USSR 1941

The Soviet Ninth Army used a little time during the day to make some preparations.

The first is to ventilate with Major General Toliczka. After all, this requires his coordination. More importantly, Major Gavrilov does not want to watch Major General Toliczka wipe out the tank troops like this.

In order to avoid leaking information, Major Gavrilov took Shulka to the military headquarters.

"Are you sure this method works?" Major General Tolicka asked.

"We tried it at the Brest Fortress, Comrade General!" Major Gavrilov said: "We have successfully crossed the Bug River!"

"But that's a small force!" Major General Toliczka said, "And it only crossed a river. Now we obviously need more troops. They have to dive several times as far as you did before!"

This difficulty and danger are indeed not comparable to crossing the Bug River before. In case they are discovered by the enemy... they only need to throw grenades into the lake to make the Soviet army lurking in the lake overwhelmed and go away.

"So we chose to dive in the dark, Comrade General!" Shulka said: "At the same time, launch a feint attack on the enemy to attract their attention!"

After thinking about it for a while, Tolicka nodded and agreed to the plan.

"It's no loss to us anyway!" Toliczka said.

Even if Qiandu is discovered by the enemy, there are only a few casualties, and death is unavoidable on the battlefield, so this is not a "loss" for Soviet officers.

So the offensive of the Ninth Army stopped, and the news to the troops was that it was preparing to attack at night... This excuse is very good. If you can't rely on tanks, it is indeed more appropriate to attack at night and fight the Romanian army at night.

The second is the gas mask.

This is not difficult in Brest, there are many gas masks in the warehouses of the fortress.

But in the Soviet army, gas masks were not standard equipment. Many soldiers thought they were troublesome and useless, so they didn't bring them.

However, it is not difficult to search for hundreds of gas masks from an army. The only worry is that collecting gas masks will leak secrets and attract the attention of the enemy.

For this reason, Major Gavrilov also performed a scene, pretending that a warehouse leaked some harmful gas and temporarily needed a gas mask, which completed the task.

Again it is modification.

It was too dangerous to modify it as it had done in the Brest Fortress, when a float was attached to the end of the extension pipe.

The goal is too big to do so, a pile of floating objects are very obvious in the lake, and it is very likely to be discovered as soon as the searchlight shines.

The new method is to add a foam float to the lower half, so that the extension tube will be suspended in the water and only a section of the extension tube is exposed on the water surface, which obviously has much fewer targets.

But in fact, the problem of exposure is not big.

On the one hand, this is because the lake located in the defense line is not as clean as Shulka and others thought. The military and civilian living garbage living on both sides and nearby are all dumped in, and there are not many floating objects at all.

On the other hand, it was difficult to find anything in the rainy night, and the searchlights could not shine very far, not to mention that the Romanian soldiers did not even dare to turn on the searchlights because they were afraid of being bombed.

One serious problem that no one thought of...rainwater.

When the extension tube is exposed to the water surface, rainwater will flow into the mask from the opening along the extension tube, accumulating more and more...

After the war Gavrilov asked Shulka: "How did you solve this problem?"

Shulka replied: "Easy, drink it up!"

As he said that, Shulka touched his bloated stomach with lingering fear... This is actually not simple at all.

Finally, the soldiers of the first battalion followed the feint attacking troops with modified gas masks.

With the cover of heavy rain at night, they didn't need to start swimming from a very far position at all.

The feint attacking troops reached a position 200 meters away from the enemy's line of defense to prepare for a feint attack. The first battalion launched into the water one after another behind it, and then moved forward under the cover of gunshots and explosions...

Admiral Schobert on the other side didn't realize that the danger was approaching him step by step, and all his attention was focused on occupying the Odessa port.

The port is the key to occupying Odessa.

One reason is that the Soviet army has been sending reinforcements to Odessa through the port... Although the Romanian and German allied forces have blocked the port with mines, bombers and artillery fire, as the saying goes, "when soldiers come, they will block the water and flood the soil." These blockades are difficult to block the port. Supplies are completely sealed off.

Especially at night when the bombers are unable to fight, large and small transport ships from Crimea will bring supplies and ammunition in batches through the channels swept out by the minesweepers.

On the other hand, the port was the only retreat for the Soviet army. Occupying the port would undoubtedly deal a heavy psychological and morale blow to the Soviet troops stationed in Odessa.

More importantly, the Romanian 6th Infantry Division had penetrated into Odessa from the west and occupied the museum. If the German army occupying the port can respond to the east and west to attack the Soviet army and then cut Odessa into two parts that cannot be connected, then Odessa will be helpless.

At this time, Schobert persuaded Rakowitza to assign him an artillery regiment... In fact, this was the result of Schobert's "snitching" to Rundstedt.

"Your Excellency Field Marshal!" Schobert reported to Rundstedt in a telegram: "The 22nd Infantry Division is an airborne unit. They have no artillery. And the Romanians refuse to use their artillery to support us... "

As previously stated, Rakovitza feared that Schobert was out to take credit from him.

This "little report" was very useful, and Admiral Schobert immediately got an artillery regiment.

But Schobert was still furious.

"Haven't these guys learned how to fire a cannon?" said Schobert. "Or they made the farmers who worked the fields become artillerymen!"

It turned out that in the artillery support just now, at least one-third of the shells smashed into the German area and caused a lot of casualties to the German army.

"Fabian!" Then Schobert ordered an artillery adjutant: "You rush to the artillery position immediately to take over their command, and bring a radio, understand?"

"Yes, General!"

This is actually not surprising. Two armies with different levels of training and quality cooperate, and there will always be problems of one kind or another.

After Fabian finally settled at the artillery position, Schobert breathed a sigh of relief and turned his gaze to the port again.

But at this moment, a communication soldier panicked and reported to Schobert: "Your Excellency, it is General Rakowitza...he asked us for help!"

"What the hell are you doing?" Admiral Schobert looked at the communications soldier suspiciously, "Ask us for help?"