Word: voronov
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First Victory. Voronov worked around the clock. Dark circles ringed his eyes. He lost his quick grin. Time was an enemy too; the army's defects had to be whipped before it was too late...
...What Voronov did in Finland, after Russia had had her first humiliating but educational reverse, set the pattern for today's battles. First, his artillerymen took positions far in the rear, practiced with replicas of the Finnish strongholds. Then they moved their heavy guns close to the Mannerheim Line. Firing over open sights at individual bunkers they methodically uprooted them, and the infantry moved in. For the feat, Stalin made him Colonel General of Artillery...
When the Germans struck on June 22, 1941, Red Army commanders were green. Their teamwork was bad. The Red Air Force (then being re-equipped with new models) was weak, tank tactics faulty. In the bitter days of retreat, Voronov found himself woefully short of the weapon his foe had aplenty-trench mortars. But his heavier guns fought with skill and stubborn valor: of the few thousand German tanks disabled in the first months of war, Voronov's guns wrecked every third...
...Voronov virtually rewrote the artillery manual, changed commanders again & again. He preached constantly: reconnoiter thoroughly, camouflage tirelessly, do not fear close-range combat, do not fear encirclement. Stalin helped him out: a separate commissariat was set up to build trench mortars...
...forests west of Moscow, in December 1941, the first big test came. By this time Voronov had already amassed a reserve-three field guns to the enemy's two; two mortars to the enemy's one. The road to Moscow lay clear before Hitler, save for a mob of armed Moscow workers and Voronov's guns. The workers fought, and died. Voronov's guns sent Hitler's armies reeling back...