"The Chinese are sending troops to Tulum?! Comrade Commander, have they already seen through our intentions? Kulik, who had just been submissive, suddenly cried out in surprise. You know, although he was not a Trotskyist figure, he was still a GC fighter and a high-ranking general of the Soviet Red Army! I also know the significance of the First Battle of Nizhny Udinsk to the Eastern Front of the Soviet Union, if it is defeated here, I am afraid that the next year will have a headache for the defense of the Ural Mountains!

Pavlov Cluster Chief of Staff Bagramian also immediately said: "Tulun originally had 3 divisions of the Chinese army, and there were 9 Chinese divisions along the railway line west of Tulum, and if all of them were transferred to Tulum, it would be 12 divisions!" It is likely that there will be four more military departments, and I am afraid that there will be 200,000 troops! Moreover, the anti-tank capabilities of the Chinese infantry are very strong, and there are several large field airfields southeast of Tulum City, where HS-123s are deployed, and this kind of aircraft poses a great threat to our tanks, and if a surprise attack cannot be successful, it is very likely that the entire cluster will be buried, it is better to ...... For the time being, return to Nizhny Udinsk and find another good solution. ”

Baglamyan had previously served as chief of staff of the group army in the Central Asian Front and the Polish Front, and he could be considered to have suffered enough from the Chinese and German air forces, so after hearing that the Tulum side was on guard, he immediately put forward the idea of retreating. But Pavlov did not squeak, but looked fixedly at the military map hanging on the carriage, sketched it with red and blue pencils, and after seeing the red arrow he drawn, even Kulik couldn't help but nod his head, as if he admired Pavlov's deployment very much.

It turned out that the direction of this red arrow was a place called Yakovlevich railway station, about 10 kilometers west of Tulum. From the map, the forests on both sides of this railway station are still very dense and have not been cut down by the Chinese. Moreover, the Soviet Union in this time and space did not develop Eastern Siberia, and this railway station must be a product of the tsarist era, most of which were built very strong, and it was a good defensive base. If this railway station is the core, relying on the large forests on both sides of the railway, it will definitely be possible to block the retreat of more than 30 Chinese divisions in Nizhny Udinsk!

Pavlov's pen poked the Yakovlevich railway station on the map heavily: "This is about 30 kilometers from our current position, and we can send infantry to seize it first." The tank unit then followed, and the tanks could rely on the forest to defend themselves, so that there was no need to worry about the threat of Chinese aircraft. The defensive line needs to be deployed in two, one east and one from the west, about 10 kilometers apart, and the Yakovlevich railway station is the core of the entire defense system, and the artillery positions are placed next to the railway station. He raised his wrist and looked at the time. It's 8 a.m. on July 10. I demand that the whole army must arrive at the Yakovlevich railway station within 48 hours and complete the defense! Now end the break and get moving. Also, the troops were ordered to be lightly armed and not to bring anything except weapons, ammunition and rations for 3 days! ”

"Yes!"

In a neat response, the Pavlov cluster of Soviet troops rumbled again. And at this time, the bloody battle on the Nizhny Udinsk front continued.

Due to the existence of the white night, there was no day and night on the battlefield of Nizhny Udinsk, and the fierce fighting had lasted for more than 40 hours, and the open plain on the east bank of the Uda River was full of charred corpses and broken weapons and equipment of soldiers on both sides, countless tanks and armored vehicles armor-piercing shells were beaten into a pile of twisted scrap metal, and the artillery fire of both sides repeatedly plowed the ground. Large and small craters are densely packed throughout the battlefield, and from a distance it looks like it has reached the surface of the moon! In order to inflict as much damage as possible on their opponents, the belligerents did everything they could for more than 40 hours, but neither of them did their best. The Soviet army has invested more than 1,200 tanks and 150,000 infantry, while the Chinese defense force has invested 1,000 tanks and 100,000 troops. After repeated battles, the Soviets had already paid the price of more than 40,000 casualties and the complete destruction of more than 300 tanks. And the losses of the squadron were not small, with more than 20,000 infantry casualties, as well as 500 tanks and assault artillery damaged (of which only a third could not be repaired completely).

By the afternoon of July 10. Both sides seemed to be exhausted and needed a good rest, and the sound of gunfire on the battlefield gradually thinned out. However, this does not mean the end of the fierce battle for Nizhny Udinsk. As the continuous rain ended, the sky was once again overwhelmed by a flood of warplanes. Not only did the Chinese Air Force in Tulum pour out to launch air strikes on the Soviet troops on the lower Uginsk front, but even the Soviet Red Air Force, which rarely appeared on the Eastern Front, also launched an unprecedented campaign to wage a vicious battle against the Chinese Air Force.

From the afternoon of the 10th to the morning of the next day, the two sides put in a total of more than 5,000 sorties! It broke the record for the scale of air force sorties since the start of the war on the Eastern Front. Among them, the Chinese Air Force alone flew more than 3,800 sorties. The star of the battle was the double-winged Attack 2 light dive bomber, which looked a bit old-fashioned from the outside, though not very remarkable. But it is a super reliable and durable aircraft with low maintenance and airport requirements, so the attendance rate is exceptionally high, out of the total of more than 3,800 sorties made by the Chinese Air Force. Attack 2 alone 2800 sorties!

What is even more surprising is that this clumsy biplane is not lifeless when it encounters Soviet I-18 fighters. Because the low-altitude performance of this biplane is very good, it can fly at a top speed of 340 kilometers per hour at low altitude after dropping the bomb. Although the latest model of the Soviet Army's Il-18D can fly at an altitude of 3,000 meters to a maximum speed of 500 kilometers per hour, at a low altitude of 300 meters, the maximum level flight speed of this aircraft will drop to less than 400 kilometers per hour, and its flexibility will be greatly reduced, so that the clumsy Attack 2 can easily throw off the Il-18. Unless the Il-18 adopts the tactics of diving attack, it will not be able to deal with the attack 2 that is active at low altitudes.

What made the Soviet pilots even more troublesome was that there was no shortage of anti-aircraft fire on the battlefield of Nizhny Udinsk, and the water-cooled engine of the Il-18 was too delicate and would stop running as long as it was hit by a bullet, so it was not suitable for use at low altitudes where anti-aircraft fire was intensive. Moreover, the low-altitude performance of the J-2 bear hunter fighter of the Chinese Air Force is also excellent, and as long as the Il-18 dares to reduce the altitude, it will immediately become the prey of the "bear hunter". However, at high altitudes, the Il-18 has a hard time, and the performance of the Chinese Air Force's BF-109, J-3 and J-4 fighters far exceeds that of the Il-18. Of particular note are the J-3 and J-4, two aircraft designed several years before the world war. However, due to the avant-garde design ideas, many of the most advanced technologies of the time were adopted, such as the most advanced aerodynamic shape, retractable landing gear, retractable canopy, automatic flaps, lower wings, high-power water-cooled or air-cooled engines, powerful firepower configuration, and so on. Moreover, it was developed independently, so the entire development and design process became extremely lengthy, until the second half of 1933. After "referencing" many designs of the German BF-109 and Fokker, it was finally finalized and put into production.

The first J-3 model to be put into mass production was the J-3E Dragon Eagle. The Dragon Eagle has a wingspan of up to one meter, a length of one meter, a height of one meter, a maximum take-off weight of one ton, and is equipped with a BMM cannon, in addition to carrying one 500 kg bomb or two 250 kg bombs for dive bombing. Although the dive bombing performance is not as good as that of the German Stuka, it is still far superior to the Chinese Air Force's most common Attack 2 light dive bomber. So in the plans of the Chinese Air Force and the Chinese Naval Aviation, this J-3 Dragon Eagle will also assume the responsibility of a dive bomber in the future. The Navy is even ready to equip their aircraft carriers with only J-3 fighters!

The first batch of J-4 models put into production is J-4D, and it is also nicknamed the Golden Eagle. The wingspan of this fighter is up to a meter. The length of the aircraft is meters, the height of the aircraft is meters, the maximum take-off weight is up to tons, and it is equipped with a BMM cannon. In all indicators, it far exceeds the IL-18. Simply the nemesis of this most advanced Soviet fighter!

Under the siege of Chinese fighters such as the J-3E Dragon Eagle, the J-4D Golden Eagle, the BF-109 and the J-2 Bear Hunter, the Soviet Air Force suffered heavy losses. In about 12 hours of air combat, 669 aircraft were lost, completely losing air supremacy on the battlefield. While seizing air supremacy, the Chinese Air Force also carried out indiscriminate bombardment of Soviet ground targets, destroying at least 200 tanks/self-propelled guns, more than 500 artillery pieces of various calibers, and a large number of Soviet forces. Their own losses were unprecedented, with 135 planes shot down or crashed due to malfunctions, 236 planes wounded in different ways, and 155 pilots spilled blood. More than 30 pilots parachuted and fell into the hands of Soviet troops.

After the weather cleared and the air battle was defeated, Tukhachevsky had to abandon his intention to continue the offensive on the front, and instead threw a large number of troops into the forests on both sides of the battlefield in an attempt to make a detour to outflank the Chinese army. The battlefield of both sides immediately shifted to the edge of the Great Forest, accompanied by the "Ula! Ulla! The largest jungle battle since the outbreak of the war broke out on the Nizhny Udinsk front.

Commanding the Soviet offensive was the commander of the 55th Army of the Soviet Red Army, Mikhail Petrovich Frinovsky, a graduate of the Tsarist Military School before the October Revolution and who fought in the First World War. The Soviet general, who joined the Bolshevik Party in 1917 and fought in the civil war (he was purged in another time), was extremely skilled in the command of infantry and artillery, and even when there was no air superiority at all, and his artillery group was suppressed by the opponent's air force, he still played a subtle artillery match. Under his command. The Soviets adopted the tactic of combining short artillery fire and rapid infantry attack, and the artillery preparation before each attack did not exceed three minutes, and the artillery used did not exceed 300 guns, and they were immediately concealed after the battle. The infantry immediately attacked, rushing into the Chinese defense line with a swift sea of men. Moreover, the Soviets also dragged the 57mm anti-tank guns, which were both light and powerful, into the forest, relying on dense trees as a cover for the attack on the Chinese defense line of the pursuers, tank destroyers and self-propelled guns, covering the infantry attack.

The Soviet army's skillful artillery and infantry coordination and the tactics of reluctance to spare their lives quickly took effect, and the northern and southern flanks of the Chinese army felt great pressure. However, Li Zongren also quickly made adjustments, he did not plan to fight any jungle warfare with the Soviet army, and simply ordered the two wings to shrink and completely cede the forest to the Soviet army. At the same time, the target of the attack was locked on the main forces of the Soviet army in the front, and the armored forces were concentrated to launch a surprise attack.

"Armored troops, assault! Assault! Hu Zongnan, commander of the 6th Armored Army of the Chinese Army, personally commanded the troops to take the lead. 1,000 tanks, assault artillery and 80,000 attacking troops were concentrated on the 30-kilometer-wide frontage.

At the forefront are the cheap and high-quality hunters. Their 60mm frontal armor, arranged at a 60-degree angle, was enough to withstand most Soviet anti-tank fire at a distance of 1,000 kilometers, but there was no small danger further on. So these pursuers stopped a kilometer away from the Soviet position and bombarded their opponents with their 75mm cannons. The C-tanks, on the other hand, were responsible for covering the pursuers' flanks, and their 45mm guns, although outdated in tank combat, were more than enough to deal with the approaching Soviet infantry. In addition, a number of C-type self-propelled howitzers and C-type self-propelled infantry guns were also fired at a distance of about 1,500 meters from the Soviet positions. This is almost the distance at which a large-caliber sniper rifle can exert its power, and aiming is no longer a problem for artillerymen, who can tilt the shell at the opponent's head with their eyes closed.

At the same time, the Chinese air force made all-out attacks, and the Attack 2 light dive bombers continued to dive down from an altitude of 3,000 meters, and the piercing and strange screams of the fighters resounded over the battlefield, and this kind of aircraft not only dropped 50 kg of high-explosive bombs at the Soviet firing points. 20mm guns were also used to repeatedly strafe the Soviet infantry in the trenches. In the roaring explosions, the Soviet troops suffered heavy casualties, and a large number of anti-tank artillery and machine gun fire points, along with gunners and machine gunners, were blown to pieces. And He-111 and medium bombers, which took off from the distant Irkutsk airfield, also appeared over the city of Nizhne-Uginsk and began to attack the city and nearby airfields with 50-kilogram bombs. Thousands of bombs fell, and the palm-sized city of Uginsk was soon in ruins. Had it not been for the foresight of the Soviets to carry their supplies and ammunition into the forest and pile them up, the He-111 and air strikes alone would have left the Red Army on the Nizhny Uginsk front depleted.

"Stalker. The stalker is close! Death squad charge! Charge! "When the Chinese bombers repeatedly bombed Nizhne-Udinsk indiscriminately, Hu Zongnan's armored assault group began to rumble again. Seeing the pursuers pressing up, the daredevils on the Soviet positions again began to charge with Type 1932 anti-tank grenade launchers. If you want to ask what is the most difficult tactic that China encountered in this war with the Soviet Union, the answer is the same for almost all the Chinese people who came down from the front line of the Sino-Soviet battlefield, that is, the "crowd tactics" of the Soviet infantry!

Of course, the so-called "crowd tactics" do not mean that the Soviet infantry swarmed and rushed, and that kind of fighting could not be regarded as a tactic at all, but only sent to death. In fact, after more than two years of baptism of war. At present, the infantry tactics of the Soviet army have been quite sophisticated, whether it is artillery and infantry coordination, infantry and tank coordination, commando infiltration tactics, various positional defense tactics, or the current anti-tank tactics called "short assault", it can be said that they have reached the point of being as pure as fire.

At the same time that the Soviet death squads jumped out of the trenches, all kinds of firepower on the Soviet positions were also in a fight, and they were not fighting aimlessly, but cooperating with each other to strike at the charging Chinese tanks and infantry. Anti-tank guns and small- and medium-caliber anti-tank guns mainly hit the tracks of pursuers. The anti-tank guns were the decisive striking force, and they did not fire lightly. Instead, they are looking for hunters whose tracks have been broken and have lost their ability to maneuver to shoot, and immediately move to position after a successful blow. Rifles and machine guns provided fire support for the charging death squads, which targeted the Chinese infantry who accompanied the charging tanks of the pursuers. And the machine guns also fired in turns, immediately shifting positions for every 50 rounds of ammunition. 60mm and 80mm mortars deployed in the trenches also fired at the same time. The mortar shells hit behind the Chinese Stalker tank destroyers in the first row, and they fired smoke grenades in order to interfere with the rear Stalker tanks firing.

This series of tactical coordination is very easy to write on paper, but it can be even more difficult to skillfully coordinate on the battlefield filled with gunpowder than to ascend to the sky. It was not something that any Soviet infantry unit could do, but the infantry that Tukhachevsky used to resist the Chinese armored assault could do it, because they were all elites who had been on the battlefield on the Eastern Front for two years! As a result of the appearance of these elite of the Soviet army, the elite of the armored cluster of the Wehrmacht fell into a bitter battle!

〖