Chapter 91

Even knowing that there was little hope, General Kleist transferred an armored division hoping to cross the Dnieper River and return to the west bank.

It is normal for Admiral Kleist to have this idea.

On the one hand, Admiral Kleist had a fluke mentality. In case the Soviet army's defense and reconnaissance on the Dnieper River were insufficient, an armored division could cross the Dnieper River before they could react.

On the other hand, the battle on the West Bank is too important, and it is related to the logistics supply of the 1st Armored Group and even the entire Southern Army Group. If it is cut off by the Soviet Mechanized 9th Army, it may lead to the collapse of the entire defense line.

As a result, the 29th Armored Division turned around and returned to the Dnieper River under the order of Admiral Kleist.

The location is Gorodisheh, downstream of Kremenchug, and the crossing time is at night.

This was chosen because the pontoon bridges at Kremenchug were so obvious that Admiral Kleist believed they were already under Soviet surveillance.

The purpose of crossing the river at night is to cover up. At this point, the German armored division still has the initiative... The Dnieper River south of Kyiv stretches for hundreds of kilometers. The German armored division can choose a section to build a pontoon bridge to cross the river, and even choose the time at will. It is said that the Soviets are difficult to guard against.

Admiral Kleist thought this way: If this armored division can successfully cross the river, then they can cooperate with the German infantry on the west bank to build defenses, or they can use the excellent mobility of German tanks to harass the Soviet Mechanized 9th Army along the way.

The latter is a tactic commonly used by the German army, which is a bit like the tactic used by Genghis Khan in ancient times.

The total strength of the Mongolian cavalry is only hundreds of thousands, but it is not without reason that they can gallop across the largest territory in history. They always use the high mobility of the cavalry to harass the enemy's infantry, giving full play to "the enemy advances and we retreat, and the enemy retreats and we retreat." Advance, the enemy stays and we harass, the enemy is tired and we fight" principle, until the enemy army becomes a tired and chaotic army, it is only when the enemy army becomes a tired and chaotic army that it takes advantage of the victory to pursue and win a battle.

The same is true of the German mechanized troops... In fact, its "blitzkrieg" tactics are very similar to the tactics of the Mongolian cavalry for long-distance raids deep into the enemy's hinterland.

This is also one of the reasons why German tanks attach importance to mobility: the "Phase Three" tank is twice as heavy as the Soviet light tank T26, but its speed and cross-country capabilities are much better than T26.

Therefore, the key point is whether this armored division can cross the Dnieper River.

For this reason, Admiral Kleist also personally made some deployments:

First, Admiral Kleist deployed two artillery regiments on both sides of Kremenchug.

There is no need to say more about the role of the artillery regiment. They formed a cross-fire force to block the upper reaches of Kremenchug from the left to the right, so that the Soviet shallow-water heavy gunboats could not pass through here.

The second is to order the aircraft to increase the laying of mines upstream of Kremenchug.

In the end, several engineering regiments were deployed downstream and pontoon bridges were built at the same time.

The purpose of doing this is obvious, it is to confuse the Soviet army so that they can't tell which part is the real landing point.

But Admiral Kleist underestimated the Soviet army, and Shulka certainly took this into consideration.

"How do we prevent the Germans from crossing the river?" Admiral Kirponos asked. "They will probably block a certain section of the river with artillery or torpedoes and make our shallow water fleet useless!"

In fact, this happened before the Germans crossed the river.

"We don't need a shallow water fleet, General!" Shulka replied.

"Air Force?" Admiral Kirponos shook his head, "Don't expect too much from the Air Force, Sergeant!"

Of course, I can't help but have hope for the Soviet Air Force, not to mention that they have been beaten by the Luftwaffe at this time, and they are unable to bomb the pontoon bridge at night.

"No, not the Air Force!" Shulka replied.

"So, what else?" Admiral Kirponos looked at Shulka suspiciously.

In addition, all Admiral Kirponos can think of is to use artillery, but if the German 1st Armored Group has crossed the Dnieper River, it will be difficult to deploy artillery on the east bank.

This is indeed the case. After the German 1st Armored Group crossed the river, the Southern Front deployed on the east bank of the Dnieper River quickly collapsed.

"First of all, we have to have intelligence!" Shulka said: "If we don't know at what point or when they cross the river, it will be difficult to make a targeted response!"

"That's no problem!" Admiral Kirponos replied: "We can deploy reconnaissance troops on both sides of the Dnieper River, and they will provide the information we need!"

This is really not a big problem, because this is the Soviet Union.

Although many Ukrainian people do not have a good impression of Moscow, it is the Soviet Union after all, and it is very easy to send a few reconnaissance troops disguised as fleeing civilians to mix in the crowd for reconnaissance.

If anything, it was the radio needed for the scouts to communicate.

However, this is certainly not a problem for the commander of the front army, General Kirponos. He even sent a report to Timoshenko, requesting that the radio station of the southern front army be transferred to the southwestern front army for use.

This sounds unreasonable, because if the radio stations of the Southern Army were tuned, it would mean that their troops would inevitably have communication difficulties.

But from the perspective of Kirponos' plan, it is very reasonable... Anyway, the Southern Front Army is playing the role of being defeated. The difference between having a radio station and not having a radio station is that they can report to their superiors where to flee to!

Marshal Timoshenko knew something about Admiral Kirponos' plans, so he agreed to the request.

"Then there are German mines!" Shulka turned his attention to Admiral Kirponos: "I heard that the Germans used a magnetic mine?"

"Yes!" Admiral Kirponos replied: "They don't need to be fixed by lightning, and they sink directly to the bottom of the river, so it's hard to get rid of them!"

Shulka knows something about this: traditional mines carry an anchor, which can be hooked to the bottom of the sea or a river just like a ship's anchor, and then lead the mine to a certain position in the water through a ray cable so that it cannot It will drift away with the flow of river and sea water.

This kind of mine elimination is more convenient, that is, use a minesweeper with a cutter to cut off the mines, and the mines will surface one by one and then be detonated.

But magnetic mines...it doesn't need thunder anchors and lightning cables, or even if there are lightning anchors and lightning cables, they are still in very deep parts of the seabed.

There is no need for the Dnieper, which sinks to the bottom like a stone. In this way, ordinary minesweepers will not be able to play a role, and once a warship passes above it, the magnetic mine will "boom" after sensing the magnetism of the warship's armor...