Chapter 1161

I was always thinking about the Allied landing in Sicily and the attack on the German material warehouse. I stayed up all night. As soon as it was dawn, I got out of bed, simply washed and walked out of the headquarters alone.

Bukov, who was on duty outside, met me as soon as he saw me coming out of the cabin and politely asked, "Comrade commander, where are you going?"

I pointed forward casually and said, "I can't sleep. Go ahead."

Bukov was a little nervous when he heard that I was going to the forest. He quickly asked me, "do you want me to take some more guards with you?"

"No, no," I waved to his kindness and said, "there are all our people around here. The Germans can't get here. Don't send guards with me." After that, I decided to move on, but seeing his worried face, I quickly added, "if you don't feel at ease, you can walk with me."

Seeing that I agreed to let him follow, his face immediately showed a smile. Before he left, he specially told a soldier standing guard at the door: "I'll accompany the commander around. If someone asks about the whereabouts of the commander, you can report it truthfully."

The soldier standing guard stood up and answered loudly, "yes!"

Almost all the forests in Russia are primeval forests. It's quiet from the outside, but it's gloomy if you go not far inside. Fortunately, bukov came with me, otherwise I would have turned around and ran back to the headquarters. In order to divert my attention from fear, I deliberately asked bukov, "Comrade major, what are you going to do after the war?"

When bukov heard my question, he just gave a faint smile and said, "Comrade commander, if I can live to the day of victory, then I plan to go back to the factory and continue to be my worker."

Hearing his answer, I laughed and said, "don't you plan to stay in the army?"

He thought for a moment, then shook his head and said, "after the war, maybe the army will be cut down, so that the veterans can go back to factories and collective farms to build and grow food, so that our country can quickly recover from the trauma of the war."

I wanted to chat with him casually, but he talked with me in an official way after I had a chat, which made me lose interest in going on. So I stopped and turned back.

Bukov came up again and asked curiously, "Comrade commander, are you going back now?"

I nodded my approval and said casually, "Comrade major, I want to ask you a question."

"Go ahead, comrade commander." He didn't know why I said that, he said nervously“ As long as I know, I will answer you truthfully. "

"Major, if you were the commander of the German armored forces, where would you store all the fuel and ammunition the tanks need?" I was deeply afraid that he would promise me that he would store it in the camp, and specially stressed: "remember, these ammunition and fuel are not only for one armored division, but for three, four or even more armored divisions."

As for my question, bukov only thought for a moment and then answered decisively, "Comrade commander, if I were a German commander, I would certainly set up a warehouse for storing fuel and ammunition in the forest near the camp."

"Why?" Listening to his simple answer, my eyebrows went up, and I couldn't wait to ask, "tell me your reason, why do you want to put the warehouse in the forest?"

"The reason is simple." Bukov pointed to the forest behind him and said: "in the vast plain, building a warehouse for storing materials is not only a huge amount of work, but also easy to become the target of air force attack. Hiding in the dense forest can not only reduce the investment of human and material resources, but also have a good concealment effect. On the other hand, the area of the forest is large. If you are not familiar with the road, it is easy to get lost if you rush into it rashly. "

"Reasonable, reasonable," I listened to bukov's analysis. I could not help nodding. I had been worried that the German army would detect the reconnaissance troops searching the German warehouse on the open plain. I didn't expect that, but unconsciously, I went into a misunderstanding, and even mistook the location of the enemy's warehouse. I looked up at bukov with a smile and said gratefully, "thank you, comrade major. Your analysis is very reasonable."

Walking into the headquarters, I saw Danilov, kirilov, and even akhromeyev, who just came back last night. Several people are around the table to discuss what, see me in the door will stop, collective eyes to me. Kirilov also asked with concern, "where have you been, Rita? We didn't see you just now. We are going to send someone to look for you. "

"I'll just walk outside." I went to the table and asked them curiously, "what were you discussing when I came in?"

Bezikov shrugged his shoulders and replied, "what else can we discuss, of course, is to study where the Germans will put their warehouses."

"Have you found anything?" I asked with interest.

Bezikov shook his head and said regretfully, "we have studied all the places where the German army may set up warehouses. However, according to the information we obtained from the headquarters of the front army, the air force has carried out reconnaissance on those areas, but we have not found any sign of German establishing warehouses."

"Have you heard from captain travkin?" I am deeply afraid that during the period when I leave the headquarters, the reconnaissance team will have the latest information coming back, so I will ask before I give my inference.

"No, there's no intelligence from the reconnaissance unit." Akhromeyev interface said, "we have been in contact with captain travkin, but never contact."

After listening to akhromeyev's words, my heart tightened and I asked in a hurry: they won't have any accidents, will they?

"There should be no accident." Akhromeyev then said: "may have been in the March, the radio did not turn on, so temporarily unable to contact."

After hearing from akhromeyev that nothing will happen to the reconnaissance team, I feel at ease. I waved my hand and said, "since the reconnaissance unit has no intelligence feedback, let's analyze the possible location of the enemy's warehouse first."

As soon as my words came out, akhromeyev brightened his eyes and asked excitedly, "Comrade commander, do you know where the enemy's warehouse is?"

"I'm not sure," I said, pointing to prohorovka's position. "This is the great plain, with only a few hills. It takes a lot of manpower and material resources for the German to build such a large warehouse here. But judging from the current situation, they simply can't spare so many people to build such a warehouse. In addition to the large area of the warehouse that can supply several armored divisions with fuel and ammunition at the same time, air defense is also very important, because it is impossible for the Germans to set up anti-aircraft gun positions around the warehouse to prevent attacks by our air force. "

"Don't beat around the Bush, comrade commander. Tell us where the enemy's warehouse may be." Don't be impatient, zikov interrupted me impatiently before I finished, and urged: "let's start the deployment as soon as possible."

I looked at the map carefully for a while, and found that there was a large forest on the west side of prohorovka. So I pointed at this position twice with my finger, and said with a smile, "please see, this is a primeval forest. Do you think the Germans will set their warehouses in this forest?"

After staring at the map for a long time, Danilov slapped the table and exclaimed excitedly, "Gee, why didn't I expect to be here?" Then he pointed to the map and said, "as we all know, the forest in summer is cold and humid, which is the most suitable for storing fuel and so on. There is no need to worry about fire, but it can also play a very good role in concealment."

Akhromeyev then said: "although the enemy's warehouse may be very large in the forest, how can we find a specific location in such a large forest?"

"Major akhromeyev," I said, looking at my chief of operations, "when we get in touch with captain travkin, let him know what we think, and let them focus on finding the enemy's warehouse near the forest. No matter how camouflaged the enemy may be, it is necessary to build roads for vehicles to transport fuel and ammunition from the rear to the warehouses and then to distribute them to the troops. "

At the end of my speech, kirilov suddenly broke in and said, "Rita, should we consider the possibility that the Germans don't want to build warehouses in prohorovka at all, but transport fuel and ammunition directly from the rear to the various units?"

Kirilov's words sound very reasonable, but I thought for a moment, and immediately retorted: "Comrade military commissar, although the German air force often appears in the sky over Kursk, they can not guarantee the smooth transportation line, because apart from our air force, there are also three close guard divisions that are still in the first line of defense. Although they have no ability to drive the enemy away from the area they now occupy, it is not very difficult for them to harass and cut off the enemy's transportation line for a short time. I think Manstein will certainly consider this issue. In order to prevent their troops from being cut off in the front, he must try to build a warehouse large enough in the prokholovka area. "

"Yes, I think Comrade commander is quite right." Akhromeyev added: "the reason why we lost to Manstein in the battle of Kharkov a few months ago, when the troops were dominant, was because our troops were too far away from the logistics supply area to replenish the weapons and ammunition consumed in the battle in time." At this point, he gritted his teeth and said, "now it's finally our turn to deal with them in the same way."

"After the location of the enemy's warehouse is determined, how can we eliminate them?" Danilov asked cautiously.

"As long as you know the exact location of the enemy's warehouse, there are many ways to eliminate it." In my mind, there are innumerable ways to deal with the enemy's warehouse, so I took this opportunity to say: "we can send air force to bomb, we can send bielei's tank unit to long-range raid, and we can also use our rockets to cover there."

"Yes, there are many ways to destroy enemy warehouses." Bezikov also echoed: "but our first task now is to determine where the enemy's warehouse is."

"Where is colonel berey's tank unit now?" Although I said that air force and artillery could be used to attack the enemy's warehouse, I could not grasp the accurate results in time. Therefore, I still prefer to send tank units to complete this task.

"Colonel berey's tank unit is here," bezikov said, pointing to a small town southeast of oboyan. "Their fuel consumption is almost the same. There happens to be one of our oil bases here, so they drove through the night. They should be refuelling at the moment."“ What about the ammunition? " The problem of fuel is not big. As long as we are in our defense area, we can still find supply points. However, the supporting shells of new tanks can not be replenished in a short time, which makes me headache. Akhromeyev shook his head and replied, "our superiors still haven't sent us any new shells. At present, there are only five shells per new tank in Colonel berey's tank team. However, the ammunition of T-34 is still quite sufficient... "Although akhromeyev didn't finish his words, I heard the implication of his words. He meant that if the shells of the new tank can't arrive in time, we might as well use the existing T-34 tank to continue the enemy's attack mission. I waved my hand and said with regret, "Comrade major, don't you know that German Tiger tanks can easily kill our T-34? Let T-34 tanks form a unit to harass the enemy. Once they are entangled by Tiger tanks, the whole army will be destroyed. In the present situation, we must not take such a risk. "“ Comrade commander, what shall we do? " Akhromeyev said with a worried face: "you know, in Colonel bere's tank unit, the proportion of new tanks is relatively high. If the shells are finished, we can't let these tanks run into German tanks at full power, can we Just when akhromeyev's words put me in a dilemma, Danilov stood up and helped me out: "well, comrade commander, I'll personally call commander vatujing, tell him our situation here, and ask him to find a way to ask the logistics forces to send us a batch of new tank shells. Do you think so? " I didn't expect that Danilov, who always disagreed with me, would stand up and support me at such a time. I went up and took his hands, shook them hard and said gratefully, "thank you, comrade deputy commander. If we can succeed in destroying the German warehouse, you will have a lot of credit