The counterattack organized by Zhukov in the north of Stalingrad did not achieve ideal results, but instead consumed the precious reserves of the Soviet army. After successfully preventing the Soviet army's counterattack, the German army used the 14th Tank Army and the 51st Infantry Army to launch a fierce attack on the Soviet army's defensive positions. The defensive positions of the 35th Guards Division became the first target of the German army's attack.
The shells fell on the position of the 100th Guards' 100th Regiment like raindrops. Countless explosion spots suddenly exploded. The shrapnel flying everywhere and the flying gravel intertwined each other like a storm, sweeping over the position covered by black smoke. The commanders and soldiers of the regiment covered their ears with their hands and curled up in the trenches to avoid German artillery attacks. From time to time, shells fell directly into the trenches. The explosion air waves pulled the soldiers near the explosion spots from the ground and threw them high into the air. They were torn into pieces by the flying shrapnel, and then scattered down like flowers in the sky.
Even among the soldiers who were bombed by shells, some of them were missing their arms and legs and fell to the ground howling, but no one would go to save them before the shelling was over. After all, the health workers were also flesh and blood. If they saved people under such dense artillery fire, the final outcome was that the person was not saved, but instead took their lives. Whether these wounded people could last until the end of the shelling rescue, shrapnel could only be left to fate.
The red flag inserted on the position was first shaken by the explosion of air waves, and then the flagpole was cut off by shrapnel. Half of the flagpole was connected to the flag full of holes, and was instantly blown by the hurricane formed by the air waves and disappeared.
A soldier squatting not far away saw the flag being blown away. He was about to get up to find the flag, but was pressed down by a veteran beside him. At the same time, he leaned close to his ear and shouted loudly: "You don't want to die, squat down honestly."
As soon as the shelling stopped, before the smoke was dissipated, the German infantry rushed towards the position of the 100th Regiment under the cover of the tanks.
Seeing that the German artillery was stopped, the Soviet commanders and soldiers immediately stood up first and shouted at the top of their voices: "The Germans are coming up, everyone immediately repairs the fortifications and prepares for shooting..."
The German shelling caused considerable casualties to the Soviet army without strong fortifications. At the same time, it also destroyed several civil and wooden bunkers. The heavy machine guns placed inside did not even have the chance to shoot, and they were blown into parts. Fortunately, the machine gun shooters hid in other places when the shelling was shot, otherwise they would be blown to pieces like these machine guns.
The Soviet battalion commander was three hundred meters away from the first trench. After counting the casualties of the troops, the battalion commander's heart was bleeding. In the just-concluded artillery attack, the number of casualties of the commanders and soldiers in the battalion exceeded one-third. However, when he learned that the German infantry was rushing towards his defensive position, he immediately issued a combat order to the three company commanders under his command: "Tell the soldiers, put the enemy closer and then fight."
The company commanders naturally understood the reason for the battalion commander's order. As long as the distance between the enemy and us approached, the German tanks that stopped providing artillery support would stop shooting in order to prevent accidental injury of their own people. As long as the Germans did not have artillery support, it would not be so easy to break through their positions.
The German infantry, who was marching, saw that there was no movement on the Soviet position, quickly passed the tanks that stopped to fire the artillery and rushed forward. Three hundred meters...two hundred meters...two hundred meters...twelve hundred meters. The German infantry was getting closer and closer to the trenches, but there was no movement at all, as if all the defenders were killed by shells in the just-concluded artillery bombardment.
When there were fifty meters away from the trench, the German soldiers who rushed to the front showed a smug smile on their faces. They thought to themselves: as long as they ran for more than ten seconds, they could rush into the Russian trench. At that time, the honor of being the first to rush into Stalingrad will belong to their own troops.
However, joy is so sad that when they felt that they could rush into the trenches with another sprint, the machine gun suddenly opened fire without warning in the trenches that had been silent for a long time. The dense bullets caused the twenty German soldiers who rushed in the front to fall into a place that was only about twenty meters away from the trenches.
Seeing the Soviet army suddenly fire, the German army behind quickly searched for cover and fired back. The machine gunner also quickly established a machine gun position in the crater and fired wildly at the Soviet soldiers on the position. Many soldiers who were shooting fell on their backs after being hit by bullets.
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Compared with the situation here in the 100th Regiment, the battle carried out by the 101st Regiment on their right wing was even more cruel. The German army attacked from this direction adopted the tactic of tank assault. The tanks left the infantry far behind and rushed to the Soviet position alone, trying to disrupt the morale of the defenders through this breakthrough method.
The regiment's anti-tank company was deployed a hundred meters ahead of the regiment's defensive position. When the enemy tanks appeared in a distance, the company commander Gerasimov quickly counted the number of tanks: "Brothers, the Germans have 25 tanks, and we only have 18 anti-tank rifles, which means that seven soldiers have to destroy more than two."
"Comrade Commander." As soon as Gerasimov finished speaking, a second lieutenant lay not far away asked: "Our anti-tank gun must be within a range of two hundred meters before it can penetrate their frontal armor. Do you see if you put the enemy's tank closer before you attack?"
"Yes." Gerasimov immediately agreed to the second lieutenant's suggestion: "Anyway, there are no infantry behind the German tanks, so we can put them as close as possible. Even if they rushed in front of us, we don't have to worry, because there are anti-tank grenades that can deal with them."
After saying these words, Gerasimov yelled at the soldiers again: "Everyone is ready, the German tanks are coming." With the order issued, all anti-tank rifles aimed at the German tanks coming from afar.
As the German tanks got closer and the roar of the engine became louder and louder, Gerasimov raised his telescope. He saw the hatch of the first tank open, a tank hand in a black tank soldier uniform, wearing a pair of headphones on his head and holding a microphone in his hand, staring at the front, as if indicating the direction for other tanks.
Seeing this situation, Gerasimov put down his telescope, called a sharpshooter, and ordered: "Comrade Warrior, have you seen the tank soldier who poked out half of his body?" Seeing that the other party nodded and saw him, he continued, "Based on my judgment, he is indicating the direction for other tanks, you can shoot him immediately and kill him."
"Comrade Commander," said the sharpshooter in a little embarrassed manner about Gerasimov's order: "The enemy's tank is still four hundred meters away. At such a long distance, I can't hit the target."
"Then let it get closer and then fight," said Gerasimov, waving his fists. "As long as you kill him, it will not be so easy for the enemies in the tank to discover our positions."
The sharpshooter agreed and immediately ran to choose a suitable position to lay down. He set up the Mosinnagan rifle with a scope and aimed at the German tank soldier who had poked out half of his body in the distance.
However, the first shot was not the sharpshooter who wanted to kill the German tank soldiers, but another nervous little soldier. The young soldier locked the tank where the tank soldiers were using the cross shape in the scope, and he couldn't wait to pull the trigger despite the opponent being more than 300 meters away.
The bullets fired by the anti-tank rifle did not hit the front armor of the tank, but hit one side of the high-speed rotation track, thus becoming a jumper. The loud sound of the bullet hitting the track scared the tank hand who was observing the situation ahead. He looked around, quickly retracted back into the tank, and closed the hatch.
Seeing the German tank soldiers retreating, the sharpshooter who was about to shoot was so angry that he punched him hard with his fist, turning his head and cursing: "Damn, who shot randomly, scared the German tank hands so much that he hid."
The little soldier who found out that he had caused trouble did not dare to say anything, but silently reloaded a bullet, re-targeted the tank, and prepared to shoot again to make up for the mistake he had just made.
After the German tanks discovered that there was a Soviet blocking position ahead, they immediately changed their tactics and used two groups to alternately cover the advance to rush forward. One tank stopped and fired, and the other continued to rush forward to seize the favorable terrain. After the forward tank reached the favorable position, they stopped and fired, covering the tank that had just been shot to rush forward.
The tactic used by the German army immediately obscured the soldiers of the anti-tank company. Because the bullets fired by the anti-tank rifle may not penetrate the front armor of the German tanks, while the shells fired by the enemy tanks were enough to blow them into the sky, even their people and guns.
When the German tanks rushed to seventy or eighty meters away from the anti-tank position, eight anti-tank guns had been destroyed, and the German army only lost one tank. Seeing the German tanks approaching in an instant, Gerasimov quickly shouted: "Use anti-tank grenades to blow up the enemy's tanks."
Hearing Gerasimov's order, a soldier immediately crawled out of the fortification with two anti-tank grenades and crawled towards the speeding tank. Seeing that the tank was about to rush to him, the soldier poked half of his body and threw the anti-tank grenade in his hand out. With a loud "boom", the tank began to burn, and after driving forward for a distance, he completely stopped and stopped moving.
Because the Soviet anti-tank grenade was too heavy, even the strong soldier could only throw about twenty meters at best. After the soldier had just thrown out the anti-tank grenade, he was hit on the forehead by the rebound shrapnel and sacrificed his life next to the destroyed tank on the spot.
Seeing that the warriors who bombed the tanks died, Gerasimov hurriedly shouted: "Comrades, keep going, you must blow up all the German tanks, and you must not let them rush to the infantry positions behind."
At the call of Gerasimov, seven or eight warriors holding anti-tank grenades climbed out of the trenches, crawled over to the driving tanks with their hands and feet. After a series of explosions, all the soldiers who performed anti-tank missions were killed, but they successfully destroyed two tanks. The tank soldiers covered in fire escaped from the vehicle. Without escaping, they were shot down by the soldiers on the position.
Found that his tanks were blown up by the Soviet army one by one, the Germans realized that it was impossible to continue to break forward without destroying this anti-tank force. So the German tank soldiers asked the infantry behind to speed up the pace, while using tank guns and machine guns to deal with Soviet anti-tank soldiers hiding in the trenches.
After half an hour of fierce fighting, the German infantry rushed up, and Captain Gerasimov was left on the anti-tank position. Despite this, he still calmly used anti-tank guns to shoot at the German tanks and destroyed four tanks in succession. After all the bullets were shot, he put down his anti-tank guns and searched for bullets to the soldiers who died beside him.
As soon as he found the bullet, before he could load it, a German tank rushed over. Seeing that the situation was not good, Gerasimov hurriedly squatted in the trenches. The German tank first smashed the anti-tank gun used by Gerasimov, and then spun around Gerasimov, trying to crush him who was hiding in the trenches. As the tank tracks rotated rapidly, Gerasimov felt that the earth walls of the trenches began to collapse in pieces, and the soil with the temperature quickly buried himself.
After a few efforts, the tank that was spinning over his head finally left. Gerasimov felt like an elephant was sitting on his body. He used all his strength to arch upward little by little. After several efforts, he finally came out of the soil. Just as he was breathing in the fresh air, he found that groups of German infantry were following the tank and rushing towards the infantry position behind.
Seeing a tank parked more than ten meters ahead of him and firing fire, Gerasimov wanted to destroy it with an anti-tank gun, but after searching for a long time, he only found half a deformed barrel. He squatted down and groped in the empty soil. He remembered that before he avoided the crushing of German tanks, he had seen several anti-tank grenades on the ground in the trenches. Under the current circumstances, he could only use this weapon to deal with the enemy tanks.
Hard work pays off. After fumbled for a while, Gerasimov finally touched the anti-tank grenade covered in the soil. After digging out the grenade, he stood up straight, raised the grenade high above his head, and prepared to throw it to the tank not far away. However, while doing all this, he forgot that there were German infantry everywhere around him. As soon as he stood up, he was discovered by nearby German soldiers, and suddenly seven or eight muzzles were pointed at him.
Chapter completed!