Starting with the smashing of Dunkirk

Chapter 194: Take Kharkiv within 48 hours
"Keep advancing! Don't stop! Ignore the enemy infantry!"

After crossing the river, disperse into formation, maintain the search and advance formation, and call for friendly forces to encircle and destroy enemy artillery positions once they are discovered!

Do not linger for other objectives; leave the enemy infantry to our friendly forces as they follow.

Under Lelouch's concise orders, the tank regiment that had breached the Aurelius railway bridge continued its triumphant advance, pushing deeper into enemy territory.

The main force of the Luftwaffe infantry division defending the town of Pellesepino failed to pose any threat to Lelouch. The mere seven or eight thousand infantrymen made no ripples before Lelouch broke through them from the middle and tore them in two.

Lelouch didn't even have time to divide his forces to surround them, leaving his flank exposed to the remaining enemy while he continued to penetrate deeper into enemy territory.

In just half an hour, the troops advanced several kilometers further, broke through the entire town, and once again entered the flat, open fields.

Both sides of the road are cornfields after the autumn harvest. The corn cobs have all been cut down, leaving only stalks that have been carelessly felled in the fields, unattended.

Throughout the process, Lelouch's troops also engaged in several small-scale, frequent, and brief battles, most of which resulted in minimal losses.

The only significant battle loss occurred during a frontal assault on the artillery battalion of the French garrison division.

In an effort to speed things up, three tank companies launched a pincer attack on the enemy artillery battalion from different directions. As a result, the tank company that attacked from the front was fiercely resisted by the Lusa's 24 76mm guns firing horizontally.

Four tanks were hit directly by artillery shells in succession, and the remaining 12 tanks of the company quickly scattered and sought cover. Fortunately, the two tank companies that were flanking from the left and right managed to get into position in time and destroy all 24 enemy artillery pieces from the flanks.

Field artillery of that era used high-explosive shells, not armor-piercing shells.

Because there were no armored targets to deal with before, small and medium caliber land guns didn't even have the concept of armor-piercing shells; only the navy used armor-piercing shells.

Even with a high-explosive shell, a direct hit from a 76mm high-explosive shell on the 20mm thick frontal armor is enough to shatter the steel plate, creating a large hole. The inner layers of the steel plate will also shatter into countless fragments, causing serious injury to the crew inside the tank.

Of the four tanks that were hit, two were completely destroyed, and the crew of the other two were killed. The internal equipment of the other two was also damaged by the explosion and shock, leaving only the shell and engine intact.

Unexpectedly, despite breaking through the Aurelius River with zero casualties, they unexpectedly suffered a setback and paid a price during the final mopping-up phase of the battle. After understanding the situation, Lelouch immediately instructed officers of all ranks who lacked practical tank combat experience:

"As each tank company advances, be sure to adjust your reconnaissance formation! Also, if you spot a field artillery position, do not immediately launch a frontal attack; wait for friendly forces to flank from the side or rear!"

"Also, calculate how far it is to reach the next town or the next river defense line, and call for air reconnaissance support in advance via radio. After locating the approximate position of the enemy artillery positions, report according to the coordinate block codes on the map. If there is an opportunity, reconnaissance fighters can also suppress them with small bombs and machine gun fire."

Having lost four tanks, Lelouch immediately learned his lesson and instructed all officers in the division to take it as a warning, conduct on-the-spot self-examination and improvement, optimize tactics, and then continue the attack.

The two tank regiments quickly passed through the area and continued their advance. Subsequent mechanized infantry regiments, motorized infantry regiments, and regular infantry regiments followed one after another.

After advancing for about 20 minutes, Lelouch, in the cockpit of the command tank, heard a message from the radio operator:
"Commander! The division that was defending Pellesepino was broken up and divided by our forces. Under the continuous pressure from our follow-up troops, their commander sent a messenger to contact us, expressing his willingness to surrender, but on one condition: he wants our army to report that they were all killed in battle."

Lelouch was stunned: "Such a thing is possible?"

He immediately agreed and had the telegraph operator call back. He then pressed for the reason, hoping that his subordinates who were accepting the surrender would understand.

More than half an hour later, Lelouch continued his advance, fighting his way to nearly 20 kilometers north of Pellesepino, and was about to reach the next county town.

The infantry regimental commander in charge of accepting the surrender in the rear finally understood the situation and sent a telegram back to Lelouch, which was quickly translated by Lelouch's radio operator.

"Reporting to the division commander! Lieutenant Colonel Lister reported that the Russian division commander was forced by a severe military order. The army group required him to defend the town to the death, and at least to ensure that the destroyed Oreli River railway bridge did not fall into our hands, otherwise he would be subject to the most severe military law punishment."

He failed in his duty by not reacting in time to blow up the railway bridge. He knew that even if he retreated, he would be executed, so he defected at the last minute. However, he didn't want to implicate his family, as long as we announced to the public that he and his men had fought and perished.

Lelouch couldn't help but laugh when he heard the news.

His psychological warfare tactics on the eve of the official start of the battle were extremely successful.

In the final ten days before the fierce battle, the Tsar executed General Alexei Evert, the former commander of the Southwestern Front of Russia and later the commander of the 6th Army.

This atrocity, coupled with his previous wrongful accusations against some naval officers and soldiers and his wanton killings, finally ignited the panic among the newly deployed troops.

Because the defeat was so swift, these soldiers were terrified of additional military punishments, which led to this chain reaction of defeats.

Although it was only the division commander who surrendered with the division headquarters and a portion of his troops, rather than the entire division surrendering in a planned manner, it was enough to relieve the pressure on the rear.

At least four thousand people voluntarily laid down their weapons and entered the prisoner-of-war camp. The other part of the enemy, who were separated from the division, certainly wouldn't be able to cause trouble for long either.

Upon receiving this good news, Lelouch immediately announced that the troops would take a short rest and took the opportunity to convey the good news to the entire army.

The entire tank regiment and the mechanized infantry regiment that followed it up—every soldier knew about this unexpected joy, and everyone's morale soared, their spirits were exceptionally high.

"Brothers! Follow Commander Lelouch and charge into Kharkov! The enemy has been driven to desperation and disunity by the tyrant. We still have tanks; we can definitely crush them in one fell swoop!"

After a short rest, the armored division immediately launched an attack on Karlovka, a newly appeared county-level target. Of course, Lelouch would not use armored forces to directly attack the city and fight in urban warfare; he simply ordered his troops to bypass the city.

Karlovka is a county town along a railway line, but there are no rivers nearby to hinder a large army, so there are no railway bridges or similar targets to capture. Lelouch only needs to break through the field defenses from the west of the town.

The situation for the local garrison was even worse than in Peresepino, clearly because the high command of Rusa's 13th Army had never expected the Dmanians to break through the outermost two county/town defenses so quickly and appear in Kalovka with such astonishing speed. Before announcing the start of the attack, Lelouch checked his watch; it was only 9:4 in the morning, just four hours since the attack began, and he had already penetrated so deep. Compared to when the attack started, he was now at least 45 kilometers into enemy territory.

The garrison in Kalovka also had artillery attached, and there was a network of trenches in the west of the city.

But the trenches were no match for the tanks. Large numbers of Lusa soldiers collapsed before the tanks could even cross the trenches, and were massacred by machine gun fire from behind.

The soldiers in the back row saw the tragic state of their comrades in front of them and, instead of waiting for the tanks to reach them, began to abandon their positions and flee from a distance of one or two kilometers.

"Run! Those steel monsters can just roll over the trenches! Those obstacles won't stop them at all!"

Soldiers of this era did not dig specialized anti-tank fortifications, nor did they know how to dig "dragon tooth stakes" or the kind of obstacles erected on the Normandy beaches.

When digging trenches, the width was only enough for soldiers to squat inside, generally less than two meters. Before the advent of tanks, digging wider trenches not only wasted construction work, but also increased the chances of indirect fire shells landing directly inside the trenches.

Panic spread faster than Lelouch had anticipated, and the defensive capabilities of the French infantry were almost negligible.

Just as the tank formation rolled over the trenches, a dozen fighter reconnaissance planes flew from south to north over Kalovka.

The machine gunners on the tank roof, wearing special helmets as thick as level 3 helmets and bulletproof steel armor, looked up and saw their comrades in the air, and they all shouted with excitement.

"The reconnaissance planes are going to help us locate the enemy's artillery positions! Ladies, stay alert! Once we find the enemy's artillery positions, flank them from both sides and rear! The front is only for containment! Don't make the same mistake we did at Pellechepino!"

As the tank formations on the ground began to adjust their attack formation, reconnaissance aircraft in the air had already located the artillery positions north of Kalovka.

The two reconnaissance planes immediately began to send brief messages from the pilots in the back seats, reporting coordinates according to the detailed maps distributed before the battle and the plot numbers along the latitude and longitude lines.

Meanwhile, the other planes that didn't need to transmit radios headed straight for the artillery positions at an angle of 20 to 30 degrees.
The two machine guns on the nose of the aircraft opened fire simultaneously, their tongues of fire licking the artillery positions and leaving a trail of bloody holes in the artillery pieces in their path.

As they flew over the artillery positions, the pilots manually dropped small 5-kilogram bombs, one by one, from the outer walls of the cockpit, quickly blasting the artillery positions to pieces.

Such an attack, while unable to completely destroy a divisional artillery regiment with about twenty cannons, is unlikely to damage the cannons themselves.

However, it was enough to kill several times more of the soldiers, rendering the artillery positions inoperable for a short period of time and greatly reducing combat efficiency.

Meanwhile, the tank company in front had taken this opportunity to close the distance and flank the enemy from the side and rear.

When the tanks drove to within two kilometers of the artillery position and fired high-explosive shells from their 57mm short-barreled guns onto the position, the remaining artillerymen panicked and scattered, fleeing to the rear.

With the combined air and ground forces, Lelouch only lost one tank when he captured another artillery regiment-level position, a much better result than three hours earlier in Pellesepino.

……

Lelouch quickly bypassed Kalovka County again, thanks to his roundabout approach. He finished all this just before lunchtime.

However, a large number of infantrymen were still stationed in the county town, and the garrison here did not surrender immediately after being cut off, unlike in Pellesepino.

This unexpected turn of events forced Lelouch to slow down his attack slightly, allowing the regular infantry who were coming from behind on two legs to fill the defensive line and prevent his flanks from being cut off.

Fortunately, Lelouch and Rommel had already devised a tactic to divide the armored division into two parts: one part would attack for 12 hours, the other part would sleep and rest for 8 hours, and then spend another 4 hours traveling to catch up with the progress made by friendly forces in the past 12 hours.

At this point, six hours had passed since the start of the battle, and Lelouch ordered a tank regiment, a mechanized infantry regiment, and a motorized infantry regiment to remain on standby and maintain a partial encirclement of the western side of Kalovka County.

Meanwhile, Rommel continued his advance with another tank regiment, a mechanized infantry regiment, and a motorized infantry regiment, allowing Rommel to stop at nightfall and wait for him to come and hand over his duties.

At the same time, Lelouch also ordered the crews to urgently exchange fuel. The crews that were resting and waiting for reinforcements used siphons to siphon out some of the excess fuel from their tanks and give it to the troops that needed to continue the attack immediately. The extra machine gun bullets and 57mm shells were also moved to several boxes and given to the friendly forces that continued the attack.

The three regiments responsible for staying in Kalovka to monitor the besieged French troops could remain in place and wait for the supply convoy to arrive with the main infantry force before refueling and replenishing ammunition from the supply convoy.

The handover took about an hour, during which all the soldiers took the opportunity to eat lunch. After lunch, they rested for a while to avoid getting carsick and vomiting their lunch, and then Rommel continued his advance at 1 p.m.

Lelouch stayed where he was, waiting for the supply convoy and infantry to catch up. Meanwhile, Rusa's army in Karlovka tried to break out, but Lelouch drove them back.

It wasn't until after 5 p.m., when it was almost dark, that Lelouch saw a large number of carriages chasing after him, along with some infantrymen taking turns riding horses and running.

Seeing his comrades arrive late, Lelouch couldn't help but complain, "Why are you so late! I had to give all the diesel and ammunition to Deputy Commander Rommel just to ensure that his half-armored division could maintain its offensive rhythm!"

The colonel in charge of escorting the logistics wagon train was also quite helpless. While apologizing to Lelouch, he said breathlessly:
“We’ve all been taking turns riding horses. The horses are pulling carts and being ridden by soldiers, so they can’t go very fast. We marched 50 kilometers in 12 hours, isn’t that fast enough? We’ve been averaging more than 4 kilometers per hour without stopping, not even for lunch. You’re attacking too fast.”

Lelouch also felt a pang of sadness; this was the helplessness of logistics being reduced to mules and horses.

The number of trucks is still too small. It would be good if they could be allocated to infantry regiments to reorganize motorized infantry regiments. Almost all the trucks are used to transport troops, and there are no extras to transport fuel and ammunition.

"Alright, enough said. Hurry up and refuel my 100-plus tanks! Move the ammunition boxes faster! Rommel might already be waiting for me in the town further ahead! I told him I'd push at least 80 kilometers a day and night, and get to the outskirts of Kharkiv in two days."

(End of this chapter)