artillery arc

Chapter 353: More and More
While the frontline soldiers of both sides were chatting to kill time, the power in Wang Zhong's hands was increasing every minute.

Units under the First Mobile Army continued to get off at Yarvik and drove over in battalion units, with a new battalion arriving every hour.

Acting Chief of Staff Alexander was almost overwhelmed with new battalions to be assigned every hour.

Wang Zhong assigned Vasily to him to do his bidding, while he and Popov watched them work around the clock.

Popov sighed, "Sometimes I am glad that I am just a bishop, especially since I am your bishop. You will do most of the things I should have done, so I have less time."

Wang Zhong shrugged: "I'm just not sure if your bald head can successfully boost morale, so I did it myself."

Popov was shocked: "I didn't want to be bald myself. Just wait and see. All men become bald when they get older. You are just young. You may be balder than me in the future! By then, your children will ride on your neck, touch your head and shout, 'I am a witch. Crystal ball, tell me who is the most beautiful woman in the world.'"

Wang Zhong burst out laughing. Is this a variation of the Snow White story?
At this time, a man walked in the gate and laughed "Oh ha ha ha" when he saw Wang Zhong.

Wang Zhong: "Okay, Yegorov, I see you, stop blocking my door."

Popov: "You see, men go bald as they get older! Isn't this another example?"

Yegorov was stunned for a moment: "Why am I teased for being bald as soon as I walked in? I'm not bald yet!"

"Almost there," Popov said.

Wang Zhong pointed to the map and said, "Look at the locations of the various units of the First Guards Mechanized Infantry and choose the address of your division headquarters."

Yegorov looked at the map and said jokingly, "Why don't you ask me about the situation on the road?"

Wang Zhong: "How's the situation on the road?"

"The Proson Air Force attacked us but missed. The anti-aircraft guns on the train played a role." Yegorov paused, pointed at a point on the map and said, "This sign, is this a farm?"

Wang Zhong: "Yes, I visited it in advance. There are two houses and a stable."

"My headquarters is right here. This grassland is so vast and empty. If it were in Khazaria, there would be at least five more villages on this map, plus small farms scattered around."

Popov: "This grassland is not black soil, it's not that fertile, and weeds grow in many places. It's not like the black soil in Khazaria, where the grass outside the farmland is so high that it can roll a car wheel in."

But Sally was extremely fertile, with grass so thick that it restricted the movement of wheeled vehicles, and only tanks could move on flat ground.

If this happened in Kosalia, Wang Zhong would not have been able to let the reconnaissance troops drive fast yesterday. If they could not drive fast, they might be outflanked by the enemy armored forces, and the Vortex might be suppressed by the turreted tanks in close combat.

But Wang Zhong would rather fight on the land of Khazaria. Unfortunately, the last land of Khazaria is around Borsk, and that is also the last land of Khazaria controlled by Ant.

If Prince Myshkin was defeated, he would have no choice but to push south into the mountains and defend the passes.

Wang Zhong waved away the sudden homesickness that filled him—or more precisely, the homesickness for his second hometown—and said to Yegorov, "Go and command your troops. The enemy may see through our delaying tactics and launch an attack at any time."

Yegorov smiled and said, "Don't worry. This area looks like grass, which is not suitable for defense. However, we have few infantry and many technical weapons. We are not afraid of shooting at each other on such an open ground. There is no place for everyone to hide. The side with more firepower will win."

Wang Zhong's army group is not suitable for fighting in areas with poor visibility such as dense forests. Fighting in such places requires a lot of infantry to "open the field of vision."

Wang Zhong: "Be careful, the enemy is mainly armored and is also very suitable for fighting in open areas."

"Leave it to me." Yegorov saluted Wang Zhong, then turned to Alexander, "My chief of staff, please come with me. I can't command the army without my chief of staff."

Alexander looked at Wang Zhong.

Wang Zhong: "Go ahead and perform your duties. Leave the army headquarters to Vasily."

Vasily: "Me?"

Alexander smiled: "I believe you can do it, musician."

As he said this, he patted Vasily on the shoulder and saluted Wang Zhong.

Yegorov walked out first, and when he passed the gate, he hunched his shoulders, as if he would be stuck by the gate if he didn't.

After the two left, Wang Zhong looked at Vasily and clenched his fist towards him, meaning "Come on!"

Vasily was shocked. Just then, the communications officer reported: "The 2nd Tank Destroyer Battalion is calling. They are about to arrive and ask where to refuel."

Vasily: "Tell them that there is a gas station along the road, and if you see a silo in the distance, it means you are almost there."

The communications officer turned around immediately.

The organization of the tank destroyer battalion was first proposed by Wang Zhongxian. Previously, the SU76 and the like were regarded as self-propelled artillery and incorporated into the self-propelled artillery battalion, while the anti-tank guns were simply called anti-tank gun battalions.

Wang Zhong's armored vehicles, which can only be used to attack tanks, were not available in the ANT Army before the vortex, so they were separately organized into a "tank destroyer battalion."

In the future, the United States will send Hellcats and Wolf tanks, which will also be incorporated into the tank destroyer battalion. But now the Ante Army only has one dedicated tank destroyer, the Vortex, so the three tank destroyer battalions currently formed are all in Wang Zhong's group army.

The 225nd Tank Destroyer Battalion is a subordinate unit of the 225th Infantry Division, and the troops that are arriving now are all from the th Infantry Division.

Wang Zhong: "Didn't the 225th Division send a vanguard? Pavlov would not make such a mistake. He must have organized a part of the 225th Division's command organs into an advance team and sent them here. Refueling should be arranged by the division's advance team."

Before Vasily could answer, another person entered the door of the army headquarters.

It was Lieutenant Colonel Eugene—Brig.-Gen.

Popov: "It seems that the advance team has arrived. Why is the military commander here first? The ones leading the way should be the staff officers and clerks."

Brigadier General Eugene said bitterly: "Because I was originally a clerk."

Wang Zhong: "You are the mine manager, aren't you?"

"That's also a senior clerk. I'm better at arranging marching formations than commanding troops in battle. General, you should take away my rank of brigadier general and the title of acting division commander. I'll just be a colonel."

Wang Zhong: "Not at this stage. As a school-level officer, you were the best performer last year. After all, your troops did not retreat and stubbornly sniped the enemy. You were promoted to acting commander of the 225th Division because of your military merits."

In the Ant Army, a large number of outstanding colonels were promoted to brigadier generals last year and commanded division and brigade-level troops.

The headquarters had no idea how these people would behave, and neither did Wang Zhong.

Fortunately, the 225th Division commanded by Brigadier General Eugene is a unit under his command. At worst, he can go down and command it directly when the time comes.

Wang Zhong was very sure that he was quite capable of commanding a division.

But he would not tell this to Brigadier General Eugene now. He wanted to see if the mine manager could learn war.

After all, he is now considered a member of the "Rokosov faction" and is a general that Wang Zhong knows well.

Brigadier General Eugene: "Except for some experience in digging trenches and fighting defensive battles, I am really not good at other things."

"Are you good at map work and arranging marching formations?" Vasily asked with sparkling eyes, "You are the advance team of the 225th Division, so you will arrange the march of your division!"

Brigadier General Eugene: "That's no problem. I also brought clerks and staff."

"That's great." Vasily was overjoyed. "The army's staff is still busy in Yeburg, sending cars and cars of people to the train. The clerks and staff sent here are still in Yarvik. Now I, the captain adjutant, am the only one who can take the lead. There was originally Alexander who could take over, but he was taken away by Yegorov."

Wang Zhong held his chin and suddenly said, "We should organize a special headquarters to be responsible for this kind of complicated transportation work. It's too chaotic like this time."

Popov agreed: "Yes, after all the troops have arrived at the combat area, the headquarters will turn to be responsible for the logistics transportation, so that everything will be in order. It just so happens that our army group is particularly dependent on logistics."

After all, the First Mobile Army had too many artillery pieces.

When the team was formed, no one thought was given to the organizational issues involved in quickly rushing to the battlefield. The main reason was that Wang Zhong only had experience in commanding divisions. As for the division-level units moving long distances by train, Pavlov and his staff could basically handle it. It was not that troublesome at all.

Now, based on what he has seen and heard, Wang Zhong intuitively feels the necessity of adding a unit of 30 to 50 people to be responsible for commanding the transfer of troops.

With such a headquarters, transportation will definitely be much smoother, and the military staff will not need to worry about long-distance train transportation. They only need to be responsible for the last 50 kilometers from the military station to the front line.

By the way, Wang Zhong also deeply understood a problem that he could not understand before the time travel: Why did the Zhurihe drill also include unloading cars at the railway station? What is there to drill?
Now he realized that he really had to practice, he couldn't do without it.

The First Mobile Army had never rehearsed this, and it was in such a mess now because the staff was indeed very capable, especially Colonel Karatayev, a sixth-level clerk in charge of Yarvik.

If the staff and clerks were incompetent, the situation would be a mess.

Wang Zhong looked at Brigadier General Eugene who was busy like a clerk, and was grateful to the Plosson people for their caution from the bottom of his heart. If they attacked now, who knows what the situation would become.

----

"We have to make a tentative attack." Major General Witte said while looking at the map. "After the enemy prepared their firepower, they didn't attack. I feel that this is a delaying tactic. The enemy is not actually ready to fight us head-on, so they are deliberately trying to scare us."

Colonel Busey was shocked: "The opponent is that Rokossov!"

Major General Witte: "It is precisely because of that Rokossov that I have to doubt this. He is very cunning. He may pretend to attack and prepare firepower, but his real purpose is to buy time for the arrival of follow-up troops."

Colonel Busey: "Is it possible that what you are thinking is exactly what he wants? We saw it yesterday, a sophisticated double trick. We saw through his first trick and thought that the enemy's forces were weak, so we attacked, and we were almost eaten up by his hundreds of tanks in the wilderness!"

Major General Witte: "Did you see his hundreds of tanks? With your own eyes?"

Colonel Busey shut up.

Major General Witte: "That means seeing is believing. Send out a motorized reconnaissance battalion to find out the enemy's situation, especially to see if there are 'hundreds of tanks'!"

(End of this chapter)