The movie "Panfilov 28 Warriors" war scenes are really well filmed, the film budget or online fundraising is only about 2 million US dollars, compared to our small fresh meat film remuneration this budget is really not much, but there should be details all, camouflage positions, artillery support, fire testing, shelling, step-tank coordination, flank shooting, anti-tank guns, are very professional, seconds to drop some of the American blockbusters that will only pile up the point of explosion.
The beginning of the movie is very abrupt, the end is very hasty, so that people who do not understand this history feel that they do not know how to start, and do not know what happened after the end of the movie, and the remaining Warriors resisted the subsequent attack? How many other warriors survived? "Although Russia has nowhere to retreat, behind it is Moscow!" Did the warriors hold Moscow? With a lot of questions, let's look at this history.
At the end of September 1941, after achieving a stunning victory in the Siege of Kiev, the Germans concentrated their main forces on the central front, assembling 3 armies, 3 armored groups, and more than 1.9 million troops to launch a powerful offensive code-named "Operation Typhoon", with the goal of capturing the Soviet capital Moscow before winter came. After more than a month of fierce fighting, the Germans completed a new double encirclement operation in the Vyazma-Bryansk region, eliminated a large number of Soviet troops, and took advantage of the situation to advance to only 100 to 120 kilometers from Moscow, and then temporarily turned to the defensive to replenish the losses, accumulate strength, and prepare to launch a final assault on Moscow, hoping to end the 1941 campaign on Red Square.
In order to strengthen the defenses of the capital region, the Soviet High Command mobilized reinforcements to strengthen the defense of the approaching area around Moscow, and it was at this time that the 316th Infantry Division was transferred to the Moscow front. The 316th Infantry Division was not a standing division of the former Soviet Army, but a mobilization division that was urgently formed in the Central Asian Military District after the outbreak of war. The division was formed on 12 July 1941 in Alma Ata, the Kazakh capital, and consisted of the 1073rd, 107773, 1075th, 1077th Infantry Regiments, the 857th Artillery Regiment and the 597th Engineer Battalion, with troops mainly from the Kazakh and Kyrgyz republics, and the first division commander was Major General Ivan Vasilyev Panichfilov, military commissar of the Kyrgyz Republic. This is the dialogue between the two soldiers in the movie" "Let these Nazis see how good the Russians are!" I am Kazakh "... Then let them see how powerful the Kazakhs are!" That's where it comes in.
On 11 October, the 316th Division was transferred into the Western Front, the 16th Army under the command of General Konstantin Rokossovsky, and was ordered to defend the Volokolamsk region, just 40 km from Moscow. When the Germans launched an onslaught in mid-October, the 316th Division experienced a difficult battle, retreating under German pressure in the direction of Moscow and establishing a new defensive line.
On November 16, 1941, the German 46th Panzer Corps launched a fierce attack on the defense line of the 316th Division, with the positions of the 1075th Regiment being the focus of the German assault, and the battle of the "Panfilov 28 Warriors" took place on this day. According to soviet propaganda agencies, 28 commanders and fighters of the anti-tank fighter group of the 4th Company of the 1075th Regiment were on trainee political instructor Vasily . Under the command of Vasily Klochkov, they held out their positions near the village of Dubosekovo, where they had only one 45 mm anti-tank gun, several anti-tank rifles, anti-tank grenades and Molotov cocktails, but faced a swarm of German tanks. According to the report, the Germans gathered 54 tanks and a large number of infantry in front of the company's position and carried out a rotational attack on the area defended by Klochkov's troops, and 28 Soviet soldiers fought the Germans to the death with a small number of anti-tank weapons. This is also a scene in the movie.
The battle lasted nearly four hours, and Klochkov and his men destroyed a total of 18 tanks, inflicting more than 800 casualties on the Germans (later the number of annihilated enemies was changed to more than 70), and finally all of them died heroically (later changed to most of them).
Through the continuous reports of the Red Star Newspaper, the deeds of the "Panfilov 28 Warriors" quickly spread on the front line and the rear, and many literary and art workers wrote articles and created works to praise their heroic struggle and sacrifice! On July 21, 1942, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet approved the posthumous awarding of the title of "Hero of the Soviet Union" to 28 officers and men below Klochkov, and since then the "Panfilov 28 Warriors" has been established as a heroic model revered by all Soviet soldiers and citizens.
The reality is that the story of the "Panfilov 28 Warriors" did not really happen, so what kind of battle did the 316th Division fight on November 16, 1941? Later generations reproduced the war situation on that day based on wartime data. When the Germans launched a new offensive in the northwestern suburbs of Moscow in mid-November 1941, the 316th Infantry Division was ordered to defend the Duboshekovo region, 8 km southwest of Volokolamsk, with a frontal width of 18 to 20 km, the 126th Infantry Division on its left flank and the mixed cadet regiment of the Moscow Infantry School on the right wing. The German force attacking the 316th Division on 16 November was the 11th Panzer Division of the 46th Panzer Army, with the goal of seizing advantageous starting positions for another offensive two days later, on the same day the Germans planned to capture the junction of two villages 8 km north of Dubosekovo. The 11th Panzer Division formed two battle groups to launch the first round of attacks on the positions of the 1075th Regiment, and on the front of the position of the 2nd Battalion on the left wing of the regiment, the Germans threw in an armored battalion reinforced with artillery and infantry.
The 1075th Regiment had suffered heavy losses of personnel and equipment in previous battles, but had been replenished before the new fighting. According to the recollection of the regimental commander Kaprov, on November 16, the 4th Company of the regiment had 120 to 140 men, accounting for about 80% of the 162 personnel in the establishment, which can be regarded as having full combat effectiveness. The artillery configuration of the 1075th Regiment is not clear, as it consisted of an artillery company armed with four 76 mm regimental field guns and a combat artillery company armed with six 45 mm anti-tank guns, but there is evidence that the regiment's artillery equipment on 16 November was very different from the standard establishment, and the regiment was equipped with two 76 mm M1927 field guns, several M1909 76 mm mountain guns and one French Mle 1897 75 mm field gun on that day. All of these guns have poor anti-armor capabilities, with the 76 mm cannon penetrating only 31 mm of armor at a distance of 500 meters, while mountain guns and old French field guns have little anti-tank capability. The number of 45 mm anti-tank guns of the 1075th Regiment is unknown, but it is known that the 316th Division had only 12 45 mm anti-tank guns on that day.
Judging from the artillery configuration of the 1075th Regiment, the regiment was difficult to obtain sufficient artillery support when resisting the onslaught of German tank groups, and the anti-tank weapons that the front-line infantry could use lacked power. The regiment was armed with only 11 14.5 mm PTRD anti-tank rifles, including four in the 2nd Battalion, in addition to grenades, RPG-40 anti-tank grenades and homemade Molotov cocktails. The PTRD anti-tank rifle was rather limited in power, only able to penetrate the side and rear armor of the tank at close range, and was almost powerless against the frontal armor of the tank. Melee weapons such as grenades, anti-tank grenades, and Molotov cocktails all need to be very close to the target to be hit, and the lethal effect is also weak, often paying a heavy cost of life. Actual combat showed that the number of German tanks destroyed by anti-tank grenades and Molotov cocktails was small. In light of the above situation, although the 1075th Regiment was still well staffed, its anti-tank capability was quite weak, and it was difficult to resist the fierce attack of the German armored forces, and the course of the battle also proved this.
In the early morning of 16 November, German tank units conducted fire reconnaissance of soviet forward positions. According to Commander Kaprov, there were 10 to 12 tanks on the front of the 2nd Battalion position alone, but he did not know how many tanks were in front of the 4th Company position, and the result of the outpost battle was that the Germans lost 5 to 6 tanks in front of the 1075 regimental position and retreated. Soon, the Germans put in their reserves and launched a full-scale attack on the 1075th Regiment, and after 40 to 50 minutes of fierce and brutal fighting, the Soviet defense line was breached. Kaprov rushed from the regimental headquarters to the front and personally gathered the surviving officers and men to move to the new position. In this defensive battle, The 4th Company of Captain Gunidirovich suffered the heaviest losses, with only 20 to 25 of the company's 140 men surviving, and the other companies of the regiment suffered relatively light losses. The Soviets failed to hold the Dubosekovo area, which was occupied by the Germans until 20 December, when they were retaken by the Soviets. According to Soviet war reports, the 1075th Regiment destroyed a total of 9 German tanks on November 16, which is only half the number of tanks destroyed by the "Panfilov 28 Warriors" reported, or the result of the whole regiment.
From 16 to 20 November, the 316th Infantry Division and other Soviet units defending Volokolamsk were attacked by 2 German panzer divisions and 1 infantry division, and gradually retreated to the outskirts of Moscow. Although the Germans eventually captured Volokolamsk, the stubborn fighting of the 316th Division inflicted heavy losses on the Germans, slowing the German advance, depleting the German offensive forces, and when the German vanguard saw the Kremlin minarets from a distance, they were already at the end of the crossbow. In the battle to defend Moscow, the 316th Division suffered great sacrifices, with 9,920 casualties, of which 3,620 were killed and 6,300 wounded, in other words, the first officers and men conscripted when the division was formed were almost completely killed or wounded. The tenacity of the 316th Division also impressed the Germans, and the commander of the 4th Panzer Group, Erich Erich; Major General Erich Hoepner in a message to Army Group Center Commander Fedor. Feng · A telegram from Marshal Fedor von Bock mentioned the 316th Division: "This division is made up of barbarians, its soldiers do not fight according to any rules, they are extremely fanatical, never surrender, not afraid of death." "
The 316th Division's bloody battle was highly praised by the Soviet leadership. On 17 November, Stalin approved the report of the People's Commissar of Defense on the awarding of the title of "Guards" to the 316th Division, which was subsequently renamed the 8th Guards Infantry Division. On 18 November, the division commander, Major General Panfilov, was killed in battle and was posthumously awarded the title of "Hero of the Soviet Union". On 23 November, the People's Commissariat of Defence decided to name the 8th Guards Division after General Panfilov, one of only two divisional units in Soviet history named after commanders, the 25th Infantry Division "Chabayev Division" in which Panfilov served. Although the story of the "Panfilov 28 Warriors" is fictional, the sacrificial spirit and outstanding battle achievements of the officers and men of the Panfilov Division are undeniable, and they deserve the permanent remembrance of the Russians.