![]() ![]() ![]() The battle lasted a week: from 23 to 30 June. It sounds fantastic, but this is if you do not know the strength of the parties: in a giant oncoming tank battle, 3128 Soviet and 728 German tanks met. Already in the evening of June 22, the troops of this front received orders to encircle and destroy the advancing enemy grouping with powerful concentric strikes by mechanized corps, and by the end of June 24 to capture the Lublin region (Poland). But in this direction there was the most powerful grouping of the Red Army - the South-Western Front. ![]() Kyiv was attacked not so much strong group armies "South". The most powerful grouping of the Wehrmacht - "Center" - advanced to the north, to Minsk and further to Moscow. In the first days of the war, a large-scale tank battle took place in Western Ukraine. Using the remaining 73 tanks, the British managed to prevent a more serious defeat. However, during the German counter-offensive, the British troops were forced to retreat. The well-fortified "Hindenburg Line" was broken through to a great depth. The German divisions were defeated and suffered heavy losses. In total, 476 tanks participated in the offensive. The British were constantly firing machine guns and mortars to drown out the roar of tank engines. Tanks were brought to the front in evening time. The operation was prepared in strict secrecy. The offensive at Cambrai was supposed to take the German command by surprise. For the first time in history, tanks themselves had to break through the enemy defenses. Even the tank crews are discouraged." According to the plan of the British command, the upcoming offensive was supposed to begin without traditional artillery preparation. One British officer noted: "The infantry thinks that the tanks have not justified themselves. Since the tanks had not lived up to expectations before, many considered them useless. Their first use by the British at the Battle of the Somme in 1916 opened new era- with tank wedges and lightning-fast blitzkriegs.Īfter failures with the use of small tank formations, the British command decided to launch an offensive using a large number tanks. Since the First World War, tanks have been one of the most effective weapons of war. ![]()
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