"What! The unit, which had just been named the 1st Guards Tank Division, was routed near Kaluga? Khrushchev pinched the phone in his hand, a little unable to believe his ears.

Stalin had just given 5 units with the title of Guards, and as a result, the first Guards unit was crippled by the Germans......

Let's not talk about the value of the word Guards, just talking about how much equipment this 1st Guards Panzer Division has is enough to make Khrushchev feel distressed.

In order to live up to the name given by Stalin himself, the 1st Guards Tank Division, this tank division was the main force of the main force that strengthened at least 50 tanks!

Originally, this tank division only had more than 150 tanks, and it was just a bunch of tank troops. However, because too many main forces were annihilated and routed by the Germans, this division also became a rare main force in the Moscow direction!

As a result, more than 100 temporarily deployed T-26 tanks were reinforced to this division, and later a full 30 KV-1s and 20 valuable T-34 tanks were transferred over.

At this time, the whole division went up and down, and there were a total of 300 tanks, which was about the same as a German armored division!

Because of this, in the process of the reorganization of the Kaluga generation, this division encountered the German armored units that came to attack, and instead of retreating, it launched a counterattack.

As a result, more than half of the more than 300 tanks of various types that had been accumulated with great difficulty were destroyed by the Germans in one go, and the remaining troops retreated to a place 10 kilometers away in a hurry.

As a result of their retreat, Kaluga's flanks were vacated, and the German panzers took these areas directly, opening a gap in the Soviet lines.

"That's the 1st Guards Tank Division! Didn't stop for a day, and then lost your position? "If it weren't for the phone, Khrushchev would really have wanted to personally press that division commander to the ground and shoot him in the head.

Unfortunately, he could not do this - the commander of the 1st Guards Tank Division, who had already led his army to counterattack the Germans, was killed on the battlefield.

"You take his place for the time being, command the 1st Guards Tank Division!" Khrushchev, gritting his teeth, gave an order, and then hung up the phone.

He saw soldiers passing by the hallway outside his office, holding stacks of papers, tossed around the corner of the stairs, waiting to be burned.

Now Moscow has completely become a front-line city. Many government agencies have been relocated to Chelyabinsk, and more and more soldiers are beginning to appear in the city.

The townspeople were so nervous that they didn't know how far the Germans were from their homes, or when their troops would take them to build new trenches and defensive lines.

Many old people have died in the previous requisition, and the two long lines of defense have caused too many deaths for the laborers of the Soviet army.

Many of the old people died in the process of being requisitioned to build the defensive line, and many children were conscripted to repair the defensive line and began to serve as reinforcements in the same place.

Such soldiers are in most cases untrained, they do not even have basic combat skills, and can only be used as cannon fodder on the battlefield to waste enemy bullets.

But even so, having too much cannon fodder is definitely a headache. The strength of the Soviet army near Moscow swelled to the million level at once, which caught all the senior German commanders by surprise.

"Order the 2nd Guards Tank Division to assemble to the south! We must support the friendly forces near Kaluga! Otherwise, the southern gate of Moscow will change hands! "Khrushchev was not a professional commander, he thought very simple - do not throw anywhere!

But wasting a lot of troops in the wilderness was really not a good way for the Soviet army to deal with the German offensive.

At the very least, the Germans preferred to engage in a battle with the main Soviet forces on the way to Soviet reinforcements in Kaluga.

And not in the ruins of Moscow, against these veterans of the main forces of the USSR and tanks!

Compared with the hastily established 1st Guards Tank Division, the 2nd Guards Tank Division was even more powerful - this unit was the absolute main force of the Soviet army near Moscow, and it was also a first-class strong army in the entire Soviet Union.

This tank division has 100 brand-new T-34 tanks, and this number alone is enough to make this tank division stand out from the crowd.

If you don't count the gap in the command level of the commander and the gap in the technical and tactical quality of the members, these 100 T-34 tanks can even compete with a tank battalion of the German army!

Add to this the division 50 KV-1 tanks, 10 KV-2 tanks, and at least 200 T-26 and T-27 tanks, and then it is even more powerful.

In order to counter the German superiority of the Leopard tank, the -27 tank was an improved version of the T-26 tank, with reinforced frontal armor and a 76.2 mm gun!

The improved T-27 tank is not so much a tank as something similar to the Stalker tank destroyer.

It uses a box-mounted turret fixed to the body, which not only reduces speed, but also reduces other performance quite a bit.

The only thing to boast about is that the tank destroyer now has the ability to threaten Tank 4.

It is a pity that this T-27 tank is not in large quantities because the gun is of the same model as the T-34 tank, and there is a contradiction in production capacity.

This 2nd Guards Tank Division had 20 T-27s, and the remaining more than 180 were old T-26 tanks.

Even so, this is by far the most powerful tank division that the Soviets have put together. It had about half of its tanks, all of which posed a threat to German tanks to some extent.

In fact, from the time when the T-34 tank was put into battle, the era of German tanks running rampant on the battlefield and encountering difficult opponents has come to an end.

At this moment, any tank commander must be careful to face his enemy and carefully plan every detail of the battle.

"Comrade Khrushchev...... I advise you that it is better not to let the 2nd Guards Tank Division move places. Standing at the door of Khrushchev's office, a Soviet general spoke persuasively.

He had just passed there, and after hearing Khrushchev's order, he stopped to speak.

When Khrushchev heard the admonition, he was stunned for a moment, and then he said to the receiver of the telephone: "Don't carry out my order yet, wait until I call you again!" ”

Hanging up his phone, Khrushchev looked at the person who came and said: "General Rokossovsky, you'd better give me an explanation!" ”