Chapter 90
At the same time as Brigadier General Rokosov paid tribute to the fallen soldiers.
Twenty-five kilometers east of Bogdanovka, in the town of Glezno, the largest estate of Lord Boye had been occupied by the Prossenians and converted into the headquarters of the First Armored Cluster.
At seven in the evening, General Ewald von Steiermark entered the hall of the estate's main building, surrounded by a large group of aides and staff officers.
Steiermark looked up at the ornate chandelier on the hall's ceiling and said: "This thing could fall and injure someone during artillery fire. Take it down."
The headquarters' orderlies immediately sprang into action, fetching a ladder to remove the chandelier.
Steiermark's adjutant made a gesture of invitation beside him: "General, the map room is set up over here."
"First, let's check the room I'll be sleeping in tonight. Anyway, I'm sure you haven't finished updating the map information," the general waved his hand.
The adjutant immediately changed the direction of his guidance: "This way, please, up the stairs."
A few minutes later, the general entered the bedroom and frowned at the sight of the luxurious velvet bed: "What is this thing! Heydrich, you should know I don't like this kind of stuff! Throw this out, burn it, and bring my camp bed!"
Adjutant Heydrich hurriedly gave instructions to the orderlies, and within minutes, the velvet bed was dismantled and thrown out the window.
General Steiermark's camp bed was placed in its original spot.
The general supervised the entire process and nodded with satisfaction: "Heydrich, as a soldier, one must always remain vigilant. Velvet is not suitable for a military man."
At that moment, the communications officer appeared with a telegram: "General, an urgent message from the 15th Armored Division."
"Read it."
The officer immediately read aloud: "To the Armored Cluster Headquarters, our unit's offensive at Loktov has been halted. The enemy has deployed the new type of tank, T34, as mentioned by the High Command, which holds a significant armor advantage over us.
"Our division currently has only 53 Type III tanks and 4 Type IV tanks in combat-ready condition. Moreover, since the battlefield is under enemy control, we are unable to recover and repair abandoned tanks.
"The enemy exploited their mobility to launch a surprise attack on our headquarters. General Randolph sacrificed himself! 15th Armored Division Headquarters, July 7, 1730 hours."
The general turned to the communications officer, his brows tightly furrowed. He stepped forward, took the telegram, and read it carefully several times before clicking his tongue in amazement: "Major General Randolph is dead?"
Chief of Staff: "This may be the highest-ranking officer we've lost since the start of the offensive."
"I know." The general tucked the hand holding the telegram behind his back and began pacing the room, "A new type of tank! The High Command said there were at most a hundred of these tanks! Did the 15th Armored report how many of these new tanks they encountered?"
"No. The report in your hand is all they sent back," the communications officer replied.
Chief of Staff: "I remember yesterday-on the 6th-the 15th Armored reported that after failing a probing attack, they still had 91 Type III and 27 Type IV tanks in combat-ready condition.
"To suffer such heavy losses all at once, the enemy must have deployed over 50 of these new tanks."
General Steiermark paced while complaining: "The intelligence department of the Southern Army Group told us that Loktov only had two infantry brigades, but now there are army-level heavy artillery and fully organized new tank units popping up. Did these enemies grow out of the ground?"
As soon as he finished speaking, another communications soldier entered the room with a telegram and handed it to the communications officer: "Just decoded."
Steiermark directly stepped forward and snatched the telegram to read it himself: "From Southern Army Group Headquarters: According to aerial reconnaissance, an enemy infantry army group is advancing toward Loktov and is expected to arrive tomorrow evening.
"The First Armored Cluster should attempt to capture Loktov before the army group arrives."
After reading, Steiermark handed the telegram to the Chief of Staff: "An infantry army group, and not a word about tanks."
Chief of Staff: "Perhaps tomorrow we can have the 15th Armored try again?"
"No, no," General Steiermark waved his hand, "These past few days of offensive operations have proven one thing: our armored divisions are assigned too few infantry. If the enemy has heavy artillery and fifty new tanks, they might have seven to eight infantry battalions. Our armored division only has four armored grenadier battalions, and one of them is a motorized reconnaissance battalion!"
After saying this, he paced another circle and emphasized again: "We should increase the number of armored grenadiers! Regular infantry simply can't keep up with armored units and always fall behind during offensives.
"The Ant people were in complete chaos, so our armored units could sweep through them, but recently the Ant people have started to resist stubbornly! We need infantry to take those heavily fortified towns!"
The Chief of Staff asked tentatively: "So... we're not attacking?"
"We must attack! Once the enemy's infantry army group arrives, taking Loktov will be even harder. Have the 24th Armored Grenadier Division join the assault. Since Major General Randolph has gloriously sacrificed himself, the command of the attack will be handed over to Major General Franz of the 24th Armored Grenadier Division."
The Chief of Staff nodded: "Having an infantry officer command the battle to capture a city is very reasonable."
Steiermark nodded and added: "Also! Have the air force heavily bomb the enemy's positions! Especially target those tanks! Since the enemy's new tanks are so troublesome, let the air force deal with them!
"50 tanks are hard to hide!"
Steiermark finished speaking and waved his hand.
As the communications officer who received the order was about to leave, the general asked again: "Who is commanding the enemy forces at Loktov?"
"It's said to be Brigadier General Alexei Konstantinovich Rokosov."
General Steiermark frowned: "These Ant people's names are so long. So, who is this?"
"The White Horse General," the Chief of Staff said.
General Steiermark frowned: "The White Horse General? The young officer trusted by the Emperor, the one used as a scapegoat?"
Chief of Staff: "If I'm not mistaken about the name, it's him."
Steiermark frowned: "Randolph was killed by this guy? Communications officer, send a message to the 15th Armored to get the details of Major General Randolph's death!"
----
Kalinnovka, July 7, 1940 hours
"I saw it with my own eyes!"
Veteran Hans said to the others gathered around the campfire: "That new tank was painted completely white! It charged across the battlefield, destroyed seven of our tanks, and reached the front of the headquarters!
"The headquarters' guard tank platoon immediately moved forward, but bang bang bang, the pure white new tank blew them all up!
"That white figure was like a demon descending! It's a white demon summoned by the Ant Army!"
Someone by the campfire immediately objected: "You're talking nonsense! I clearly heard it was painted red! Like the Red Baron!"
"What are you saying!" Veteran Hans was displeased, "They call him the White Horse General! How could it be red? I saw with my own eyes it was white!"
"Forget about red or white! What happened after it got close?" Someone only cared about the outcome.
"What else could happen? That tank fired a 'boom'! The Major General was killed! And several staff officers died too!"
As the veteran was vividly describing the scene, someone nearby shouted at him: "Hans! The coffee you brewed tastes awful! What is this stuff!"
"Just be grateful!" Hans shouted back without hesitation.
At that moment, someone said mysteriously: "About this White Horse General, there's a rumor. It's from a fellow engineer from my hometown! In this village, the White Horse General buried 20 booby traps, and the engineers only managed to dig up four, and one exploded.
"The remaining fifteen booby traps haven't been found at all!"
These words made everyone around the campfire nervous.
The person who spread this news was quite pleased: "So be careful, stay away from anything suspicious, or you'll lose your life!"
The Prossenian soldiers looked at each other.
The White Horse General could single-handedly take out 12 tanks with one tank and kill Commander Randolph, so he could definitely plant 15 booby traps.
There was no logical connection between the two, but the rank-and-file soldiers didn't care about that; they just felt that the White Horse General was capable of it.
Everyone secretly swore that they would sleep outside the house tonight; they didn't dare sleep on a bed.
----
At ten-fifty at night, Wang Zhong rode his white horse out of the village to check on the workers at the repair shop, who were busy salvaging tanks, to understand the situation.
"General, sir," it was still the old worker who assembled cannons, "You asked us to repair tanks, but we're used to fixing cars, and tanks are really unfamiliar to us. So we called in repair workers from the Tractor Station; they can at least reconnect the tracks."
Saying this, the old worker introduced a colleague beside him to Wang Zhong: "This is the foreman from the Tractor Station; let him explain the situation."
Wang Zhong nodded: "Please, go ahead."
"General, sir! We've inspected several abandoned tanks. Among them, three can move once the tracks are reconnected, and their turrets are functioning normally.
"Of the remaining five, one has a damaged front guide wheel that needs replacement parts. The other four all have turrets jammed by enemy armor-piercing shells.
"We plan to use pliers to pull out the armor-piercing shells stuck between the turret and the hull.
"As for other issues, we're not familiar with artillery, so we can't inspect the condition of the cannons. As for machine guns, only a few of us reservists have seen them during training, so we can't guarantee we can fix them."
Wang Zhong: "How many do you estimate you can salvage?"
"Given enough time, we can repair them all. But will you give us that time?"
Wang Zhong: "The time is tonight. I hope these tanks can be combat-ready by six or seven tomorrow morning."
"That's quite difficult," the foreman from the Tractor Station said, "We don't have specialized repair equipment, and we're not professional logistics mechanics. By the time you've specified, I think we can only fix five."
Wang Zhong clicked his tongue; it seemed there was no way to push for more, so he changed the question: "What about those Prossenian tanks?"
The foreman shook his head: "Those tanks are vastly different in structure from ours, and the track width is also different; reconnecting tracks without specialized tools is impossible.
"Moreover, it's clear their manufacturing process is very advanced, extremely precise. Such things are actually harder to repair.
"However..."
Wang Zhong: "However?"
"However, we discovered that some of the enemy tanks actually have no major issues; they were abandoned because the crew suffered heavy casualties after being penetrated.
"We've inspected these tanks, and at least three of them are still operational and can even fire shells."
Wang Zhong: "Only three, huh..."
5 plus 3, not to mention anything else, they actually restored the combat capability of 8 tanks-whether they're T34s or not.
However, this small number of tanks is far from enough!
Who knows how many enemy tanks they'll have to face tomorrow!
Alliance leader's string of additional updates, see you tonight.
(End of Chapter)