Chapter 193: Tanks! Charge!
November 12, 1915, in the early hours.
Eastern Front, northern suburbs of Dnepro City, the assault position of a unit of the Germania 6th Army Group.
One elite Armored Training Division, two main armies, two Cavalry Divisions, one Army Group-affiliated Heavy Artillery Brigade, and several Railway Gun Units, totaling about 10 division-level combat units and 160,000 men, had already assembled at the forefront of the extensive defense zone around Dnepro City, ready to attack at any moment.
On the front about 150 kilometers wide from Dnepro City eastward, there were also attacking forces composed of three armies and a small number of Cavalry Divisions, deployed along the railway from Dnepro City to Donbas.
Key strongholds along the railway such as Petropavlivka, Hryshyne（the “HJ Village” that’s been very popular online these two years）, Donbas, each had attacking forces of one army assigned.
All the main forces of the 6th Army Group had been moved to this front line. Their first target was to advance north from the Dnepro City to Donbas line, attack the key northern Ukrainian railway hub town of Kharkiv, and then from Kharkiv advance westward along the railway line, enveloping the rear of Kyiv.
Originally, the operational plan formulated by Lelouch as Army Group Commander was to advance upstream along the Dnieper River banks from Dnepro City. But recently due to changes in the situation, he temporarily adjusted the operational plan to go directly north to Kharkiv first.
This was because going directly from Dnepro City to Kyiv would only allow travel by water route, and the Germania Army had no ships on the Dnieper River above Dnepro City, nor had they recently captured any ships. The progress of temporarily building ferries in Dnepro City was also not optimistic.
As for the railway from Dnepro City to Kyiv, there were two lines, but neither hugged the Dnieper River closely.
The one on the south bank of the Dnieper River passed through Pyatykhatky, Klynchky, Sofiyivka, and other places. Some of these node cities had temporarily fallen back into Lusha Army hands due to the recent counterattack by the Lusha Army in the middle section of the war zone toward the Krivoy Rog iron ore mine, with part of the Lusha Army’s 7th Army Group stationed there.
After Lelouch consulted Marshal Rupprecht, the Marshal also felt there was no need to clash head-on with the enemy’s main heavy forces. Since the middle route had let the enemy in, during our counterattack, we could take a longer detour and avoid the middle route as much as possible.
So the Duke temporarily decided on the route to envelop Kyiv with a deep thrust north from Dnepro City, changing from Pyatykhatky-Klynchky to Kharkiv.
Moreover, Kharkiv was also one of the two major northern railway hubs of Kievan Rus’. Apart from Kyiv, only Kharkiv had railways leading north to Moscow-Minsk and other places.
Taking Kharkiv early could also prevent the coal, grain, and other materials stockpiled there from continuing to be transported north back to the Lusha hinterland.
In short, while fighting for Kyiv, taking out Kharkiv along the way would definitely earn more.
The only thing to consider was: what is the cost?
The cost was that the 6th Army Group’s assault troops would have to take a slightly longer route and attack a greater distance.
Originally, advancing along the north bank of the Dnieper River from Dnepro City to Kyiv was about 400 kilometers total, but after choosing the new route, the main forces would take a slight detour from Dnepro City to Poltava, then from Poltava to Kyiv, for a total of 430 kilometers, 30 kilometers more.（Dnepro City to Poltava 120 kilometers, Poltava to Kyiv 310 kilometers）
The vanguard assault troops would have to detour even more, first going north 150 kilometers to Kharkiv, then southwest 110 kilometers to Poltava, and the final Poltava to Kyiv segment of 310 kilometers was the same, for a total route of up to 560 kilometers.
In other words, the main infantry troops would walk 30 kilometers more than originally planned, while the vanguard armored assault troops and cavalry units would have to travel a full 160 kilometers more.（Mainly because there is no direct railway from Dnepro City to Poltava, so they have to detour slightly to Kharkiv, and thus the attacking forces also have to detour to ensure control of the railway. Specific attack route as shown in the figure below）
But after assessment, Duke Rupprecht believed this level of difficulty was completely achievable.
Lelouch also believed that with the enemy’s current low morale and the shocking suddenness brought by his tank troops’ first battle, such a goal could absolutely be achieved. He had confidence in his Armored Division.
In the end, the actual operational plan was adjusted to this form.
The opposing Lushans had a total of five Army Groups, while the German-Austrian Allied Forces had three Army Groups.
The entire front line stretched from the westernmost Rivne, Vinnytsia; to the middle section at the great bend of the Dnieper River in Krivoy Rog, Sofiyivka; and finally to the eastern section at Dnepro City, Donbas.
In the west, the Germania 10th Army Group, led by Old Marshal Leopold, confronted the Lusha 13th Army Group transferred from Belarus;
In the middle section, the Austrian 3rd Army Group, along with part of the Romanian vassal forces, was responsible for holding off the strongest 4th and 7th Army Groups in the Lusha Southwestern Front;
Considering the weak combat effectiveness of the Austrian Army and Romanian Army, both Marshal Leopold and Marshal Rupprecht tacitly did not assign any deep counterattack tasks to the Austrian Army. The Austrian Army’s task was to hold back the enemy’s middle route attacking forces, consume their offensive strength, and if necessary, even slightly retreat, as long as they did not allow a breakthrough of the Dnieper River defense line that would sever the east-west fronts.
The eastern section of the front was handled by the Germania 6th Army Group, facing the Lusha 9th Army Group facing Kharkiv（newly rebuilt, renumbered from a reserve Army Group coming south from the Kursk region）
Finally, in the Lusha Army’s rear hinterland, there was the newly reinforced Lusha 6th Army Group, deployed around Kyiv. As the total reserve of the entire Lusha Front and the troops guarding the rear nest.
So in reality, it was German-Austrian three Army Groups, plus two Armored Divisions and several Cavalry Divisions, fighting the Lushans’ five Army Groups, plus several Cossack Cavalry Divisions.
The Germania 10th Army Group had about 350,000 troops participating in this battle, the Austrian 3rd Army Group 250,000, Romanians 80,000, Germania 6th Army Group 380,000, plus two independent reinforced Armored Divisions totaling 60,000, several Cavalry Divisions 50,000, for a campaign total force of 1.17 million.
The Lusha side’s forces, as mentioned earlier, totaled five Army Groups, 26 armies, 85 division-level designations, a total of 1.52 million.
The combined total participating forces of both sides reached a staggering 2.69 million, already the largest campaign in this World War.
……
November 12, exactly 4 a.m.
The Germania 6th Army Group’s assault positions along the Dnepro City to Donbas line were fully prepared.
The entire Army Group had assembled over 1,600 cannons, initiating fierce bombardment fire preparation simultaneously at the four frontline nodes of Dnepro City, Petropavlivka, Hryshyne, and Donbas.
Dnepro City was the first attack focus, with 700 cannons assembled in one place, including six 280mm railway guns.
Donbas was the second attack focus, with 500 cannons assembled; the remaining Petropavlivka and Hryshyne each had only about 200.
Like rain, the artillery shells suddenly tore through the night sky in the darkest moment before dawn, smashing ferociously at the Lusha Army’s frontline positions to the north with thunderous force.
In an instant, the sky collapsed and the earth cracked. Everything was shattered; 150mm and 105mm high-explosive grenades, each carrying 12 kg and 4 kg of TNT respectively, pounded the Lusha defense line viciously. Hitting a trench caused direct collapse and destruction; hitting a bunker turned it instantly to dust.
On the frontline defense line, every segment had thousands of Lusha soldiers directly killed or wounded by the fire preparation. The casualties at the two railway-aligned attack foci of Dnepro City and Donbas were even more horrific.
At least the positions within 10 kilometers of the front were directly abandoned by the Lusha Army; they knew the frontline positions could not be held.
Especially since the Lusha 9th Army Group was newly reorganized from reserves, most soldiers had never truly been to the battlefield. Only about one or two in ten were backbone veterans drawn from other friendly forces to lead the new ones.
Such troops had extremely fragile willpower when facing fierce bombardment. The generals and officers were well aware of the quality of their men.
Fortunately, the Eastern Front battlefield had great depth; abandoning a mere 10-plus kilometers was nothing. They could continue organizing depth defenses to slowly consume the Germania Army’s assault momentum.
The fire preparation lasted a full 90 minutes. After the bombardment, at 5:30 a.m., the Germania Army finally launched a full-line ground offensive.
In the Dnepro City direction, a reorganized Tank Division served as the vanguard spearhead, thrusting north.
In the Donbas direction, several Cavalry Divisions were deployed along the railway line, ready to infiltrate after the infantry broke through the frontline positions and rapidly advance along the railway to the enemy rear.
In the middle section at Petropavlivka and Hryshyne, Marshal Rupprecht had not assigned any armored or cavalry forces; they would rely on infantry to push forward steadily, seeking steady progress.
……
Lelouch himself sat in a 10-ton custom machine gun tank, leading his Tank Division,
setting out from the town of Samara, over ten kilometers north of Dnepro City’s suburbs, continuing north along the Samara River, a tributary of the north bank of the Dnieper River, toward another town 10 kilometers away called Horubivka.
The reason Lelouch’s tank was called custom was that the Germania Army’s tanks were currently in two models: one was a 10-ton tank with a 57mm short-barreled gun, the other a cannonless 7-ton machine gun tank.
Yet Lelouch’s tank, clearly 10 tons, had no gun installed and retained the machine gun tank’s firepower configuration. The main difference was that Lelouch’s tank had a higher-power radio, which could break the limit of ordinary tank radios’ 10-30 kilometer daytime communication range, achieving over 100 kilometers of daytime wireless communication.
Of course, a single uprated transmitter wouldn’t use two or three tons of payload. But the large radio’s size restricted installing a gun, so to avoid wasting payload, the remaining over one ton of spare weight was temporarily allocated to armor. This tank’s side and front armor were thickened by 5-10mm respectively, further improving safety, and it was used as a command tank.
Before the battle, the Porsche-Skoda Armaments Factory had only managed to rush-produce over 200 tanks.
Lelouch adapted to this equipment scale, organizing his Armored Division’s two Armored Regiments into two tank battalions per regiment, three tank companies per battalion.
One tank per squad, 16 squads per company made 16 tanks, plus one command tank for the company commander, 17 per company. 51 per battalion, plus three at battalion HQ made 54.
Two per Tank Regiment made 108, plus three at regimental HQ made 111. Division level times two made 222, plus three at division HQ totaled 225. Dr. Porsche had only managed to produce this many for Lelouch; he had only a dozen or so spare vehicles left for mobile allocation, all others incorporated.
The Armored Division advanced north like a hot knife through butter; the initial march was very smooth. The 10 kilometers along the way had almost no enemy resistance; the Lusha frontline positions were completely destroyed by artillery fire preparation.
Lelouch reached Horubivka town without a drop of blood spilled. As the tanks passed the town mayor’s residence, he glanced at his watch—it was only 5:40, the whole way taking just over half an hour.
The biggest obstacle along the way was instead the shell craters from their own artillery bombardment, which slowed the tanks’ marching speed somewhat.
“Continue advancing! We’ve only gone a dozen kilometers, no need to refuel, don’t stop!”
Lelouch waved his hand decisively, and the Armored Division rolled forward again, advancing several more kilometers north along the Samara River and the Dnepro City-Kharkiv railway.
Only upon reaching a trifurcation river mouth town did they finally encounter decent resistance from the Lusha Army.
This trifurcation river mouth town was called Pereschepyne, a town with only over 10,000 population.
But the town was located at the confluence of the Samara River and its tributary the Orel River. The Dnepro City-Kharkiv railway had to pass through a small railway bridge spanning the Orel River in the town center when going through the town, so though small, it was a strategic key point.
Plus, this place was a full 17 kilometers from the frontline positions that morning; the Germania Army’s fire preparation couldn’t reach that far or deep.
So the Lusha garrison in the town had relatively intact combat strength; an entire Infantry Division was ordered to defend the town to the death, absolutely not letting the enemy pass the railway bridge.
The town-defending Division Commander had received a death order from the Army Group Commander: even if the town ultimately fell, the railway bridge over the Orel River must be destroyed before it fell, or bring his head to see him.
“Germania men are coming! They definitely have armored vehicles! Final check of the trenches! Ensure the railway is also dug up, absolutely no flat weak points left on the defense line! Otherwise the enemy’s armored vehicles will charge along those flat areas!”
The Lusha Division Commander saw the enemy’s armored vehicles appear on the horizon through his telescope and trembled slightly, hurriedly issuing repeated emphatic orders on combat tactics.
Fifty days ago, Lelouch’s use of armored vehicles to advance 42 kilometers in one day, breaking through the Dzhankoy Peninsula and Troitskoye Peninsula two natural strongpoints, was now deeply ingrained in minds.
All Lusha Army generals had thoroughly studied the lessons of that battle, and from then on, when defending railway-line towns, they no longer dared to save effort or prioritize their own traffic convenience by not digging up the railway.
They knew they couldn’t leave any breaks in the trenches on the defense line, because that kind of armored vehicle couldn’t be stopped by infantry firepower.
The only hope was that the trenches were wide and deep enough that the enemy couldn’t cross. And to ensure the enemy couldn’t cross, the trenches had to be dug completely; when passing the railway, better to dig up the railway too than leave a break in the trenches.
……
While the opposing Lusha Division Commander observed Lelouch’s Armored Division, Lelouch was also observing the enemy’s movements through the gunner’s telescope.
“The enemy has no direct-fire artillery deployed along the river; their only cannons are probably deployed in the rear, ready for indirect fire coverage when we cross the river.
The accuracy of such indirect fire makes it hard to hit tanks directly; it relies entirely on fragments to kill infantry, but fragments are completely ineffective against tanks.
Hurry and seize this opportunity: detach one tank company to immediately charge along the railway bridge, cross the trenches, and establish a bridgehead position on the opposite shore.
Once the bridgehead is established, half-track vehicles will immediately transport infantry across; yes, first batch just one mechanized infantry battalion will suffice.”
After observing, Lelouch immediately issued the order, very simple, direct, and brutal: charge hard with no fire preparation.
This seemed somewhat reckless, but actually showed deep understanding of the enemy army’s reaction speed—from their ground offensive launch until now, only one hour had passed, and this town was 17 kilometers behind the front line. The garrison here absolutely did not expect the enemy’s armored troops to appear so quickly, so their defensive deployments inevitably hadn’t had time for targeted adjustments.
At such a time, of course, fully utilize the suddenness of the tanks’ initial battle to expand results at maximum speed.
Lelouch had no time to wait for the division artillery unit to catch up slowly; he couldn’t even wait for fighter jet air support.
Seventeen tanks quickly formed five V-shaped small formations and charged toward the riverbank trench defense line.
“Germania armored vehicles are coming up!” Lusha officers and men began fiercely machine-gunning, then called for artillery support, with shells landing on the position one after another.
But this long-range indirect artillery hitting moving targets, relying on forward observers for spotting rather than gunner direct aiming, hitting would be a miracle.
The M1910 heavy machine gun’s “da-da-da” fierce bursts only splashed a few sparks on the tank armor, with no effect whatsoever.
Seeing the defensive fire completely ineffective, large numbers of Lusha soldiers immediately began fleeing in fear.
Many were harvested and killed by machine gun bullets sweeping from behind even in their panicked retreat, dying piece by piece in the area between the two trench lines.
The Lusha town-defending Division Commander and Regimental Commanders also saw the horrific state of the frontline soldiers through their telescopes, clenching their jaws speechless.
They could only silently pray inwardly: “The previously dug trench network is already comprehensive enough, no dead angles left; the enemy’s armored vehicles can’t be penetrated by gunfire, but at least they can’t cross…”
However, this prayer was in vain just a few minutes later.
Because the town-defending Lusha Division Commander watched wide-eyed as Lelouch’s tanks drove up to the trenches, then easily drove past. In minutes, crossing several trench lines, they drove straight onto the railway bridge spanning the Orel River.
“What? Impossible! How can those armored vehicles drive directly over the trenches? Won’t their wheels sink? And the rainy season hasn’t ended yet; the land on both banks of the Orel River is especially muddy and soft—even without trenches, it’s impossible to drive over so easily! God! What exactly happened!”
The enemy’s armored vehicles: armor still that armor, firepower still that firepower.
But cross-country obstacle-crossing capability had undergone earth-shaking changes, beyond the Lusha garrison commander’s cognition.
He hadn’t anticipated at all that the riverbank muddy zone and trench zone would be breached so quickly; he hadn’t even had time to arrange Engineer Corps to plant explosives on the railway bridge.
The entire railway bridge was directly seized by the Germania Army’s unknown new-model armored vehicles!
“Da-da-da” MG08 heavy machine gun bullets unleashed flanking fire on the Lusha positions at the north bank bridgehead.
The 57mm short-barreled gun also turned with the vehicle body, direct-aim point-blank firing at the machine gun bunkers on the bridgehead.
The Lushans’ only two concrete bunkers guarding the bridgehead were also blasted open under the 57mm shells’ face-to-face bombardment. Soldiers inside were either crushed to death by the collapsing structure; the lucky survivors hurriedly fled the collapsed cover, but couldn’t escape the tank machine guns’ pursuit and sweeping fire, falling one by one into pools of blood.
“My unit has advanced unimpeded, zero casualties breaking through the Orel River defense line, and intact capture of the Pereschepyne railway bridge spanning the Orel River.”
After securing the north bank bridgehead, that tank company commander triumphantly reported success to the regimental and division commanders over the radio.
Lelouch immediately had the radio operator relay the order for one mechanized infantry battalion to cross the bridge immediately and deploy on the north bank.
At the same time, he ordered that vanguard tank battalion: “Brothers from the mechanized infantry units will handle controlling the flanking positions; your task is to continue advancing!”
