Burning Moscow

41 Cruel Battle (2)

A round of shells screamed and landed on the Soviet army’s position. After the earth-shaking explosion, thick smoke billowed.

In the observation post of the group army, I stood in front of the observation hole and looked at the battlefield shrouded in gunfire and smoke with a binoculars, and I couldn’t help worrying about the soldiers on the battlefield. It is important to know that the soldiers of the 230th Preparatory Training Group on the battlefield were still workers in the factory not long ago. Although many of them have participated in the Civil Revolutionary War, and have fought against the veterans of the Foreign Intervention Army and the White Bandit Army, there are more. People who have only had shooting training and know how to shoot bullets out of the barrel. As for what can be hit after shooting bullets, then only God knows. There is no skill in the offensive and defensive warfare of the position. What the two sides are fighting is nothing more than the size of the troops, the equipment and morale of the soldiers. Facing the frenzied German offensive, letting such a lack of training troops defend such an important position, when I think of this, my heart touches my throat.

The German artillery stopped. After a short silence, the roar of a huge tank engine came from the front of the position. It seemed that the German infantry was starting a new round of offensive.

In a short while, the gunfire filled the battlefield with the sound of our artillery counterattacking artillery. Listening to the sporadic sound of the guns, my heart suddenly became cold. There were hundreds of guns from more than a dozen artillery companies on the battlefield. Are there only so many guns left?

A few hours before the battle began, when General Lelyushenka and I went to the front for inspection, I accidentally discovered that several artillery companies belonging to the military were deployed directly behind the trenches, one artillery next to each other, neatly placed. Place it on an open, unobstructed ground. Seeing this situation, I directly pointed out this wrong deployment to him at the time: “Comrade Major General, the artillery can’t be arranged like this! You see that the artillery is arranged so densely, if the German army is shelling, Even if one shell falls into the artillery’s queue, the smashed shell will reimburse the entire artillery company. Once the artillery company’s support is lost, it will not be able to withstand it only with the poorly equipped and untrained militia. German tanks attacked.”

After hearing this, he shrugged and replied in a helpless tone: “Dear Major Oshanina, my comrade commissioner! I admit that there are many unsatisfactory aspects of the deployment you have seen, but These are all implemented in full accordance with the provisions of the military regulations. The current general regulations are specially formulated by Marshal Shaboshnikov based on the experience of the civil war, and they are also included in the textbooks of the Frunze Military Academy. For this, we have no permission to modify it.”

Hearing what he said, I was completely speechless. Shaboshnikov was a great military strategist, and he also had high prestige in the Soviet army, but he always adhered to the concept of World War I, thinking that using cannons and machine guns to organize a strong defensive position would defeat the invading enemy. Battered. I don’t know how such a deployment is out of date in the current situation. The artillery positions are so densely arranged on the open ground without cover, they are simply living targets for enemy artillery and aircraft.

The cold wind dissipated the smoke, and I could clearly see the situation on the battlefield. The large-scale German tank troops lined up and pressed aggressively towards our army position, behind them were densely packed infantry in loose formation. Occasionally, one or two tanks were hit by sporadic artillery fire from our positions and stopped in heavy smoke, but more enemies continued to advance toward our positions.

Seeing that the tank was already approaching the first trench, but the position was still quiet, there was no movement at all. An anxious voice came from General Lelyushenka: “What’s the matter? The infantry didn’t open fire yet. Did they all die in the shelling just now?”

A German tank crossed the trenches, and just not far away, with a huge explosion, the majestic behemoth suddenly turned into a ball of fire. With this explosion, the silent light and heavy weapons suddenly opened fire, and dense bullets shot from the trenches towards the rushing enemy. The German army was caught off guard, and a dozen infantrymen rushing forward suddenly settled down, and fell straight to the ground, and the back hurried to the ground.

A few more tanks crossed the trenches and drove no far away. Without exception, they followed in the footsteps of the tank just now and became piles of burning scrap iron. This time I finally saw how the tank was destroyed. It turned out that the soldiers on the position waited for the German tanks to cross the trenches and came out of stealth one after another, blocking the enemy infantry with intensive firepower, and then threw Molotov cocktails and Molotov cocktails at the tank from behind. Anti-tank mine. However, this method was really effective. Within a short while, dozens of German tanks were blown up one after another.

However, there were too many German tanks. The front was blown up, and the back swarmed. In the end, a few tanks passed the trenches safely and drove towards the command of the group army. The artillery was crushed into scrap iron.

Seeing the tank getting closer and closer to us, not only I was anxious, but Lelyushenka was also panicked. He grabbed the phone on the table and shouted inside loudly: “Ornenko! Ornenko! Where are you? Where are you?” Without waiting for the other party to answer, he continued to shout: “Immediately attack in the direction of the group army observation post and fire at me! Fire at me!!!”

Soon, the shells roared and fell around the observation post, shaking the soil on the ceiling one after another. Lelyushenka threw the phone in her hand and pulled me onto the floor of the observation post. When the sound of the cannon stopped, he got up from the ground, leaned on the observation hole and looked out, then picked up the Bobosha submachine gun I was laying on the table and rushed out.

I got up from the ground and looked outside, and found that the several tanks that had just rushed over had all been destroyed, and they were burning not far from the observation station. The submachine gun was taken away by the major general. I could only pull out the pistol and rushed out of the observation post I rushed out the door and saw Lelyushenka had jumped out of the trenches and was running towards a burning German tank. , The two tankers covered in fire escaped from the cockpit and were knocked down by his guns.

There was a rumble of artillery from the right, and I turned my head and saw some tanks approaching as if they were flying, firing guns while driving. I recognized it at a glance. This was a Soviet tank, a small but flexible “Т-34” tank.

Lelyushinka was still standing in front of the burning German tank, waving the hand that was holding the submachine gun again and again and shouted: “Ornenko! Ornenko!”

With the hatch of the leading tank open, the tank brigade commander Ornenko stood there with half of his body exposed, waved to Lelyushinka, and at the same time promised loudly: “Look at me, I will come in person. Go ahead and beat up those bastards!”

General Lelyushinka continued to wield the weapon in his hand, leaning towards Ornenko’s tank, and shouting loudly: “Go forward, forward! Give them a good look!”

The situation is developing in our favor, and it seems that I don’t need to work hard, so I put the pistol back into the holster and slowly walked towards them along the trench. At this moment, a cannonball roared and landed between the two of them. Ornenko fell on the tank’s hatch without a word. General Lelyushenka covered his forehead and slowly turned around in a circle before falling slowly to the ground. The submachine gun in his hand was far away. The ground was thrown aside.

“Comrade Major General!” The unexpected change surprised me. I shouted, hurriedly crawled out of the trench with my hands and feet, and ran to him quickly.