It's better to conquer them than to command the steel torrent

Chapter 95 Chapter ｜VDV Umbrella Attack Budapest

From a strategic point of view, the plains had no strategic location to defend, so the General Staff considered it an object to be abandoned from the very beginning.

To the northeast, the Tisza River lay only a few dozen kilometers from the border, and the Ivan Rus tank group could reach the river in a single day. The Hungarian army simply abandoned this area, defending only along the river.

To the east, between the Tisza River and the border lay the vast Hungarian Plain, averaging over 100 kilometers in depth. The Hungarian army's strategy for this region was to fight and retreat, constantly attriting the enemy until they reached the river.

Ivan Rus' army did not take the Hunnic army seriously at all, and advanced rapidly and aggressively.

Even Vallande's river defense line was smashed to pieces, who do you think you are?
入侵匈尔瑞的伊凡罗斯主力部队是第10集团军，下辖第35、第37、第41步兵军，还有第30、第31、第39、第45独立坦克旅，计约20万人。

The commander was none other than Tukhachevsky - after he was released from prison, Veronika awarded him the rank of general and authorized him to lead this campaign corps to capture Budapest.

Dawn the next day.

Fierce fighting was going on along the entire front, and battle reports were flying into the General Staff like snowflakes.

Shang Ke had wanted to take a nap, but had fallen into a deep sleep, and now he was suddenly awakened.

"How long have I been asleep?" he asked.

"Four or five hours." Anna's long brown hair was now a little messy.

Shang Ke took the cup, which still had half a cup of cold coffee left in it. He drank it all in one gulp and walked to the war room next door.

What worried him was that due to the shortage of troops, almost all of the main forces of the Hungarian army were transferred to the front line, or assembled in the second line as battle reserves, and the garrison forces near the capital were very empty.

If the Royal Guard is not taken into account, the current Royal Army formation in the Budapest area is terrible, roughly as follows:

｜10th Infantry Division (minus artillery regiment)

｜51st Reserve Infantry Division (lack of officers)

｜201st Field Replacement Regiment (lack of weapons)

｜202st Field Replacement Regiment (lack of weapons)

｜Donaucasei Armored Forces Academy (Military Cadet)

The only combat-ready infantry division also had its artillery regiment transferred away, which was then reinforced to the operational reserve behind the Tisza River.

To be honest, Shang Ke felt from the bottom of his heart that something was not right.

At 7:4 in the morning, two J-37A fighter jets belonging to the th Fighter Wing of the Royal Air Force were carrying out a patrol mission.

The patrol airspace of this two-plane formation is east of Budapest, and its route trajectory is in the shape of a trapezoid.

At this moment, the wingman pilot suddenly felt his eyes flashed by light. He squinted and looked to the upper right, and an incredible scene came into view.

A few kilometers away, a large group of green-painted twin-engine aircraft were passing them in the opposite direction.

The wingman's pilot was horrified and shouted on the radio: "Enemy aircraft! Medium aircraft! Twin engines!"

At first, the leader and the wingman thought it was a bomber, but when they turned and approached, they found that it was not a bomber at all, but a transport plane!
At this moment, some transport planes at the rear of the formation untied their cables, and the gliders they were towing broke away one after another, soaring freely towards Budapest...

The massive amount of battle reports from the front pushed the General Staff's processing capacity to the limit, and the staff working in three shifts were exhausted.

The patrol fighter's warning was first sent to the air force base and then forwarded to the General Staff, but it was not noticed until more than ten minutes later.

"what?"

After Shang Ke learned about this, he immediately picked up the telescope, rushed into the stairwell in two steps, and reached the top of the General Staff Building.

Budapest's Vijles Airport is located in the eastern suburbs. Through a telescope, I could vaguely see the azure sky now densely dotted with tiny white dots—countless parasols blooming in the blue sky. Umbrellas... umbrellas hitting the capital?
This is going to dig out your heart directly!

It just so happens that Budapest’s defense is currently weak, with only a few combat-capable troops. It was truly vicious and precise.

"This is outrageous! How can we expect to see VDV raids these days?"

Shang Ke thought quickly and then told someone to notify the royal guards to prepare for battle.

Seeing many people looking terrified, he feigned composure and asked, "What's there to be afraid of? Didn't I ask you to make an anti-airborne plan? Won't this come in handy right away?"

Then he quickly left the building and headed straight for the Buda Palace.

An airborne raid on Budapest was a risky plan supported by Ivan Rus's hawkish generals.

They believed that this would end the conflict quickly and decisively and directly disintegrate Hungarian resistance.

It was only about two hundred kilometers from the border to Budapest, and the invading forces could reach the city in a few days and nights - it was obvious that they did not take the Tisza River defense line seriously at all.

The plan formulated by the Imperial Air Force Command is roughly as follows:
The 4th Airborne Infantry Regiment was the first wave, carrying out parachute and airdrops in the flat area near the airport; the 5th Airborne Infantry Regiment was the second wave, airdropping directly to the airport; the 6th Airborne Infantry Regiment served as the reserve and was the third wave, which would take action two hours later.

At 7:30, the 2nd Airborne Division of the Ivan Rus Imperial Air Force divided into three waves and attacked Budapest Vitjes Airport.

Operation codename: SAPPHIRE.

The only troops defending the airport were some guards of the Hungarian Royal Air Force. As for the anti-aircraft artillery, it was obviously impossible to expect them to fight against the well-trained paratroopers.

White parachutes floated down and after landing in the field east of the airport, the Russian paratroopers immediately searched for weapons boxes.

The landing points of many weapon boxes were so off-center that it was laughable, and some even fell on the heads of the airport defenders. At least one-third of the Imperial Russian paratroopers could not get their rifles and submachine guns and could only rely on the pistols they carried with them to fight.

But this is still not comparable to the airport defenders. Compared with the elite Imperial Russian paratroopers, the Hungarian and Swedish Air Force airport guards are simply a mob.

At 7:50, Lieutenant Colonel Andrei Antonov, commander of the 4th Airborne Regiment, also landed safely.

After finding several members of the regiment headquarters, he randomly found a reverse slope of a dirt slope to serve as a temporary command post.

"Quick! Which teams have assembled?"

"Lieutenant Colonel, there are still several companies that have not been able to contact us. Now the 3rd, 5th, and 6th companies are ready to fight."

"Okay! Where's the 82mm mortar?"

"One company is almost ready."

Lieutenant Colonel Antonov immediately ordered the prepared units to attack the airport.

Everyone knew that they were now deep behind enemy lines and surrounded by enemies, and they had to act decisively while the Hungarian army was confused.

Paratroopers are born to be surrounded! Time is life!
"Grenade, two rounds, fire!"

The sound of artillery fire was crisp. With the simple artillery support of 50mm and 82mm mortars, more than Russian paratroopers from two companies spread out in a sparse formation and rushed towards the airport in an unstoppable manner.

"Enemy heavy machine gun! Eleven o'clock! Take it out!"

A large number of women appeared in the Ivan Ross Airborne Force. The light and heavy machine guns of the airport defenders did not seem to have a suppressive effect. A female warrant officer shot and killed two Hungarian light machine gun teams with a semi-automatic rifle in just half a minute!

In just half a quarter of an hour, the Russian paratroopers who were taking turns to cover the leap had swept across the two runways.

(End of this chapter)