When the jeep we three took arrived at the railway station, the whole station was under martial law. Except for the tank soldiers who were on the task of receiving the train, the rest of the people were not allowed to enter. Of course, our motorcade was definitely not within the forbidden range. From a long distance, the soldiers on duty took the lead to open the obstacles on the road, so that our jeep drove directly into the station without even reducing its speed.
General berey and the station master, who led the team to the station to pick up the tanks, are waiting outside the station master's office at the moment. Seeing that our car stopped, bielei trotted all the way, politely opened the door for me, and asked, "Comrade commander, why are you here?"
Kirilov, who got off from the other side door, heard him saying this. He put on a serious face and said, "why, I want to come here to see the new tank. Can't this work?"
"Comrade military commissar, look what you said." Brey grinned, then said to kirilov, "if I hadn't worried about your busy work, I would have invited you to the headquarters."
I shook hands with the station master and asked, "is the tank here?"
"It's already here." The station master quickly replied, "it's parked at platform 3. Now it's unloading."
I turned and asked kirilov, who had just finished talking with bere, "Comrade military commissar, shall we go to the platform or wait for the tanks to come out here?"
Kirilov thought about it, and then said reasonably, "I think we'd better wait here. The soldiers are busy unloading the new tanks on the platform. If a large group of us rush past, it will certainly affect their work. Anyway, this is the exit of the station. When they leave, it's the same when we look at the tanks. "
When kirilov wants to stay here, I'll let it be. Although the new tanks were equipped with troops long before the battle of Kursk, they have never been seen by political cadres like kirilov. He just wants to take advantage of the opportunity of the arrival of new tanks today to have a good look at our army's magic weapon.
After waiting for more than ten minutes, suddenly came the rumble of the tank motor, kirilov immediately looked in the direction of the sound, and soon saw a team of tanks driving out from behind the building of the station.
Looking at the new tanks passing in front of us one by one, kirilov pointed to one tank and asked the nearby bielei excitedly: "Comrade General, the artillery of this new tank seems to be much thicker than the T-34 tank."
"Comrade military commissar, this is a 100 mm rifled gun, while the T-34 tank is equipped with a 76 mm F-34 cannon," he replied with a smile
Kirilov said with emotion: "with such a long and thick barrel, the range and power must be good."
"In the years of 41 and 42, the enemy's tanks No. 3 and No. 4 were not our opponents of T-34, but since their tiger and leopard tanks came out, our T-34 has not been their opponents." "Fortunately, the weaponry Department has launched this new type of tank, so that our tank troops can regain their advantage in the battlefield," said berey with a relaxed expression. This kind of tank is invincible on the battlefield as long as it is not bombarded by the enemy's heavy artillery or aircraft. The best record of our tank army is the encounter between five new tanks and a German tank battalion. After a fierce battle, the enemy's tank battalion equipped with four Tiger tanks was completely destroyed, while only two of our tanks were slightly injured, which did not affect the next battle. "
Kirilov could not help but look at me and asked curiously, "Comrade commander, since the new tanks are so good, why have they been launched for so long and have not been fully equipped?"
As for kirilov's question, I gave a wry smile and replied, "the key is that the production capacity is not enough and there are not enough special steel plates, so that large-scale production is impossible. There are also some new tanks in use for a period of time, because there is not enough ammunition or updated parts, so they are temporarily suspended
"Comrade commander," as soon as I finished, berey suddenly said, "I think this new type of tank will become the basic configuration of all tank brigades in the first half of '44."
When I heard that berey was so confident, I asked curiously, "general berey, did you hear something we didn't know?"
"In the early days of the war, our tanks were mainly produced in Kharkov tank factory, Stalingrad tractor factory, Leningrad 174 tank factory and solmoff 112 factory. With the pressure of the German army, the Kharkov tank factory did not wait to move to the lower tajir of Urals until the beginning of 42. 174 tank factory also moved from Leningrad to Omsk, and began to produce tanks in March of 42. However, in the autumn of 42, due to the defense war of Stalingrad, the tractor factory of Stalingrad was destroyed, and some production workshops were moved to Kirov factory in Chelyabinsk to continue production. "
When he said this, he stopped for a moment. After another tank passed in front of us, he said, "now Kharkov has recovered. By January next year at most, the production of tanks can be officially resumed. It is said that all the tanks there will be used for the production of new tanks."
"Great, that's great." Kirilov said with a smile after listening to bierre's introduction: "if your close guard fifth tank army can be equipped with this kind of tank, not to mention the German ordinary armored division, even if you meet the most elite SS ace division of the German army, you will still beat them to pieces."
After all the tanks passed in front of us, chisjakov, who had never spoken, asked kirilov with a smile: "Comrade military commissar, we have finished what we have changed. Should we go back to the headquarters?"
"Well, let's go back." Kirilov finished and led the way to the jeep.
I came to the jeep, opened the door and was about to bend down to get in when I heard the roar of the plane engine in the air. When I almost blurted out the air raid alarm, I found that people around me were calm and looked up into the air.
At this time, my heart became much more stable. Passing over us are two propeller planes. From the red five pointed star pattern on the fuselage, we can tell that they are our military fighters. It turns out that our fighters are on air patrol. With that in mind, I stooped into the jeep.
As soon as we got back to the headquarters, the director of communications, lophov, sent me a telegram. He also reported to me: "Comrade commander, this is a telegram just received from the headquarters of the Belarusian front army."
While I was reading the telegram, both chisjakov and kirilov looked at me nervously. They were eager to know what was said in the telegram sent to me by rokosovsky.
After reading the telegram, I put it on the table, and then said to the two deputies with a smile: "rokosovsky said in the telegram that the troops of the Belarusian front army pursuing the retreating enemy have now arrived in tukhofka, new bekhov, east of zhylobin and east of moziri, and they have set up local defenses to prevent the Germans from jumping over the wall. In addition, they have received active assistance from guerrillas fighting in Vitebsk, mogilyov, gomeli and polesiyah. "
After I finished, kirilov suddenly asked, "by the way, Rita, why didn't I hear from general Romanov for a long time? I haven't heard from him since Kiev broke through."
"I don't know." To tell you the truth, I still miss this general who used to be my partner very much. "After the Supreme Command appointed him commander of the guerrilla group army, it seems that no one mentioned him again." Speaking of this, it suddenly occurred to me that Romanov's area of activity was near Chernobyl, not far from Kiev. But I don't know why, no matter in the battle of liberating Kiev or defending Zhitomir, I didn't see his troops take part in the battle. Maybe something happened to him, which is more or less dangerous.
Chisjakov's patience was very good. After I talked with kirilov about general Romanov for a while, he asked, "Comrade commander, I want to ask, general rokosovsky suddenly sent us a telegram like this. Don't you know what the purpose is?"
"Isn't that obvious, comrade deputy commander?" I pushed the telegram in front of him, and then said: "general rokosovsky informed us of the position of the front army troops, probably to let us know the commander well, so that when the troops arrived at the battlefield, they could fight as quickly as possible."
"Into battle?" Chisjakov picked up rokosovsky's telegram and just looked at it. Listening to what I said, he quickly put down the phone and asked curiously, "Comrade commander, have you heard anything?"
"I can hear something." As I spoke, I pointed to the telegram in front of chisgakov and continued, "I inferred from this telegram. From what I know about general rokosovsky, it is impossible for him to send us such a telegram without any reason. You see, the names above must be the main battlefields in the next stage of fighting. We should make use of this precious time to train our troops and familiarize ourselves with the terrain, so that when our group army is transferred, it will not be discredited
"So it is." Chisgakov picked up the telegram and looked at it again for a while. Then he asked me, "when do you think we will join in the fight against the enemy?"
"It should be around the middle of January." I pointed to the map on the table and analyzed to them: "according to my understanding of general rokosovsky, he will definitely deploy us on the left side of the whole front army. After the group army's mojiliov launches, he will launch an attack on kalinkovich and moziri in the West. After seizing these two cities, he will turn to the local defense in the area, Waiting for the spring thaw to come, we should seize the time to accumulate materials and strength, and prepare to launch a comprehensive attack again. "
After staring at the location of the two cities I mentioned for a long time, chisgakov said leisurely: "if our troops capture kalinkovych and moziri, they can connect with the defense area of the first front army of Ukraine of general vatukin through Chernobyl. In this way, the combat effectiveness of our two front forces in the future will no longer be fighting alone, but can echo each other from afar. "
When we were discussing how to carry out the strategy in Belarus, we suddenly heard a familiar voice at the door asking, "Oh, it's very lively here. What are you discussing?" I looked up and saw bzikov coming in from the door. I nodded at him and asked politely, "chief of staff, you are back."“ Come back Bezikov took off his beaver cylinder cap and hung it on the clothes rack beside him. Then he came to us and said, "I've been busy for two days. I've finally distributed all the supplies."“ Speaking of equipment, I have an important matter that I haven't had time to tell you and the military Commissar. " As he said this, chisgakov kept looking at me. He was consulting me, asking if there were German spies in the city, and telling them. Seeing that I nodded my tacit approval, he went on to say, "we received a report from the Ministry of interior yesterday that they intercepted a German telegram, which recorded in detail our troops and deployment, and even your equipment allocation plan, etc..." what? " When he heard what chisgakov said, bizikov, who had just sat down, jumped up from his seat. He yelled and asked, "Damn, how did the Germans get our military secrets?"“ He was a combat staff officer of the 77th division of Jinwei who was bribed by the German army. Taking advantage of the negligence of the archivists, he secretly assigned the key to the archives and sneaked into the archives overnight to steal the information. " Seeing the angry look on bzikov's face, chisgakov quickly added: "but he has been caught by us."“ I've got it. That's great. " It was said that the information stealing spy had been caught. Bizikov asked excitedly, "did you dig out all his accomplices in the city and then shoot them all?"“ No, we haven't touched their accomplices for the time being. " Chisgakov took a look at me and continued to say to bzikov, "even if the spy was caught, we just sent someone to control him and didn't shoot him."“ Why, why is that? " Not only bzikov was surprised, but kirilov was also surprised, because when other troops caught such spies, they were usually simply interrogated, and after obtaining the necessary information, they were directly executed“ Military commissar and chief of staff, don't worry. Let me explain to you. " Chisjakov repeated what I said yesterday to them in detail, and finally said, "I think the measures taken by Comrade commander are completely correct."