Arc of Fire-Chapter 728: Pugachev’s Revival

Chapter 728 -66 Pugachev’s Revival

Adel’s orders had just been issued when he heard someone exclaim over the radio, “The enemy’s broken through the smoke!”

"What?” Adel quickly grabbed his binoculars and indeed saw a pot-lid shaped tank leading the charge through the smoke they had just released.

Clearly, these pot-lid tanks had a mobility advantage over the T34s, galloping across the plains like steel steeds.

Then, under Adel’s gaze, the pot-lid tank came to a stop.

He thought it was getting ready to shoot in an emergency stop, but instead, the infantry disembarked, the tank remained in place to fire, allowing the other tanks to rush past.

Could it have stopped due to a mechanical failure from charging too hard?

"Sukabule!” Inside pot-lid tank tactical number 333, the tank commander cursed, “Why did it have to break down now? The Prosenians will think we’ve been hit!”

"I don’t know either, it sounds like the drive shaft snapped,” the driver said, frustrated.

The gunner said, “I heard the Rokossovsky Type is also prone to breaking drive shafts. Do all these new tanks with this configuration share the same problem?”

The loader said, “There must be a traitor sabotaging production, the Judge should have all the drive shaft manufacturers shot!”

The tank commander said, “Forget it, we’ll serve as a stationary turret here!”

He climbed out of the turret and said to the infantry on the tank, “Our drive shaft is broken, we can’t move. We’re now a stationary turret, you guys find other tanks to charge with! There are definitely others that have lost infantry, just squeeze in!”

"Got it,” the sergeant commanding the squad waved his hand, “Dismount, we’ll board other tanks if we can, or we’ll attack on foot if we can’t. Kill those Pulosen Ghosts!”

The infantrymen jumped off one by one and strode forward.

Adel watched the pot-lid tank that had stopped. Because it had become stationary, it became a fixed target and was quickly aimed at by several Prosen tank crews.

Under continuous armor-piercing shell attacks, the Antean tank crew stubbornly returned fire three times until either their turret ring jammed or their sights were damaged; either way, the Ante tank operator abandoned the tank.

Before leaving the tank, the tank commander launched a smoke bomb, so Adel couldn’t see the effects of the infantry machine gun fire.

Obviously, the Anteans were becoming more familiar with warfare. They had very excellent warriors, and Prosen’s tactical and technological superiority was diminishing.

Adel felt uneasy, but as he was reflecting, the Chief of Staff’s voice came through the radio, “General! Enemy tanks are about to cross the ridge. We’re going to lose our terrain cover! We cannot win a mobility contest against them!”

Adel picked up the handset, “This is Adel Schultz. To all Panzer III crews, I order you to abandon retreat and stop the enemy’s assault with ramming!

"The enemy has only 30 tanks; we have the numerical advantage!”

Indeed, in the past, Adel would never have issued such an order. He had even taught his subordinates that the Ante tank operators’ tactic of ramming to mutual destruction was commendable in spirit but not worth emulating, as qualified tank operators should make use of their firepower superiority with cannons to annihilate the enemy. ꭆΑΝ𝐎ＢÈṣ

But now, ramming was the only tactic Adel could think of.

Using the lighter and faster Panzer III tanks to ram under the cover of smoke to force the enemy’s new tanks to stop, and then have the Long-barreled Four flank and take out the other Antean tanks, that was the plan just born in Adel’s mind.

Even if there were only seven or eight Long-barreled Fours left, Adel had confidence in destroying dozens of T34Ws, depending on the availability of ammunition.

It wasn’t that Adel was delusional; on the frontline of the Central Army Group, his Greyhound Division had achieved a kill ratio of 5 to 200.

Of course, that was with 27 Long-barreled Fours and an equal number of Long-barreled Panzer IIIs, but sometimes people unintentionally ignore some crucial details.

Adel believed his division could replicate their success in the Central Army Group — provided they sacrificed all Panzer IIIs to stop the enemy’s erratic new tanks.

On the Antean side.

"The enemy is trying to ram us!” The voice of the brigade commander came over the radio, “Everyone, stop! Stop! Engage the enemy from your current position, don’t let them get close enough to ram!”

"Brigade commander! We only have one reverse gear, with a maximum reverse speed of four kilometers per hour!”

The brigade commander fell silent.

Because during training, it was always about charging, he had indeed forgotten the fact that there was only one reverse gear.

After a brief silence, the brigade commander cursed, “Sukabule! It’s just close-quarters combat! Our infantry on board have launcher tubes, what’s there to fear? Advance!”

Fifteen minutes later, Adel realized he had made a grave mistake.

The Anteans had armored cavalry equipped with new anti-tank weapons, highly effective against the Panzer III’s armor.

Once the Panzer III approached the pot-lid head, it had to first endure a round of infantry firepower and would typically be immobilized immediately.

After fifteen minutes of exchange, most of the Panzer III tanks had been lost, while the pot-lid tanks were still bounding around energetically.

The remaining Long-barreled Fours, although they hastened to flank, failed to destroy several pot-lid tanks in time.

His plan had completely failed!

Ante Infantry even dismounted the tanks, starting to clear out the infantry troops of the 332nd Division.

In Prosen’s organizational structure, the 332nd Division was ranked towards the end, full of weaklings who couldn’t possibly stand up to the cape-wearing Imperial Guard of Ante.

Actually, when he was with the Central Army Group, Adel had noticed that the infantry divisions after the eighth wave couldn’t but get trampled when facing the cape-wearing Antean infantry.

It was much like the situation at the beginning of the war when Prosen infantry were battle-hardened veterans and Ante’s infantry were all greenhorns. Back then, a single Prosen veteran could easily take down seven or eight Antean infantrymen and still survive.

Now, it was the experienced, cape-wearing Imperial Guards slaughtering unseasoned Prosen infantry. And because the Imperial Guards either carried Papashas or even more terrifying Thread Cutters, the fresh Prosen troops died in droves and rapidly.

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Adel saw that the morale of the 332nd Division’s infantrymen had collapsed, and they began to flee their positions and run backwards.

Just then, he suddenly heard the sound of machine gunfire nearby.

Turning his head, he saw it was the machine guns of the Constitutional Soldier, aiming at the 332nd Division infantrymen who were deserting in the face of the enemy.

Adel hesitated for a moment before saying nothing, instead continuing to focus on his own troops currently being pursued by “pot-lid” tanks.

The less than a hundred tanks he commanded were all that remained of the entire 48th Armored Division.

The Central Army Group controlled most of the tank-engaged battlefields, and they should be able to repair a certain number of tanks from the battlefield by tomorrow or the day after. But those tanks wouldn’t be able to arrive at Shepetovka until the day after at the earliest.

Adel realized something extremely serious—that after his “Schulz Combat Group” got wiped out, there would be no organized armored force left on the entire front line to stop the Anteans.

His scalp began to tingle.

He had no idea how many more armored troops the Anteans had. If they possessed more than a hundred tanks, the battlefield might just collapse.

After all, the only force resisting Rokossov in the Kazarlian sector now was one first-wave Infantry Division; the rest were all troops of the same low quality as the 332nd Division.

The stronger Greyhound Division was holding off the Shepetovka Army Group on the eastern front.

Disaster was about to fall upon the Southern Army Group!

Adel Schultz shouted, “Messenger! Send a telegram to the Southern Army Group Command right away! The situation here is dire! The front is in danger of collapse! The original plan is no longer applicable. We need to mobilize strong and useful troops to stop Rokossov!”

"Yes!”

While the messenger responded, the Chief of Staff reminded him, “General, you can’t use clear language to disclose such important matters over the radio! You could send a messenger!”

Adel said, “Look at the battle situation! The enemy is about to charge at me! It’ll be too late if we don’t send the telegram now!”

After speaking, Adel put down the radio microphone and ordered his command tank through the internal telephone line: “Target the enemy’s ‘pot-lid’ tanks in front

"General,” the gunner reminded him, “the command tank only has a short-barrel 50mm cannon. We can only scratch the enemy’s paint.”

Adel paused, realizing the gunner was right.

The “pot-lids” were already charging over. The Ante tank commander on the turret swung the anti-aircraft gun to aim at Adel and shouted loudly, “Surrender and you won’t be killed!”

Pochayev Village, Prosen 332nd Infantry Division headquarters.

Defending Pochayev and its surrounding areas was only one regiment of the 332nd Division, along with units attached to the division, but the headquarters of the division was always based here.

Next to the division’s headquarters was the camp for the 11th Armored Reconnaissance Battalion. The motorized armored reconnoitre soldiers, who were elite infantry themselves, along with the division’s guard troops, had built a quite robust position.

But everyone knew that such a position was not enough to stop Ante’s assault troops.

The 332nd Division Commander pinned his hopes for holding Pochayev on the counter-assault launched by the Schulz Group on the right flank of the position.

According to general experience, wherever the Prosen armored troops were committed to a counterattack, at least there would be a delay in Ante’s offensive.

Previously at Oborony, Ante’s encirclement was almost foiled by the intervention of the Prosen armored troops. It was just unfortunate that the Prosen armored troops were exhausted in the end, whereas the enemy still retained some armored forces.

As a result, the Southern Army Group had to retreat to Shepetovka.

Conversely, as long as the armored troops weren’t completely consumed, the Anteans wouldn’t be able to advance smoothly.

The 332nd Division Commander personally went to the observation post on the perimeter to watch the Schulz Group engage in the counterattack. The group had at least seventy tanks, even though a good part of them were Panzer IIIs with 50mm cannons, it was still a fairly powerful armored force.

Such armored troops would definitely cause heavy casualties to the Anteans until the Southern Army Group could mobilize reinforcements.

The 332nd Division Commander knew the Southern Army Group was retreating, but he firmly believed that they could only retreat smoothly if the defensive line held.

In short, everything was left to the armored troops; all 332nd Division had to do was use their machine guns to wipe out some Antean infantry to fulfil their mission—that’s what the commander thought.

So when the observation post reported the appearance of enemy armored troops outside the village, he utterly refused to believe it.

Then the accompanying 76mm self-propelled guns of the Antean armored troops began to shell the village.

Chief of Staff asked, “What do we do now, General?”

The 332nd Division Commander straightened his uniform, “Give me a submachine gun. The Empire needs every person to perform their duty.”

By 2200 that day, Pochayev was liberated.

Of course, from the Prosen perspective, this meant it was lost.