Chapter 4: Assault on Oreka

Accompanied by the high-spirited slogans from outside the car, the footsteps like thousands of horses galloping began to mix with the passionate fighting slogans and the roar of the tank engine and echoed in Lin Jie's ears for a long time.

Lin Jie, who was the first to react from the shock and realized that the situation on the battlefield he was in might have changed dramatically, immediately lifted the turret cover above his head and leaned his entire upper body out of the car.

Within the field of vision, countless high-spirited Red Army soldiers were holding Mosin-Nagant rifles and DP light machine guns in their hands, accompanied by BT series fast tanks and early models of Soviet tanks such as T26, and launched a fierce attack on the German troops in front of the enemy.

Unlike the various anti-Soviet rumors that Western countries spread for the sake of slandering the Soviet Union in later generations, within Lin Jie's field of vision, there were quite a few Soviet grassroots political commissars holding Tokarev 33 pistols in their hands, leading the Red Army soldiers under their command to counterattack the Soviet invaders.

These young Soviet grassroots political commissars may have serious dogmatism and many other inferior shortcomings, but the vast majority of these young officers who play a mainstay role in the political education and morale of the Red Army grassroots units undoubtedly have the courage to match their positions and beliefs.

Like the last straw that broke the camel's back, the German army, which originally had few tanks left and was suddenly attacked during the repair process, finally couldn't hold on in the face of such a large number of Soviet counterattack forces and the overwhelming offensive.

The remaining German tanks switched the gearbox to reverse gear immediately after they stopped charging forward, and then began to retreat to the rear with the already chaotic German infantry behind them.

The principle of taking advantage of your illness to kill you is not only a wise saying in China, but also for the Soviet troops who are now in a good opportunity to defeat the invaders.

"Stop, stop, stop! Hold the starting position, don't let those Soviets break through our defense line, and repel them quickly!"

The starting position mentioned by the German commander is a small Soviet village near Oreka. The 13th Armored Division of the German Wehrmacht, which had captured this place earlier, was stationed and temporarily repaired here.

After a brutal attack earlier, the assault unit of the 13th Armored Division of the German Army was caught off guard by the vanguard of the 20th Tank Division of the Soviet Army, which launched a counterattack at dawn.

Although the German commander in the village who reacted immediately commanded the armored forces and accompanying infantry to launch an armored counterattack against the Soviet troops who launched a counterattack, and achieved good results by destroying more than ten T26, BT5 and BT7 light tanks of the Soviet vanguard.

But the only T34 tank that looked like a command vehicle of the Soviet offensive force was still standing like a rock in the sea under the impact of various German anti-tank weapons.

Whether it was the most advanced Type IV C tank equipped with a short-barreled 75mm gun in the current German armored sequence, or the PAK36 37mm infantry anti-tank gun that the German army relied on in its previous blitzkrieg offensive.

These artifacts that had been invincible in the early German blitzkrieg offensive in Europe, after encountering the abnormally inclined armor defense of the Soviet T34 medium tank, almost all of them became scraps like stepping stones.

Worse situations followed.

Just as the German army deployed various anti-armor weapons and used dozens of armor-piercing shells to repeatedly attack, it seemed that it had finally caused some internal damage to the extremely troublesome T34 medium tank, causing it to stop charging.

Before the overjoyed German commander led the remaining armored forces under his command to rush forward to completely destroy or even capture this extremely powerful enemy tank, this Soviet T34 tank, which originally seemed to be completely dead after the armor was penetrated by the German army, turned its terrible turret again as if it was resurrected on the spot, and aimed the black muzzle directly at the German troops attacking from the front.

Seeing that this new Soviet tank, which was about to be captured intact, rejoined the offensive and joined the battle with the arrival of the Soviet reinforcements, the unwilling German commander had to command the remaining troops to retreat to the starting position in the village like a tide and switch to a defensive posture in order to avoid being outflanked by the Soviet BT series light tanks with an outrageous maneuvering speed.

Standing outside the turret, watching the friendly tanks and infantry rumbling past him, Lin Jie launched a fierce attack on the German troops gradually retreating to the village with an absolute advantage. While sighing that he was finally saved, Lin Jie also knew very well what he should do at this moment.

He put his upper body back into the turret to observe the surrounding situation and closed the integrated heavy hatch unique to the early T34 tank. Without any hesitation, Lin Jie immediately gave an order to the driver of the car in his memory.

"Seryosha, get going! Let's tear those fascists apart!"

"Yes! Comrade Lieutenant!"

The four-stroke V-type 12-cylinder water-cooled diesel engine equipped in the rear engine compartment of the T34 tank surged again with the driver Seryosha's quick operation. The powerful diesel engine with a rated maximum output power of 500 horsepower immediately drove the T3476 medium tank with a combat weight of only over 28 tons, rushing towards the German defense line in the village at an off-road speed of more than 30 kilometers per hour.

The green 92mm tracer machine gun barrage accompanied by 75mm armor-piercing shells poured the maximum firepower to the rumbling Soviet infantry and tank coordination forces. The cruel and fierce white-hot battle made the German troops who had just retreated to the starting position in the village not even have time to reorganize their troops and set up defense lines in the face of the Soviet army's rapid penetration offensive.

"At one o'clock, the Soviets are coming! Fire, fire!"

"Ammunition, I'm out of ammunition! I need a deputy shooter, where is the deputy shooter!?"

"Left, right! At 12 o'clock, ah, the Soviets are everywhere! Tanks, quickly repel their tanks!"

"Damn it, this 37-point stepping stone has no effect on Ivan's tanks! Who invented this kind of junk!!!"

Although the German 13th Armored Division's defense forces guarding the house bunkers and infantry trenches at the entrance of the village were well-rested in terms of the overall strategic situation, the Soviet counterattack forces that launched the attack with absolute superiority and high morale were not inferior in comparison.

The German MG34 machine gun team, which had been firing continuously, was eventually crushed into a pile of "iron meat slices" by the Soviet BT7 fast tanks that rolled in. The few remaining Type 3 and Type 4 tanks of the German army, which had been entrenched in the village and sworn to resist like trapped beasts, were eventually turned into a pile of burning steel crematoriums under the roll call of Lin Jie's leading T34 tank.

That evening, the Soviet 9th Mechanized Army, led by Major General Rokossovsky, finally completed the predetermined combat objectives after a day of fighting.

The 9th Mechanized Army, with its absolute superior force after the main 35th Tank Division and the vanguard of the 20th Tank Division were combined, severely damaged the 13th Armored Division, the elite force of the German Wehrmacht entrenched in the southwest corner of the Krevan area and near Oreka, and won the first tactical victory of the Soviet Army since Germany launched the Barbarossa invasion.