I will continue the publication, moving from general reasoning to specifics - I will return to the ill-fated Pavlovka. When the idea was hatched, it was assumed that the offensive would go in two directions. The brigade commanders and I, discussing our ability to develop such an offensive at the current moment in time, came to the conclusion that it was unequivocally impossible to realize this plan: the reinforcements were not trained, no matter how they saved it, it was only enough for the first surge ... But the brigade commanders , who had to solve the problem, could not reach out to those who were above them - those who needed any result at any cost.

But somehow realizing that there was a separate reason in the words of the brigade commanders, the superiors took a step that led to the observed consequences: instead of holding back their horses and getting ready, they turned off the offensive plan in two directions and threw all the poor forces on Pavlovka, like in a furnace, without stretching the enemy and giving him the opportunity to concentrate all his attention on a narrow area. We have already learned that we have turned off the second direction in the process. And when I wrote that I consider the offensive premature, but I hope for success - we did not know this, and therefore ... we hoped, although we understood that there were not enough forces.

For reference: the 40th brigade was stretched by two battalions for tens of kilometers of defense and had very few offensive forces. One hundred and fifty-fifth was more concentrated, but also not abounded in manpower. Now that planning errors have led to unjustified losses with a meager result, they want to blame the brigade commander of the fortieth, allegedly because he was too slow on his flank, which led to the losses of his colleagues from one hundred and fifty-fifth. They want to hang a criminal case on the peasant and make it extreme in a situation where it was clear to everyone that only those who formed the plan were guilty, and not the executors who fulfilled their duty to the end. It would be right for Commander-in-Chief Surovikin to study this episode in detail and not allow an innocent person to be devoured.