artillery arc

Chapter 656 Situation Summary
At 7 on July 25, Khazaria Front Command.

Wang Zhong entered the headquarters in the morning light.

Pavlov: "You've only slept for more than three hours. Is that okay?"

"You make it sound as if you have slept for a long time." Wang Zhong replied.

Pavlov: "Considering my age, it is normal for us old people to sleep less and less. You young people should still sleep more."

Pavlov was indeed much older than Wang Zhong and was the father of several children.

Wang Zhong looked at his bald head and decided not to take his fatherly remarks seriously. He asked directly about the battle situation: "What is the situation on the front line now?"

"The cavalry reported many successes and sent back many prisoners."

Wang Zhong: "Send the prisoners back? We haven't started the armored assault yet. The cavalry units are usually tens or hundreds of kilometers away from our control area. How can we send the prisoners back?"

"Use the Bo-2 aircraft. The Bo-2 can land anywhere on the grassland at this time of year. As long as it doesn't hit a vole hole, it can come and go freely. So the cavalry built a simple airport to transport prisoners." Pavlov explained, "The Bo-2 only needs one pilot, but there are two seats."

Wang Zhong: "I see. Isn't that too inefficient? Ten Bo-2 biplanes are needed to transport ten prisoners."

Pavlov: "So those who were sent back were all officers. The court was very happy. They interrogated them every day and basically figured out the current situation of the enemy."

Pavlov came to the map and said: "The enemy has now dispersed anti-aircraft vehicles equipped with rapid-fire machine guns along the retreat route, using machine guns to drive away the cavalry.

"This reduced their ability to defend themselves against the air force, so the Sky Force guys had a blast."

Wang Zhong: "I know that. I talked to the pilots about it when we went on reconnaissance flights. But I didn't expect that it was because they used the anti-aircraft guns to deal with the cavalry."

Pavlov nodded: "The cavalry troops were unable to capture the enemy's well-fortified strongholds, but even so they played a huge role on the grassland. The main reason for achieving such an effect was that the grassland was too vast.

"The fully motorized enemy army cannot deal with the cavalry on the grassland. Their mobile forces can catch up with the cavalry, but the losses are too great."

At this time Popov interrupted and said: "I heard that the enemy's Central Army Group began to use armored trains to deal with cavalry units. During General Gorky's summer offensive, cavalry did not play a big role."

Wang Zhong: "No, no, the main reason why the Western Front cavalry did not play a big role is that there are too many trees on the terrain. Although there are large grasslands and wheat fields between the trees, they are not connected."

Cavalry is particularly suitable for grasslands like Khasalia and Nanant, but as you advance further west, the role that cavalry can play gradually becomes smaller.

The same is true on Earth. After the Russians planned to fight beyond the borders and then use the advantages of their cavalry, they began to run into obstacles. The villages on the plains of East Europe were densely populated, and the cavalry could not be fully utilized.

Wang Zhong remembered that there was a meritorious Russian cavalry unit on Earth that broke into the Hungarian Plain and was surrounded and annihilated - the villages and buildings were too dense, and there were a lot of barns and farmhouses in the wilderness. The defenders could set up fire points, but the cavalry could not move.

Pavlov: "From the lessons learned from the Western Front's cavalry operations, if we continue to advance westward, the role that the cavalry can play will become less and less. Perhaps we can suggest to the High Command to stop expanding the size of the cavalry."

"Don't worry. When His Majesty the Tsar spoke to me on the phone before, he complained about the shortage of cavalry horses and the inability to form more cavalry units. Now the size of our cavalry has reached its upper limit."

After Wang Zhong finished speaking, the staff officer brought a document and handed it directly to Pavlov.

Pavlov opened the brown paper bag of the document, took out the contents and looked through them, then said to Wang Zhong: "This is our maintenance team's evaluation of the enemy's new tanks recovered from the battlefield." "The maintenance team can't figure out why the Prosons use such a complicated suspension."

Wang Zhong certainly knew what being in charge of the suspension meant, but he had to play dumb: "Complex suspension?"

"Yes, it seems that they adopted a new double-row road wheel design in order to widen the track contact area. According to the maintenance department's report, this thing is extremely difficult to maintain. If the inner wheel fails, the entire row of road wheels must be removed. Our tanks - and the enemy's Type 3 and Type 4 tanks - can complete the road wheel replacement work in an hour, but the new tanks need at least five or six hours to complete it."

Wang Zhong: “(Surprised) Five or six hours?”

Pavlov: “Five or six hours, this is a conservative estimate. The enemy’s new tanks are very difficult to maintain.

"That's one reason. Secondly, our people found it strange that the enemy's new tanks were very heavy. For example, the heavy tank they called the King Tiger weighed more than 70 tons.

"But after evaluation by our maintenance engineers, the protection capabilities of the new Plosson tanks are far inferior to our tanks."

Wang Zhong pretended to be surprised: "There is such a thing?"

Pavlov: "Yes, the maintenance department estimates that the 70-ton King Tiger has about the same defensive capabilities as the 40-ton Rokossov I."

Vasily: "Really? Where did they use the extra 30 tons? The designer's stomach?"

Wang Zhong: "Wasting tonnage is a tradition of Proson. Look at their battleships."

Pavlov: "In short, the enemy's new tanks are incredibly heavy and may even crush our road wheels. The maintenance department believes that there is no need to worry too much about these tanks. As long as we equip our 100mm guns with better armor-piercing shells, we can deal with them perfectly."

Wang Zhong: "What the maintenance department said makes sense, but it still needs to be handed over to the rear for specific evaluation. So have we repaired these tanks? Can we put them on the train and send them back to Yebao?"

Pavlov shook his head. “Most of the new tanks were burned. The maintenance department is trying to find new tanks that were not burned.”

Wang Zhong: "Then let them search slowly. How are the preparations for today's attack going?"

"The troops report that they are ready to attack." Pavlov paused, threw down the assessment report on the enemy's new tanks, and took out a stack of aerial photos from the table. "According to aerial reconnaissance, the Prosens may have added a relatively complete armored division."

Wang Zhong frowned slightly: "Is this true?"

"Indeed. Look if you don't believe me." Pavlov took out a photo and pushed it in front of Wang Zhong.

Wang Zhong picked up the photo.

In that photo, a train loaded with tanks is being unloaded.

Wang Zhong: "Why didn't you send out Pei 2 to bomb him?"

"It exploded, but the effect will have to wait for the results of today's investigation."

(End of this chapter)