The Rise of the Third Reich

The "Red Guard" plan formulated by Zhukov and others is not complicated. It is to concentrate as many troops as possible and JS-2 tanks and T-34/85 tanks, and use them in the Rzhev area, the junction of the two German army groups. Use overwhelming superior force and firepower to forcefully break through the German defense line.

Then, light mechanized troops (largely equipped with BT-7 tanks) that can maneuver quickly in the muddy season and in forests and swamp areas were deployed to break through the depths of the German army. At the same time, a large number of camouflaged infiltration troops were invested in order to create greater chaos, threaten the German army's logistics supply line, and force the German army on the northern front to retreat in large strides during the mud season.

If the advance of the light mechanized troops is relatively smooth, then it is not ruled out that they can make a detour to the rear of the German troops on the northern front, pretending to surround the main force of the German troops on the northern front, and force the opponent to maneuver and retreat on a larger scale.

At the same time that the German troops on the northern front began to retreat, the main force of the Red Army's Central Front would also launch a full pursuit from the Uglich-Rzhev line. In order to make the German retreat process hasty and chaotic, which will cause a lot of equipment loss and abandonment during the mud season.

At the same time, the Red Army, which was detouring and penetrating behind enemy lines, would also fully destroy roads and bridges in order to delay the German counterattack to the maximum extent possible.

The troops used to carry out the most critical assault and roundabout missions in the "Red Guard" plan were the 1st Guards Tank Army, the 2nd Guards Tank Army, and the 2nd Guards Tank Army, which were formed after the muddy season in the autumn of 1943. There are a total of 4 Guards Tank Armies including the 7th Guards Tank Army and the 8th Guards Tank Army!

The tank army with the title of "Guards" is now the main strike force of the Soviet Red Army. There are a total of 8 such armies, and their designations are 1st Guards - 8th Guards Tank Army.

Among them, the 1st to 6th Guards Tank Armies are all so-called "heavy tank armies". Each group army has 2 tank corps, 1 mechanized corps, 4 infantry divisions and some auxiliary units, with a total strength of more than 100,000 people. .

The tanks equipped by the "Heavy Tank Army" are of course also heavy. In addition to the T-60/T-70 tanks used for reconnaissance, they are the T-34/85 of more than 30 tons, the JS-2 of more than 40 tons and the powerful The SU-85 and SU-152 should not be underestimated. And each "heavy tank army" has more than 700 tanks/assault artillery. Its combat effectiveness is much stronger than that of the previous Soviet tank armies!

The 7th Guards Tank Army and the 8th Guards Tank Army are sharp-edged units specially formed to carry out the insertion and detour tasks in the "Red Guard" plan. They are so-called light tank armies.

Each light tank army has 2 tank corps, 2 mechanized corps and 6 infantry divisions. The total number of troops is larger than that of the heavy tank army, reaching about 150,000. And the number of tanks/assault artillery they have is also much larger, more than 1,000!

However, the tanks owned by the light tank army are all light. The main models are BT-7 and SU-57 (modified from the BT-7 site). Naturally, they cannot compare with the heavy tank army in terms of their ability to fight German tank groups.

However, the anti-tank capabilities of these two light tank armies are not weak, because the infantry deployed in them have undergone strict anti-tank warfare training and are equipped with a large number of ZIS-2 anti-tank guns (57mm anti-tank guns), Bazou Kazooka, Red Iron Fist anti-tank grenade launcher, and PTRS and PTRD anti-tank rifles - these are two 14.5mm caliber anti-tank rifles that can penetrate vertically placed 50mm homogeneous steel plates within 100 meters in range tests , can penetrate 30mm vertically placed homogeneous steel plates within 300 meters. Although it is not enough to pose a threat to Tiger H tanks and E-5A tanks, it is enough to deal with the sides of No. 4 H tanks.

Therefore, once the two light tank armies rush into the German side from the breakthrough in Rzhev, they can still be "invincible" as long as they do not confront the German armored divisions equipped with a large number of Tiger H tanks and E-50A tanks.

Now it depends on whether the assault of the 1st Guards Tank Army and the 2nd Guards Tank Army can succeed?

…

The handsome 21-year-old Captain Dmitry Mofeyevich Yazov comes from a collective farm in Omsk Oblast, Siberia. He only joined the army in 1941 before the outbreak of the world revolution. Because of his bravery in combat and being wounded many times, he got many promotion opportunities. Not only did he join the Bolshevik Party, but he also became an officer. After the mud season came last autumn, he entered the tank training school for crash course training, and at the beginning of 44 he became the commander of a heavy tank company equipped with 10 JS-2 heavy tanks.

Of course, this Comrade Yazov is undoubtedly a loyal communist fighter! No matter how difficult the Soviet motherland encountered, he was determined to defend it at all costs!

At 10 o'clock in the morning on April 5, 1944, Yazov, a loyal communist fighter, leaned half out of a very powerful-looking JS-2 tank and looked at the violent tanks a few kilometers away. Shelling enemy positions.

At this time, rain and snow were falling in the sky, and the ground was still covered with white snow. However, the temperature had risen above freezing, so the snow had begun to melt. If the tank tracks pressed over, deep marks would appear.

Yazov, who has lived in Siberia for many years, knows that if the current temperature and rain and snow continue for a while, the whole earth will "melt", and there will be mud everywhere, all rivers will surge, and some areas will be flooded. In some places where the ground "melts" too violently, even the hard road surface will break, as if it has just experienced an earthquake. This situation is rare near Moscow, but it often happens in the frozen land areas of Siberia, so the development cost of the frozen land areas of Siberia is very high, and the cost of road maintenance alone is an astronomical figure!

Just as Yazov was waiting anxiously, several red flares were suddenly shot into the light gray sky - this was the signal for the start of the assault.

Yazov half turned around and looked at the neatly arranged JS-1 tanks, T-34/85 tanks and the dense assault infantry of the 15th Guards Infantry Division behind him, then picked up the communicator and issued an order: "Comrades of the 4th Heavy Tank Company, start the attack now! Long live the Bolshevik Party! Long live the Soviet Union! Long live the fatherly leader Stalin!"

As Yazov and other tank company commanders issued orders, the tanks that had already started began to roar forward, spewing out thick black smoke.

"Ura! Ura! Ura..."

The cheers suddenly resounded through the snowfield, even covering the roar of the tank engines. This is the cheer of 15,000 Red Army infantry!

Although equipped with powerful JS-2 and T-34/85, the Red Army's assault tactics have not changed, still a sea of ​​tanks + a sea of ​​people.

In just the first wave of assault, the Red Army deployed more than 300 JS-2, T-34/85, SU-152 and more than 15,000 infantrymen from Siberia.

…

On April 5, it was not the German army that faced the 1st Guards Tank Army of the Red Army, but the 8th Armored Grenadier Division of the Russian Imperial Army, with Major General Voskoponiko and Colonel Kaminsky as the division commander and deputy division commander.

This division was mainly composed of Red Army soldiers who surrendered during the liberation of Petrograd. Most of the mechanized equipment used was sponsored by France (the French armored forces were being upgraded like Germany, but they did not have the Tiger H type, but directly used the combination of E-50A and Type 4 H. In the process, a batch of French-made Type 4 H tanks were eliminated and all given to the Russians). It had an armored battalion equipped with 33 Type 4 tanks, and each armored grenadier regiment was also equipped with an assault gun company with 6 Type 3 assault guns (also produced in France).

In addition, there are some T-50 light tanks and "Olga" tank destroyers assembled from the chassis of T-50 tanks in this armored grenadier division of the Russian Empire Army. The former is a reconnaissance tank, while the latter is equipped with a tank destroyer battalion (full strength of 45 vehicles).

The T-50 tanks in the White Russian Army were produced by the former Kirov Factory and Voroshilov Factory in Leningrad. After the White Russians "recovered" Petrograd, the German Wehrmacht Army Armament Bureau sent experts to test various tanks and assault artillery produced by the Kirov Factory and the Voroshilov Factory (now renamed the Petrograd Arsenal). In the end, it was determined that the 14-ton T-50 tank had advanced technology and excellent performance and could continue to be produced.

At the same time, at the suggestion of Hessman, engineers at the Petrograd Factory also installed a 57mm gun (a 6-pound gun with a caliber of 50 times that of the British) on the body of the T-50 tank, turning it into a tank destroyer and naming it after the Russian empress. Later, this tank was called "Olga's Hammer" by soldiers on both sides of the Soviet-German battlefield.

Because of its low body and easy concealment, and the 6-pound gun equipped with British-made armor-piercing shells, "Olga's Hammer" soon became the "Black Cannon Queen" on the Soviet-German and Soviet-Russian battlefields.

The huge Stalin tank (JS-2) was often knocked over by this small and flexible "Olga" tank destroyer...

The Rzhev front on April 5, 1944 was the first fierce collision between the "Olga" tank destroyer and the "Stalin" tank!