went into the Rzhev meat grinder.

But most of the new recruits have no idea that the Soviet Union has already paid the price of more than one million casualties and missing persons on this front! They, these newcomers, are the most pitiful people.

They were just a small pawn in a huge battle. The battle was launched by the Kalinin Front on July 29. Three days later, the Southwestern Front launched the offensive.

The new recruits, filled with patriotic sentiments, accompanied by hundreds of tanks launched a focused attack on Rzhev.

However, Model, a master of defense, used anti-tank guns, machine gun barrages, and a criss-crossing field defense system to successfully block the Soviet attack of up to 100,000 people after breaking through two lines of defense. The German defense

The victory was only temporary. For this tactical victory, the German 9th Army suffered heavy losses!

If the Soviet army had only these troops to fight, Model would undoubtedly achieve another defensive victory.

The Western Front led by Zhukov launched a full-scale offensive on August 2.

The Western Front divided its forces to contain the German 4th Army, making it difficult for it to reinforce Model in the north. The main force of the Soviet army, especially the tank troops, after lengthy artillery preparations and crazy bombing by the air force, began to target the maintenance positions in the southern part of the Rzhev salient.

Azima advances.

From now on, because of Yang Mingzhi's actions in the occupied areas of the Soviet Union, the results of this counterattack will be completely different from what would have happened in that plane!

How much change can one man bring to history?

Yang Mingzhi brought mature RPG technology to the Soviet Union. This practical new weapon greatly enhanced the firepower of ordinary infantry against armored targets, and also had considerable lethality against infantry.

The German army captured this Soviet weapon, but the German army was not shocked at all. Originally, individual rocket launchers and recoilless rifles were not new things, but the Russians took the lead in miniaturizing and making them portable. The disastrous defeat of the 7th Armored Division really shocked the German army.

In order to shock, as the front-line German army began to equip individual RPG weapons, the German army also had such anti-tank weapons, and achieved the result of destroying a large number of T476 tanks when it was put into combat for the first time.

Nowadays, most of the T476s used in this counterattack have thickened armor and a fence welded on them.

As for the German Panzer IV tank, the armor thickness was forcibly increased. While it was basically immune to Soviet RPGs, it was also completely immune to frontal attacks from the Soviet 45mm anti-tank guns within a distance of 400 meters.

The Soviet tanks that went on the offensive were immediately bombarded by German-made RPGs as they approached the German trenches.

The front fence armor saved some tanks, but some were pierced by the hot metal heat flow, and the entire crew was killed.

The Western Front invested more than 400 tanks in the first day of the assault. However, in less than 24 hours of fighting, as many as 80 tanks were unable to fight. Fifty tanks were lost due to RPG attacks.

In a sneak attack, they could continue to fight after being repaired, but in a breakthrough state, the Soviet army could only replace their parts.

The German army in a defensive state achieved a certain tactical advantage. However, Model was attacked by the two Soviet fronts. He had eighteen divisions under his command. Due to the limited supply of troops for long-term combat, to make matters worse, they had to disperse their defense.

The strategic intention of the Soviet army was very obvious. The two front armies mobilized ten divisions and more than 800 tanks to form the first round of the pincer offensive.

Completely different from the German army, the Soviet army had a strong reserve force. Realizing that the advance was blocked, Konev immediately increased the number of troops to fight. This time, the northern defense line of the German army's salient was finally torn apart by a thirty-kilometer-long gap.

Big mouth.

The Rzhev salient ceased to exist on the fifth day of the Soviet offensive!

On August 4, the Soviet army liberated the devastated city of Rzhev, and the clearing of German stragglers inside was underway.

The Soviet army quickly determined a new goal-the liberation of Vyazma!

Starting on August 5, Konev and Zhukov began to launch the most violent offensive against Vyazma.

The feeling that war gave Model was chaos!

"Damn it! Where are my reinforcements? I need a lot of reinforcements!"

However, the 9th Army's defense line fell too quickly, and reinforcements could not appear in an instant. What's more, some reinforcements had to be postponed due to some disgusting circumstances!

The so-called "disgusting situation" is the "Battle of Defense of Lechica"!

The German Field Marshal von Kluge began to remove elite troops from Army Group Center to reinforce the precarious Model, but this took time.

Will the Soviet army give the German army time to strengthen its defenses? No!

Zhukov issued a new order. For a time, the Western Front invested an additional 500 tanks and armored vehicles (in order to increase the number and increase excitement, there were even 50 old-fashioned T6s) for the key attack on Vyazma!

As many as seven infantry divisions accompanied the tank corps in action!

The Soviet rocket launchers bombarded the German frontline infantry positions. In order to gain time, Zhukov ordered the troops to sprint forward before the smoke cleared, without giving the enemy a chance to breathe.

The war has become like this, and the impact of the bravery of the soldiers on the battle situation no longer exists. The attacking Soviet army has invested a huge amount of troops, and the number of its tactical weapons is also very terrifying.

If there is any shortcoming in that aspect, it is that the soldiers' individual combat capabilities are poor. But they are full of courage and are not afraid of death when fighting. They dare not retreat and cannot retreat. The torrent of history has wrapped up these young bodies and become victims of German machine guns.

Dots of undead. The survivors will step on the corpses of their comrades and step into the enemy's position.

The Soviet army could endure heavy casualties because they mobilized troops quickly and had a large population base.

The decisive battle against Vyazma began on August 7. After three days of bloody fighting, after paying a huge cost in casualties, especially the shocking cost of losing up to 500 tanks, on August 11,

Soviet troops liberated Vyazma!

Model's 9th Army suffered heavy losses. One of the eighteen divisions was completely wiped out and eight suffered heavy losses.

Model realized that because the neighboring 4th and 4th armies were both restrained by the Soviets, the reinforcements promised by the marshal would never arrive quickly! If he insisted on holding on to the precarious final Vyazma salient, six of them would

Normal University may be surrounded and annihilated.

There were deviations in the survey data before the battle. In other words, in the past two weeks, the Soviet army had increased its troop strength significantly and had done a good job of hiding intelligence.

He issued an order to retreat, and Vyazma, which had been occupied by the Germans for a full year, was occupied by the Soviet army.

The reason why he is called a defense master is mainly because Model has a situation of "leaving green hills without worrying about having no firewood". In the German army, he was called a lack of enterprising spirit, and was called "

For a fool, all operations are offensive. As long as the troops he leads are bound to fight badly.

However, no one doubts his defensive ability.

At present, retreat is the best option for soldiers.

Model built a defensive line forty kilometers east of Smolensk, and all his troops were crowded here. Those auxiliaries serving the army group, a large group of Czechs, French, Ukrainians and Russians, were all driven away

Go to the front line, distribute weapons and act as soldiers.

Rzhev and Vyazma are both small cities that have been devastated by war and have become ruins.

In order to liberate this place, the Soviet army paid a heavy price in the past year. In this counterattack, Zhukov and Konev were greatly shocked by the victory of their troops.

Yes, they didn't expect that they would complete the liberation just like this, and the next step would be to attack Smolensk immediately!

"The whole army continues to attack, the target is Smolensk, we must try our best to break through the German defense line!"

Zhukov sent telegrams with the same content to each of his attacking divisions, urging them to attack.

Of course, he also received telegrams from various units reporting heavy casualties. Some infantry divisions even claimed that out of the full strength of 11,000 troops before the attack, only more than 3,000 people could now be put into battle. This was not a battle.

The personnel's divisional documents were also issued with rifles, and all the logistics soldiers were converted into front-line soldiers.

Even so, Zhukov believed that his troops could still hold on. Now it was a competition to see who could endure more. If the entire offensive force was wiped out in exchange for the liberation of Smolensk, he would not hesitate to do so.

So, why did the German army fail to hold Vyazma? The reason may be attributed to the absolute lack of their military strength.

In other words, if the 100th Army that was reinforcing Model, as well as their hundreds of heavy artillery and hundreds of armored vehicles, had not experienced what happened in Lechica, but had taken another route by train, they would have arrived as early as July

We will arrive in Smolensk on the 27th.

Model does have eighteen divisions, but the combat strength of each division is only seven or eight thousand men. The temporarily formed 100th Army is still the old organization. Not to mention that the army only has three divisions, it can actually go to the front line.

Six divisions!

Once the 100th Army is successfully reinforced, the German troops in Vyazma will not only surpass the Soviet army in strength, but their combat effectiveness will definitely not be weak. Even because of the addition of the 100th Army, it is unknown whether the Soviet army can capture Rzhev.

However, the 100th Army experienced a bloody battle in Gomel. Not only did the total casualties reach 7,000, but the consumption of ammunition was unprecedented. They hurried to the north of Belarus, and most of the soldiers had to rely on two legs to walk to Mogilev.
To be continued...