Half an hour before the fire was ready to begin, Sokov suddenly received a call from Bethlei.

As soon as he heard the voice of Bo Lei, Sokov couldn't wait to ask: "Comrade Colonel, is your tank brigade ready to attack?"

"Yes, comrade of the division commander." Since Berlei's troops were under Sokov's command, he did not call the other party's nickname, but directly called his position: "I have deployed the two tank battalions from the east coast behind Mamayev's hill. After seeing the attack signal, they will advance along the canyon between the north and south hills."

"Three tank battalions, how did you marshal?"

"In the order from north to south, the three tank battalions are organized into the first battalion, the second battalion and the third battalion. The second battalion, the battalion commander of the third battalion, is the original commander; the first battalion will enter the battle under my personal command." After briefly reporting the situation, Bielei hesitated for a moment and said to Sokov: "Comrade Commander, I call you for something else."

"What else?" Sokov couldn't help but feel a little slack when he heard Bi Lei say this, and he secretly said that it was less than half an hour before the attack began. If there was a problem with the Tank Brigade, I don't know if there was any time to remedy it, so he asked, "Col. Bi Lei, what happened?"

"That's right," said Bereth, seemingly embarrassed: "President Peter just sent a few strange tanks over, and I'm considering whether to let them join the battle as well."

"Strange tank?" Sokov couldn't help but be stunned and asked, "What kind of tank is it?"

"The tank without a turret is equipped with a 76.2mm cannon on the base, with only protective armor plates around it, and the top is open like an armored personnel carrier." Bi Lei said disapprovingly: "If such a tank is put into battle, let alone the enemy's anti-tank weapon hits directly, even if a shell explodes nearby, the flying shrapnel can knock down the warriors on the car."

When he heard that it was a tank without a turret, Sokov immediately remembered the drawings he drew for Peter. Unexpectedly, after the other party produced the self-propelled train according to the drawings, he did not even call him, and directly equipped the troops. However, the war was about to start, and it was not suitable to go to Peter to question the crime for this matter. He said to the microphone: "Col. The tank you mentioned without a turret is the self-propelled artillery I designed. It is specially designed for German infantry or fortifications, but since its protective performance is not as good as that of tanks, it is necessary to put them all behind the team when attacking..."

After Bere and Sokov had been engaged in a period of time, they naturally knew that the other party had many wonderful ideas and even invented several weapons that were very practical on the battlefield. For example, new rockets often made the enemy miserable. Since Sokov had explained how to use self-propelled artillery, he followed the situation and said: "Okay, I will let these self-propelled artillery follow behind the tank battalion and wait for the right time to let them enter the battle."

"Col. Sokov," Golikov couldn't help but ask curiously: "What is a self-propelled artillery?"

"It is to put the cannon on the base of the tank," Sokov explained. "In this way, the cannon can be extremely mobile like a tank."

After hearing Sokov's explanation, Golikov nodded and said, "If our army's artillery is equipped with a large number of such artillery, then we can quickly establish artillery positions at any location and launch artillery bombardment on the enemy."

"You are right, Comrade, Deputy Commander of the Front Army." Ivanov immediately echoed Golikov's statement: "If this self-propelled artillery is really as excellent as the division commander said, then the artillery should be loaded as soon as possible to maximize the power of the artillery."

"Comrade Deputy Division Commander," Sokov smiled faintly when he heard Ivanov's statement, and then said: "Even if the self-propelled artillery performs excellently on the battlefield, the artillery will not be completely replaced with an executive artillery. In the future, the artillery equipment will be the coexistence of traditional artillery and self-propelled artillery."

After saying this, before Ivanov could speak, he turned around and asked Golikov: "Comrade Deputy Commander of the Front Army, the battle is about to begin. Do you think you are commanding here or setting up a temporary command center at the top of the hill?"

Golikov did not answer Sokov's question positively, but said with a smile: "Col. Sokov, you are the one who plays the protagonist today. You have the final say where to command the troops to fight."

Seeing that Golikov did not want to interfere, Sokov was not pretentious and directly ordered Cydolin: "Comrade Chief of Staff, immediately transfer the command center to the top of the hills, where we will command the battle today."

Since becoming Chief of Staff, Sidolin has been staying in the command center in almost every battle. He can only understand what happened outside through the battle reports of his subordinates, and he has been suffocated. At this moment, when he heard Sokov's order, he immediately agreed without hesitation, and then arranged for the communications soldiers to pull telephone lines and set up antennas at the top of the hill.

Since there were originally telephone lines and communication antennas on the top of the mountain, the communications of the temporary command were soon used normally. As Sokov went to the temporary command of the mountain together, except for Golikov, Ivanov and others, even Cidolin did not leave. This time, Cidolin finally gave Cidolin the opportunity to see with his own eyes what the battle was like.

As time pointed to nine o'clock, Sokov nodded at Cidolin, who was holding a message with his headphones and holding a message, and said, "Let's start, Comrade Chief of Staff."

After receiving the order, Cidolin agreed loudly and said loudly to the sender: "General Rozanovic, I am Lieutenant Colonel Cidolin, start shelling!"

Less than a minute after the order was issued, a rumbling sound of cannons sounded from the west bank of the Volga River. The shells flew across the Volga River, crossed the Mamayev hill, and landed accurately at the position provided by the artillery observers. Amid the deafening sound of cannons, the German positions in the distance were shrouded in smoke and fire.

Sokov raised his hand and looked at the watch. When it was almost ten minutes, he called a staff officer and told him: "Start three red flares immediately and let the infantry and tanks attack."

The staff agreed and walked out of the temporary command center with a signal gun, preparing to follow Sokov's orders to fire three red signal flares to allow the offensive troops to enter the battle.

Before the staff member could reach the door, Sokov suddenly heard Golikov sigh and said leisurely: "Oh, I still miss the fact that when the regiment commander and battalion commander were the first to issue an order to attack the troops."

Golikov's seemingly complaining words made Sokov shudder. He thought to himself: Today's counterattack is destined to be recorded in history, and those who send off offensive signals will also be famous in history. Golikov is such a high-level commander. If he directly asked his subordinates to send off offensive signals, there would be no problem on the surface, but if he investigated it in depth, it seems that he was suspected of winning the credit?

Thinking of this, Sokov decided to hand over the mission of launching the signal flare to Golikov. He quickly shouted to the staff officer who had just walked to the door: "Wait a minute!"

After the staff officer stopped, Sokov quickly walked to him, reached out to him, and said, "Take me your signal gun!"

The staff officer didn't know what Sokov wanted the signal gun to do, but he still held the gun in both hands and respectfully handed it to Sokov. After Sokov took the signal gun, he handed the gun directly to Golikov and laughed and said, "Comrade Deputy Commander of the Front Army, I think it is the most appropriate to let you fire the signal flare?"

When Golikov heard Sokov say this, a trace of surprise flashed through his eyes. However, instead of reaching out to receive the signal gun, he said politely: "Col. Sokov, today is you who commands the battle. I'm afraid it's not appropriate to give the offensive signal?"

"It's perfect, it's perfect." Sidolin and Ivanov were both smart people. When they heard the conversation between Sokov and Golikov, they immediately guessed that Sokov was trying to please Golikov, and echoed: "We all think that the attacking signal flares by the deputy commander of the front army personally fired even more important!"

Seeing that everyone was talking about it and said that they should fire the signal flares themselves. Golikov pretended to refuse a few times and took the signal gun from Sokov. He stepped outside the command center and raised his hand to pull the trigger in his mouth.

As three red signal flares representing the attack took off, thousands of guard commanders and fighters who participated in the attack stood up from their hidden places, lined up in a scattered formation suitable for the attack, straightened their bodies, and walked vigorously towards the German positions shrouded by flames and smoke.

With the attack of the infantry, the tank troops originally parked behind were also activated one after another and drove forward along the designated route. After these tanks surpassed the infantry, they would launch combat formations and launch an attack on the enemy's positions.

Although Sokov knew that when the German army was bombarded, they would retreat to the second line of defense to avoid dense shelling. However, today's shelling time was too short, and the density of the artillery fire was not as high as expected. Once an enemy stayed on the position to defend with artillery fire, his troops could suffer significant losses.

Sokov raised his telescope and looked nervously at the German position covered by gunpowder, fearing that somewhere would suddenly appear, which would cause severe damage to the troops approaching the position. But his concern was obviously unnecessary. The bombarded position was very calm and there was no fire point at all.

As the artillery fire extended, the tank troops rushed to the front soon rushed into the enemy's defense line. However, after they jumped over the trenches, they stopped and stopped in place to wait for the infantry behind.

The infantry following behind the tank couldn't help but cheer when they saw that the tank had occupied the first line of defense of the German army. Then, they walked quickly and turned into a trot, hoping to enter the occupied position as soon as possible. One was to completely occupy the enemy's position; the other was to eliminate those anti-tank hands that might have been hidden to ensure the safety of the tank.

Sokov saw that some of the infantry rushing into the enemy's position jumped into the trenches to search for possible residual enemies. The other part climbed onto the tank body and prepared to rush towards the enemy's second line of defense.

"Col. Sokov," Sokov was watching the infantry in the distance boarding the car through the telescope. When he heard Golikov calling himself, he quickly put down the telescope and turned to look at the other party. Seeing Sokov focused on himself, Golikov said with a smile: "It seems that your troops are going well. The soldiers easily occupied the enemy's positions without a single shot. If you maintain this kind of offensive, I think you can meet with friendly troops going south or north at the latest tomorrow."

"Comrade Deputy Commander of the Front Army, please be honest, it may be unrealistic to meet up." Sokov replied bitterly: "At best, you can only carry out a limited counterattack."

"Limited counterattack?" Golikov couldn't help frowning when he heard this, and asked dissatisfiedly: "Col. Sokov, why can he only carry out a limited counterattack?"

"Comrade Deputy Commander of the Front Army, please listen to my explanation." Sokov saw Golikov's dissatisfaction and quickly explained to him: "The enemy's defense line on the Don River and the south side have been broken by our army, and the repelled troops are retreating in the direction of the city. If the enemy on the front of Mamayevgang is defeated by us and rushed to join us, then their troops will become stronger and stronger. With the strength of my division, I am afraid that it can be able to repel the same number of German troops. But if I have to deal with several times, or even dozens of times, I will forgive me, I can't do it."

In order to make Golikov realize the seriousness of the problem, Sokov also added: "Now, in addition to the shrinking regiment that is stuck in the barricade factory, the other three regiments of our division are coming out in full swing and become extremely empty. If we push forward too far, once the German army attacks us from the flank, we can easily cut off our division's retreat. Not only will the troops fall into the siege, but I'm afraid the Mamayev hill may not be saved."

If Sokov had not mentioned Mamayev's Gate, perhaps Golikov would have planned to let him continue to advance and go to the Don River to meet with friendly forces. But after hearing Sokov's words, he thought that there would not be many reinforcements from the left bank of the Volga River at this moment. If the German troops on both sides really cut off the retreat of the 41st Division of the Guards, not only the troops would be in danger, but the Mamayev's Gate, which had little troops, would soon fall into the hands of the Germans.

After a while, Golikov looked at Sokov and asked, "Col. Sokov, I want to ask you, where are you going to push the new line of defense?"

Sokov pointed to the map on the table and said to Golikov: "I plan to let the troops break through the third line of defense of the German army and then move from attack to defense. After all, we are at a disadvantage in terms of military strength and technical equipment, and there is no need to continue to rush to the enemy's defense depth at the risk of the destruction of the entire army."

Golikov stared at the map for a while and found that after the enemy's third line of defense, there were gullies and canyons everywhere, which was not conducive to the development of armored troops. If he wanted to continue to advance, he could only rely on infantry. Compared with the enemy, his own troops were at an obvious disadvantage. If he forced an attack, there would be a danger of the entire army being destroyed.
Chapter completed!