Steel Soviet Union

At the end, the Wehrmacht Major General, whose expression was uglier than that of his dead mother, was escorted away. Malashenko, who suddenly felt quite refreshed, felt that it was time to do other things, such as cooking.

A person who is a rice cook has a soul, and a man who is a rice cook must use a basin to eat.

Malashenko, who had been working hard all day in the war, was always used to opening his "big mouth" to eat dinner. The biggest meal Malashenko had in a wartime state was not breakfast or breakfast. Lunch, but dinner.

After carrying thousands of calories for a whole day, I had to put it in the car at noon and chew two bites of brick-hard bread with water to swallow it. If Malashenko doesn't cook something decent for dinner, I'm afraid it's hard to say whether he can sleep well at night with his flat stomach. ,

"Smells! It smells so good! You should eat food like this after the war. I have been hungry all day. If you don't eat something decent, you will be sorry for the motherland."

There were a few German ammunition boxes casually placed under his buttocks. The restaurant where he was dining was still a German command post that was half destroyed by a 500 kilogram aerial bomb. Even the aerial bomb crater not far away was still full of smoke. cigarette.

Comrade Political Commissar was a little surprised that in such a bad environment, Malashenko could still eat and drink and eat like no one else. Looking at that posture, he almost wanted to swallow the big basin that the cooking team brought to fill everyone's soup.

"The German corpses here have not been cleaned up, and there is still the smell of roasted human flesh in the air. How can you eat so deliciously and be able to eat it?"

After hearing what Comrade Political Commissar said, the heartless Malashenko held a piece of bread in his mouth that had just been delivered and was far from as hard as a brick. He then turned around and looked at the people lying in a mess not far away. The ground was covered with German corpses that had not been completely cleaned up.

A few pieces of minced meat that could not be discerned from which part of the human body they originally belonged to were also scattered on the ground. Not far away, there was a German truck that was on fire, leaving only a dark empty shell. There was still black charcoal that had been burnt in the front cab. The smell of "roasted human flesh" in the mouth of the political commissar probably came from here.

"It's nothing, I'm serious. Just take the ammunition box from under my butt and replace it with a pile of German corpses. I can still sit on it and eat it. If you don't believe it, I'll show it to you. look."

""

The Comrade Political Commissar who heard this just shook his head speechlessly, and waved his hand to indicate that Malashenko could continue eating and ignore himself. It is indeed difficult to be in the same realm as such a hard-working man.

"Is there any news from the front army headquarters? Are there any new instructions?"

That is to say, when the political commissar was thinking about getting ready to go to the position to see how the cleaning was going, and when it was almost done, he ordered the meal to be served and asked everyone to fill their stomachs first. Malashenko, who was holding the soup ladle from the cooking team in his hand and stuffing potatoes and beef stew into his mouth, suddenly asked. Comrade political commissar who turned around spoke immediately without thinking too much.

"In the telegram half an hour ago, Commander Vatutin already knew the news that we had captured the third defensive position, and expressed his affirmation and encouragement for our overfulfillment of the combat mission."

Chewing the beef stew with potatoes in his mouth and swallowing it, Malashenko blinked and asked again.

"That's all? No more?"

"Of course it's more than that. Comrade Commander asked us to guard this place and guard against the enemy's counterattacks and small moves. The attack speed of other friendly forces is not as fast as ours. As you expected in advance, our current position is a relatively prominent one. The front, left and right can basically be regarded as the actual control areas of the Germans. "

"It's just that the enemy suffered a violent attack during the day and retreated more violently. There was not a strong deployment of troops near the actual control area, and the overall situation was very weak. So our current situation is not bad, at least it is better than Prohoro "Fuka was much stronger back then, but you still had to be alert and alert, you know what that means."

"Um"

Malashenko, who was chewing beef, slurping broth, and swallowing another big mouthful, thought about it for a moment, and was already thinking about how to fight tomorrow's battle.

"Today's battle probably gave the Germans a good beating. Vasily just sent me the preliminary interrogation report, and the German major general gave it to me quite happily."

"What we have eaten today are three fully equipped German infantry divisions. The total number is less than 50,000. They are basically unable to escape. They were either killed or taken prisoner. The one who led the command is this major general. "

"Of course, the credit cannot all go to our division. I don't mean that. The several brother infantry divisions that cooperated in the operation also fought brilliantly. The positions of Kulbalov and Lavrinenko were cleared and fought. Basically, they were taken down by brother troops, and the tanks of our division were responsible for tearing apart the positions. "

"According to the German major general, the main force in our division's offensive direction is their infantry unit. After today's battle, it was basically eaten up. This means that tomorrow's battle will not be more intense than today's. There will be a fierce battle unless the Germans bring in new troops overnight to block our front."

"But I think the gaps on the front line are tightening now. The entire Army Group Center has been dug into a sieve by us, with holes everywhere. The Germans can't mobilize too strong a force to stand in front of us. Tomorrow's battle Nine times out of ten it will be much smoother than today.”

"If everything goes well, we might be able to arrive at the expected encirclement assembly point tomorrow, and then we can just wait for the brother troops in the other direction to come and join us. It will be easier than expected."

Malashenko's analysis is not unreasonable. The performance of Army Group Center under such a powerful offensive is indeed unsatisfactory and full of loopholes. It can be said that it is basically at the end of its power and it is difficult to turn around.

But for the sake of safety, Commissar Petrov still gave Malashenko some different opinions after thinking about it for a while.

"This is true, but we also need to take into account an important factor: the German armored forces have not yet appeared."

"You also know some of the situations that the Allied forces encountered on the Western Front. I heard that the Germans invested a lot of new equipment and tested them on the Americans and British. The Allied junk tanks were hit with wreckage all over the ground. Not a rival at all.”

"We still don't know what the enemy's new armored vehicles are like. This is an uncertain risk factor. It is also abnormal that we did not encounter German armored troops all day today. One possibility is the German armor. The troops may be preparing for a large-scale counterattack. The armored forces of Army Group Center are much stronger than those of Army Group South. This is very possible.”

"If tomorrow's battle encounters such an emergency, you must be extremely careful, Malashenko. Like the Prokhorovka battle, this is a plain battle most suitable for large-scale tank group operations. Watch out for Germany What conspiracy has the armored forces prepared? We must not take it lightly."