novelden Chapter 193: Battle of Rostov
Chapter 193: Battle of Rostov
Since the focus of the battle had been decided, the three of them didn't say anything more and immediately stood up and walked towards everyone.
On the way, Lao Peng joked: "You are like Sun Ce borrowing Jingzhou and never coming back!"
Lin quickly said sternly, "General Peng, you are wronging me. So, Chief of Staff Huang will lend me the special operations regiment for six months, and I will return it to you with a fully equipped and manned special operations regiment!"
Hearing Lin say this, Huang Wei sighed in his heart: It's over, this special forces regiment will never come back!
Lao Peng immediately called everyone to a meeting and explained the proposed battle plan. Lao Peng's plan was: two tank divisions of the 115th Army and the tank troops of the 200th Army would form a strong assault group, break through from the northwest of Rostov, and ambush the tank troops of the Soviet 55th and 58th Armies. Once the German tank group emerged, they would ambush from the side.
The commander of the Soviet 58th Panzer Army, Andrei Ivanovich Yeremenko, raised an objection. He believed that if the 58th Army were to launch a strong assault in the northwest, and the 55th Army were to mix in some American tanks to pretend that the Chinese army was moving from the southwest, the German army would think that our army was divided, giving him the opportunity to defeat them one by one, which would better attract the German armored forces to come out.
Lin did not expect that the Soviet commander could see his loopholes and improve the plan. He could not help but look at the Soviet commander with admiration.
Old Peng also noticed this and nodded in agreement with the Soviet commander. Then, the others further refined the plan: a regiment from the 343A Division would be deployed to join the Soviet 55th Army in a feint in the southwest. The Soviet 58th Army would organize a strong breakthrough in the northwest. Yang Hong would personally lead the 200th Army and the 115th Army's 343rd Tank Division in a flanking ambush. Lin would be the overall commander of the siege.
On January 1944, 1, the first day of the new year, the operation known as the "New Year's Day Fortifications" officially began. Four divisions of the 115th Army, plus several heavy artillery groups of the southern front troops, launched an attack on the city of Rostov!
Lin ordered the artillery to maintain continuous fire, covering the various units' feint attacks. He also directed the underground excavation operations, working around the clock to advance on Rostov. Simultaneously, a tank group, primarily composed of the Soviet 58th Panzer Army, launched an assault from the northwest of Rostov, attempting to bypass the German defenses and penetrate Rostov's rear, severing the railway line and opening a route to Ukraine. Meanwhile, a group, primarily composed of the Soviet 55th Tank Group, disguised as the main force of the Chinese Expeditionary Force, launched an assault from the southwest of Rostov, also aiming to sever the railway line to the Caucasus and cut off access to the German-held oil fields there.
The German 4th Panzer Army had indeed been tricked. Through air reconnaissance and frontline reports, Colonel-General Hermann Hoth determined whether the Chinese and Soviet armies offered him the opportunity to defeat them one by one. Without hesitation, he immediately concentrated the 4th Army's tank and anti-tank forces. His plan, as Lin had predicted, was to prioritize a breakthrough against the Soviet 58th Army in the northwest before turning back to engage the Chinese forces in the southwest.
At 2 a.m. on January 9, the tank cluster of the German 4th Panzer Army and the tank cluster of the Soviet 58th Army encountered each other in the open plain area of the lower reaches of the Don River, and the second large-scale tank battle on the southern front broke out.
The battle was brutal. German tanks, backed by their air force, launched a frenzied attack on the Soviets. The Soviets, not to be outdone, fought back fiercely under the cover of both the US and Soviet air forces. For a moment, countless planes crisscrossed the sky, their engines blazing and deafening. The sky was filled with a hail of bullets, showering the air with sparks. From time to time, damaged planes plummeted from the sky, billowing with smoke.
On the ground, the rumble of artillery and the roar of tank engines resonated like a symphony. The ground was filled with black smoke from tanks, and from time to time there were fireworks from artillery fire, flames from hit tanks, and brilliant fireworks from the explosions...
The battle raged for over three hours, with neither side able to defeat the other. General Hermann Hoth was forced to commit his last reserves. Huang Wei, lying in ambush, awaited this moment. Following Huang Wei's orders, the 3th Tank Division, primarily composed of tanks, charged the enemy frontally, while the 600rd and 343rd Tank Divisions maneuvered to the left and right, striking directly at the German flanks and rear. Hidden Soviet rocket batteries, with their heavy artillery fire, disrupted the German rearguard and cut off their supply lines.
The situation suddenly deteriorated. Hermann Hoth, realizing he had been tricked, ordered his Tiger tanks to form a rearguard and Panthers as the assault force, attempting to break through the encirclement of the Chinese and Soviet armies. Huang Wei, understanding the Germans' actions, deployed M6A1s as frontline blockers and M6B1s as the annihilation line. The M6s, combined with Soviet T-34s and K2s, formed a tighter encirclement, forcing the German tank cluster to an area of less than 100 square kilometers.
Since the German tank cluster was isolated from other troops, the rapid assault group composed of American M5A1 light tanks showed their prowess and quickly broke through the German artillery positions and swept the German supporting firepower. The German grenadiers' resistance was very tenacious, but they encountered the 200th Army that had been deliberately prepared. Countless 105mm short-range 9-barrel rocket launchers were concentrated, causing a fatal blow to the German grenadiers.
By 4 p.m., except for the compressed tank group, all other German troops and defense lines were defeated. The Chinese and Soviet troops broke through the railway line, detoured westward, and completely surrounded Rostov. Seeing the bad situation, the German troops on the southwest front immediately retreated to the Caucasus region, attempting to use the mountains to form a new defense line with the German troops defending the Caucasus region.
Later that day, it became clear that the German Fourth Panzer Army's four corps in the Rostov front had been nearly routed, surrounded, and annihilated, with the exception of less than half of its tanks, which were still holding out. General Hermann Hoth, realizing he was powerless, committed suicide.
Lieutenant General Bodman Wiltens, the front-line commander of the German tank group, showed amazing perseverance, organized a strong breakthrough of the group, took advantage of the night, broke out from the weak direction of the Soviet 58th Army, and headed towards Volgodonsk.
At this point, the Chinese and Soviet tank clusters were practically exhausted, unable to continue pursuing the fleeing German tank clusters. In this battle, the German 4th Panzer Army lost nearly 300 tanks and tank destroyers, with fewer than 100 escaping. The Chinese and Soviet armies also lost approximately 250 tanks and tank destroyers of various types. The heaviest losses were suffered by the Soviet T-34, which still couldn't match the German and American main battle tanks in terms of protection and firepower. However, the T-34's greatest strength was its simple structure and rapid production, which was precisely the Soviet strategy for countering the Germans' targeted attack: leveraging its numerical advantage to neutralize the Germans' qualitative advantage. Ultimately, this strategy led to victory in the war!