Red Moscow

  Chapter 252 Bombing the Train

  The four platoons of soldiers led by Briski walked in the forefront of the battalion and took the initiative to assume the responsibility of guiding. They have been active in this area for more than a month, and their familiarity with the terrain is no less than those guides sent by the army headquarters. After a day and night of marching, the troops of the first company and the second company came to a place fifteen kilometers away from Jim City.

   Seeing that the soldiers were exhausted after a continuous long march, Sokov ordered the troops to rest on the spot, and he took Briski and a soldier from the guard squad to the front to check the terrain.

  Sokov and the others came to a hill not far away, found a suitable location and established an observation post. Sokov raised his binoculars and looked southwest. Three or four kilometers away from the hills, there were railways and roads leading to the distant city of Jim. Sokov began to wonder in his heart: Can we do something now, such as planting landmines on the road to blow up the German transport vehicles; removing the railroad tracks so that the enemy's military columns cannot move...

"Comrade Major, look quickly." Just as Sokov was staring at the road and railway in the distance, he suddenly heard Briski standing beside him say loudly: "Look north quickly, there is a German train A train of men is coming!"

   Sokov hurriedly looked in the direction Briski said, and sure enough, he saw a locomotive with black smoke from its chimney, pulling more than a dozen carriages, coming from the north. Sokov stared at the train carriage for a while, then put down his binoculars and asked Briski: "Comrade Captain, do you think the German trains are pulling soldiers or supplies?"

Briski frowned for a while, and then said decisively: "Comrade Major, I think it should be an arms train. You see, the third and seventh carriages are covered with camouflage nets, and there should be Germans inside." Anti-aircraft machine gun." After finishing his analysis, Briski sighed and said, "It's a pity, we are too far away from the railway, and we know that this is the enemy's arms train, but we can't do anything with it."

   Regarding Briski's remarks, Sokov felt that they made sense. He thought painfully in his heart: "The place where the troops are resting is still several kilometers away from the enemy's railway. Even if they rush there now, it will be too late. It would be great if there was a 76.2mm cannon. With the level of artillery soldiers in the battalion, Enough to easily destroy this munitions train of the enemy!"

   While feeling annoyed, the roar of an aircraft engine suddenly came from the sky. Everyone looked up and saw six fighter planes flying from the east, and the three planes flew towards the position of the military column in a formation. "It's our plane," Briski said excitedly after seeing the plane in the sky clearly, "They must have come to bomb the train."

  While speaking, the plane has begun to lower its altitude, and dives and shoots towards the high-speed train. Through the binoculars, Sokov clearly saw that the camouflage nets on the two carriages mentioned by Briski had been lifted, revealing the Type 38 quadruple 20mm anti-aircraft guns hidden underneath. The German anti-aircraft soldiers immediately began to shoot at the diving plane. Because the train was moving at a high speed, it was difficult to aim and shoot. After finally locking on to the target, the plane flew to another place as soon as the gun button was pressed, so that they shot All the shells fell to nothing.

  The German anti-aircraft guns could not hit the Soviet planes, while the Soviet planes dived and strafed. Although they kept hitting the carriages, they did not cause much harm to the entire train. Seeing this situation, Sokov couldn't help sighing secretly, thinking that according to this method of attack, even if the airborne ammunition was exhausted, it would not be able to destroy the German army's column. It would be better to try to drop bombs. Enough to smash this column to pieces.

  The planes hovering and swooping and strafing continuously over the military columns not only achieved limited results, but also faced dangers under the attack of the German anti-aircraft artillery. One of the planes suddenly broke away from the formation and flew south along the railway. Seeing this situation, Briski said in amazement: "What's going on, why did that plane fly away, did it run out of ammunition?"

  Sokov stared at the plane that had left the team for a while, and then made a bold guess: "Comrade Captain, that plane is not out of ammunition, but is preparing to bomb the enemy's train."

  Hearing what Sokov said, Briski was still puzzled and asked: "He can drop bombs in the sky above the train, why did he fly in front of the enemy's train?"

"It's very simple," Sokov said to Briskikop. "If he drops a bomb on top of the train, by the time the bomb falls, the train will have moved so far ahead that the bomb will miss. But if he Drop the bomb from the front of the train, and the chances of hitting the target will be greatly improved."

  Perhaps in order to verify Sokov's statement, after the plane passed the train, it made a big circle in the air, then swooped down against the locomotive, and dropped an aerial bomb at the same time. The aerial bomb rolled a few times in the air before hitting the locomotive directly.

  The locomotive stopped suddenly, and the thick boiler of the locomotive burst open like a walnut smashed by a hammer after being hit by an aerial bomb. The carriage dragged behind seemed to be suddenly lifted by a big hand, and then thrown out heavily, rolling on the rails, being blown apart in the continuous explosions, and then being blown to pieces. In the smoke and dust that covered the sky, the locomotive that had been burned into a ball of fire, dragging billowing black smoke, slid on the rails by virtue of inertia, until another explosion occurred, and the locomotive of dozens of tons was like a toy, moving continuously Torn apart in a rolling explosion.

   In the distance, clusters of mushroom clouds soared into the sky and flew straight into the sky, alarming the resting commanders and fighters. They stood up one after another, looking at the gunpowder smoke rising from the other side of the hill, and kept asking, "What's going on, what happened? Where is the explosion coming from?"

   While everyone is asking the same questions, sadly, no one is answering their questions. Vanya asked the platoon leaders to appease the soldiers in order to control the situation, while he rushed to the hill with a few soldiers to find out what happened.

  The German column was destroyed, and the plane that dropped the bomb head-on didn't get it. Although the pilot pulled the plane up in time, long black smoke still came out from under the wing. Watching the plane turn around and fly eastward, it didn't fly far before it plunged into the forest.

  Sokov saw Vanya leading a few soldiers up the hill, and quickly told him, "Captain Vanya, one of our planes crashed in the forest over there, and you immediately send someone to rescue them."

   "Comrade Major," Briski rushed to say without waiting for Vanya to speak, "Leave the task of rescuing the pilot to our platoon. We are familiar with the terrain here."

   "Comrade Battalion Commander," Vanya may also think that Briski is the best candidate to search and rescue the pilot, so he said to Sokov: "I agree to let the soldiers in the fourth row search and rescue the pilot."

"Comrade Captain, without delay, you set off immediately." Seeing that Vanya also advocated that the soldiers in the fourth row go to rescue the pilot, Sokov nodded, and ordered: "If you want to see people alive, you need to see dead bodies. If he is alive, he must be rescued; even if he died, his body must be carried back, understand?"

   "Understood, Comrade Major." After Briski finished speaking, he turned around and ran down the hill.

Seeing that the target on the ground was destroyed, the five planes hovering in the sky immediately split into two groups. Two planes flew towards the forest where the plane crashed, while the other three planes flew towards the hill where Sokov and the others were located. over here.

"No, Comrade Battalion Commander, the pilot has spotted us." Seeing the plane flying towards his position, Vanya quickly shouted: "Hurry up and get ready to contact Bu! Otherwise they will shoot at us." .”

  When he first saw the plane flying towards him, Sokov didn't pay attention to it. When he heard Vanya shouting, he immediately realized that the pilot might regard himself as an enemy and was going to fly over to destroy him. In order to prevent him from dying unjustly under the strafing of his own plane, Sokov also shouted loudly: "Hurry up, hurry up and take out the contact cloth."

Hearing the shouts of Vanya and Sokov, a soldier of the guard squad hurriedly took out a roll of red contact cloth from his pouch, and with the help of others, spread it on the ground .

When the three Soviet planes flew over the hill and were about to dive and shoot people moving on the ground, they saw the red contact cloth spread on the ground and knew that the people below them were their own people, so they raised the altitude , flew away after circling in the air. Not long after the three planes left, the two planes circling over the forest also flew away. They may have been notified that they had their own troops here and could help rescue the comrades who crashed, so they returned to the airport with confidence.

   Thanks to book friends Wuwang Wuwei, fugudoku, and Yan Xueyu for their support!

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  (end of this chapter)