Chapter 90 Prediction
Borodino village, temporary headquarters of the 32nd Infantry Division.
When the troops were first stationed in the Borodino area, Polosukhin requisitioned the original collective farm office building in the village. Currently, the division headquarters is temporarily located here.
Inside the headquarters, Yuri and Polosukhin sat face to face at a desk, staring at a military map on the table in front of them and studying a new combat plan.
As far as the current situation is concerned, the 32nd Infantry Division's defensive front is too long, from Maslovo on the right wing close to the Moscow River to Semenovskoye on the left wing close to the Utitsa Forest, the entire defensive front is nearly 8 kilometers wide. On the right wing of the front, that is, the area north of Maslovo, the defensive position with Ruza Town as the core is defended by the 133rd Division of the 30th Army, while the left wing of the front, from the Utitsa Forest to the south, is defended by the 64th Infantry Division of the 16th Army.
Over the past day, the main attack direction of the German army was in front of the village of Borodino. Under the strict defense of the Soviet soldiers, their assault did not achieve any results, but instead resulted in the loss of a large number of soldiers and tanks.
But Yuri and Polosukhin did not feel relieved because the attacking German troops were only the vanguard, and behind them, the elite German "Imperial Armored Division" was on the way.
The 32nd Infantry Division did not have enough tanks to fight against the German armored forces. Therefore, the main force to resist the attack of the German armored division could only be the artillery. But the problem was that the artillery that the division headquarters could command was very limited, and Polosukhin could not provide artillery support for all the troops in the division.
There were no tanks to fight against the German armored forces, and the number of artillery was not enough to support the entire defense line. As a result, a pressing problem was placed before Polosukhin and Yuri, who was temporarily stationed at the headquarters of the 32nd Infantry Division: where should they concentrate their artillery units to most effectively strike the incoming German tank forces.
Looking at the battle map, Polosukhin believed that the German armored forces would definitely not attack the front of Borodino Village in the middle. The reason was simple. The terrain in front of Borodino Village was very unfavorable to German tanks. The Soviet army occupied the Kurganaya Heights in this area. The German attack was an upward attack. In addition, the rear of the Kurganaya Heights was full of jungles. Even if the German army captured the heights, its subsequent advancement would encounter great difficulties.
On the right wing, there is a road from Minsk to Moscow via Smolensk, where the terrain is relatively flat. However, Polosukhin believed that it was unlikely that the German armored forces would break through from that direction, because it was where jungles and swamps met, which was extremely unsuitable for large-scale armored forces to move.
Taking all this into consideration, Polosukhin believed that the German army had the greatest possibility of breaking through , because although the left wing was located in the outer area of the Utica Forest, the terrain there was relatively flat and not too complicated. Although there were no roads, due to heavy snow in recent times, the German armored forces seemed to have changed their past strategy of relying on roads to advance. In fact, in snowy weather, it seemed even more inconvenient for tanks to get rid of the roads and drive in the wilderness.
Unlike Polosukhin, although Yuri also believed that the German army would not choose the front area of Borodino as the breakthrough direction, he felt that the main breakthrough direction of the German army would most likely be on the right wing, that is, the German Imperial Armored Division would march along the road from Minsk via Smolensk to Moscow.
The reason why Yuri thought so was of course mostly from his memories of his past life, because in his memories, the Imperial Armored Division of the German Army in his past life took this road and also fell into a desperate situation on this road. Now, history has come to this point again, and Yuri certainly believes that history will repeat itself.
Of course, if he was asked to give some military reasons, he could find them, and they were well-founded: the outer area of the Utica Forest on the left wing, although flat and mainly plains, but as a suburb of Moscow, the better the terrain, the more people gathered, which was inevitable. Therefore, in the Utica area on the left wing, there were villages and collective farms of all sizes, such as Utica Village, Semenovskaya Village, Layevsky Village, etc., and these villages were next to each other and very dense. Obviously, relying on these villages and towns, the Soviet army was able to build one concentrated defense position after another in a very short time, making it difficult for the German army to move in the area. To put it bluntly, if the German army wanted to pass through that area, it had to be prepared to fight dozens of small-scale street battles. Obviously, that would be completely contrary to the tactics of the German mechanized forces to achieve a rapid breakthrough.
It must be admitted that Yuri's reasons were sufficient. At least Polosukhin was persuaded by him. After some discussion, the two finally decided to shift the focus of the artillery units to the right wing and concentrate 18 of the only 22 tanks in the hands of the 32nd Infantry Division on the left wing.
The 18 tanks assigned to the left wing were not used to fight against the German army. Yuri suggested that these tanks be effectively hidden in the villages and towns on the left wing, relying on buildings and equipped with anti-tank gun companies to block the armored forces that might pass through the German army. In order to attract the firepower of the German army and consume the ammunition of its tanks, Yuri also suggested that the troops spread some fake tanks made of wooden boards and cartons in the villages and towns on the left wing. These fake tanks will also be placed in some buildings. At the same time, the real Soviet tanks will be hidden on their flanks. Once the German tanks fire at the buildings hiding the fake tanks and expose their positions, the Soviet tanks hidden nearby can calmly fire and destroy them.
Polosukhin apparently thought that this was not safe enough, and he also planned to order his troops to lay a large number of mines around the villages and roads on the left wing to delay the attack of the German armored forces. In this way, even if Yuri made a wrong judgment and the German armored forces chose to break through from the left wing, after their attack was delayed, he would have enough time to redeploy the artillery units to the left wing.
As for the position on the right wing, Yuri and Polosukhin decided to build the defensive position in the angle between the Stonitz River and the Semyonovka River after consultation. There is a ridge there, and the road from Smolensk passes through this ridge. Below this ridge, there is a bridge across the Semyonovka River. Because the river is not very wide, the bridge is also very small, and it is a concrete bridge without guardrails.
This bridge is located at the bottom of the valley under the mountain ridge. The road passes through this bridge. On the road to the west of the bridge, there is a section of several hundred meters with jungles on both sides. Polosukhin believes that the artillery unit can be arranged on a hill on the south side of the mountain ridge, from where they can overlook the bottom of the valley below the mountain ridge. If the German army really chooses to break through from this direction, then the artillery unit from a high position will send them to hell.
In order to prevent the artillery unit from being discovered by German reconnaissance aircraft, Polosukhin gave the artillery unit stationed on the ridge a task, asking them to set up camouflage at the preset artillery positions: two anti-tank guns as a unit, need to set up a hidden position covered with a camouflage net, with snow on top of the hidden net, and the artillery hidden under the camouflage net. The camouflage net can only be removed after the battle starts.
However, as an experienced commander, Polosukhin never believed that the German army would choose to break through his position from the right wing. After all, this place was too advantageous for the defending troops. The German army was not stupid, so why would they choose such a tough bone to chew?
Since the German army launched a tentative attack on the positions in front of Borodino village, the front line in the entire Borodino area seemed to have fallen into calm again. For more than a day, the German army did not launch any intense attacks.
On the third day after Yuri arrived in Borodino, the division headquarters moved from Borodino to Gorki. On that day, the weather, which had just been sunny for two days, became gloomy again. At night, a cold current hit from the direction of Leningrad. The temperature, which was originally around minus 5 or 6 degrees, suddenly dropped to around minus 12 or 13 degrees in the early morning of the next day. In fact, even without this cold current, the drop in temperature is foreseeable. After all, it is not cold when it snows, but it is cold when the snow melts.
Yuri got up very early. He had been suffering from insomnia these days. He would often wake up several times during a night's sleep. It was not because of nightmares, but inexplicable palpitations, as if something bad was going to happen.
After asking Arseni to bring a basin of hot water, Yuri simply washed up and prepared to leave the camp to check out the front line without even having breakfast. But before he could get on the car, he was stopped by Polosukhin's guard.
"Comrade Lieutenant Colonel Yuri Arkhipovich, the colonel asks you to go to the headquarters immediately," the guard was a young man who spoke with a Siberian accent, mainly with a heavy and stiff pronunciation.
"Okay, I'll be there right away." Yuri gave up the idea of getting in the car. He turned around and said, "Do you know what it is?"
"We just received a call from Utica. The German army launched an offensive on the defense line there," said the guard.
Yuri's heart skipped a beat, and he asked almost subconsciously: "Is the attack fierce?"
"It was very fierce. The 635th Regiment has already lost its position and has now retreated to the village," the guard continued. "Moreover, the Germans have the support of the Air Force. Their bombing has caused great losses to the 635th Regiment."
"Where are the tank troops? The German tank troops, have they discovered the large-scale German tank troops?" Yuri asked.
"That, I'm not sure," the guard replied hesitantly.
