Chapter 432 Old Rival

But this anti-human design, which is now being complained about by the disgruntled Malashenko, cannot be blamed entirely on the design team.

The space inside the turret is so small that it is difficult to even turn around in the T34 tank turret, which requires hunching over to fight. In this case of extremely limited available space, a radio station much larger than a shoebox is stuffed into the turret. After careful consideration, the Soviet tank designers had to give up this design that is beneficial to human-machine efficiency but unrealistic.

Malashenko, who was forced to accept this helpless reality, played with the radio transmitter handed over by Nikolai in his hand and weighed it, but now he has to face a worse situation.

Just like the Soviet tank cluster at the beginning of the war.

Except for the company-level and above command vehicles equipped with on-board wireless communication radios, all tanks below the company level, including the platoon-level command vehicles, are not equipped with radio stations.

In other words, the onboard radio on Malashenko's command vehicle can only communicate with the upper level but cannot command the lower level. If Malashenko needs to command the vanguard medium tank unit he leads in battle, waving a small signal flag or leaning out of the turret and shouting at the top of his lungs are the only two feasible options, provided that the other tanks can really see or hear it.

Such a situation still exists in most of the Soviet tank units today. The Soviet Union, with its underdeveloped electronic industry base, was still unable to produce enough radio stations to equip the front-line troops in 1941. Even after seeing the tacit cooperation of the German armored forces equipped with wireless communication radio stations for inter-vehicle communication, it is still a cruel reality that cannot be fundamentally changed in a short period of time.

For example, the First Guards Heavy Tank Breakthrough Regiment led by Malashenko, which is fully equipped with onboard radio stations, can be regarded as a privilege of Malashenko who has a backdoor with Comrade Lao Zhu and is quite appreciated by his father Comrade Stalin.

The cruel reality of not being able to update combat orders in real time during the battle and issue further battlefield orders at any time was worse than anything else for Malashenko, who had long been accustomed to picking up the transmitter and giving orders.

Although the German No. 3 tank radios repaired by Karamov were able to connect to the radio station on Malashenko's command vehicle after debugging, the ten captured No. 3 J1 medium tanks were still like a lone boat in the sea for the vanguard troops with a total number of more than 50 tanks.

The off-road road leading to the outskirts of Tula city was rapidly shortening the distance in the white snowfield. Malashenko, who was worried, was thinking about how to solve the problem of poor communication and command along the way, but whether he could come up with a reasonable final solution was another unknown.

The offensive and defensive battle in the suburbs of Tula city continued with the roar of gunfire.

Some of the incomplete defense lines still in the hands of the local garrison troops and workers' corps in Tula City are still fighting to the death to resist the fierce offensive of the German army, even though the weapons in the hands of the Red Army soldiers and workers, who can only be regarded as third-line troops, are completely incomparable to the opponent.

At this moment, the German troops who are following the orders of Guderian, the commander of the Second Armored Group, and launching a fierce attack on Tula City are old acquaintances who have fought with Malashenko once.

The "Greater Germany" Infantry Regiment and the Third Armored Division, the main forces of the Second Armored Group, are joining forces to launch a continuous fierce attack on the already surrounded Tula City.

The troops placed in front of them further north to cut off the land connection between Tula City and Moscow are the Fourth Armored Division of the Wehrmacht, which is also the main force of the Second Armored Group.

Three main forces were deployed in the direction of a small Tula City to launch a coordinated attack and encirclement. This not only shows that Guderian, who was forced to the edge of the cliff in the ice and snow, has gritted his teeth and made a desperate bet.

It also reflects from the side how crazy Hitler, who was warming himself in a warm office in Berlin at the moment, had an unimaginable desire for Moscow, which seemed to be within reach.

If it were summer, this crazy desire might have become a shot of adrenaline for the German front-line troops to speed up the offensive, but at this moment when many German soldiers were still wearing single clothes and pants and fell down in the snow from time to time due to the cold, Hitler's madness became a burden on Guderian's shoulders and a death warrant for the German soldiers who should have been given a proper rest.

The belief in the head of state and the sacred oath sworn under the military flag urged the German troops, who were already shivering from the cold, to launch waves of fierce attacks.

Looking at the soldiers under his command who were struggling to move forward in the snow and almost falling through his telescope, and then looking at the tanks that were not equipped with winter anti-skid tracks and got stuck in the snow shortly after departure, Colonel Walter Horning, who had just replaced Colonel Stockhausen and became the highest military commander of the Great German Infantry Regiment, couldn't help but sigh.

"Seeing this scene, I even forgot that our Great German Infantry Regiment enjoys the privilege of priority supply and equipment selection. If even our troops are like this, what about the troops on other fronts now? Rossem, I really doubt whether this scene is real. I'm not kidding!"

Compared to the helpless and more indignant look on Colonel Walter Horning's face after he put down the telescope in his hand, the adjutant Captain Rossem, who had long been accustomed to the tight situation at the front and at home, looked naturally calm.

"I just heard from my college classmate who works at the General Staff Headquarters yesterday that Marshal Brauchitsch had just guaranteed to the Führer in person at the Führer's meeting the day before yesterday that "all the main forces on the front have received enough winter uniforms to support the battle to capture Moscow." "

"Although what I learned in the military academy clearly forbids me to talk about my superiors at will, especially a respected figure like Marshal Brauchitsch. But if I really want to say something, I think those guys in Berlin are now treating our Führer as a clown and playing around with him at will, and the price is that our soldiers on the front line are frostbitten and amputated every day or even frozen to death in the ice and snow of Russia."