Red Moscow

  Chapter 278 Combat

"Battle alarm!" The platoon leader yelled loudly, his voice was very loud in the silent night, but he was worried that his shout would not be able to wake up the sleeping soldiers, so he blew vigorously on the windshield hanging around his neck. whistle. The sharp whistle immediately resounded throughout the entire position.

  Following the sound of the whistle, the soldiers who were awakened from their sleep rushed out of the shelter one after another with their weapons in hand amidst the shouts of their respective squad leaders, and ran to their respective shooting positions.

   Seeing that his soldiers had entered the shooting position, the platoon leader lay beside Griza and reported, "Comrade company commander, all the platoons are in position."

"Everyone listen to my password!" The light on the battlefield was too dark, Griza couldn't see where the other soldiers were except for the few soldiers around him, so he raised his voice and shouted to the left and right: "Get ready to fight! "

   Immediately after his shout, there was a sound of pulling the bolt from all around. Griza turned his head and said to the signal soldier squatting behind him: "You find a safe place to hide and fire flares every two minutes. Do you understand?"

   "Understood, Comrade Company Commander." The signal soldier agreed, bent over and ran away.

  When the new flares rose into the air, the soldiers lying in the trenches were stunned when they saw the stagnant water in front of the position full of German soldiers moving towards the position. They thought that the so-called battle alarm was just a surprise attack by a dozen or twenty German soldiers. However, there were more than two hundred enemies in sight at this moment, which made some new soldiers who had never fought before feel frightened and began to feel uncomfortable. Trembling in control.

  The German commander who was staying by the river saw that his actions had been discovered by the Soviet army. While ordering the troops advancing through the water to speed up, he ordered people to set up machine gun positions on the river bank and started shooting towards the Soviet positions.

Listening to the bullets whizzing past their heads, some new soldiers squatted in the trenches in fright, while others turned around and prepared to escape from this place. Returning to his position prevented deserters from appearing.

   With the help of the light from the flares, Grisa silently calculated how far the German army was from the position. When the enemy was still 150 meters away from the position, Griza yelled: "Hit~~!" After shouting, he took the lead in firing a shot at the enemy with his pistol.

  A pistol fired at such a long distance has no lethality at all, but the sound of the gun is the signal to fire. Suddenly there was a bean-like gunshot on the position, whether it was a machine gun, a rifle or a submachine gun, they all fired at the enemy at the same time.

  Hearing the sudden sound of gunfire, the German soldiers who were struggling in the water suddenly accelerated and ran. They all knew in their hearts that in such deep water, they couldn't hide on the ground. In that case, even if they were not killed by Soviet bullets, they would be drowned. If you want to survive, you must speed up and rush forward, rushing into the Soviet position as soon as possible.

After occupying Kursk, the troops have replenished a large number of soldiers, so that Grisa's company has as many as 400 people. At this moment, there are more than 100 soldiers in the platoon blocking the enemy on the position, which is more than one of the friendly troops. Even the number of people are many. However, except for dozens of veterans, the rest are all recruits. Regardless of whether these recruits have been militiamen or received military training, they seem to be panicked when facing the charging enemy. Although they are desperately shooting at the enemy, But few bullets hit the target, and it just beat the water around the German soldiers like a boil.

  The soldiers who were still operating the machine guns were all veterans of the army. They used the captured MG34 machine guns to shoot at the rushing enemies frantically, knocking them down in pieces in the stagnant water. Without them, German soldiers might have rushed to the front of the position, and started close combat and hand-to-hand combat with the soldiers in the trenches.

   Seeing that the firepower of the Soviet army was too fierce, the German army continued to charge forward, only to die, so they all turned around and ran back. Seeing that the enemy left nearly a hundred corpses in the stagnant area and retreated, the platoon leader said loudly to Grisa: "Comrade company commander, we are here, you should go back to the company headquarters first. Don't worry. , we must block the enemy's attack."

Grisa saw that although the enemy had been repelled, there were still enemies crossing the river from the opposite bank at this moment. He was worried that it would be difficult to hold the position with only a single row of soldiers, so he returned to the company headquarters and summoned the other two platoon leaders. , assigning combat tasks to them. Afterwards, he called the brigade headquarters and reported the battle that took place here to the personnel on duty there.

  The gunfire from the south of the city awakened Sokov from his sleep. He sat up from the camp bed, rubbed his eyes and asked Belkin, who was also surprised: "Comrade political commissar, did you hear the gunshots coming from outside?"

"The gunshots are very dense." Although Belkin is now a political worker, he was also a military cadre before. He only listened for a while, and then said to Sokov: "It seems to be coming from the south of the city. Could it be? Is the enemy attacking the positions of the second battalion and the first company?"

  Sokov bent over and put on his boots, and strode out: "Let's go, Comrade Political Commissar, let's go to the headquarters and find out whether the Grisar Company's defensive position is fighting."

   Coming to the war room next door, Sokov asked the busy staff: "What's the matter with the gunshots outside? Where is the fighting happening?"

  A staff officer quickly straightened his body and reported to Sokov: "Comrade Brigadier, I have verified that the position in the south of the city has been attacked by the German army and is fighting."

   Knowing that it was indeed the area defended by Griza and started a battle with the enemy, Sokov couldn't help feeling nervous. He quickly asked, "How is the situation now?"

   "The enemy's first attack has been repulsed by our army." The staff officer replied: "The casualties of the troops are not large. Only a dozen soldiers died and 20 were injured."

   "Connect me to the forward position immediately," Sokov knew that if he wanted to get a comprehensive report, he could only ask Griza himself, so he ordered the staff: "I want to talk to Lieutenant Griza in person."

  After the call was connected, Sokov heard Griza's voice from the receiver, and immediately asked impatiently, "Lieutenant Griza, report to me the battle that took place there in detail."

"Comrade Brigadier, the situation is like this. More than half an hour ago, a sentry reported to me that he heard movement by the river, so I rushed to check..." Griza said on the phone, will After introducing the situation to Sokov in detail, he said: "Currently, I have mobilized the second and third platoons so that they are ready to support the first platoon at any time."

"Well done, Lieutenant Grisa." After listening to Grisa's report, Sokov praised him, and then said: "Don't worry, you are not fighting alone, I will provide you with the necessary help .”

   After finishing the call with Griza, Sokov used another phone to connect to the artillery battery. He said to Porochenko who answered the phone: "Comrade Lieutenant, the position in the south of the city is being attacked by the enemy. I order you to immediately send artillery observers to establish observation posts so that they can provide them with the necessary artillery support."

As soon as he had assigned tasks to his subordinates, Rotmistrov called from his corps headquarters, and he asked on the phone: "Lieutenant Colonel Sokov, my subordinates have reported to me that Fierce gunshots came from the south of the city, what happened?"

"The German army sent a unit to quietly cross the Tenebra River, trying to sneak attack on the positions of the second battalion and the first company. But when they were crossing the river, they were discovered by our vigilant sentries, so their sneak attack turned into a storm. " Sokov said into the microphone: "Because the commanders and fighters of the company responded in a timely manner, the enemy's attack has been repulsed, but our army suffered few casualties."

   "Lieutenant Colonel Sokov, we are friendly troops." Rotmistrov said with a smile on the phone: "If you need it, just call me and I will provide you with the necessary help."

Hearing what Rotmistrov said, Sokov immediately made a calculation in his mind: the terrain there is not conducive to the use of tanks, but after the tank army has been replenished with supplies from the warehouse, there are two full artillery battalions. With their cooperation, it is enough to form artillery fire enough to destroy the German attacking troops. Thinking of this, he quickly said into the microphone: "Comrade General, the terrain in the south of the city is not conducive to the use of tank troops, so I hope you can provide artillery support for our troops and wipe out all the German troops crossing the river by the river."

Regarding Sokov's request, Rotmistrov was only silent for a moment, and then agreed: "No problem. I will let the artillery director contact your artillery company commander to discuss the way of coordinating operations and jointly eliminate the special forces. Enemies on the Nebula."

After the first wave of the German attack was repelled, the German commander did not hastily launch a second attack. Instead, he contacted the opposite bank by radio and asked the opposite bank to send several mortars, ready to use artillery fire to suppress the Soviet position. The machine gun firepower point, cover the infantry to attack again.

   After waiting for about half an hour, five mortar teams were sent from the other side. The German commander said to these artillerymen: "Your task is to destroy the Russian machine gun fire points and cover our infantry to charge towards the Russian positions."

  A gunner waited for the commander to finish speaking, and asked cautiously: "What about the Russians in the trenches, don't you care about them?"

"Judging from the situation of the battle just now, they were all recruits, and their shooting was not accurate at all. The only troublesome thing was their machine guns. Those machine gunners were obviously veterans, and they shot very accurately. Our first An attack failed, and two-thirds of the soldiers fell under the muzzle of the machine gun." The German commander said to the mortarer with a serious expression: "Therefore, you must do everything possible to destroy the Russians. Machine guns, to reduce the casualties of our soldiers. Understand?"

   "Understood, Commander." Several gunners quickly replied loudly: "We will definitely wipe out all the Russian machine guns."

  After the task was assigned, the machine gun on the river bank, which had been silent for a long time, rang again, and dense bullets flew towards the distant Soviet positions. And the soldiers sitting by the river also got up one after another, wading towards the Soviet army's position with their guns in hand.

  The position of the Soviet army remained silent until the German skirmish line was less than 100 meters away from the position, and the platoon leader blew his whistle vigorously and gave the order to shoot. The whole position suddenly crackled again, whether it was rifles, submachine guns or machine guns, they all fired at the same time.

   After repelling the first attack of the German army, the recruits in the trenches somewhat gained some confidence. Facing the German soldiers rushing up, they were no longer so panicked, their shooting gradually became more accurate, and from time to time, groups of German soldiers fell under their volleys of guns.

However, it was the five or six MG34 machine guns on the ground that caused the greatest casualties to the German army, with their long dark red flame mouths, beating the German skirmishers desperately like whips of fire, knocking down one German soldier after another. on the ground.

  The German mortarers saw that the Soviet machine guns had indeed caused a lot of casualties to the attacking troops, so they each chose a target and shelled them.

  In the first round of salvo, none of the shells hit the target, and several mud pillars shot up into the sky at the front and back of the trench. Seeing that the first round of shooting failed to hit the target, the gunners adjusted their shooting elements one after another and started shooting again. The volley this time achieved results. After the explosion, a machine gun was blown into piles of hot parts, and the sacrificed machine gunners lay in a mess near the crater.

   "Great." Seeing that the mortar had destroyed a machine gun fire point, the German commander couldn't help applauding, and then ordered: "The Russians still have four machine guns left, destroy them all immediately."

  The soldiers who acted as machine gunners on the ground were all a group of veterans. After seeing two or three machine guns in contact being destroyed by German artillery fire, they immediately realized the seriousness of the problem. They didn't dare to stay in a fixed position as before, but adopted guerrilla tactics, and immediately shifted their position after firing a chain of ammunition, so that the German mortars could not destroy the target in time.

  Although the soldiers in a row were fighting tenaciously, the German army was getting closer and closer to the position. After the German soldiers approached the position, they immediately started shooting with the weapons in their hands, causing certain casualties to the soldiers in the trenches.

Seeing that the enemy was getting closer and closer to his position, the platoon leader felt that the situation was not good, so he quickly picked up the microphone and reported to Grisa: "Comrade company commander, the enemy has rushed to a distance of only 50 meters from our position. I I was worried that I would not be able to hold on, so I asked for support, for support."

"I see." Griza heard that the German army was approaching a platoon of positions. He first cursed the platoon commander in his heart, and then said into the microphone: "Comrade second lieutenant, don't panic, hold on, I'll send the platoon immediately." Troops to reinforce you."

  (end of this chapter)