Chapter 52: Cannon Fodder Brigade
Chernihiv, Nizhne-Slanoye railway station.
Yuri stood on the dilapidated wooden-roofed platform, looking with a grim face at the train that was slowly approaching the station in front of him.
The Nizhny Slanoye Railway Station has now become a complete military station. Trains coming from Belgorod via Sumy and trains coming from Kursk via Konotop, except military trains, are not allowed to stop at this station.
The train that was slowly approaching the station was obviously a modified train. The first two carriages only had platforms, and each platform was equipped with two 37mm anti-aircraft guns. From the third carriage to the seventh carriage, there were tanks on board, and they were all new tanks. In addition to the T34, there were also some KV heavy tanks.
Behind the seventh carriage, there are four more wooden carriages. From a distance, they look like simple animal sheds, but they are not carrying cattle or sheep, but new soldiers recruited from Central Russia. They are also the soldiers of the 34th Motorized Independent Infantry Brigade that Yuri is currently organizing and is directly under the command of the Southwestern Front Command.
Well, from the beginning of the war until now, Yuri has tried his best and tried every possible means to escape the fate of being cannon fodder, but in the end, he became the commander of a cannon fodder unit.
According to the order of the Southwestern Front Command, this newly formed motorized independent infantry brigade was really large in scale. If we only look at its structure, it was almost as large as a Soviet division. It had three motorized infantry regiments, a tank regiment, two anti-tank artillery battalions, and an anti-aircraft artillery company.
The manpower configuration seemed good and worth celebrating, but in fact, the entire brigade was made up of new soldiers, a small number of whom were recruited from Kursk, Belgorod and other places in the past two months, while the vast majority were transferred from Siberia thousands of miles away. The most intolerable thing was that all the new soldiers transferred from Siberia were whom were from landlord families, some were relatives of the White Bandits, and some were criminals.
The poor quality of the troops was inevitable, and let's look at the commanders at the grassroots level. Before taking office, Yuri asked the front command to assign him some commanders at the regiment and battalion level with rich battlefield command experience. Comrade Baghramyan, the director of the operations department, readily agreed to his request. Then, 26 students from the First Infantry Academy of Kiev, the Kiev Artillery School and the Tank Command Academy were sent to Chernigov.
A group of recruits who had never been to the battlefield, coupled with a group of student commanders who had never been to the battlefield. Is there any army more miserable than this?
Yes, there really are. At least in Yuri's opinion, the above are not the worst. What is worse is that this team is not yet equipped with complete equipment.
The 34th Independent Brigade is a motorized infantry brigade with a tank regiment under it. At present, the front command has only 7 tanks, including 5 T-34 and 2 KV-2 heavy tanks. As for tankers, the front can no longer provide them, but it doesn't matter. This problem was solved by the ubiquitous tractor driver association in the Soviet Union. The Chernigov tractor driver association allocated 10 "experienced" tractor drivers.
In addition to the tank regiment, the 34th Independent Brigade also has three motorized infantry regiments. At first glance, this is at least a highly motorized unit, but the problem is that the vehicles allocated to the brigade include three three-wheeled motorcycles and the head of a hand tractor, and there is no other fuel-consuming vehicle. Oh, no, there is also a jeep belonging to Yuri. After making a request to the front army, the command replied that no vehicle could be dispatched at present, so the difficulties in this regard need to be solved by the 34th Independent Brigade itself.
The logistics of the front were tight and there were no vehicles to be deployed. Yuri could understand that it was okay. As a second choice, if there were no motor vehicles, could we just give them some mules and horses? When he called the front headquarters, the logistics department gave a rhetorical question: Since it was a motorized infantry brigade, what were mules and horses for? What they meant was that mules and horses were for infantry units, and motorized units should be equipped with vehicles.
As a result, the three motorized infantry regiments under the 34th Independent Brigade became the purest infantry regiments whose mobility was even inferior to that of pure infantry regiments. If Yuri had not borrowed some mules and horses from the 609th Infantry Regiment stationed in Chernigov, the 16 howitzers and 7 anti-aircraft guns equipped by the 34th Independent Brigade would probably have to be dragged to Berezna by the soldiers' manpower. However, the distance from Chernigov to Berezna is a full 15 kilometers.
All in all, the so-called 34th Motorized Independent Infantry Brigade was actually equivalent to a ragtag army with nothing. Yuri even suspected that after the Battle of Kiev, this damn unit number would be abolished.
Because of this, Yuri has been in a bad temper since coming to Chernigov. He is always angry but can't find a place to vent.
Yuri came to Slanoye Station today to see his new recruits. This is the fourth batch of new recruits to arrive in Chernihiv, with nearly 400 people. In the next few days, several more batches of new recruits will arrive. As the brigade commander, he does not know the exact number of recruits.
The order given to him by the front command was that he could receive as many new recruits as he wanted, but he could not be given more weapons. In addition, his responsibility was to defend Berezna to the death and not retreat a single step.
“Beep…”
As the train slowly pulled into the platform, the staff member who had been waiting on the conductor's seat for a long time blew the whistle, and the locomotive, covered with dust and oil, slowly passed by Yuri. With a hissing sound, the steam released by the piston rose up, covering most of the platform.
The entire station seemed to be boiling in an instant, with political workers wearing blue hats and security guards wearing black leather boots running back and forth on the platform. Outside the platform, soldiers armed with live ammunition formed a human wall to isolate the refugees who tried to rush into the station and prevent them from crowding towards the train.
Yuri threw away the half-smoked cigarette in his hand, looked towards the rear of the car, and walked towards it without saying a word. Behind him, Arseni hurriedly followed, scolding those guys who tried to rush to Yuri, fearing that they would bump into Comrade Major.
After walking about a hundred meters along the platform, Yuri came to a place not far from the troop carriages. At this time, the carriages had been opened, and the station guards were urging the recruits in the carriages to get off.
The recruits' uniforms are provided by the recruiting locations, and other items such as water bottles and marching bedding are also provided by the recruiting areas. Therefore, the recruits who get off the vehicles are dressed quite neatly.
The 34th Brigade had a recruiting officer stationed at the station, and this work was in the charge of the political commissar Demel Andreevich Rustav. After the recruits got off the train, they would first be gathered in the station's storage yard, where they could receive their own guns and two boxes of ammunition. At that time, Demel would hold a mobilization meeting for them, mainly to emphasize discipline and boost morale.
The Supreme Command issued relevant policies for these labor reform prisoners recruited from Siberia. All soldiers who performed well or died in battle, and their families, could get reduced sentences. Those who made meritorious contributions would be forgiven and could get jobs and promotion opportunities like ordinary Soviet citizens. As for those who were cowardly or even dared to escape, the army also had corresponding policies. The 34th Brigade had a 60-member inspection team, which was led by Demel himself. Its role was to deal with those soldiers who dared to escape and were passive in fighting. Such soldiers would be executed, and their families would also be punished by additional sentences.
In fact, these recruits already knew about policies like this before joining the army, and they are just emphasized here.
Standing on the platform, watching the confused recruits pouring out of the carriage, then being rounded up like cattle, counting themselves one by one, clumsily lining up, and finally ignoring the formation they had just formed and rushing to the platform exit like they were going to a market, Yuri felt like his head was about to explode.
He stopped looking. The more he looked, the more depressed he became. Yuri lit another cigarette, turned around and walked back - no, he had to readjust the previous battle arrangements. It was impossible to rely on these new recruits who had no combat experience to stop the powerful German army, especially Guderian's German army, in the outskirts of Berezna. It was a pipe dream.
Yuri strode back to where the jeep was parked, got into the car, took out the map from the briefcase he carried with him, and looked at it carefully.
Berezna is 15 kilometers east of Chernihiv. It is a satellite city of Chernihiv. It is a medium-sized city. The Desna River, the largest tributary of the Dnieper River, runs through the city center, dividing the entire city into two parts.
According to the previous order given by the front command, the 34th Brigade should set up a defense line in the area north of Berezna, in order to block the German troops attacking from this direction on the north bank of the Desna River, and especially not allow the German troops to establish a reliable landing site in the area south of the Desna River.
Now, Yuri realized that his troops certainly did not have the strong combat capability to fight the German army in the field due to the lack of manpower. Therefore, he planned to change the plan and abandon the positions outside Berezna, shrink the troops to the urban area, drag the German army into brutal street fighting, and offset the unique advantages of the German armored forces.
