Chapter 851 Engineer Battalion (Part 2)

  After dawn, the first to attack the Soviet army was the 50th Armored Engineer Battalion stationed in the No. 4 factory building, and they cooperated with them in combat with two assault guns. The Soviet commanders and fighters who stood firm saw that the enemy's attack had begun, entered the fortifications one after another, and made preparations for battle.

  However, they soon discovered that this attacking German unit was different from the units they had seen before. The infantry did not follow the assault guns and rushed towards their positions. Instead, as soon as they left the trenches, the attacking soldiers disappeared in the bomb craters or behind the ruins. Even the assault guns were hidden in the ruins, so that the Soviet artillery regiment could not find the target.

"What the **** is going on here?" Captain Vasily, the battalion commander staying at the position of the 650th Infantry Regiment, saw the abnormal behavior of the enemy, and couldn't help saying to himself: "Are they attacking, or are they attacking?" Play hide and seek with us?"

Lieutenant Colonel Guzman, the head of the 650 regiment standing aside, turned his head and glanced at Vasily, and said coldly: "Comrade Captain, no matter whether the enemy wants to attack or play hide-and-seek with us, if they want to rush into our position, they must It must pass through the open land in front, and then it will be intercepted by our fire."

   For Lieutenant Colonel Guzman's statement, Vasily agrees very much in his heart. If he wants to rush to the ruined wall and enter the position, he must pass through an open field of more than 80 meters in the middle. As long as the enemy enters this area, the infantry firepower on the position and the blocking fire of the rear artillery regiment will cause them huge casualties. But for some reason, there was always a sense of foreboding in Vasily's heart, and he didn't know what went wrong.

   Just when Vasily didn't figure out where this ominous premonition came from, he saw a group of German soldiers rushing out from behind the ruined walls. Seeing the enemy rushing out, a machine gun fire point in front of the position opened fire immediately, and the tongues of flame sprayed by the two machine guns formed a crossfire network, blocking the way forward for the German army.

   As soon as the group of German soldiers saw the firepower of the Soviet army firing, they immediately jumped into the nearby crater. Only one or two unlucky soldiers were hit by bullets and fell face up on the dark ground.

   Seeing the German soldiers react so quickly, Vasily immediately realized that the enemy's actions were probably a conspiracy, just like figuring out the firepower points on the position. He hurriedly shouted at Guzman: "Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, this is a German conspiracy, quickly order the firepower to stop shooting." Then he shouted too late, only heard a loud "boom", At the point of fire that was still firing just now, the shells exploded into the sky.

"Damn, where are the German assault guns hidden?" Guzman's face turned blue when he saw that the firepower of the machine guns in his regiment was bombarded by the enemy's assault guns, and he shouted angrily: "Why are you fighting so allow?"

  Vassili observed more carefully than Guzman. He found that before the firepower point was destroyed by enemy artillery fire, it seemed that a burst of fire had erupted on the bunker before being destroyed by a hidden assault gun. He held up the binoculars and looked for a while, and found that the enemies were hiding behind bomb craters or ruined walls, and it was impossible to see their exact positions.

  Vassily put down the binoculars and said to Guzman: "Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, let the firepower point next to you shoot at the enemy."

"What, you still want to shoot at the Germans?" Guzman couldn't help being impatient when he heard what Vasily said: "I'm afraid the firepower point just now was destroyed by the enemy before even firing a bullet from the magazine. Now you Let another firepower point fire again, won't the Germans treat them as targets?"

"Comrade Lieutenant Colonel," Vasily said to Guzman, "I think there may be enemy artillery spotters directing the attack for the assault guns hidden behind the ruined walls. They are so well concealed that I can't find them. Today The only way to expose these damned artillery spotters is to risk fire from the firebase."

Seeing that Guzman was still hesitant, Vasily became anxious: "Don't worry, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, I will not let your soldiers die in vain. You let the machine gunner at the point of fire point towards the bomb crater where the enemy is hiding." Half the shuttle, and then quickly shift the location, so that even if the enemy's artillery spotter finds the location of the firepower and directs the assault gun to attack, our soldiers will not be in any danger."

Although Guzman is a lieutenant colonel, Vasily is just a captain, but since Lyudnikov has specifically instructed him to fully cooperate with Vasily, he cannot simply deny Vasily's proposal, but He weighed it repeatedly in his heart, nodded his head and said, "Okay, Comrade Captain, just follow the method you said, let the No. 3 firepower point shoot at the enemy."

After finishing speaking, Lieutenant Colonel Guzman picked up the phone on the table and said into the microphone: "I am Lieutenant Colonel Guzman, and ordered the No. 3 firepower point to shoot at the enemy... I know, I saw the enemy's artillery destroy No. 5 Firepower point, in order to avoid similar situations from happening again, let the machine gunners in the No. No harm will be done."

   A few minutes later, the machine gun in the No. 3 firepower point fired at the place where the Germans were hiding. Vasily, who was holding up the binoculars, soon saw a steel helmet rising from a bomb crater. A German soldier was lying on the edge of the bomb crater, looking in the direction of the machine gun firing, then raised the pistol in his hand, and pointed towards the Point of fire to aim.

"It's a joke to use a pistol to fire." Vasily just laughed at the other party in his heart, and immediately realized that something was wrong. The German soldier seemed to be holding a flare gun instead of a pistol. Could it be that the enemy used The signal gun is the direction indicated by the assault gun?

   Just thinking about it, the German soldier had already pulled the trigger, and after the signal was sent out, the chamber accurately hit the point of fire. After the German soldiers fired the signal flare, they immediately retracted into the crater, and soon, a shell roared in, directly destroying the exposed No. 3 firepower point.

"I understand. It turns out that the enemy is using signal flares to guide the hidden assault guns to attack the target." Vasily put down the binoculars and said to Guzman: "Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, I have figured it out. The enemy's artillery observers are hiding in the In the bomb crater ahead, once we find our firepower point, we will immediately use the flare gun as the assault gun to guide the attack target."

  Being knocked out by the enemy's artillery fire contact with two firepower points, Guzman was suffocating in his heart, but the enemy's artillery observer was hiding in the crater. Even if he got angry again, he would have nothing to do with the opponent. He looked at Vasily and asked in a low voice: "Comrade Captain, do you have any good ways to eliminate the enemy's artillery observers?"

Vasili considered that the artillery observers of the German army were elusive, and it was obviously unrealistic to destroy them with machine gun fire. Maybe the opponent directly used the flare gun to guide the attack target for the assault gun as soon as the fire was fired here. Stealing chickens is not enough to lose rice. Vasily thought for a long time, and said to Guzman: "Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, don't worry, I will report this matter to my regiment leader immediately, and ask him what he can do."

After the call was connected, Vasily briefly reported the situation to Belkin, and then said: "Comrade Commander, if the artillery observers hiding in the crater are not eliminated, it will not be long before the soldiers on our position The firepower points will be wiped out one by one by the Germans."

  Belkin knew Vasily well, knew what he said, he must have thought of some effective method, so he asked: "Comrade Captain, do you have any good method to destroy the enemy's artillery observers?"

   "Comrade commander, I need two snipers and a mortar team." Vasily said hurriedly on the phone: "With their help, I can destroy the enemy's artillery observers."

   "It's a good way to use snipers and mortars to deal with the enemy's artillery observers." Belkin nodded slightly after hearing this, and said, "I'll send you the snipers and mortars immediately."

  As soon as Belkin put down the phone, Captain Vanya, the chief of staff of the regiment, asked tentatively: "Comrade commander, do you think we need to report this matter to the division commander?"

Belgin remembered that during the night attack last night, he had concealed from Sokov that the sewer was blown up by the enemy, which made Sokov very dissatisfied. Now that the enemy's offensive tactics have been adjusted, the soldiers are a little at a loss. If you don't report to Sokov in time, you can be passive when he learns about the matter through other news channels.

  Sokov didn't close his eyes all night. According to his memory, he restored the appearance drawings of the SU76 self-propelled artillery, and wrote some precautions for modifying the self-propelled artillery. After finishing all this, he stretched himself, and was about to find a place to take a nap when the phone on the desk that belonged to him rang.

   Sokov grabbed the microphone, put it close to his ear and said, "I'm Sokov, where are you?"

   "It's me, Misha." Belkin said in a deep voice, "Something is wrong today."

   "Something's wrong?!" Belkin's words made Sokov's sleepiness disappear without a trace: "Comrade political commissar, what do you find is wrong?"

"The enemy is attacking the joint position of the 650th Regiment and the 1st Battalion and 2nd Company," Belkin said carefully, "They have adopted a new offensive tactic..." He told Sokov the situation that Vasily had just reported. After repeating it, I finally added, "I sent snipers and mortars to Captain Vasily, hoping to eliminate the artillery observers hiding in the crater."

   "Comrade Commissar, you just said that the tactics used by the enemy attacking today are very different from before." Sokov waited for Belgin to finish speaking, and asked tentatively, "Am I right?"

"Exactly!" Belkin nodded and said, "In the past, the enemy attacked our position under the cover of tanks or assault guns. Today, we don't see a single enemy at all, even the enemy The assault guns are also hidden behind the ruins, even if you want to fight, you can't find the target."

  After Belgin said this, Sokov immediately thought of another German army, and said thoughtfully: "Could it be that the Germans sent an engineering battalion to take on the task of attacking the barricade factory?"

"Sappers, what sappers?" Hearing Sokov mentioning sappers, Belkin said blankly, "Misha, you won't say goodbye, are you? Sappers are fine with erecting pontoon bridges, repairing roads, and clearing landmines." If there is a war, I am afraid that one company of ours will be able to clean up their battalion."

"Comrade political commissar, you can't underestimate the enemy." Seeing Belkin's disapproval, Sokov quickly reminded him: "The enemy dispatched not ordinary engineers, but assault engineers, and their combat effectiveness is far from what we imagined. , It is even much stronger than the combat effectiveness of the Wehrmacht.

  Now the enemy is attacking the position of the 650th regiment, and it won't be long before the positions of the other 544th and 768th regiments will also be attacked by engineers. You have to greet the commanders and fighters of our division on these positions and let them adopt new tactics to deal with the enemy. "

Putting down the phone, Sokov said to Lyudnikov who was sitting opposite: "Comrade Colonel, according to the report of Commander Belkin, the enemy has dispatched at least one engineer battalion to adopt new tactics against us, you Let your subordinates prepare for countermeasures, so as not to be caught off guard by the enemy."

   "Understood, I'll call the group leaders right now."

   While Lyudnikov was on the phone, Sokov walked to the door and shouted outside: "Lieutenant Samoilov, come to me."

  Hearing Sokov's Han Zhan, Samoilov, who was not far away, trotted over immediately, straightened his body and asked Sokov respectfully: "Mr. Comrade, what instructions do you have?"

Sokov stuffed the drawings and precautions into Samoilov's hands, and told him: "Comrade Lieutenant, immediately send someone to send the drawings and precautions to Peter, the director of the Red October Factory. Remember, once you encounter the enemy on the road, destroy the drawings and precautions immediately, and never let these things fall into the hands of the Germans. Do you understand?"

   "I fully understand, Comrade Commander." Samoilov said in a positive tone: "I will send two smart soldiers to deliver this thing to Factory Manager Peter."

   "Very good!" Sokov was very satisfied with Samoilov's attitude. He nodded and urged the other party: "Comrade Lieutenant, time is running out, don't dawdle, act now."

   When Sokov returned to the house, he found that Lyudnikov had finished his phone call, so he asked casually: "Comrade Colonel, have you notified all the troops?"

"Yes, I have already called the three commanders and ordered them to fully cooperate with your subordinates to deal with the Germans who are about to attack the position." Lyudnikov asked instinctively after he finished speaking. One sentence: "Colonel Sokov, do you think we can stop the attack of the enemy engineers?"

  The most regrettable thing about Sokov is that he knows when the big counteroffensive will start, but he cannot mention it to others. But hearing Lyudnikov's question at this moment, he immediately replied without hesitation: "We will hold on, Comrade Colonel. As long as one of us is alive, the enemy will not be able to capture the barricade factory."

  (end of this chapter)