Guderian was determined to maintain the initiative and did not want distractions like the Trubchevsk kessel to divert him from the prize of Moscow. He believed that the infantry of 2.Armee could mop up Trubchevsk. However, it was clear that Panzerarmee 2’s logistic support was grossly inadequate for a further large-scale advance and Guderian was reduced to conducting a ‘rock soup’ style offensive, by robbing fuel and ammunition from some of his units, like 3.Panzer-Division, to give just enough resources to Kampfgruppe Eberbach to continue advancing toward Tula and then Moscow. The easy rout of Group Ermakov and capture of Bryansk convinced Guderian that the Red Army had no significant forces left in front of him – he just needed to push on as fast as possible to achieve a historic victory.
Kampfgruppe Eberbach sent a single tank company with some reconnaissance troops 15km up the Orel–Tula road on 5 October until they bumped into Gusev’s and Burda’s T-34s. Burda engaged the German column and knocked out some of the reconnaissance vehicles, while the rest of the German column beat a hasty retreat. A few wounded German troops were left behind and they revealed that the 4.Panzer-Division would soon advance up this road toward Mtensk. Armed with this information, Katukov pulled his armour back to the Lisiza River, where he deployed his two tank battalions on high ground overlooking the bridge. It was a perfect ambush position, since Katukov had excellent visibility from this position and the terrain would constrict any German advance.
The skirmish on 5 October alerted Eberbach to the presence of enemy heavy tanks and he acted accordingly by assigning a battery of 8.8cm flak guns, a battery of 10cm heavy artillery and a battery of 10.5cm medium field howitzers to his vanguard, which would be led by the very capable Major Meinrad von Lauchert. By 6 October, the 4.Panzer-Division had received just enough fuel to enable Lauchert to utilize five companies of tanks and Kradschützen-Abteilung 34, but there was not enough fuel for the Schützen-regiment.
Although no Luftwaffe support was available, Lauchert was promised that a battalion of Nebelwerfer multiple rocket launchers and two artillery battalions would provide general support fire. At 0900 hours, von Lauchert moved out with orders to conduct a movement to contact. He moved past the site of the fighting on the previous day without spotting any Russians and it looked like the enemy had pulled back. Von Lauchert’s lead tank company reached the bridge over the Lisiza River, which was curiously intact. Katukov had deployed some attached NKVD infantry and 45mm anti-tank guns, along with four of his BT light tanks, as a screening force on the north side of the bridge to deceive the Germans into thinking that this was his main defensive line. Once spotted, von Lauchert called for an artillery barrage on their position and the panzers quickly overran the hapless NKVD troops. Cautiously, von Lauchert pushed two companies of tanks across the bridge at around 1130 hours, plus some of the motorcycle infantry, two 8.8cm flak guns, a 10cm gun and the 6./Artillerie-Regiment 103 (four 10.5cm howitzers), to seize the ridge overlooking the bridge site.
Unknown to von Lauchert, Polkovnik Katukov had deployed two of his tank battalions in ambush positions about 400 meters back from the bridge on the ridgeline and when the German tanks reached the top of the grade they were struck by a barrage of 76.2mm anti-tank rounds from KV-1 and T-34 tanks concealed in stands of birch trees on both sides of the road. One German tank was knocked out, but the others returned fire. The Soviet tankers opened fire from outside the effective range of the Pz.III’s low-velocity 5cm gun and the Panzergranate rounds bounced off the thickly-armoured Soviet tanks. Previous actions involving KV and T-34 tanks had usually ended in disaster due to poor choice of ground and/or poor choice of tactics, but on the road to Mtensk, Katukov reaped the benefits of a carefully planned ambush. Once the Germans realized that they were out-gunned by the T-34s and KV-1s, they pulled back into turret defilade positions at the edge of the ridgeline and brought up their 8.8cm flak guns. These flak guns required an 8-ton soft-skin Sd.Kfz.7 half track to tow them into position, which made them quite conspicuous on the battlefield, and it took ten minutes to deploy the gun into a firing position. One 8.8cm flak gun succeeded in getting into action and it hit the T-34 of Sergeant Ivan T. Lyubushkin, injuring all four crew members. However, the T-34 did not burn and another tank in his company destroyed the flak gun with a direct hit. A second 8.8cm flak gun was brought into action but fired only three rounds before it too was destroyed, along with its prime mover. Sergeant Ivan T. Lyubushkin managed to get back into action and, from his position, he methodically knocked out five German tanks at the rim of the ridgeline.
Von Lauchert had had enough and ordered his lead units to disengage and retire across the bridge. The motorcycle infantry withdrew first, but once Kapetan Vladimir Gusev noticed the German withdrawal he ordered Burda’s company to attack the bridgehead. The 10cm s.K18 howitzer knocked out one T-34 with an anti-tank round but was itself destroyed. Gusev committed the rest of his battalion, some twenty-one T-34s and four KV-1s. The four 10.5cm howitzers of the 6./Artillerie-Regiment 103 stood their ground as the T-34s drove straight at them, firing on the move. Three T-34s were knocked out, but two howitzers were overrun and their crews killed. One KV-1 that drove into the German position broke down – probably a transmission defect – and several German soldiers quickly jumped up on the immobilized tank with fuel cans and set it alight. Katukov ordered his tanks to pull back to avoid further losses; they had accomplished their mission of repulsing the German river-crossing and could pound the Germans from the distance without fear of return fire. The remaining Germans quickly retreated across the bridge, abandoning knocked-out vehicles. As a fitting end to the battle, the first winter snow began falling. Von Lauchert had lost ten tanks, as well as five artillery pieces. Katukov had lost one KV-1, two T-34s and four BT tanks, plus four more T-34s damaged but recovered.[103]
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Hans Schäüfler (ed.),