Amidst the impressive armoured formation, several Panzer IVs pulled up to the side of the road.
A bald, middle-aged man leaned out from the turret of one of the tanks.
He was the division commander of the 13th Panzer Division, Generalmajor Walther Düvert.
He raised his binoculars, looked toward Brusiliv, and asked his adjutant to walk to his tank.
"What is the town there?"
The adjutant quickly checked his map and replied.
"General, it is Brusiliv, just a small town."
Walther frowned.
"Shouldn't the vanguard have taken it? Why do I still hear fierce gunfire from the city?"
The adjutant had the same confusion.
"Perhaps they are just cleaning up the remaining Soviets. But the gunfire might be too dense."
At that moment, the chief of staff, Lieutenant Colonel Hans, walked over to him.
"General, we received a request for help from Brusiliv. The Soviets have surrounded them."
Walther was shocked.
"How is their situation? How many Soviets have surrounded them?"
Hans looked at the intel and answered.
"Not good. They were supposed to be an armoured and infantry company, but they have already lost more than half of it."
"The Soviets ambushed them using tunnels. They did not spot it when they entered the town."
Listening to this, Walther fell into thought.
"Tunnels?"
This was also strange for Walther.
It was the first time in his entire career that he had encountered the enemy using tunnels in battle.
However, just because he had not experienced it did not mean others had not.
Those who participated in the Great War knew how to deal with it.
"Send the engineers to reinforce them."
Hans nodded and sent the order.
Watching Hans go to deliver the order, Walther could not help but sigh to his adjutant.
"The Führer truly lives up to his reputation as a man who conquered half of Europe."
"He even considered the situations we might encounter on this land."
The adjutant nodded.
Their admiration for the Führer grew even stronger.
"We will continue to march. I don't want things happening here to delay our division's speed too much."
---
"Left side, HE!"
Gromov shouted to his crew.
"Commander, we are out of ammo," the loader reported.
"Shit!"
Gromov could already see from his view that the enemy division commander had noticed them.
They needed to eliminate the encircled enemy quickly, or everything they had done would be for nothing.
About fifty of them were left.
"Crash… No, let Bodanov's tank continue the assault. We will pull back and refill some ammo."
Gromov changed his mind at the last second as he saw enemy reinforcements coming.
How many?
Another Panzer company and… an engineer unit in half-tracks?
A bad feeling rose in his heart.
If they had MG42s and Panzer IVs with 7.5 cm cannons, it would not be surprising if they had developed tactics using combat engineers in close-quarter battle.
He hoped to get a more detailed look at the equipment. However, the RTS view was fixed. He could not zoom in.
Yet, he could still see something. There were flamethrowers on the vehicles.
The encircled enemies must have told them about the existence of the tunnels.
What could he do?
Gromov began to think.
Of course, he hoped to simply run away from the town with the help of the ten trucks that Alexee had just seized.
But even that would be suicidal, ten German trucks driving across the plains for days.
They would either be mistaken for Germans and destroyed by friendly forces, or be destroyed by Germans who had already spotted them.
Hold.
Their only choice now was to hold until nightfall. With the cover of darkness, they could sneak out of the town.
With the help of the RTS, they could avoid all enemy positions and contact friendly forces before being recognized as Germans.
He leaned out of the turret and shouted to a platoon commander and several soldiers who were carrying ammunition to the front.
"Tell the anti-tank squad to fall back to the other side and hide. Enemy armoured reinforcements are coming."
"Everyone get back to the tunnels or to the other side, regardless of whether they have eliminated the encircled enemy or not."
When the tank finally stopped to refill ammo, Gromov jumped out of the turret.
He saw the last box of 45 mm ammunition, enough to supply his tanks.
"Comrade Commissar, how is everything here?"
Gromov returned to the church. If possible, the east side of the river would be the best place to delay the German advance.
"You mean our defensive line? Great. We have continued to fortify the church as you instructed."
Gromov looked around. All the windows had already been stacked with sandbags.
Was this enough? Maybe, but better than nothing.
"Not only the defences above ground, but also the tunnels. Fortify and expand them. We can't expect connecting the basements of each house to be a proper tunnel system."
As he spoke, Gromov fell silent for a moment because he did not know how a proper tunnel system should be built either.
"Just build a few more tunnels that can guide us out of the town."
"I believe there must be some engineers among our troops."
"Comrade Commissar, I might need your help to get them to construct tunnels leading outside the town."
Kirov promised with a smile.
"No problem, Major. Finding people is the best thing the NKVD can do."
Gromov nodded and let Kirov handle everything there.
He had already seen that Alexee had returned to the town from the southeast after making a wide detour.
"Comrade Major, I apologise for making a decision without your permission. But I believe you would have agreed with me if you had been in my position as well."
"I have brought back some supplies and weapons for you."
When Alexee saw Gromov, he reported what he had brought back.
2 German mortars, some food, medicine and German ammunition.
It is not much, but definitely needed.
Most importantly, the two German mortars.
"Do we have crew to operate them? Our and the German ones could be different."