Cannon Fire Arc-Chapter 694 - 32 At Sunset on the Second Day

Chapter 694: Chapter 32 At Sunset on the Second Day

The attack began on the second day, at First Front Army Headquarters of Kazarlia, 2120 hours.

Pavlov watched the sunset outside the window, “The daylight is almost gone, the enemy should stop their counterattacks now.”

Popov let out a sigh, “Although we knew the enemy’s armored troops were strong, aren’t they too strong?”

Wang Zhong’s expression was grim, “On the bright side, our armored troops held up the enemy’s counterattacks with their sacrifices.”

At this time, preliminary results from various units facing the enemy had already been delivered to the headquarters. Except for the Guards heavy breakthrough tank regiments equipped with Rokossovsky Type heavy tanks, the exchange ratio of other units with the Prosens forces hovered around 3 to 1.

The good news was that the exchange ratio of regular tank units equipped with the T34W model was not as bad as before, and there would no longer be incidents like a battalion of T34s being wiped out by a company of Long-barreled Four without any losses.

The bad news, however, was that the exchange ratio of the Guards tank veterans driving T34Ws against Prosens armored troops was not much improved.

This was partly due to reasons such as aiming accuracy and enemy detection speed contributed by the crew’s skills, but a very important reason was that the armored troops universally reported the new armor-piercing shells couldn’t penetrate the frontal armor of the later models of the enemy’s Four.

Vasily said, “The new armor-piercing shells were stable in penetrating 80mm frontal armor of enemy tanks in rear tests, and even 100mm armor at closer distances. I think we should execute those testers; they definitely falsified the results.”

Wang Zhong replied, “It might not necessarily be falsification, it’s possible our armor steel is simply not as good as that of the Prosens.”

In fact, due to the loss of a large number of professionals during the relocation of industries, the armor steel produced by Ante in the second year of the war sharply declined in quality, and there were even reports of PAK38 penetrating the T34’s mantlet from the front.

This point was actually just like the situation on Earth.

Now entering the third year of the war, the talent and crafts back home should have recovered somewhat, but definitely could not match the armor steel quality of Prosens.

Pavlov said, “Looking on the bright side, this time at least three of ours can exchange for one of theirs, and if we include the heavy tanks’ achievements, we could even approach two to one. With this exchange rate, a one-to-one day will eventually come.”

In fact, on Earth, up to the very end, the Russians couldn’t achieve a one-to-one ratio with the Sturmtiger armored troops and even got farmed for experience by the Sturmtiger’s armored aces.

Because the good Russian armored troops died in large numbers and by the end of the war, the average driving time of the troops was not much higher than at the start of the war.

Although the Russians also had a bunch of legendary aces, it couldn’t compensate for the average level of the troops being too low.

But this timeline was different, at least now many of the ace heavy tank drivers had survived.

When the Ante version of T54 was mass-produced, they could transfer some of the aces trained on the heavy tanks to the T54 units and bring up some middle-tank ace units with the old leading the new.

While Wang Zhong was contemplating, a signal officer entered the room and spoke loudly, “The report from the Eighth Guards Tank Army has arrived.”

Pavlov said, “That’s the last one we need! Let me see how many they lost.”

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The Eighth Guards Tank Army had inherited the legacy of the former 51st Tank Army, but it was only in name as too few of the original 51st Army survived, making this tank army essentially a brand-new unit.

Pavlov opened the envelope, read the report for a while, and immediately his eyebrows lifted in joy, “The Eighth Guards Army didn’t encounter any enemy armored counterattacks, they successfully broke through the position of the 167th Infantry Division and are advancing deeper, accompanied by Kiriyenko’s Cavalry Army Group.”

Wang Zhong let out a sigh of relief, “It seems there’s no need to expand the casualty list today.”

He looked at the battle damage numbers on the blackboard.

These were estimates of the battle losses self-reported by each Armored Troops today; the actual losses wouldn’t be known until the units’ statisticians had finished their carefully detailed counts after nightfall.

On the first day of the enemy’s counterattack, estimated losses had reached five hundred vehicles, with at least four brigades losing more than half, and other brigades encountering severe losses against the Prosen forces.

But the good news was that most of the brigades were able to repel the counterattacks of the Prosen forces and ultimately controlled the battlefield.

This also meant that a considerable portion of these 500 lost units might be repairable.

Popov stood next to Wang Zhong, both looking at the numbers on the blackboard and sighed, “A few more days of losses like this, and our Armored Troops will be completely depleted.”

Wang Zhong confidently said, “The enemy will break before we do.”

————

“We can’t keep this up!” Marshal Geron banged the table, “How did we lose three hundred tanks on the first day of the counterattack?”

Chief of Staff: “Most of the losses were due to the enemy’s new heavy tanks, my Marshal.”

No sooner had he finished speaking than the corps commander of the Third Armored Army responded, “Marshal, although our losses are severe, various units claimed to have destroyed even more enemy tanks. The newer-equipped 19th Armored Division even reported destroying 200 enemy tanks!”

Not to be outdone, the corps commander of the Second Armored Army of the Asgard Knight Order said, “Our Anpura Division lost ten tanks but reported destroying 220!”

Marshal sighed, “Enough! We all know how inflated these claims of destruction can be! Not to mention, if we destroyed so many Ante tanks, we should be controlling the battlefield. Why did we retreat in most areas then?”

Commander of the Third Armored Army: “The enemy forces were too numerous, and their tactics and techniques have significantly improved compared to before. We couldn’t drive them off as we used to.”

The Second Armored Army corps commander of Asgard concurred, “Yes, and the enemy’s new heavy tanks are too powerful; they repelled our forces and continued their pursuit, threatening the logistics supply line of the Armored Forces, forcing us to retreat.”

The commander of the Third Armored Army seized the conversation again, “The mobility of the enemy’s new heavy tanks exceeded our expectations. We simply couldn’t escape, and many of our pursued Armored Battalions suffered heavy losses.

“Our forces only stabilized their positions within the shooting range of the Elephant tank destroyers and then managed to repel the enemy.”

Marshal Geron: “Thank God, finally some new equipment made a slight difference.”

Chief of Staff: “It’s a pity that these tank destroyers have too high a fault rate; they simply can’t keep up with the mobility of the Armored Troops.”

Marshal Geron: “Do we still have new weapons? What about those Mark V and VI tanks? Where are they? Didn’t Anpura Division equip a battalion with Mark V tanks and a battalion with Mark VI tanks?”

As the Anpura Armored Division belonged to the Second Armored Army of the Asgard Knight Order, its corps commander responded, “The Mark VI tanks are performing well; they are currently en route to the combat area, and we expect 30 Mark VI tanks to be deployed into battle tomorrow.

“As for the Mark V tanks… only 40 tanks in this battalion are operational, and then during movement, they entered a minefield.”

Marshal Geron was shocked, “The enemy set up minefields that quickly?”

“No, it was our Infantry Division that laid them,” the corps commander replied sheepishly, “The rest of the Mark V tanks all had their tracks blown off, making them immobile.”

Marshal Geron cursed, “Damn it!”