Chapter 1203 Attack from both sides (Part 1)

   At eight o'clock in the evening, two or three hours before dark, Sokov took two staff officers and Samoilov's guards and set off, rushing to the location where the three troops were secretly assembled.

  The temporary headquarters was set up behind a hill. When Sokov's convoy stopped near the hill, two soldiers with live ammunition emerged from the grass at half a person's height: "Stop, what are you doing?"

   "I am Major General Sokov, Commander of the Group Army." Seeing the tactics of two marines blocking his way, Sokov asked straight to the point, "Where is your headquarters?"

   "In the cave on the hill."

   "Take me there."

  Led by the sailors, Sokov came to the temporary headquarters.

  The light in the cave was very dim, and Sokov felt only darkness after entering the door. It took a while to get used to the light here. The headquarters is about 30 square meters. On the table near the door, there are radio stations, telephones, etc., and there are staff officers and communication soldiers busy beside them. And there was a simple square table in the corner, and there were three people sitting beside the table, who should be the three brigade commanders he was going to command next.

   "Hello, commanders and comrades." Sokov saw that he had been in for so long and the other party hadn't found him, so he walked over and greeted them loudly: "What are you talking about?"

  The three commanders only realized Sokov's arrival at this moment, and hurriedly got up to salute, and greeted in unison: "Hello, Comrade Commander!"

  Although Sokov hadn't talked with the three commanders for a long time, he knew each of them. After shaking hands with the three of them in turn, he asked with a smile, "How is it? Are the troops ready for battle?"

   "Yes, Comrade Commander." The first to answer was Lieutenant Colonel Uzakov, commander of the infantry brigade: "Our troops are ready to fight, and we can only launch an attack on the enemy as soon as the time comes."

"Comrade Commander, I have a question." Colonel Chuvashov, the naval brigade commander, frowned and asked: "Although the Imperial Division in front of us has not been rebuilt, if we are not covered by artillery fire, we will face the enemy. With the enemy launching an attack, the casualties must not be small."

"You don't have to worry about this." Sokov comforted the other party and said, "Before your three brigades attack, I will use the 182nd Division to attack the enemy with new rockets, and when they are hit hard and thrown into chaos , you are launching an offensive, so that unnecessary casualties can be reduced."

  Sokov took a sip of hot tea from a staff officer and asked the three of them slowly, "Do you know why I let the three brigades go into battle in turn?"

  The three brigade commanders were also very puzzled by the question raised by Sokov. It stands to reason that the German army is gathered in such a dense area. If the three brigades attack at the same time, wouldn't they be able to defeat the enemy faster? But Sokov let the three brigades go into battle one by one, and the three brigade commanders were very puzzled by his refueling tactics.

Seeing that everyone was full of worries, Sokov stopped embarrassing them, but took the initiative to explain the reason: "If three brigades go into battle at the same time, then you won't have any reserves to use. Once the enemy emerges from the chaos When you wake up and implement a layered defense, it will become very difficult for you to break through their defense.

  The biggest advantage of putting troops into battle one by one is that when the first echelon's attack is frustrated, the second echelon, which has not suffered any loss in strength, can immediately go into battle and continue to attack the enemy until it breaks through the enemy's defense.

Even if the attack goes smoothly and there is no decent resistance from the enemy along the way, after the first echelon has advanced a certain distance, the commanders and fighters will definitely get tired. At this time, the second echelon will take over the attack, and the first echelon can get time to rest. As long as we adopt this alternate offensive tactic, I believe we will be able to successfully destroy the enemy's resistance along the way and successfully join forces with the troops that have detoured to the enemy's rear. "

  The German army, whose attack was frustrated, camped five or six kilometers away from the Soviet army's position. Many people never dreamed that their lives had entered the countdown.

  Although Lieutenant Shafer's company did not participate in today's attack, Shafer watched the entire offensive process. As an experienced officer, he looked down on the Soviet army at all, and as early as a few months ago, he had commanded his own company and defeated a mixed regiment of the Soviet army. This victory made him even more arrogant.

  But today's battle has subverted his three views. The intensive artillery fire blew up the Russian defensive position into a sea of ​​flames. According to his thinking, after such a fierce shelling, there might not be any living creatures on the position. After the bombardment was over, the best troops charged towards the ruined position, and everyone thought they would easily seize the position. But the scene that followed was something they would never forget. They didn't even get close to the position, and they were repelled by the intensive firepower, and they paid a huge price.

  While Shafer was sitting in his tent and thinking wildly, there were sudden explosions outside one after another, and the ground under his feet trembled violently. His first reaction was that the Russians started shelling our camp.

  When Shafer rushed out of the tent, the entire camp was already in chaos. The location of the motorized camp was on the open ground between two hills. At this time, small units of the Soviet army appeared on the valleys on both sides. They attacked the camp with new rockets condescendingly. After each rocket landed and exploded, it would form a killing radius of up to 50 meters at the explosion point.

  As long as you enter this explosion range, even if you have nine lives like a cat, it may be difficult to survive. The flying shrapnel will penetrate your body, and the huge shock wave will shatter your internal organs. The lucky ones died on the spot, while those who survived had to wait for death in despair and pain.

  Where did the German soldiers in the camp have seen this kind of weapon before? The ones they had seen had long been wiped out, and they ran around like headless flies for a while. And the rockets are still falling from the sky, and every time they explode, several German officers and soldiers will be killed. For a while, the air was filled with a strange smell mixed with gunpowder smoke and blood.

"It's over, within half an hour, our battalion will be finished." Schafer looked at the bombing spots around him, and while he was muttering to himself, a rocket landed three or four meters behind him and exploded. . When the flames and gunpowder smoke dissipated, the place where Lieutenant Schafer was originally standing turned into a crater with green smoke, and the broken pieces of military uniform inside indicated that a German soldier had stood in this place before the explosion.

  (end of this chapter)