Transmigrated as the Crown Prince

In fact, before the war started, Boris Mikhailovich Shaposhnikov, the General Staff of the Soviet Red Army, was ordered to draw up a combat plan. His plan objectively considered the Finnish army's combat capabilities and the special conditions on the battlefield, and made a correct estimate of the war, believing that the war would last for several months (according to the original war situation in time and space, it is not difficult to see that the general The chief of staff is quite foresighted and strategic).

Unfortunately, as the so-called good medicine tastes bitter, such a plan does not suit Stalin's wishes. He believed that the powerful Soviet Union should defeat weak Finland in a shorter period of time. Therefore, the Soviet Union replaced Meretskov, commander of the Leningrad Military District, as the frontline commander. In order to capture Finland as soon as possible, it even carried out partial mobilization, investing a total of 425,640 soldiers, 2,876 various artillery pieces and mortars. , 2289 tanks and 2446 aircraft.

The order of operations is under the general command of the Leningrad Military District, which has jurisdiction over the Seventh Army, the Eighth Army, the Ninth Army, and the Fourteenth Army. The battle plan is as follows:

The 7th Army attacked north from Leningrad along the west bank of Lake Laduga, broke through Finland's Mannheim Line of Defense, and captured Finland's second largest city, Hviipuri. On the third day after the attack was launched, Advance to the capital Helsinki.

The 8th Army was deployed on the east bank of Lake Ladoga. Its mission was to contain Finnish forces from the flanks and assist the 7th Army.

In central Finland, the 9th Army was deployed. Its mission was to divide the troops into two routes, with the left route directed towards Oulu and the right route directed towards Kemi; to cut Finland in half and cut off land transportation with Sweden.

In the direction of Lapland, the 14th Army was launched, attacking the Petsamo area westward from Murmansk, then going south for 500 kilometers along the Polar Circle Highway, and then attacking westward to the Swedish border.

This combat plan seemed perfect on paper. The Red Army took advantage of its numerical and equipment advantages to launch a joint attack and cut Finland into several pieces. The beginning and the end could not correspond to each other. Even if the Finnish army, which was at an absolute disadvantage in terms of numbers, was prepared, they could not Unable to deploy defenses along the long national border, the Red Army's advance should be overwhelming. The Soviet leadership was so confident that the Deputy Minister of Defense instructed the artillery units to prepare only twelve days of ammunition, and a military band that led the march into Helsinki was ready.

But now the air force suffered a big loss, but the ground troops couldn't wait to rush forward. Leading the way was the 35th Light Tank Brigade. The entire tank brigade was equipped with 136 T-26s, 10 KhT-26s, 3 ST-26s, 10 BA-10s, and 10 BA-20s, for a total of 149 tanks.

The T26 of the original time and space was used on a large scale three times before World War II: the Spanish Civil War, the Nomoncan War and the Soviet-Finnish War. In these wars, the T26 can be said to have completed the tasks it was supposed to complete; such as suppressing the opponent's light tanks, breaking through weak defense lines, quickly interspersing and surrounding enemy infantry, etc. The task it cannot complete is to overcome the strongly fortified enemy defense lines, especially the defense lines with strengthened anti-tank firepower; in fact, this is normal, after all, it is a light tank, and even German and American light tanks cannot do this. .

The actual combat losses of the T26 are indeed relatively large. This is not because the overall design has major flaws, but because of some simplifications of the T26 by the Soviet Union. For a light tank like the T26, its armor can basically only protect against light weapons. If you want to improve battlefield survivability, you can only work on two aspects, one is mobility, and the other is good observation ability. High mobility can reduce being hit, and good vision can better detect threats and avoid them. The T26 does a good job in maneuverability and is very fast, but the removal of the command tower greatly reduces the commander's observation ability. Moreover, the commander of the T26 also serves as the gunner, and has little time to observe the surroundings during combat. Therefore, It is easy to be attacked by fire from the side and rear. In addition, the T26's fire control ability is not very good, and its precise shooting ability is insufficient. It is said that a relatively high hit rate can only be achieved within 300 meters. Such a short distance is difficult for the T26's weak armor. It's just too dangerous.

The T26 actually represents the consistent characteristics of Soviet tanks: better armor, faster speed, emphasis on firepower, but poor observation capabilities and shooting accuracy, and poor ergonomics.

Less than four kilometers away from the Finnish defense line, there was a loud "boom" and a T26 headed by it instantly exploded into a fire.

"Anti-tank mines!" Brigadier Ogurtsov couldn't help but exclaimed.

Military fans all know that the armor thickness of tanks is different at different locations.

The most vulnerable position on the battlefield is the front armor, followed by the side armor, with the top and bottom being the least likely to be attacked. When designing tanks, all countries will thicken the vulnerable parts of the tank, following the principle that "thickness is proportional to the probability of being attacked." As for the reason, everyone should understand that it is to use the smallest weight to create a tank with the strongest protection.

Anti-tank mines are a weapon that perfectly exploits the weakness of tanks. In 1916, the world's first tank entered the war arena. Due to the lack of restraint weapons, tanks were rampant and unscrupulous on the battlefield. In order to deal with tanks, Britain's rival Germany in 1918 transformed artillery shells into mines specifically designed to deal with tanks.

This is the earliest anti-track mine.

Anti-track mines, as the name suggests, are designed to explode tank tracks. This type of mine must be pressed against by a tank before it can detonate.

Later, anti-bottom armor mines appeared one after another (anti-track mines mainly attack the tracks, and anti-bottom armor mines mainly perform "belly-breaking" surgery on tanks, incidentally killing the occupants in the vehicle); anti-track and anti-bottom armor dual-purpose landmines, this A kind of landmine has a more comprehensive attack direction; anti-side armor mine (this kind of landmine is developed based on the anti-tank rocket launcher. During wartime, it is usually installed on both sides of the road where the tank passes. Sensors such as infrared or millimeter wave radar are used to locate the tank. As long as a tank passes by, it will be detected by the sensor, and the mine will be detonated to penetrate the side armor of the tank. Of course, there were no such advanced mines during World War II)

Now that the T-26 was blown up into a fire, Ogurtsov knew that the opponent had planted a powerful anti-bottom armor mine. Although I want other tanks to be careful of the mines on the ground, it is impossible. Landmines will not be marked on the ground. He could only pray that the mine density would not be too high, allowing them to rush to the Finnish defense line with less loss.

Unfortunately, things were not as simple as imagined. The advancing tanks hit mines one after another and exploded. After losing more than 30 tanks at once, the brigade commander Ogurtsov was forced to issue an order to stop advancing.

The density of these anti-tank mines is too great. If they rush over like this, the whole army will be annihilated.