Chapter 179: Capturing Troitske In A Single Day
September 23, 10:00 AM sharp.
Inside Troitskoye town, 27 kilometers north of the cross-sea bridge, Lusha 6th Army Group 21st Division headquarters.
Clattering hoofbeats approached from afar, and several signalmen rushed into the division headquarters courtyard in a panic, gasping for breath with hoarse voices as they demanded to see Division Commander Vladimir.
“Where did you retreat from? What’s the situation at the foremost front line? Why hasn’t there been any response from the radio in the Dzhankoy defense sector?”
Hearing that signalmen who had fled in defeat from the front had arrived, the already frantic Brigadier General Vladimir, Division Commander, disregarded his status and rushed out to the courtyard himself to inquire about the situation.
“Di… Division Commander, we are from 3rd Regiment 7th Battalion. I’m Vasily Blyukher. I’m the only officer left alive in our battalion who broke out. I was hiding in a pile of corpses in the trench at the time, dodging the enemy’s air strafing, then I barely escaped to the shore and waded north in retreat.
The enemy dispatched landing surprise attack troops, rowing small boats at dawn to find weak spots in our North Bank defenses, bypassing across the 2-kilometer-wide lagoon surface to surprise and seize our North Bank bridgehead!
Then, the enemy’s armored car troops arrived at the cross-sea bridge South Bank bridgehead in just 45 minutes, completely controlling the bridge. Our army’s two regiments’ troops were all annihilated by the enemy on the South Bank! Only a few troops swam across the lagoon on foot to break out and escape back to the North Bank.
Sorry, we took it upon ourselves to break out and return. On the North Bank, we found friendly forces and got war horses, then hurried here to report the news. The South Bank 3rd Regiment’s radio was abandoned during the enemy’s rapid push forward and we didn’t have time to send a telegram. The North Bank 2nd Regiment has no radio equipment, so we could only ride horses to report.”
After Brigadier General Vladimir finally confirmed this bad news, he completely slumped in despair, staggering back three or four steps, his legs giving way as he leaned against a large tree behind him.
The Lusha Army’s radio allocation was really too sparse. His division, as a reinforced division, had only 3 radios in total.
The defenders on the South Bank Dzhankoy Peninsula, if their radio was damaged in the enemy’s first wave assault, or if their several backup radio operators were all bombed to death, it was very possible they couldn’t send a telegram.
Don’t complain that Lushans don’t value radios. The 21st Division having 3 radios was already pretty good; other poorer reserve divisions might have only 1 radio for the entire division.
Originally this autumn, the high command had painfully decided to beg ally nations for more radios, ensuring improvement from the previous “every division has a radio” to “every regiment has a radio.”
But just a few days ago, the 500 military radios that Britannians had smuggled in through Norway and part of Sweden’s pro-Britannia faction with great difficulty were actually intercepted and hijacked by a Germania cruiser in the Gulf of Bothnia.
As a result, it was estimated that until next spring, the Lusha command system couldn’t equip radios down to regiment level. They still had to endure several more months in this extremely harsh command and communications environment.
At this moment, because there were too few radios, the division commander only confirmed this news a full hour and a half after his two reinforced regiments on the South Bank were annihilated and the bridge was lost. Brigadier General Vladimir felt himself enveloped in deep fear.
The enemy had pierced through 15 kilometers of depth on the South Bank in just 2 hours, and now another hour and a half had passed. How much further had the enemy advanced in this time?
“Bring the map immediately! I need to confirm the latest battle situation!”
With Vladimir’s shout, the nearby division staff officer hurriedly fetched the map in a fluster and spread it directly in the courtyard.
The South Bank Dzhankoy Peninsula area had a north-south depth of 15 kilometers, while the North Bank Troitskoye Peninsula had a north-south depth of 20 kilometers. After leaving the peninsula, another 7 kilometers north on the mainland reached Troitskoye county town.
Brigadier General Vladimir’s map also marked the previous defensive positions. The entire 20-kilometer-deep Troitskoye Peninsula did not have tight defenses throughout.
This peninsula was spindle-shaped, narrow at both ends with a wide middle. The central approximately 12-kilometer north-south area had an east-west width of 3~5 kilometers.
But in the southernmost 3 kilometers and the northernmost 5 kilometers, the east-west width was particularly narrow. The south end averaged only 2 kilometers wide, the north end only 1 kilometer, and the narrowest part at the peninsula’s root was only 400~600 meters.
The 21st Division’s originally tightly defended positions on the bridge-north peninsula were also in these two areas. Because these spots were narrow, constructing trench defense lines there was low cost. As for the central 12 kilometers of bad terrain, there simply weren’t enough manpower to dig trenches one by one normally.
After confirming the terrain, Division Commander Vladimir assessed the enemy’s previous advance speed and finally made a precise judgment: “The enemy took the bridge an hour and a half ago. I estimate the defensive position about 3 kilometers north-south deep right after crossing the bridge has definitely been breached by now. The central 12 kilometers of bad terrain can’t be held either.
We’d better concentrate all our strength quickly to defend the 5-kilometer narrow area at the northernmost root of the Troitskoye Peninsula. That’s our only possible choke point to block them! If we block there, there’s still hope.
If we can’t block it, the enemy will immediately be let into the open area of the Nogai Steppe. I’ve heard the enemy concentrates armored cars. Although we haven’t seen that weapon’s actual combat effect with our own eyes, by common sense, once armored cars enter the great steppe, there will be endless trouble!”
The “Nogai Steppe” in Brigadier General Vladimir’s mouth might be unheard of by foreigners, but it actually refers to the southernmost part of the Kievan Rus’ Great Plain, the coastal dry steppe area from east of the Dnieper River Estuary to south of the Don River Estuary.
This “Nogai Steppe” is also part of the “Lusha dry steppe（Russian-Steppe）,” the lush grazing land that Cossacks have relied on for nomadic survival for centuries.
Letting armored car troops charge into the vast flat steppe was terrifying to even think about.
Brigadier General Vladimir knew this was his last and only chance to block the enemy. He immediately made deployments, ordering all the division’s reserve teams scattered elsewhere to reinforce south, to absolutely block the 5-kilometer treacherous area at the root of the Troitskoye Peninsula and prevent the enemy from breaking out of the peninsula into the steppe.
Even if the enemy was stronger, that defense sector’s narrowest point was only 400 meters—surely they could hold it by piling up lives? Moreover, after the enemy advanced so far in one day, their heavy artillery group couldn’t possibly keep up with deployment.
On the South Bank Dzhankoy Peninsula, the Lusha Army fought so miserably mainly because they were bombarded badly by the German Army’s long-premeditated forward-deployed heavy artillery group.
But if the battlefield shifted to the northernmost root of the North Bank Troitskoye Peninsula, that was at least 35 kilometers from this morning’s starting line.
Artillery of 105 mm and above in this era needed at least half a day to relocate and redeploy positions; 150 mm guns might take a full day.
In 1915, heavy cannon position construction was very slow and laborious, not even considering the time needed to re-hitch the cannons to vehicles and march 30 kilometers north.
So, if the enemy really wanted to attack that fast, their big cannons absolutely absolutely couldn’t keep up!
Considering this, the advantage of holding out today was still ours! And as long as they held through today, he could immediately call for aid and pull in other friendly forces to reinforce the defense—everything still had variables.
Brigadier General Vladimir thought so.
And while he was urgently instructing deployment adjustments, several more war horses soon galloped back from the front line, bringing newer signalmen with even worse news.
“Report! The German Army has reached our positions at the peninsula’s north end and launched a new offensive! The enemy is currently about 13~14 kilometers from the county town!”
Brigadier General Vladimir almost jumped up upon hearing this news.
“What? They got here this fast? Didn’t they have to breach the 3-kilometer fortified area at the southern end of the Troitskoye Peninsula, then pass through a full 12 kilometers of undefended area? Including attack and march, 15 kilometers in just 1.5 hours? Impossible! What god-like advance speed is this!”
Brigadier General Vladimir was stunned by such divine speed.
He didn’t dare delay a moment longer and hurriedly mobilized the division headquarters’ remaining few trucks, ordering the drivers to drive immediately to relocate the division headquarters to the front line and bring the division headquarters’ radio along.
……
A good half hour later, at exactly 11:00 AM, Brigadier General Vladimir finally arrived at the front-line positions at the northernmost end of the Troitskoye Peninsula.
Before him was a treacherous fortified area about 3~4 kilometers north-south long and only 400~600 meters east-west wide—a natural choke point.
Moreover, learning from the lesson of the friendly forces’ annihilation on the south side early that morning, the Lusha defenders here had urgently adjusted their defensive tactics and temporarily added new fortifications.
That morning on the southern Dzhankoy Peninsula, the Lusha Army’s main big loss was not digging trenches in the 200-300 meter area along the railway line, originally to facilitate their own use of the railway.
But precisely, the German Army’s armored car cluster furiously advanced north along the relatively flat terrain on both sides of the railway, seizing one trench network end after another. Then they covered German assault battalions entering the trenches to sweep laterally along the trenches, clearing Lusha troops.
Thanks to the five-hour time difference bought by the southern friendly forces, the Lusha troops here quickly learned their lesson, so they temporarily extended the trenches right up to the railway edges, even digging up the railway at the cost of destroying it—
Anyway, the railway bridge connecting the Dzhankoy Peninsula and Troitskoye Peninsula had been seized by the German Army, so Lushans could no longer use this railway to head south to rescue Sevastopol. Might as well destroy the railway! If we can’t use it, the enemy won’t either!
Of course, due to the rush, these trench extensions definitely couldn’t be reinforced with logs on the side walls in time, nor dug too deep.
Otherwise, unreinforced side walls could easily collapse, and even if not, enemy bombardment would quickly cause them to crumble.
But in any case, these hastily dug simple trenches about 1.5 meters deep could already block armored cars with poor obstacle-crossing ability. Besides these temporary trenches, Lushans also concentrated manpower to dig thousands of foxholes about half a meter deep on both sides of the railway.
The dug soil was piled into triangular pyramids. Although these soft soil pyramids would scatter on impact and couldn’t compare at all to later professional concrete anti-tank posts or even “dragon’s teeth” systems, having them was better than nothing—they could at least somewhat delay the armored cars’ movement.
When Brigadier General Vladimir saw all this, he was still quite satisfied inwardly and commended the three regimental commanders garrisoned here under his command.
Although they had suffered defeat, they learned quickly, had summarized the lessons from the southern friendly forces’ annihilation, and made targeted reinforcements.
“What’s the latest battle situation now?” After understanding the defensive setup, he hurriedly followed up on the current situation.
“The enemy breached our first defense line again, penetrating over a kilometer into our defense zone, but we still have about four kilometers of defensive depth. We’ve destroyed over a dozen enemy armored cars! And we’ve deployed all supporting artillery fire.”
“The enemy’s artillery hasn’t caught up. We can definitely hold this time!”
The three subordinates spoke one after another in a chaotic mess, but Brigadier General Vladimir still got the good news he wanted, his confidence growing firmer as he personally commanded continued holding.
……
On the opposite German Army positions, Deputy Division Commander Rommel finally met tough resistance after advancing a full 32 kilometers in one morning.
Here they had been delayed a full hour, breaking only the enemy’s first trench defense line with no further progress.
The positions had 8 completely wrecked armored car wrecks still billowing thick smoke, plus 5 more damaged to varying degrees by near misses. Though possibly repairable, they were temporarily out of combat.
Earlier in the south, breaching so many enemy defense lines had only cost 4 armored cars, but here they lost 13 at once. The entire armored regiment was equipped with only 80 vehicles; losing 17 at once significantly weakened the assault power.
“Damn! Advanced too smoothly before and underestimated the difficulty of independent combat after detaching from our own artillery support range.”
Rommel angrily punched the armored car’s top steel plate, ignoring the pain in his fist, his eyes full of regret and unwillingness.
He was also someone with very quick tactical reactions. After the brief setback just now, he had immediately realized the problem.
The rapid advance early that morning on the southern Dzhankoy Peninsula mainly relied on sufficient own artillery fire preparation. But the armored advance was too fast for the cannons to keep up.
Although their division’s artillery regiment was equipped with half-track vehicles and trucks to quickly tow the big guns forward, in this era, gathering, deploying, and building cannon positions still took hours, so no way could they catch up to Rommel’s exaggerated “32 kilometers in 5.5 hours” speed.
If Rommel waited until late afternoon, perhaps the truck-towed cannons could re-enter combat, but he was counting on continuing the offensive right now at 11:00 AM—the artillery couldn’t arrive no matter what.
Unless Lelouch developed tracked self-propelled guns ahead of time—only that thing could truly keep up with armored assault troops’ speed, saving deployment and packing time. But Rommel was no transmigrator; he couldn’t conceive of “tracked self-propelled guns,” and even if he did, there was no time to make them.
The battle situation was temporarily deadlocked here.
Rommel had no choice but to temporarily revert to traditional assault battalion assault methods, having the soldiers who had entered the first enemy defense line trench network set up light machine gun positions, then use grenade launchers to curve-fire suppress the subsequent second-line positions.
But this tactic was similarly ineffective; the soldiers in the trenches simply didn’t dare concentrate their forces.
The enemy’s field gun group was still randomly bombarding, continuously suppressing the first trench network controlled by the German Army.
To reduce casualties, Rommel had to disperse the troops as much as possible, with some reserves even forced to withdraw to rear safe positions able to dodge enemy artillery strikes.
Lushans’ 76 mm field guns generally had a range of about 8 kilometers, and their cannons were deployed at least 5 kilometers behind the front defense line. So as long as Rommel retreated 2~3 kilometers behind the engagement front, he could dodge out of the enemy medium-caliber field guns’ strike range.
Of course, the enemy still had a few single-digit 122 mm guns that could reach deeper into German Army positions, but there were so few that as long as they found good cover, there generally wasn’t much threat.
Rommel thus bitterly held out a full half hour and finally waited for a turning point.
The rear Armored Training Division 2nd Armored Regiment, personally led by Division Commander Lelouch, also arrived at the battlefield.
Upon learning of Rommel’s assault setback, Lelouch immediately had him come over for a face-to-face report.
Rommel respectfully and detailedly reported once, also making a self-criticism for his overadvance.
“Sorry, Division Commander, it was my overadvance. Previously advanced too smoothly, resulting in taking a big loss in this fortified area at the northernmost root of the Troitskoye Peninsula, wasting over a dozen armored cars.”
After understanding the situation, Lelouch didn’t harshly blame him, just heavily patted his shoulders a few times and said earnestly:
“Victory and defeat are common in military affairs. Everyone is using armored cars in actual combat for the first time. Getting carried away after starting too smoothly is normal; it’s good as long as you immediately learn the lesson.
But everyone shouldn’t be discouraged. What we encountered today is a special situation. This kind of uncirumventable narrow fortified area at the Troitskoye Peninsula root won’t be encountered again in the next few months! So this is just an exception; we can overcome it occasionally with special means!
As long as we break through this bottleneck and enter the Nogai Steppe, everything will be up to us! Everyone, muster your courage and think of that beautiful future! Once the armored car troops charge into the great steppe, who can stop us?”
With just a few short words, Lelouch rekindled the combat troops’ courage. The frustration from the temporary setback vanished, and everyone was energized.
Right! As long as they broke through here into the great steppe, who could match the mobile and flexible armored assault troops!
“Victory! Victory!” The officers and soldiers around them shouted vibrantly again.
Lelouch raised a hand, signaling everyone to quiet down, and the crowd instantly fell silent again. Then Lelouch pondered briefly and issued an order:
“Radio operator, send a telegram to the rear. I request another no-holds-barred air support! I don’t have time to wait for the artillery unit to slowly catch up and slowly deploy.
In one hour, I want to see our army’s fighter unit conduct close strafing and bombing on the enemy artillery positions, and deploy airships to sweep laterally along the trench network, clearing enemy firepower points in the trenches.
The airships can also use machine guns to continuously suppress enemy artillery personnel from the air, preventing them from using reserves to reoperate undamaged cannons. Then, it will be time for our ground troops’ full-scale attack!”
“Yes! Division Commander!” The radio operator immediately drafted the telegram as concisely as possible per Lelouch’s request, showed it to Lelouch for approval, then began transmitting.
Spoken explanations would be too wordy for full transmission, wasting time. Requests to the rear just needed the shortest words telling them what to do.
Anyway, with Lelouch’s current prestige and credit, any support firepower he requested from the 6th Army Group, the commander would approve. Only those other disfavored generals needed to waste breath in telegrams explaining reasons.
Lelouch’s good credit and strict discipline made everything go smoothly.
The soldiers took this time to withdraw as much as possible temporarily, leaving only necessary sentries in the already captured first-line trench positions; the rest were evacuated rearward.
Then the field kitchen company hurriedly distributed bread, sausages, even freshly cooked pickle potato mash soup to the brothers.
Everyone ate their hot lunch first, then took a short nap, fully restoring morale and stamina. Right on time at around 12:30 PM after lunch, engine sounds finally came from the sky again.
A full 50 combat airplanes and 6 airships came majestically to provide Lelouch with air firepower support.
What to do if blitzkrieg advances too fast and artillery can’t keep up?
Of course, rely on air-ground coordination to make up for the ground heavy firepower disconnect!
This was a question with a ready historical standard answer to copy, and transmigrator Lelouch of course generously copied it wholesale.
In the sky, Major Manfred Richthofen led 20 dedicated air superiority fighters and 30 fighter-bombers, first flying over the battlefield to observe targets, then immediately issuing the attack order:
“All units attention, all aircraft carrying bombs, per Officer Lelouch’s request, conduct close strafing and bombing on the enemy artillery positions behind the defense line! Airship force, follow behind providing continuous strafing suppression fire.”
Several short orders, mainly using pre-agreed signals issued roughly via wing rocking motions.
In an era without airborne radio intercoms, air command could only be conducted this roughly; pre-set several combat task signals. For example, bombing enemy artillery positions was three downward left wing shakes, strafing artillery positions was two shakes.
Everyone quickly understood; the 30 fighter-bombers immediately dove in, first sweeping rows of machine gun bullets, incidentally using tracer rounds in the ammo belts to confirm if their noses were strictly aligned.
After confirming alignment, upon reaching over enemy cannons, pilots immediately released the 5-kg small bombs hooked on both sides of the cockpit, dumping them continuously in a stream.
“Boom boom boom!” A series of explosions sent the Lusha Army 21st Division’s artillery regiment into chaos.
6 122 mm cannons and 24 76 or 75 mm cannons were successively destroyed or crippled. Even if some artillery itself wasn’t destroyed, such fierce bombardment and strafing could basically wipe out the artillery personnel on the positions.
As such, even if the steel-forged cannons themselves weren’t ruined, there was no one left to operate them.
What’s more, such bombing triggered several small-scale detonations; on a few batteries’ positions, stacked artillery shells were set off, raising explosion fireballs nearly 100 meters high.
