Chapter 198: Let’s See Who Cracks First
“So the change you mentioned that happened three days ago is that after preparing for so long, the British finally invaded Greece, and moreover, they propped up a traitorous prime minister as a puppet?
They plan to open a wider ground offensive front to pinch the Ottomans by using this method, and quickly take Istanbul and the Strait? And you have already sent a mountain regiment as advisors and backbone to assist the Greek Army in defense?”
The view returns to December 1st, the Army Group Headquarters in Poltava city. Lelouch heard the latest military situation told to him by the Duke at the lunch table, which referred to this matter. After patiently listening, Lelouch summarized it concisely in his own words, finally confirming.
Because he was busy annihilating the enemy troops in Poltava and Kharkiv, the Duke did not want him to be distracted early, so for a full three days, he did not convey external news to the combat soldiers.
After all, the enemy’s allies had taken a new supporting offensive, which theoretically could strike at their own morale.
If ordinary Germanian soldiers knew that the British Army might break through the Strait in the short term, the Germanian soldiers would worry that their own current logistics route advancing along the Black Sea coastline would seem too long and unsafe. This would affect the soldiers’ focus and will to fight.
“Yes, that’s the situation. I see you can’t settle down anyway, so I’ll tell you first.” The Duke frankly said that Lelouch’s summary was correct, then added a reminder,
“But for ordinary soldiers, this matter should still be kept under blockade first, don’t let the news spread. At most, let division-level generals know in their hearts, and strive to fight faster later. Don’t give pressure to mid- and lower-level officers, to avoid panic and mistakes.
I plan to split off some troops southward after the encirclement here at Kyiv closes, to support Greece by land from the Bulgaria or Ottoman border, directly attacking the British Army that landed at Thessaloniki.
We can’t detour to transport a large corps to Athens; the sea route will be blockaded by the enemy. We can only pinch from north and south, with the Southern Front held by the Greek Army themselves, while we attack from the north.”
Lelouch recalled the general map and terrain of Greece in his mind, and felt that the Duke’s arrangement had no problem.
Greece itself has 3 divisions of standing army, only more than 20,000 people in total. It’s definitely too late to mobilize temporarily now, so it depends on these more than 20,000 veterans relying on the complex terrain of southern Greece to delay and hold for a while. In the end, to truly end the battle, the key is still the Germanian main army directly heading south.
After careful thought, Lelouch gave two suggestions: “I think Greece is very mountainous. If King Constantine really can’t hold on, there’s no need to defend Athens to the death. Even retreating across the Isthmus of Corinth and holding the mountains can buy time, waiting for changes.
Additionally, you said according to the latest information, the Britannians have also deployed Rolls-Royce armored cars there, possibly dozens? Our standard anti-tank weapons are still in research and development. If they can’t hold against the Britannians’ armored cars, they can try the tactic of leveling field guns for direct flat fire.
They can also make some temporary simple anti-tank weapons. I discussed future anti-tank tactics with people from DWM, Skoda, and Porsche in Prague before, and they should have produced some samples.
DWM Company now seems to have a sticky grenade that doesn’t load shrapnel, only pure nitroglycerin explosives, with an inner wall of easily shattered material and an outer layer of sticky putty. Currently only experimental samples, not very mature yet, but hastily shipping to Greece to hold for a while should be enough.
If really not, make even cruder Molotov Cocktails on site, using the thickened fuel we previously gave to flamethrower soldiers, but best to mix in a bit more explosives than flamethrower fuel. This way it has both incendiary and explosive power, which should threaten light armor targets of 8~10 mm.”
Lelouch provided two ideas in one breath, making Duke Rupprecht perk up, immediately having them recorded, and added when airshipping supplementary support to the Greeks by airship.
Actually, the explosive power of traditional blasting weapons is definitely enough against current armored targets.
The reason humans were at a loss when first encountering tanks and armored cars was mainly that those blasting weapons couldn’t explode directly attached to the armor surface.
If the explosive doesn’t hit the armored car directly, or after hitting the fuze isn’t sensitive enough to explode instantly but delays until bounced off and then explodes, the lethality to the armor is very weak.
Only exploding attached to the armor can shatter the armor, or possibly cause fragments from the inner wall on the other side to be shattered by the blast shockwave in the enclosed space inside the vehicle to kill the crew—simply put, the later armor-piercing shell works on this principle.
The “sticky bombs” used by the ugly army in World War II, also known as “socks” jokingly called by players of games like Company of Heroes/War Men, are simply pure-charge no-shrapnel grenades that stick to tank armor and then explode.
After sticking and exploding, it’s equivalent to letting the enemy armored fighting vehicle’s own armor play the role of “shell casing,” completely shattering the casing or at least shaking out some fragments on the other side.
The three main categories of later anti-armor technologies: armor-piercing shell, shaped charge, armor-piercing shell.
Armor-piercing shell has the highest requirements for hard technology and materials science, hard to achieve at low cost, and not afraid of enemies copying the technology, because without a good industrial base, even if told the answer, they can’t copy it.
While shaped charge and armor-piercing shell have successively lower technical content; armor-piercing shell is the relatively worst of the three and easiest to defend against. As long as multi-layer or slightly composite armor is made in the future, not pure homogeneous steel armor, it can defend against armor-piercing shells.
So for anti-tank weapons based on the armor-piercing shell principle, Lelouch isn’t afraid to use them first temporarily to hold for a while.
Even if the enemy learns it after suffering losses, when their side makes tanks later, whether applying a sticky coating on the armor, or adding side skirts, additional armor hinged outside the main armor, or even hanging grilles, piling sandbags, bundling logs, degaussing…
Lelouch has a hundred ways to low-cost neutralize the anti-tank effect of armor-piercing shells.
Since that’s the case, this time first take out the armor-piercing shells as consumables for the next year and a half. After holding off this initial wave, their own hard tech anti-tank weapons will also be produced almost, just in time to connect. It’s no big deal if the enemy learns this outdated trash.
On Duke Rupprecht’s side, Lelouch’s suggestions were quickly deployed down. The first batch of early sticky pure-charge grenades from trial production at DWM’s Karlsruhe Arms Factory, as well as a technical manual on how to make Molotov Cocktails, were immediately sent to Greece, and also incidentally took an extra paratrooper battalion of reinforcements along.
……
After handling the change on the Greek side, Lelouch forced himself to rest well and recover his condition.
Early next morning, that is, the morning of December 2nd, he threw himself anew into the battle advancing west from Poltava to Kyiv with full enthusiasm.
Before setting out in the morning while drinking coffee, he privately told the Deputy Division Commander Rommel the news he heard from the Duke the night before, and also instructed that before linking up with Division Commander von Bock, this news could only circulate within the division-level cadre circle, not to tell below.
Rommel is still just Colonel Deputy Division Commander, but counts as division-level cadre. Telling him is also a sign of trust.
After hearing it, Rommel promised spiritedly: “Rest assured, at most a week, even faster, we will encircle north of Kyiv! From here to Kyiv is only 280 kilometers straight-line distance left, and Division Commander von Bock has already cut off the railway from directly north of Kyiv to Orsha.
It’s equivalent to this last 280 kilometers being a head-on clash between our two sides, not needing us to rush so far alone. Even if his troops have no railway available, having to bypass Kyiv city and being blocked by the Kyiv node.
But we have the railway, so give us a bit more expected mileage. Our side rushes 180 kilometers, Bock hard rushes 100 kilometers without railway supplies, and after linking up with us, his division can also use supplies transported by our side’s railway.”
Plan on track.
After discussing the expected allocation, Rommel got into a tank and attacked west along the Poltava-Kyiv railway.
Lelouch’s division, after successive fierce battles, now had less than 150 tanks left that could still move, reduced by a full more than 90 vehicles from the start.
After all, the campaign has been going for half a month; the enemy’s field guns more or less damaged some tanks, more were injured in transmission systems by grenades, and the most were spontaneous mechanical failures from continuous use.
But 150 was enough. Lelouch no longer played the trick of “two waves of tanks alternating attacks, one wave continuous attack for 12 hours, the other rests 8 hours and travels 4 hours,” but concentrated the 150 into one wave, operating 16 hours a day, resting 8 hours, sleeping at night.
Those 16 hours weren’t all attacking either; in between, two 1-hour rests each to let soldiers eat and briefly rest.
Moreover, in this long-distance sustained offensive, tanks running too fast is meaningless; infantry can’t keep up, and there aren’t enough trucks yet for mechanized infantry.
Before at Kharkiv and Poltava, it was a one-go rush of about 150 kilometers, already the current single limit for infantry-tank coordination. Infantry could rely on prior resting, forced marches without sleep after opening fire, holding to the end in one go.
Beyond 150 kilometers, it’s not something infantry can hold to the end in one go with willpower. Even the most elite Germanian soldiers can’t do such sustained forced marches; only certain mysterious great special forces from the Earth plane can.
Also precisely because infantry advance is relatively slow, in Lelouch’s adjusted new tactics, tank soldiers can sleep at night, but filling the line infantry can’t sleep; they have to march 24 hours straight to catch up. But this marching isn’t indefinite; once reaching the predetermined filling the line position in one go, they can catch up on sleep later.
The next defense line to fill naturally has another unit to fill.
After pushing far ahead, they can also use railways and trains to cover some distance, only dismounting to march on foot when infantry units are close to the combat zone.
But this places very high demands on the Engineer Corps; on newly captured territory, railways often have various hazards destroyed by retreating enemy forces, requiring the Engineer Corps to intensify repairs and clear safety hazards for trains to quickly resume transport.
Under such meticulous deployment, Rommel’s initial offensive was very smooth. In the first 3 days of steady advance, they pushed more than 80 kilometers forward, arriving at Mirhorod in the early morning of December 5th.
Along the way, they also routed 2 rearguard divisions under the Lusha 7th Army Group.
Mirhorod is the most important railway town between Kyiv and Poltava, less than 200 kilometers from Kyiv.
After arriving at Mirhorod, Lelouch also contacted friendly forces by radio to understand the situation.
In the telegram, he learned that von Bock’s route wasn’t very smooth in the initial one or two days.
Von Bock initially tried to methodically push back a bit south from Chernihiv along the railway line, then cut to the railway along east of Kyiv as much as possible first, then attack east.
But von Bock soon discovered that the Lusha Army had heavy troops defending the group in Kyiv city; the closer south and to the city, the fiercer the Lushans’ defense.
After almost wasting a day on trial and error on December 2nd, at noon on December 3rd, von Bock finally learned war in war and suddenly figured it out.
He realized he couldn’t use the railway east of Kyiv anyway. Since so, what’s the point of obsessing over cutting the enemy’s railway too finely? He just wants to link up with Lelouch, so turning south to the railway direction when close to linking up is enough.
Before that, he could advance along a somewhat more northern weak enemy zone, just making the encirclement not so tight.
After changing mindset, von Bock immediately set out advancing due east from Chernihiv directly north of Kyiv toward Sumy—surprisingly, the route von Bock chose quite matches a certain ongoing war in the later Earth plane.
The place name Sumy, later audiences have heard it not infrequently in the media in recent years.
And the Lushans’ 6th Army Group defense troops clearly didn’t expect von Bock to break through toward Sumy, and in the next day and a half, he pushed a full 60~70 kilometers east along simple roads, arriving at a town called Konotop, about one-third of the way between Chernihiv and Sumy.
Von Bock of course wasn’t really going to Sumy; after moving away from Kyiv’s core defense zone, he quickly turned south again, cutting toward Pryluky.
When Lelouch exchanged intelligence with him last, he was at Pryluky; though not yet cut back to the railway along east of Kyiv, it was no longer a problem, as Lelouch would link up with him.
After putting down the telegram, Lelouch returned to the map table, marking with pencil on the map.
“We are at Mirhorod, von Bock at Pryluky. As long as he advances diagonally 40 kilometers southeast along the simple road to Priluki, he can cut to the railway along east of Kyiv. And we advancing west along the railway, 40 kilometers to Lubny station, then another 40 kilometers to Priluki too.
So set the link-up point at the railway town Priluki. Quite close to previous expectations; we go another 80 kilometers, von Bock the last 40 kilometers, completely closing the big encirclement at Priluki town.”
——
PS: This chapter has more trivial stuff; next chapter will formally encircle Kyiv.
