Iron Cross Fire

The next morning, the supplies arrived, but the artillery had not yet arrived.

Fortunately, Vasala had foresight and decided to launch the attack at night.

But in fact, he was just worried that he was too tired to effectively control the troops and launch the attack.

Anyway, it was all a fight, and it didn't matter whether it was early or late, as long as the opponent's strength did not change.

So the Austrians just waited until night. During this period, some people felt boring and wanted to go out to make some noise, but without exception, they became honest after being kicked by the deputy commander.

The deputy commander was named Senval, who was once the chief recorder of the 27th Infantry Division; in other words, he was once Kuster's subordinate, so he was undoubtedly sent here by Kuster.

Time quickly passed to night, Vasala woke up, commanded the troops to deploy artillery in appropriate locations, and reasonably distributed supplies.

In order not to wake up the Russians, he decided to launch a small-scale attack at the place where he had scouted yesterday to try to open the enemy's defense line.

After the enemy's frontal gap was opened, the rest of the infantry regiment members would all rush in and set up a temporary stronghold.

But without much intelligence, Vasalai didn't know what was going on inside Russia, so he couldn't prepare a more perfect plan, and could only move step by step and steadily.

When the Russian outpost was preparing to change guards, the Austrians also began to move. They approached the hillside, threw the grappling hook up, and then climbed up one by one.

After climbing up two infantry companies, Vasalai asked the soldiers who were still climbing to stop and follow him to rush out after the Russian defense line was broken and meet up with friendly forces.

He led the main force of the infantry regiment and waited outside the high ground.

Soon, the continuous gunshots startled the vultures on the high ground and woke up the sleeping Russians.

Vasalai cursed inwardly, but he didn't care so much, and quickly led his men to attack the outpost.

Fortunately, the Russian troops in the outpost had not reacted yet, and surrendered quickly after being attacked from both sides, and the Austrians also took advantage of this to gain a position on the high ground.

Vasalai ordered the troops to quickly build fortifications, using the barbed wire, chevaux de frise, and trenches used by the Russians before, and repaired them.

But before the Austrians could move and arrange these things, the angry Russians came.

Their officers led the way, waving their sabers and rushing into the positions, but without exception, they were nailed to the sandbags by the Austrian army.

Following these brave officers, the Russian soldiers were also elite, and they rushed in with bayonets without fear of life and death.

The Austrian army was not prepared and was caught off guard, but they were also elite, so how could they be afraid of these barbaric Russians?

With the courage of the soldiers and the advanced weapons, they dared to fight the Russians head-on with bayonets, and some people used submachine guns to shoot.

After more than a hundred casualties on both sides, the remaining Russians wanted to continue fighting, but their superiors asked them to retreat and reorganize before launching an attack. The first exchange of fire ended so dramatically.

The Austrians quickly took advantage of the gap to build fortifications, and at the same time pulled up all the supplies in the rear, preparing for a long-term battle.

Soon, the Russian army launched a second counterattack.

Unlike the last time, which relied purely on the bravery of the soldiers, this attack was quite methodical. They were able to leap forward alternately under mutual cover and fire a few shells here at any time. Of course, after only seven shells were fired, the Austrian position was never bombed again.

After more than 30 Austrians were shot down, they also began to counterattack:

They quickly set up machine guns and cooperated with infantry to suppress the Russian soldiers who were still charging. The bullets fired by the machine guns were like cloth tearing machines. After tearing many people, the Russian army hurriedly lay down and hid in the gap to try to kill the Austrian machine gunners.

But the Austrian machine guns were like a storm, suppressing the Russians and making them dare not show their heads, so they could only hide in a safer place.

But the Austrian mortars left them nowhere to escape, and they would be bombed no matter where they were.

Machine guns and artillery are a perfect match! They are like disabled brothers in distress. They may have some shortcomings when pulled out separately; but when the machine gun pins down the infantry, the artillery will carry out precise bombing, which will definitely have a good effect.

Obviously, the Russians do not know this set of Kuster's personal tactics, nor do they have the foundation to use it.

With the suppression of machine guns, they can only passively take the beating and bombing, and dare not fight back. The brave officers have died long ago, and the rest have run away.

But without the control of officers, these Russian elites dare not retreat privately, fearing that they will be shot on the spot.

It was not until twelve minutes later that a group of support came from the rear. They saw that the brothers who were trapped under the building were dead and were very angry, but it was useless: there was a hail of bullets in front, and they did not dare to rush up.

The supporting officers hurriedly ordered the Russian soldiers trapped in the fire net to withdraw quickly, but only those who were hiding in the corners of the building and were still safe withdrew, and the rest of the people exposed on the battlefield were suppressed and could not withdraw.

Although they heard the order that sounded like gospel at this time, the Russian soldiers could only lie on the muddy and dirty ground, waiting for the shells falling from the sky to end their suffering.

Finally, some Russians collapsed under the huge pressure. They roared in self-destruction, then stood up on the battlefield where bullets were flying and rushed towards the Austrian position.

As soon as they crawled out one step, these brave Russians were all shot all over their bodies and finally fell down as if relieved.

There is no doubt that they were extremely reckless, but this move also pointed out a way out for other Russians.

The remaining Russians took advantage of the darkness and corpses to crawl back along the area with less firepower, risking death.

In the end, about 67 Russian soldiers survived from the pile of dead bodies, but what was left was corpses everywhere.

When there were no more Russians on the battlefield, Senval sent people to clean up the battlefield and count the casualties on both sides.

Austria originally had 1,500 people, and due to two battles and various accidents, a total of 346 people were killed and wounded; according to the number of corpses on the battlefield, Russia had at least 900 deaths, and the casualties were countless.

There were also some people who died without leaving any residue, so there was no ability to investigate, and they could only be judged as "missing".

At present, there are still more than 1,100 Austrian troops; the Russian army should be no more than 3,000.

If the war continues to develop at this loss ratio, sooner or later Vasa will win.

But he didn't want to be careless like before and cause a large number of soldiers to die in vain, so he could only act as carefully as possible while attacking the city.

But this is useless, there will always be people who die due to various bizarre events, not to mention the battlefield?

If you want to prevent your soldiers from dying as much as possible, you can only let more enemy soldiers die and end the battle quickly.

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