On the last Tuesday of March 1939, Lin Youde got the performance evaluation report of his tank and the American copycat version.

The assessment report is based on the results of the newly formed 21st Panzer Division and the 1st Panzer Army, in which German Panzers destroyed 210 American-made Russian tanks, and then the air force attacked the retreating Russian tanks. In the end, the results reported by the 21st Division were confirmed to have destroyed 277 Russian tanks, captured 110 Russian tanks abandoned due to mechanical problems, and preliminarily determined that the Russian First Panzer Army had been annihilated.

The 21st Division itself reported a total of 40 losses and another 71 were rendered inoperable due to mechanical breakdowns.

However, the establishment of the Russian armored corps is actually similar to that of Lin Youde's armored division, so the situation is that the two sides are almost one-to-one in terms of strength, and as a result, the Russians have paid more than double the casualties.

Because the 21st Armament Division lost more than half of its losses, it was immediately stationed in place for reorganization, and the offensive task was taken over by the 15th Armament Division, so the 21st Armament Division had spare time to write a detailed assessment of the battle situation.

The side defense of the American-made tank was generally praised by the participants of the 21st Division, but there were many reports of jumping eggs because the angle was not large enough, and the engineers of the 21st Division disassembled the side armor of the captured American-made tank and found that it was 20 mm thicker than that of the German tank. But at the cost, American-made tanks were heavier and slower to maneuver than German ones.

American-made combat vehicles use gasoline engines, and there have been many reports of them catching fire after being hit - which is very consistent with the historical Sherman lighter.

The mechanical failure rate of American-made tanks was much higher than that of German tanks, especially the suspension system, and the engineers of the 21st Division determined that the maintenance of this type of suspension required much more effort than the simple and crude inline large load wheels.

On the whole, American-made tanks are inferior to German tanks in terms of overall performance, but they are slightly better in terms of armor.

According to the summary of the 21st Division, at a distance of more than 1,000 meters, neither side can penetrate the other side head-on, and if you want to destroy the opponent head-on at this distance, you must hit in a suitable position.

"In other words, we need more powerful tank guns." Lin Youde muttered to himself at the report.

Ysera, who was sitting in front of him in the position that originally belonged to Viola, asked curiously, "What is a tank gun?" ”

"In our plane, the original name of the tank was Tank. It was the British who first invented it for camouflage that eventually became the universal name for this weapon. But Germany still calls this thing 'Pan Za', so it's fine. ”

"Is China also called a tank?" Ysera continued.

"yes, pure transliteration. However, Japan learned from Germany to call chariots, probably because the Japanese Army was trained by the German Army. ”

"I always think it's strange that Chinese also calls tanks."

Lin Youde smiled at Isera and said: "It's not strange, in fact, I think the transliteration of tank is quite good, the two words can be taken apart, it can be regarded as 'a smooth road to defeat the enemy', but it is reversed." ”

"Well, I can explain it like that, I've learned something." Ysera nodded repeatedly, and then changed the subject, "What about the combat vehicles copied by the Americans?" ”

"In addition to the high mechanical failure and easy fire, it seems that the troops have a good evaluation of them."

Lin Youde said, and continued to flip back the report -- after analyzing the American-made tanks equipped by the Russians, the 21st Division began to summarize the lessons of the first tank-to-tank battle in the remaining part of the report.

According to the summary of the 21st Division, there are two important reasons why the German army was able to achieve such a high lethal ratio when the performance of the two tanks was not too different, in addition to the different training courses of the armored troops:

First, according to the German armored corps, the commander would poke his head out to observe the battlefield during the battle, while the Russians would not do this; Second, all German tanks are equipped with radios, while American-made tanks are equipped with radios only in platoon seats.

This summary is exactly the same as the summary of the reasons for the defeat of the German armored forces against the Soviet armored forces at the beginning of another space-time war.

Although time and space have changed, history repeats itself again, which makes Lin Youde feel very wonderful.

After reading the summary report, Lin Youde stood up and came to the map on the wall and looked at southern Poland.

"What's wrong?" Ysera asked.

"I'm thinking that when we carry out defensive operations in central Poland, we may be able to do something in other directions to contain the combat effectiveness of the Russian army."

"Are you going to strike from the south?" Sitting at the table, Nia asked, "Will you launch an armored attack and take Kyiv directly?" ”

"It's impossible." Lin Youde smiled at his daughter, "The offensive is a very complicated matter, especially the attack of the armored forces, there are simply too many things to coordinate, fuel, maintenance parts and personnel, etc., when we are going all out to support Army Group A to carry out defensive operations, I am afraid that there is no spare strength to launch a large-scale attack war in the other direction." ”

After Lin Youde explained to his daughter, his eyes turned to the map again, wandering around the southern region of Poland.

"But," he said to himself, "if a war of annihilation could be carried out in the south with a limited number of troops, it would force the Russian army to move more troops to cover the flank of the Russian army besieging Warsaw." ”

Lin Youde began to think about it seriously.

Nia opened her mouth to speak, but Ysera grabbed her arm and shook her head gently.

**

The next day, the German high command received an order from Lin Youde to launch a limited offensive operation on the southern front. The specific campaign objectives that Lin Youde gave them were as follows:

1. Crush or annihilate the Russian forces west of the line from Rzeszow to Ostrovets.

2. The occupation of Ostrowitz, which was captured by the Russian army on March 27, creates the false impression that our troops will counterattack Lublin.

The German High Command reacted very quickly, and it took only one day to select the set that best met Lin Youde's requirements from the countless plans that had been formulated before, and made changes according to the current situation of the war.

On 1 April, the battle plan was sent to Army Group B headquarters, and on that day the commander of Army Group B, Lieutenant General Manstein, decided to give Heinz's 9th Panzer Army the main attack, and set the start date for the offensive to be 3 April.

He also ordered to take the initiative to withdraw troops from the Russian army's advance route before April 3, allowing the Russian army to move forward as much as possible to disperse the Russian troops.

In the early hours of April 3, Army Group B began its offensive with the operation codenamed "April Fools".

**

"Run faster, hahahaha!" Kosher laughed as he fired from his artillery coaxial machine gun, and the machine gun shells thrown from the bomb port landed at Otokaliwoods' feet one after another.

"Hey, stop, Kosher." The sergeant's voice was a little helpless, "These people are ready to surrender, let's not waste our bullets, let the infantry brothers in the back deal with them." ”

"Ah yes, okay."

Kisser took his eyes off the gun scope, leaned back against the turret rotation mechanism behind him, then took off his headset and soft hat, and gasped for air.

"Damn." Otto heard him muttering softly.

Otto guessed that the reason why he seemed so depressed was because car 217, which his countryman was in had just been destroyed, had been wrecked.

Otto didn't know much about Kosher and his fellow countryman, in fact, he didn't even know the name of that fellow countryman. Because of this, he could only sit next to him and watch the gunner muttering in frustration.

At this point, Link turned back and handed Kosher a flask.

"There's one last bit left to make you feel better."

"Thank you." Kosher said, taking the flask, unscrewing the lid and taking a sip, "Oh, that's awesome." I've got to take another bite. ”

He drank the second sip a little violently, and the wine came out of the corner of his mouth and landed on his armor uniform, which was stained with oil and sweat.

", thank you buddy." Kosher returned the flask to Link, "If I can smoke a cigarette now, then I'll be completely fine." ”

Kosher's muttering made everyone else smile wryly.

Although German chariots used low-volatile diesel as fuel, there were still many things that could be lit in the carriage, and smoking in the carriage was expressly forbidden.

Probably hearing Koscher's muttering, the sergeant ordered, "The battle is over, everyone can breathe." ”

As soon as the order was given, the driver and machine gunner, who were sitting in front of the hull, reached out and opened their hatches, and fresh air poured into the cabin, which smelled of gunpowder and oil.

Kosher stood up in the fighting room, opened the hatch next to the commander's conning tower, grabbed the edge of the hatch with both hands and drilled out.

Otto thought for a moment, stood up as well, put his foot on the ammunition rack, and leaned out of the carriage.

As far as the eye can see, the Polish field, which has just become green, is full of black pillars of smoke, each of which represents a destroyed chariot. Because the German tanks were so similar to the Russian ones, Otto couldn't tell where they belonged at all.

He could see a corpse in the turret of the wreckage of a chariot in front of him, its upper body exposed, burned black, and his posture conveyed to Otto the heart-rending pain of its death.

Otto suddenly heard a muffled sound, and he turned his head sharply to look in the direction from which the muffled sound came, but found nothing.

At this time, the sergeant said: "It is the infantry who are using grenades to clean the tanks that are not too damaged on the outside, and after the last battle, the experience of our division seems to be particularly valued, and the infantry accompanying the attack are specially ordered to ensure that all destroyed enemy tanks are completely incapacitated." ”

No one responded to the sergeant's words, and everyone watched silently as the battlefield quieted down.

Suddenly, Otto saw soldiers in front of him making the Russian prisoners kneel down one by one.

"What are they going to do?" He muttered softly.

Before he could finish speaking, a German non-commissioned officer with an assault rifle opened fire on the Russian prisoners who were kneeling on the ground with their backs to him.

"Damn." Otto whispered, "That's not right. ”

"That's not right." The sergeant nodded, "But this kind of thing always happens, and this is war." ”

Otto was silent as he watched as the infantrymen who had shot the prisoners stabbed the back of the corpses on the ground with bayonets.

"That's not right." He whispered again, then looked away.