Chapter 190: The Eve Of The Kyiv Campaign
After the final adjustments by Lelouch, the plan quickly received Marshal Rupprecht’s approval.
The entire Southern cluster of Germania also began operating at full speed according to his vision.
Among the means he mentioned, the first step to implement was to let the Navy enter the Sea of Azov and allow the supply fleet to dock at Mariupol,
making the enemy’s Cossack Cavalry Unit realize that continuing to wage harassment warfare and destroy the railway supply line behind von Bock and Rommel on the Donbas front line was completely meaningless.
……
November 4th, early morning.
That is, two days after Lelouch finalized the final stratagem.
Mariupol port on the Sea of Azov coast.
More than a dozen shallow-draft transport ships slowly sailed into this port.
The average depth of the Sea of Azov is very shallow, almost forming a lagoon at the Don River Estuary.
Over millions of years, the sediment carried by the Don River has accumulated here, making the seawater increasingly shallow, with the deepest point only 15 meters and an average depth of 7 meters.
Therefore, battleships absolutely cannot enter the Sea of Azov; even cruisers must select those with shallow drafts to reach port cities like Mariupol or Rostov.
If relying on ordinary beach terrain outside the port to approach the coast, only destroyers could do it.
The ships delivering ammunition and supplies to von Bock and Rommel this time were also very small, with each ship having an effective cargo capacity of barely over a thousand tons.
“We deliberately allowed the enemy’s Cossack Cavalry Unit to cut off our supplies and wage a war of attrition for several days; finally, we’ve received supplies again.
Those foolish Cossacks definitely still don’t know and must think our armored cars are almost out of fuel, with machine gun bullets running low. This is the perfect opportunity to exploit the enemy’s complacency and hit them hard.”
After receiving fuel and ammunition and refueling all the armored cars, Rommel said this with great satisfaction.
Von Bock and the other officers nearby also agreed with his view.
In the previous days, they had advanced furiously too aggressively, somewhat top-heavy. Although the vanguard’s breakthrough speed was very fast, the railway supply line behind was maintained very poorly.
After suffering several losses, the enemy’s Cossack Cavalry Unit had learned and no longer confronted the armored cars head-on.
As soon as they saw the armored car troops fully equipped chasing them, the cavalry would use their mobility advantage to scatter and retreat; although the armored cars’ speed could outpace war horses, their numbers were too few after all.
With the enemy scattering in escape, they didn’t even know whom to pursue. Even if they stuck to one group and chased to the end, the results were limited. Therefore, the Cossacks’ logistical harassment warfare had been quite effective for a time.
However, after Lelouch finalized the new stratagem the day before yesterday, Rommel, Bock, and other generals changed their approach. In the last two or three days, they no longer struggled and allowed the Cossacks to destroy the railway in their own rear,
even deliberately releasing false news that due to logistics being destroyed, many armored cars were out of fuel, and machine gun ammunition consumption was extremely high.
The Cossacks were not fools; they wouldn’t believe such news immediately and chose probing attacks.
Rommel and the others also put on a full show, never using too many armored cars in counterattacks—just twenty or thirty vehicles to charge back once, retreating after repelling them.
Each machine gun sweep by the armored car troops also appeared very cautious; previously they would fire wildly from over 800 meters away, but now they basically waited until within 300 meters to start shooting, clearly a method to conserve bullets and pursue efficiency.
All of this made it seem like Rommel and the others had truly penetrated too deeply into enemy territory, sustained combat, and lacked supplies.
This phenomenon also made the surrounding Cossack Cavalry Units increasingly excited.
And this good fortune ended on November 4th.
That afternoon, a town along the railway about 60 kilometers east of Mariupol.
Lusha Army troops from several Cossack Cavalry Divisions once again advanced south from the north, furiously advancing to approach this place,
then charged into this town recently occupied by the Germania Army, engaging in all sorts of burning, killing, and destruction, completely burning down the Germanian temporary material transshipment warehouse and cargo yards to the ground.
A few days ago, these Cossacks wouldn’t have dared to be so rampant; even when harassing, they would only destroy a few sections of track in the wilderness or bury explosives to blow up a train.
But today, their mobilization scale had expanded several times, probably deploying two cavalry divisions to comprehensively destroy a large area along the railway.
Just as the Cossacks were feeling triumphant, rumbling armored car sounds came from behind them to the east and north.
Fully two to three hundred armored cars formed a large net, roughly blocking the roads for these two cavalry divisions to flee east or north.
While they could flee west, that was deep into Germanian occupied territory, increasingly dangerous the further west. As for the south, there was a road, but after fleeing just ten-plus li, it was the Sea of Azov coast.
The commanders of those Cossack Cavalry Divisions who encountered the enemy were all greatly shocked:
“This is impossible! Weren’t the Germanian armored car troops short on fuel and ammo? I heard many armored cars had their transmissions damaged by grenades and were immobilized without repair parts? How could they suddenly assemble so many armored cars?”
If they had known the Germanians still had so many operational armored cars, the Cossack Cavalry Units would never have dared to penetrate so boldly into enemy territory for destruction.
At this point, resistance was hopeless; they could only try to break out by dispersing and escape to minimize losses.
After fighting for so long, the cavalry had learned their lesson. Expecting them to charge the armored car formation head-on like at the beginning was out of the question; they simply didn’t have the guts.
But where to flee? East or north meant smashing through the enemy vehicle formation, and west would take them further into the wrong direction.
After a chaotic breakout and slaughter, thousands of cavalry were killed in the melee like headless flies.
After paying the bloody price of trial and error, finally a cavalry division commander temporarily thought of a new breakout route:
“Detour south to flee! The south is soft beach terrain; the armored cars will definitely get stuck. Armored cars have poorer terrain mobility than war horses! We’ll go south first, then break east and circle back to our rear at an opportunity!”
Large numbers of Cossack Cavalry Units turned south to break out like trial-and-error ants.
But they hadn’t run far, just reaching the Sea of Azov shore, when they saw a shocking sight.
Several Germanian destroyers equipped with 88 mm naval guns actually approached to less than two thousand meters from the coastline; upon seeing cavalry trying to flee south along the coastal route, they immediately unleashed a barrage of rapid-fire cannon shells.
Fortunately, the Germanian destroyers were much smaller in tonnage than others, without even 105 mm guns, let alone 120 mm caliber guns.
They could only rely on those ancestral 88 mm guns for rapid output, one shot every 3~4 seconds, with limited propellant charge; each shell wouldn’t kill many people.
But this sustained one-sided slaughter dealt a devastating blow to the morale of the Cossack Cavalry Units. Countless soldiers began to suffer psychological collapse, realizing they had fallen for the enemy’s traitor stratagem.
“This is impossible! How could Germanian warships enter the Sea of Azov? Didn’t they say the Sea of Azov was completely sealed with mines?”
Mid-level officers couldn’t help but think and curse like this in their hearts.
And those Cossack Cavalry Division commanders thought even more. They knew this couldn’t be a Navy traitor revealing the mine deployment map to the enemy, because they themselves had left no safe passages—what was there to leak? If the enemy could enter, they must have forced through the minefield!
But dwelling on these issues now was pointless; better to think about how to escape first.
The several Cossack Cavalry Divisions were completely in chaos, fleeing disorganized and undisciplined; groups of cavalry were blasted down by the 88 mm guns from the sea surface and machine guns from the armored cars behind,
with corpses of cavalry and war horses piling up on the beach, dyeing the shell craters immersed in seawater blood-red.
Large numbers of Cossacks fell into despair and chose to drop their weapons and surrender. But a small portion of troops successfully broke out amid the chaos and fled back in disarray.
And this was merely a snapshot of the Eastern Front battlefield after Lelouch cleared the Sea of Azov waterway and restored shipping to Mariupol port.
Similar situations would occur repeatedly in the following days at other similar locations. Only the intensity would definitely be less than today’s battle, with differing details.
In short, across the vast trapezoidal grassland from west Melitopol-Dnepropetrovsk to east Donbas-Mariupol. The Lusha Army’s attempts to destroy Germanian railway logistics were visibly decreasing, ultimately falling silent.
The Cossack Cavalry Units that had always thought to harass from the rear finally dared not come again after repeated losses.
After these days of anti-harassment battles, when Rommel and Bock tallied the results, they found they had at least annihilated 2 enemy Cossack Cavalry Divisions and heavily damaged more（ cavalry divisions each with only a few thousand）,
and incidentally uprooted some guerrilla armed groups in the occupied areas cooperating with the Cossack Cavalry Units, with substantial gains.
This not only solved the enemy logistical harassment problem in the eastern coal field occupied areas for a considerable time ahead,
but also made more and more in the Lusha Army realize that “the reason Germanian Navy smoothly broke through the minefield to surprise attack us before was not due to a traitor, but because the Germanians possessed high-tech weapons unknown to the Lusha Army.”
These ideas would inevitably spread farther in ten days to half a month, fermenting with greater resonance, ultimately becoming the mainstream consensus among Lusha officers and soldiers in the southwest war zone.
And Rommel, Bock, and others, after fighting another large-scale counterattack against Cossack Cavalry on November 6th, were already preparing to withdraw.
November 6th evening, Mariupol port.
Over 200 still operational armored cars were all loaded onto ships at the dock here, then prepared to be transported back to the western front—this so-called west was at least west of Kyiv.
Because the final decisive battle required two iron pincers to form a pincer offensive.
One was advancing up the Dnieper River from Dnepropetrovsk, striking from east to west at Kyiv’s rear.
The other was from the Lviv-Vinnytsia line, striking from west to east at Kyiv’s rear.
The eastern Donbas battlefield was already stabilized and no longer needed armored cars; these armored cars would go with von Bock’s troops to the Lviv and Vinnytsia front lines, undergo brief maintenance and inspection, then join the final offensive campaign.
Meanwhile, the first batch of tanks transported from the Porsche-Skoda factories in rear Prague had just arrived in Dnepropetrovsk in the past two days, soon to be handed over to Lelouch and Rommel to serve as the other iron pincer in the final strike on Kyiv.
When the fleet was about to depart from Mariupol, Lelouch personally came to the port to see off von Bock and the others.
He acted like the host, shaking hands one by one with von Bock, Rundstedt, Paul Hausser, and Gunter von Kluge:
“I wish you all perform well under Old Marshal Leopold after reaching Vinnytsia and bring glory to our 6th Army Group.”
Von Bock also had an expression of confidence:
“Don’t worry; even though you’re about to switch to tanks, the road from Vinnytsia west to attack Kyiv has fewer rivers and waterways, and the terrain isn’t as low-lying as the eastern Dnieper River valley.
Even with armored cars, I might not perform worse than you with tanks! We’ll see on the battlefield who breaks deeper into the enemy rear.”
“Good, it’s a deal.” Lelouch and von Bock high-fived, sealing the gentlemen’s agreement. The generals all smiled at each other, with tacit understanding.
……
The transport fleet departed from Mariupol on November 6th and could land in Odessa early on November 9th. Then trains would carry the armored car group north to Vinnytsia.
They could arrive in Vinnytsia on November 10th, undergo final maintenance and inspection, and be ready for the final Kyiv campaign around November 12th.
Preparations for the campaign on all fronts were already being arranged intensively; other infantry troops were even more ready for battle, sharpening their weapons and waiting eagerly.
The punctuality and meticulous planning unique to Germanians were once again demonstrated.
A grand campaign requiring two Army Groups, with two fully equipped and reinforced armored divisions as the spearhead, was about to commence.
On Lelouch’s side, after seeing off von Bock and Rundstedt on November 6th, he took the train back to Melitopol first, then north to Dnepropetrovsk, arriving early on November 8th.
In Dnepro City, he finally saw the first batch of tanks in human history produced under Dr. Porsche’s supervision for actual combat.
The light machine gun tank was only 7 tons, with wide tracks and leaf spring suspension. It was equipped with two forward-facing heavy machine guns and one machine gun on the roof hatch with a swivel gun mount—
This 3rd machine gun was clearly added temporarily based on the latest lessons from the Kievan Rus’ front line battlefield.
Because the hull machine guns had limited firing arcs and couldn’t rotate 360 degrees, they were vulnerable after close enemy approach. When necessary, a swivel machine gun operated by the tanker protruding his upper body better protected the crew’s safety.
The machine gunner operating the roof machine gun would also be equipped with a thickened custom steel helmet and bulletproof steel plate chest armor. This avoided the trouble of adding bulletproof shields and reinforced mounts to the machine gun itself.
That new custom steel helmet had a structure and shape similar to the M15 steel helmet（ that is, the M56 helmet on Earth）, but thicker and with greater coverage, about as thick as a level 3 helmet in the game. It would seem too cumbersome for ordinary infantry, but tankers wouldn’t mind.
The other heavy cannon tank had one 16-caliber 57 mm main gun, one forward-facing machine gun, one roof machine gun, with a combat weight of 10 tons.
The roof machine gun was also added temporarily, with other configurations the same as the 7-ton machine gun tank.
Stroking the cold tank steel plate, Lelouch felt a sense of transmigration; he silently sighed inwardly for a moment, then instructed Rommel to immediately organize the entire division’s tankers to intensify training and familiarize with the new equipment.
All the tankers had been driving armored cars for several months and had considerable armored combat experience. Now it was just switching from armored cars to tanks on the eve of battle; with a few days, they should adapt to driving.
“We’re launching the general offensive on November 12th; you have 4 days to get those several hundred drivers and commanders familiar with the new equipment as soon as possible.”
Lelouch directly handed the task to Rommel and became hands-off.
