Chapter 25 In the Name of the Head of State

As the middle-aged man wearing the rank of SS Group Leader shouted loudly, a young man in dark black and neat SS officer uniform immediately pushed open the wooden door of the office and rushed in.

"Just received a call from the front line, General Dietrich. The Soviets have begun to take action! Countless heavy artillery is bombarding our peripheral defense positions and fortifications. The first-line defense forces have withdrawn to the second line of defense and safe areas in time. , The current loss is not big!”

After hearing the report from his personal adjutant in front of him, the middle-aged SS man named General Dietrich breathed a sigh of relief.

"Very good, it seems that General Kleist's inference is correct! These Ivans, whose heads are filled with vodka, have always been pursuing artillery doctrine. As long as they grasp this, I think they should not be difficult to deal with. "

With his hands behind his back, Dietrich paced back and forth in the office that still felt a slight tremor, as if he was thinking about something. After a moment, Dietrich seemed to have a sudden flash of inspiration in his mind, and immediately turned around and followed the words.

"Alfred, go and tell the regiment headquarters on the front-line defense positions by phone. Tell them that when the shelling stops, Ivan will go crazy. Aerial reconnaissance shows that this time Ivan mobilized to eat us. A total of five mechanized armies with more than 2,000 tanks!”

"These Soviets are superior to us in terms of local strength and equipment quality, so we must not take it lightly! No troops are strictly prohibited from leaving their positions to launch a counterattack without my order. Do you understand!?"

Hearing these harsh words from his immediate superior, he couldn't help but be shocked. The young adjutant, who knew what he should do now, immediately raised his hand and waved.

"Yes, I understand, General. I will faithfully carry out your will and make sure it is implemented truthfully!"

Looking at the back of his adjutant as he trotted out, Dietrich, who had a gloomy expression and a cold smile, couldn't help but smile to himself.

"Come here, Ivans, every drop of your blood will make my military medal more dazzling!"

In fact, whether it was Malashenko who had returned to his car and was about to warm it up, or Division Commander Chernyaev who was in command at the rear division headquarters or even the Ninth Mechanized Army headquarters. What neither Major General Rokossovsky nor Major General Rokossovsky knew was that.

Currently stationed in the town of Brod, it is impossible to resist the troops of the entire Soviet Ninth Mechanized Army that are about to attack with just one division.

It was recognized in the evaluation of later generations as one of the three ace main forces of the German Armed SS during World War II. The elite SS guard unit named its unit by the order of the Führer - the first "Adolf" of the Armed SS Hitler's SS Armored Infantry Division.

Its current division commander is Joseph Dietrich, a confidant of German leader Hitler, who was awarded the rank of group leader (equivalent to Lieutenant General of the Wehrmacht) in the SS establishment.

As the elite "Forest Guards" unit of the SS with the order of the Führer, the "Adolf Hitler" Guards Division, from the division commander himself Dietrich down to the most ordinary combat soldier, all the officers and soldiers of the entire division are Without exception, they were the most fervent and loyal followers of Hitler himself.

In the past battles, these SS soldiers who swore to dedicate their souls and everything to the Führer could only be described as crazy.

In traditional concepts, the armies of Western countries often face large swaths of troops surrendering when the battle situation is unfavorable or when they are in desperate situations. It seems that there is no way to find an army like the Chinese and Japanese armies in the East who fight until the whole army is sacrificed. tenacious troops.

But this seemingly broad traditional concept does not apply to this Guard Flag Division.

Thanks to the fact that the unit is named after "Adolf Hitler" himself, all officers and soldiers of the Führer Guard Division have a strong sense of unit honor and the determination to die rather than surrender. And in the two-front battle spanning the entire Eastern and Western fronts of World War II, he made great achievements with his own blood and the blood of the enemy, and fulfilled the oath of allegiance he swore under the banner of the Spicy Party.

Regarding the actual performance of the Führer's Guard Flagship Division in actual combat, General Patton, a legendary US military general who had fought against it, once described it this way.

"Although I don't even want to say this myself, I have to admit it. Compared with these fanatical lunatics, our boys are simply a group of farmers and stragglers. On the contrary, they are more like a "professional army" "."

Although Operation Barbarossa has just begun, the Guards Division is not yet the ace unit that has experienced the double war experience of the Soviet Army on the Eastern Front and the Allied Forces on the Western Front. The combat experience and actual combat command capabilities of the level combat unit are also lacking, and it is not enough to be called a top ace unit.

But there is no doubt about the iron-like fighting will and morale brought by the frighteningly fanatical beliefs of the officers and soldiers at all levels in the division.

No matter what the final result is, for the entire Ninth Mechanized Army of the Soviet Army to which Malashenko belongs, a battle with fanatical believers who have the best weapons and equipment in the world will definitely not be easy to win. battle.

He knew nothing about the fact that his frontal enemy was the German SS's ace unit, the Guards Division. Malashenko, who had returned to his position as gunner and commander in his car, was quietly waiting for his own artillery fire to prepare. The moment comes when it's over.

It is worth mentioning that, in addition to the ten T34 tanks that Chernyev had earlier specially approved to strengthen for Malashenko's command in the name of political commissar Petrov.

In order to consolidate the offensive strength of this unit, which is the spearhead of the division, Commander Chernyev, who finally reached an agreement after discussions with the political commissar Lieutenant Colonel Petrov, also added the few members of the 20th Tank Division to All four KV2 heavy tanks were mobilized and assigned to Malashenko's command to ensure that they could crush the stubborn German resistance with the most powerful firepower during offensive battles.

For the KV2 heavy tank, a huge and powerful steel beast weighing 52 tons, Malashenko, who had a deep understanding of the Soviet and German armored forces during World War II, naturally knew its performance well as a time traveler. bright.

First of all, in terms of firepower, as a heavy attack tank designed and manufactured for the purpose of breaking through the enemy's permanent fortifications, the KV2 was in the era when the German Panzer IV tanks were still using 75mm short-barreled tank guns as fire support weapons. , it was unprecedentedly equipped with an M-10T heavy howitzer with a diameter of up to 152 mm.