Despair and hope will always go hand in hand. There will be shadows under the light, and above the shadows there will be light.
To Malashenko, it was as if the Luftwaffe's air raids were extremely violent and destructive, but they came and went quickly, and the German bombers and attack aircraft, which consumed ammunition very quickly, were in trouble.
The air raid lasted for less than fifteen minutes and then immediately sped away, leaving behind only a mess like locusts passing through.
Malashenko, who felt as if his whole body had been ripped out of bones and fried to soft flesh, forced his body, which was as soft as running water and seemed to have some energylessness, to straighten up and cross the road in front of him.
The trenches came to the surface, and what lay before our eyes was a bombing relic that looked like the surface of the moon left by the German Air Force.
Huge craters blown up by heavy aerial bombs are everywhere in the position. The largest crater can probably be home to at least a few dozen fish, and the smallest one is enough to kill half a squad of soldiers.
They all hid in it and used it as a foxhole.
As far as the eye can see, there are the remains of many Red Army soldiers, and there are also a lot of wreckage of Stalin's heavy tanks lying strewn about the position.
But compared to these, what is even more ironic is that the German air raids destroyed almost all the bodies of the German soldiers. The remains of the dead SS soldiers did not know how to hide and could only lie in place under the fierce air raids.
At the mercy of the flames and impact, it was torn apart and torn apart.
The flames and terrifying shock waves tore apart the gradually cold flesh, throwing large pieces of flesh, blood, bones, muscles and organs into the air, and then fell heavily again, and the last "processing process" came.
After all this is over, it will be almost difficult to find a complete corpse of an SS soldier on the ground.
He died on the battlefield and was not buried by the enemy, but in the end, his body was blown up by his own aircraft that followed closely, and his bones flew into the air and were turned into pieces.
Although the ending is a bit ironic, it is exactly what happened.
Similar to the situation, there are also the remains of the armored behemoths left behind by the destroyed German tanks on the position. They also failed to escape the cruel fate of being destroyed again in the wave of air strikes that just arrived.
Not to mention the turret that had already been blown away by the huge charge of the 122-gun warhead, the thundering heavy aerial bombs had blown away the blazing chassis of these headless leopards, and the blackened turret was knocked upside down on the ground.
It was completely blown to pieces. It was already unlucky enough to hold a corpse cremator, but it was directly reduced to the state of parts by a 1-ton aerial bomb.
Although these are dead corpses, there are still steel bodies that have no life in the first place.
But no matter how you say it, this result is still too ironic, even Malashenko can't help but frown after seeing it.
"Damn, these stupid Germans even blew up the corpses of their own people, how cruel are you!"
He cursed with words, but at the same time Malashenko was thinking about something more valuable.
The Luftwaffe's posture during the bombing just now did not seem to have the slightest fear of accidentally injuring friendly forces. They did not say any greetings when they met, and directly started attacking the targets on the ground. It was clear that they knew that the ground was full of enemies. The ferocious posture.
You have to know that it has been less than twenty minutes since he just captured the position, no matter how smooth the Germans' communication is and how convenient the communication is.
But including the fact that the German pilots accepted the mission at the airport, made tactical plans, took off and waited for the formation to form before going to bomb, and finally flew to the attack position, this process would have taken at least forty minutes to an hour.
Regarding the size of the aircraft fleet just now, Malashenko still calculated it for the Germans based on the situation where the frontline field airport was the closest and the attendance efficiency was optimal.
Then here comes the problem. Less than twenty minutes have passed since I knocked down the German guy. Judging from the time, when I and the German guy were fighting fiercely, these German fighter planes had already taken off from the airport, and were on their way.
On the way, the mission they received at this time, which could not be updated in the air, was to attack ground targets indiscriminately.
In this era where communication methods are so backward that there is no room for real-time linkage, information exchange, and coordinated attacks, this kind of speculative analysis is the only inevitable result.
In other words, the purpose of the Germans calling this wave of air strikes was not to support the defense of the position at all, but to put themselves in this position, this trap pocket, to create a deceptive illusion of victory.
When the troops had just occupied the position and were at their most relaxed, a violent air attack was launched, causing a large number of casualties on their own heads.
"I'm going to fuck you, it's a routine! It's all a fucking routine!"
The more he thought about it, the more chills Malashenko felt down his spine. He recalled all the known details, from the fact that the Guards Division received a large amount of tank support but still pretended to be a pig to eat the tiger, to the defensive battle without moving troops, to this obvious situation.
It was a violent air strike without warning based on tactical deception.
Malashenko was almost able to pat his chest and be sure that if the Germans in Prokhorovka hadn't taken any big action, he would have no problem eating Oli on the spot, so he dared to pat his chest and make this bet! So disgusting and dirty
It would be really weird if the dirty conspiracy scheme hadn't been implemented yet!
As if to prove Malashenko's firm judgment, Commissar Petrov, who always sent first-hand telegrams to Malashenko at critical moments, appeared again.
"Reported! The front army headquarters has responded to us, Malashenko! The situation is very bad, you have to take a look immediately!"
Seeing Commissar Petrov rushing towards him with an anxious look on his face, Malashenko could almost predict what the telegram contained in the telegram. Without saying a word, he immediately stepped forward and took the telegram in his hand.
, expand and read.
"Sure enough...it's true! Everything is so wrong, I should have expected it! These German bastards!"
The nightmarish news brought in the telegram is indeed very close to Malashenko's conjecture. The reason why it is said to be very close, not completely consistent, is because the real situation is a bit worse than Malashenko expected.
.
Not only the 1st Stalin Guards Heavy Tank Brigade and the 9th Guards Airborne Division were besieging the Imperial Division and the Totenkopf Division, but also attacking the entire Prokhorovka theater of Soviet troops at the junction of the three SS divisions.
Almost all of them suffered violent retaliation at the same time as Malashenko was attacked by airstrikes.
The SS, who had been huddled in a defensive state like Sun Tzu, suddenly exploded. The number was much greater than expected. The German armored troops who had been hiding in unknown locations were dispatched in full force, bringing with them the fierce and fanatical armed SS.
Together with the armored grenadiers of the Army, they fought their way out under the cover of Air Force fighter planes, once again performing the traditional German art: attack against attack.
Disrupted by this set of three-dimensional surprise counterattacks, the Soviet troops in the Prokhorovka theater were almost in a state of emergency and were in critical danger.
Vatutin gave only one order to Malashenko in the telegram: retreat immediately, retreat to a safe area to reorganize defenses, and retreat as quickly as possible.
Located in the center, the 1st Stalin Guards Heavy Tank Brigade, which is responsible for attacking the main force of the Guards Division, is now facing the danger of the collapse of friendly forces on both wings at any time.
Once this happens, any fool knows what the Skeleton Division and the Imperial Division that are outflanking from both wings are going to do next, plus the Guards Division that is still entrenched in the front and is not even seriously damaged.
In the worst-case scenario that can be expected, Stalin's 1st Guards Heavy Tank Brigade and 9th Guards Airborne Division will be surrounded by the three most elite division-level troops of the entire Waffen-SS.
Moreover, this does not count the follow-up troops that the German army may continue to reinforce to Prokhorovka. Who knows if Huot and even Manstein will continue to raise more chips and continue to gamble when the situation is excellent.
, in order to obtain a greater victory and further expand the results.
A simplified but high-intensity siege of Kiev, eating up all the remaining Soviet troops in Prokhorovka in one fell swoop. This is the perfect chess game Paul Hausser set for himself. Although it is extremely bold, it is
But there are more and more signs that success is approaching.