The answer is simple, it is the paving tanks used by the Germans during the attack on the port of Kerch.

General Stryk reported Qin Chuan's thoughts to Rommel as soon as possible, and Rommel couldn't help but shout excitedly when he received the telegram.

"I knew he was going to find a way!" Rommel triumphantly raised the telegram at Hotte and said, "He is my soldier, he has solved our problems!" ”

"He's only been here for a day!" Hult was a little skeptical.

But after taking the telegram and reading it for a while, he nodded slowly and said: "Yes, how did we forget about the paving tank, but only thought about crossing the Don River...... Stupid! ”

It is right to say that if the enemy's lines can be broken through on frontal land, who would want to force a force crossing of the Don from the flank?

So the task was quickly assigned: to modify the paving tank.

Unlike before, this time the paving tank will not be so rudimentary.

In the Kerch Peninsula, due to the poor conditions, the time was short, and the resources available to an army group on the Kerch Peninsula were very limited.

This time it was different, this time the sword pointed at Stalingrad was a problem for the entire Army Group South. As soon as Marshal Bock reported, he immediately gathered all the energy of the entire Army Group South for modification.

On the other hand, the Soviet side did not expect to lose so badly and so quickly in this offensive battle...... In fact, the Soviets were still the dominant side, that is, after the Battle of Moscow, they gathered more troops and more resources, so they took it for granted that it was time for a counteroffensive.

As a result, many factories and supplies were simply not able to be evacuated...... This was different from the Battle of Moscow, during which the Soviets retreated in a planned manner, implementing a policy of clearing the wilderness while retreating, so that the Germans occupied large areas of land along the way but only got some ruins.

The Battle of Stalingrad was the complete opposite, and even the Soviets moved some of their industry and supplies forward in order to be able to provide sufficient supplies for the troops attacking on the front.

As a result, the Germans gained a lot, not to mention factories and oil fields in the Transcaucasus, and many food factories, steel factories, and so on in the plains of the lower Don River.

The steel mill was used immediately.

Rommel was personally in charge of the project, and he even urgently contacted Manstein to transfer technicians from the 11th Army who had made paving tanks on the Kerch Peninsula...... This is of course the right thing to do, because it has been modified, so it's clear what needs to be looked out for or what needs to be improved.

For example, this time, the technician proposed a very creative improvement, which is to put the paving equipment in front of the tank, which has the advantage of simplifying the transportation space of the paving equipment and reducing failures.

The principle remained the same, but what changed was that the logs used in the port of Kerch were turned into steel plates.

Compared with logs, steel plates have more advantages, such as logs are not strong enough and easy to break, bulky in size, difficult to pave, different sizes and troublesome to make, etc.

The steel plate is simple to make, and the width and length of the steel mill assembly line only need to tell the workers, and it didn't take long for batches of steel plates with exactly the same scale to come out one by one.

Of course, because of the fear of slippery in muddy and wet conditions, these steel plates are printed with strips that increase friction.

After that, the steel plates are strung together piece by piece with steel wire, and an external rolling shaft is added.

Two days later, twenty pave tanks converted from tank "No. 3" were delivered to the 21st Panzer Division...... Needless to say, the main attack task must have fallen into the hands of the 21st Panzer Division.

In the evening of the same day, the defense area of the 21st Panzer Division was changed with that of the 24th Panzer Division.

This is quite normal, the 4th Panzer Army has a total of three Panzer Divisions, and they always let one Panzer Division rest on the second line, and then replace it with the Panzer Division on the front line every few days, so that they can take turns to rest to maintain combat effectiveness and morale.

Therefore, even if the Soviet direction saw this, it would not suspect anything, and even if it would have doubted, it would have thought that the Germans were preparing to attack again with armored forces along the original route...... Usually a new unit is replaced by a small attack.

They guessed correctly, the Germans were indeed going to attack, but the main direction of attack was no longer the right flank.

The 21st Panzer Division withdrew from the front line to a village three kilometers behind the defensive line.

The Soviet people of this unknown village have all been relocated to Stalingrad by the Soviets...... The Soviets needed a large number of men to build fortifications around Stalingrad, so they were not going to spare any available labor.

It was here that the 21st Panzer Division took the necessary rest, the tanks were refueled and the necessary maintenance was carried out, and the tank crews were ordered to seize the time to rest after being given water and food.

The logistics department was given a list of equipment needed for the battle, which they were to follow to Chymryanskaya, 37 kilometers away, to prepare everything and send it to the front in batches.

This task was mainly carried out by the Romanian 21st Infantry Division, which had previously been assigned to the 20th Panzer Division...... Although this task was not easy, because the territory newly occupied by the Germans was full of Soviet stragglers, who would spontaneously organize themselves to attack the German logistics supply units, but it was more than enough to accomplish it with an infantry division, albeit a Romanian infantry division with low combat effectiveness.

"The attack is scheduled for five o'clock in the morning!" In the conference room, General Stryker told the officers: "We advance along the Don River, and the 297th and 371st Infantry Divisions will follow closely behind to provide us with cover. As soon as the offensive begins, we cannot stop, all the way to capture the ports along the Don, Karachi, Verdach, and then break to the right to the Yertovka region until we see the Volga, understand? ”

This bold plan stunned all the officers present at the meeting, knowing that it would be a hundred kilometers to break through to Verdach, and then another hundred kilometers to the Volga from left to right...... The journey was 200 kilometers, and it was all behind enemy lines, and any problem such as the failure of the follow-up infantry to keep up would encircle the 21st Panzer Division.

"How do we secure our supply lines?" The commander of the 5th Panzer Regiment, Colonel Albridge, asked.

"We don't need to worry about that!" General Stryk replied: "Because ...... Once we have captured the port along the Don, then General Paulus's 6th Army will be able to easily cross the Don and join us! ”