Regardless of the reality of the war, he launched another huge battle when he was hit hard; he gave up the advantage of mobile and rapid combat, and used his already fragile armored troops to defeat the heavy positions of the Soviet army with solid defense; when he was in a weak situation, the Soviets, who had always been accustomed to fighting the war of attrition, fought hard.

Based on the above passive reasons, from the stage of the battle formulation, Guderian, who was then the Deputy Chief of General Staff of the Army, firmly opposed the initiation of the Kursk Battle. However, no one could hear his suggestions now, including Manstein, who had always been calm and sophisticated, had already lost his mind in succession of defeats, let alone others.

In this way, the so-called "fortress" combat plan began to be implemented, and almost all of the German main combat forces on the Eastern Front were assigned to the Kursk direction. The direct consequence of this was the complete retreat in the Northern Front.

As early as the preparation stage of the Kursk Battle, in order to seize the opportunity to recover lost territory, and to maximize the restraint of the German troops, Cui Kov's Corps, which had been fighting on the northern front, launched the largest offensive since the Northern Battle two years ago to the remaining German Northern Army Group on the front.

Due to the lack of armored troops and air force support, the defense line of the Northern Army Group was quickly defeated. In the area between Lake Ladoga and the Baltic Sea, the four Soviet troops advanced rapidly. In just over half a month, they successively conquered Sacra, Hotoka, Lakra, Sunatejoki, Kaimare and other military areas. The fatigued Norwegian army was first destroyed at the city of Kaimare. Sixty thousand Norwegian soldiers were killed in battle, and nearly 50,000 became prisoners of the Soviet army.

At the same time, the Soviet Murmansk Front advanced westward, defeating three front-line German defense lines, and invaded Finland in one fell swoop. Then, in the Battle of Inari Lake, annihilated four main divisions of the Finnish army. At this point, more than 600,000 Soviet troops entered Finland on their entire line, and two important servants in northern Germany were in desperate situations. If they did not receive strong support from the German army, what was waiting for them later was to sit and wait for death.

The complete retreat in the north. The victory of the Kursk Battle was slim and the landing of the British and American coalition forces in Italy. This made Guderian's heart full of pessimism about the prospects of the war. At the same time, Guderian was deeply uneasy that the pessimism he hid about the war had spread and spread in all German troops. With this emotion, it was a rebellious thought that intended to overthrow the rule of the head of state.

Just a few days ago, Colonel Stauffenberg tried to assassinate the head of state with a bomb. Although his attempt was unsuccessful, the impact was almost disastrous. Due to this incident, more than 7,000 middle and senior officers were arrested, and most of them were shot. This incident made Guderian think of the Soviet purge several years ago. That purge created extremely favorable conditions for the German army's subsequent attack on the Eastern Front. Now, history is repeating itself. However, the roles of both offensive and defensive sides have undergone a complete change.

The German Empire is a great land, and this belief in Guderian's heart has never been shaken. It once had the most trained and determined soldiers in the world; the commander with the highest quality and the most intelligent command strategy; the armored troops with the largest scale and the strongest combat power. But now, the rivers are falling, the evening bell is deep, and the scenery of the iron-armored lions has gone forever. The most loyal and most combat-oriented army will also exhaust the last one.

The blood of blood followed by only some new recruits who had not been systematically trained. Indeed, perhaps these new recruits also had the courage to die generously and dared to sacrifice their lives for the glory of Germany. However, courage cannot be directly linked to combat effectiveness. When facing those Soviet veterans who wandered through bloody battles and had rich combat experience, the courage of these German new recruits often can only mean greater sacrifices and more cruel failures.

"Planning is for man, and accomplishing things is for heaven." Guderian, who has never believed in the so-called fate, began to feel in a trance that perhaps the reason why Germany has come to this day is because God does not favor it.

The same view as Guderian, Model, who had just taken over Manstein's position and was responsible for the comprehensive command of the Battle of Kursk, did not think that his army would do anything in this battle. Therefore, after taking over, Model's first order was to temporarily stop the attack of the front line and stabilize the front line.

Of course, Model's real intention was not to launch defense on this. In his opinion, defense without offensive is passive defense, and passive defense is a precursor to defeat. According to Model's plan, he wanted to first stabilize the front line, and on the one hand, strengthen his weak links, and on the other hand, find the fragile position on the Soviet position, in order to use a slightly large-scale assault battle to mobilize the Soviet army's troops and regain the initiative on the battlefield.

However, although Model's strategy is safe, he ignored one thing, that is, on the battlefield, although the commander's planning and arrangement are very important, a sudden change can often put all these efforts into waste in many cases.

On a sunny day, the cool breeze blew.

In the ruins of a small town in the southern suburbs of Prokorovka, hundreds of Soviet tanks were covered with gray-green rags, quietly waiting for the arrival of the last attack time.

Sokolov, dressed in military uniform, stood on a broken wall, and carefully looked at the hills in the distance through the telescope in his hand. On his slightly open chest, two collars with three bright stars were each inlaid, which illustrates how quickly his military rank has been promoted since the Battle of the Northern Front.

"Why is there no movement yet?" A colonel wearing a black leather helmet stood behind Sokolov. It was obvious that his patience was far less than that of his boss. "Didn't the intelligence say that the German Japanese would launch an attack at 9:30? It's almost eleven o'clock now, and there is still no ghost here."

"Shut up!" Sokolov scolded without looking back, "We got the pre-estimation of the command headquarters, instead of accurate intelligence. Do you even know what intelligence and battlefield estimates are?!"

"Hey, of course I know," the colonel raised his hands, rubbed his chest, and said with a smirk. "I just can't wait. I really want to see the shocked expression of the Germans when they found us, hehe."

"When you can come back alive from the battlefield, then laugh at our enemies," Sokolov put down his telescope, glanced back at the major, and said with a serious expression. "Don't forget that the new heavy tanks of the Germans are not so easy to deal with. From the moment, we can only exchange more casualties for their losses."

Although he was criticized by his superiors, the colonel did not feel wrong at all, because he also knew that Sokolov had nothing wrong with him. In previous battles, he had also led his troops to encounter heavy tanks from the German army. The big guy named "Tiger" was like a mobile anti-tank fortress. Its 88mm tank gun was simply a nightmare for the Soviet T-34, and its heavy armor made the Soviet tank guns not gain anything from close range.

Fortunately, there are not many such "bigma" assembled in the German armored forces, and although this kind of thing has strong firepower and strong armor, its maneuverability is really unsatisfactory. What's even more funny is that its huge turret rotates surprisingly slowly, so that after breaking through the five hundred meters of ground distance, the t-34 in high-speed motion is fully capable of avoiding its firepower threat from the side and launching a counterattack on it from the side and rear.

For the Soviet armored soldiers, there was another type of new tank that appeared in the German troops during this period, that was the medium tank called "Leopard" by the German army. What made the Soviet soldiers sneer was that this so-called new German tank was like a copy of the T-34, at least the appearance was not much different from the 34. However, the Germans' imitation ability was obviously not very clever. The performance of this newly invested "Leopard" tank was extremely unstable. On the first day of the Battle of Kursk, nearly 200 taels of tanks appeared on the battlefield on the southern line. On the second day, there were only less than fifty cars left. The remaining ones were either lying forever in the minefield or had to be dragged back for repair due to mechanical failure.

While waiting in silence, the scorching sun in the sky flew past noon and began to tilt towards the west. Looking at the watch in my hand, it was almost 1:30 pm, and Sokolov, who had been alive, began to feel a little anxious.

"Maybe the Germans won't come." The colonel lay on the grass behind the low wall, holding a grass stem in his mouth, and shook his head bored, "Who doesn't know that the Germans are the most punctual? If they plan to launch an offensive at mid-9 am, how could they delay until this time?"

"Comrade Sokolov," at this moment, a communications soldier ran over from the rear of the tank array, and stood in front of Sokolov with a message in his hand. "The command center calls us and ask us to withdraw."

"Oh?" Sokolov took the message and looked at it, then shrugged and said helplessly, "Call back to the command center and say I obey the order and withdraw immediately."

"What's wrong?" the colonel got up from the ground and asked.

"The Germans launched an offensive in Basviyan," Sokolov sighed. "The command command ordered us to withdraw our defense line and gather and standby."

Basviyan is a small town nearly forty-five kilometers away from here, and it is also the periphery of the Soviet second line of defense. Obviously, if the German army launched an offensive there, it would be meaningless for Sokolov's main force of the Fifth Armored Army to stay in this area.

"Transfer the order and return to the line of defense immediately." Sokolov returned the telegram to the correspondent and gave a command.

More than ten minutes later, as dust scattered in the sky rose, the roaring motor sound began to sound over the abandoned town. Then hundreds of tanks emerged from their respective hidden points, turned their direction, and began to move towards the northeast of the town.

"I really don't understand the Germans," Sokolov took off his hat and gathered his gentle blonde hair in his own chariot, muttering, "Is it not enough that they have suffered in the direction of Basviyan? They have to attack there head-on."

"Comrade Sokolov. Maybe they think that this will demonstrate the so-called local steel spirit of Germany." A gunner sitting in the cabin raised his head and said with a smile.

"Bang!"

Just as Sokolov was about to bow his head and scold the other party, a sound of shelling still faintly came through the roaring motor noise.

A trace of ominous premonition suddenly rose to Sokolov's heart. He turned around on the turret and looked at the town hundreds of meters away, while shouting loudly, "Give me the telescope!"

In fact, there was no longer a telescope. Just as Sokolov turned around, he suddenly discovered that a thick ball of black smoke was rising on a Soviet tank, and the turret collapsed beside it was enough to show how cruelly it was bombarded by the loud bang.

The telescope was quickly handed over. At the same time, a panic report came from the command radio of the chariot: "Comrade Sokolov, German, German tanks! Just behind us, we were attacked, please..."

"hiss……"

The sound in the radio station stopped and replaced it with a noisy radio wave. It was obvious that the tank responsible for commanding the broken rear was also attacked devastatingly.

"asshole!"

Even without having to listen to the attack notification, Sokolov knew what happened in his rear. In the telescope, he clearly saw balls of fire igniting from the rear of his troops. And further afield, a large number of German tanks were coming from the raised hills, and in the place where he could see the sight. Four giant tiger tanks were lying on a mound. Every vibration of the thick and long gun barrels almost made an unaware of Soviet tanks turn into a naughty. A large number of Soviet infantry fighting in concert jumped down from one tank after another and ran around in the galloping iron armor torrent. The scene was extremely chaotic.

Irony, this is really a naked irony. Sokolov issued orders to various troops through the radio, while mocking himself in his heart. An ambush that was originally planned in detail eventually turned into the side that was being attacked. This is simply God is making Sokolov's joke.

Sokolov's troops were naturally extraordinary when they could be listed as the Guards Armored Army. Although at the beginning of the war, the troops were confused due to the attack from the rear by the German army, when effective orders were issued, the chaos began to gradually stabilize.

At the end of the tank array, the infantry quickly gathered began to break away from the tank troops and organize defense lines on the spot. Each place that could be relied on was effectively utilized to build a war defense and robbery position. At the same time, the tank array originally sailed on the last side began to increase its horsepower and advance forward, while the tank troops in the front array began to detour to both sides in order to turn in maneuver and launch an offensive to the German army from the flanks. For a time, the Moye Plain was soon covered by thick smoke and dust in the sky, and the torrents formed by the two steel quickly collided fiercely.

As soon as the battle began, Sokolov noticed something wrong. It was obvious that there were at least 200 German tanks here. At present, the number of tanks of this scale could not be a tentative attack for the German army, but a large-scale attack. What does this mean? This shows that the German attack on Basviyan is likely to be a feint.

At present, what will Sokolov face? There is no doubt that it is the passiveness of the initial battle and the possible German air strikes that may occur in a short time.

After more than two years of tempering, Sokolov is no longer the commander who was so brave but not smart. After understanding the situation on the battlefield, he quickly made a decision. That is, while requesting air support from the command center and following up with infantry, he should fight as quickly as possible. Even if his wrongness is to pay a greater price for it, he will do whatever he wants.

This is destined to be a fierce confrontation. If Sokolov's armored troops can defeat the German armored troops on the front, and at the same time, the infantry troops behind them will follow up in time, then the Soviet army will have the opportunity to break through the German defense line in this direction, and thus, within a certain range, implant a threatening protrusion into the German defense line, thereby accelerating their defeat in the entire Kursk Battle.

"coax!"

"coax!"

...

As the trembling gun barrels sounded, the white smoke spread more and more intense. The Soviet T-34 obviously could not pose a threat to the German tiger tanks at such a long distance. Facing the enemy Soviet tanks head-on, one after another, the armored soldiers who survived were destroyed. The lucky surviving armored soldiers emerged from the turrets with the thick smoke, and relying on their scrapped chariots to fight close to the German infantry.

On the two wings of the front battlefield, a charge formation composed of dozens of tanks each bravely ransacked by the German large-caliber artillery and rushed straight towards the hills behind the town like crazy beasts.

The German commander obviously knew his weakness, so while confronting head-on, in order to stop the Soviet army from encircling the two wings, batches of No. 3 tanks began to break away from the front and headed to the flank to block the Soviet army's offensive.

The battle on the flanks was almost face-to-face, so some tanks did not even have the chance to fire guns, and were destroyed by the enemy who came to face-to-face. Some tanks even collided directly together. A large number of armored soldiers who emerged from the damaged tanks fought each other, and countless armored soldiers who fought each other rolled and fought among the ruins of the tanks. Then, they were caught up later, either the enemy or my tanks were crushed into a pool of meat sauce...

When tanks made of steel turn into a ball of scrap iron in the fierce artillery fire, and when trained soldiers turn into a pool of blood between the shrapnel and the hard tracks, no one will feel fear anymore, and no one will feel sorry for the huge losses anymore. Without exception, including the commanders of both sides, they all want to gain the initiative on the battlefield while suppressing the opponent's offensive, and they all have to lead the battle.
Chapter completed!