Chapter 1565

In the early morning of the next day, the troops of rebalko, lelushenko and baranov carried out the final general attack on the besieged Broder group under the powerful air firepower.

Because the German army was at a disadvantage in strength and technical equipment, and had no air supremacy, although they resisted tenaciously, they did not escape the fate of annihilation in the end.

In the evening, rebalko called konev. He said excitedly on the phone: "Comrade marshal, after a day of fierce fighting, the Broder group of the German army no longer exists. According to rough statistics, our army annihilated more than 30000 enemies and captured more than 17000 German officers and men, including two division commanders. At the same time, more than 1100 guns of various calibres, 1500 cars and many other military materials were seized. "

"Well done, rebalko." Konev beamed into the microphone and said, "please thank all the commanders and fighters for their success in smashing the German Broder group."

"This is what we should do, comrade marshal." After pausing for a moment, rebalko asked cautiously, "is there going to be a formal attack on Lvov tomorrow?"

"That's right," konev said, nodding his head. "According to the battle plan we just made, after the attack on Lvov, your group army started from the northwest and West, the tank group army 4 of lelushenko circuited from the south, and the group army 60 of kurozhkin attacked from the East, Moskalenko's 38th army, on the other hand, attacked the south of Lvov from peremeshi. "

"Marshal," rebalko immediately assured konev after listening to his arrangement, "my troops will be the first to rush into Lvov."

"Well, since you have such confidence, I'll wait for your good news here." After konev finished his call with rebalko, he turned around and told sokolovsky: "chief of staff, call the other three commanders of the group army besides rebalko, and ask them to take a rest day tomorrow, and wait until the morning after tomorrow to officially launch the attack on Lvov."

…………

On the early morning of July 24, our army carried out heavy shelling on the German positions on the outskirts of Lvov.

After the shelling started, we received a phone call from four commanders of the group army. They all said in one voice that the German position was being heavily shelled by our artillery and intensively bombed by the air force. The positions were full of dazzling fireballs and smoke.

But it wasn't until our troops rushed into Lviv and interrogated the captured prisoners that they realized that the outer positions that had been shelled and bombed by us for an hour and a half were empty. All the German troops withdrew to the second line of defense, leaving no observation posts. When our artillery and bombing stopped, they returned to the forefront from the second line of defense to block our attack.

After the shelling and bombing, the 3rd group army of rybalco's close guard tanks launched an attack from the West and northwest to Lvov at the same time, but it was tenaciously resisted by the German army, and the troops were forced to return to the starting position after paying heavy casualties.

During the whole morning's fighting, not only rebalko's attack was frustrated, but also the attacks launched by lelushenko, kurozhkin and Moskalenko from the other two directions did not make any progress.

After receiving the report that the progress was not smooth, sokolovsky was a little worried. He looked at konev walking around the headquarters and asked, "marshal, it seems that the German defense force in the city is very strong. Do you want to let the troops withdraw first and bombard the enemy's positions again?"

"No, let them continue to attack." As he walked back and forth, konev said angrily, "four group armies attacked at the same time. All morning, they didn't touch the edge of the German peripheral positions. What a shame!"

"Comrade marshal," I asked cautiously, "since our army is now frustrated in attack, do you think it is necessary to make corresponding adjustments in deployment?"

"Well, it makes sense. We need to adjust our deployment." Konev stopped, looked at sokolovsky and said, "chief of staff, inform rebalko immediately and ask him to stop attacking temporarily. After leaving two tank brigades and two motorized infantry battalions in the occupied area, the main force bypassed the Yanov forest zone and pushed forward to the yavorov area, cutting off the communication line between the German Lvov group and Yaroslav and peremeshli. "

"Marshal, if rebarko is allowed to stop attacking, then our troops will have to attack Lvov from the East and the south." Sokolovsky asked uneasily: "in this way, the German army can completely transfer the forces from the north and the west to these two directions, and then the resistance of the other three groups will become more tenacious."

"Chief of staff, you're worried." Konev confidently said: "as long as rebalko leaves enough troops on guard to form a deterrent to the German army, they will not dare to mobilize the northern and Western forces to reinforce the attacked area. In this way, we can let the two air force groups each take charge of one direction and use three-dimensional fortifications to capture the city. "

Considering that it would not only waste time and achieve little success if the troops were allowed to return to the starting point of the attack and launch the attack after another artillery preparation and bombing, I suggested to konev: "marshal, I think the troops need not carry out special artillery preparation and bombing before the attack, but adopt artillery firepower to suppress it, The tanks, along with the infantry, attacked the German peripheral positions

As for my proposal, konev considered it for a moment and then adopted a compromise: the artillery first shelled the German peripheral positions, ten minutes later, the artillery extended, and our troops launched a charge under the guidance of tanks. After a few hours of rest, troops from the East and South attacked livov again in the afternoon. Because the German army didn't expect us to suddenly change our tactics, the front position that was shelled was still empty, so the 4th tank group army in the south of the city took the lead in approaching Lvov. After passing the first German line of defense quickly, the 10th army of close guard tanks, which opened the way in front of them, rushed to the second German line of defense quickly. The enemy in the second line of defense is being attacked by our extended artillery and is being suppressed in the trenches. When they found out that our tanks were coming at a high speed, before they could make any response, they had already crossed the trench one after another and rushed directly to Lviv city.