The second round of Soviet shelling lasted for a full two hours.
Then, the sound of artillery suddenly stopped, and the entire battlefield suddenly became quiet.
Whether it was the German or Soviet positions, there was silence.
Yakov lost his composure and asked in a low voice: "Misha, the bombardment has stopped, why don't you attack?"
"Our soldiers are waiting."
"Waiting?" Yakov asked puzzledly: "Waiting for what?"
"What else can we wait for?" Shtemenko put down the telescope in his hand and turned to explain to Yakov: "Our commanders and soldiers are naturally waiting for the signal to attack!"
"Signal of attack?" Yakov stood at the door and looked into the air. He didn't find the signal flare. He said with some confusion: "Why haven't you fired the signal flare yet?"
"Don't be anxious, Yasha." Seeing that no signal flare was raised in the sky, Sokov felt equally anxious, because Smirnov was responsible for launching the flare, and he couldn't do anything even if he wanted to. He pretended to be calm.
Said: "When the time is up, you will naturally see the signal flares."
Sokov patted his ears gently with both hands. Although the shelling just now was several kilometers away from him, the sound of the artillery still made his ears buzz.
He suddenly heard the melody of "Holy War". At first he thought it was an hallucination. But he soon discovered that it was not an hallucination of sound, but the sound coming from a large speaker nearby. It was Alexander's voice.
"Holy War" performed by the Delia Red Flag Song and Dance Ensemble.
Just as his blood boiled, three red flares rose into the air, signaling the start of the attack.
The commanders and fighters of the Guards Airborne Corps, who had been preparing for the attack for a long time, jumped out of their trenches amidst the singing from many loudspeakers and rushed towards the enemy's position with shouts. The 3rd Guards Airborne Corps was at the forefront.
The commanders and fighters of the division, behind them is a regiment of the 4th Guards Airborne Division.
From the beginning of the attack, Sokov kept using binoculars to observe the progress of the troops. In previous attacks, as long as the distance exceeded two kilometers, they usually formed a skirmish formation and walked forward with long strides.
After one kilometer, they accelerated again and changed from striding to trotting. When they were still 200 meters away from the enemy's position, they changed from trotting to sprinting. But today's commanders and soldiers rushed towards the enemy in a trotting posture.
German position.
After seeing this, Shtemenko said with emotion: "Comrade Sokov, it seems that the combat effectiveness of the commanders and fighters of the Guards Airborne Division is not weak. They trotted through the distance of two kilometers and rushed into the enemy's position."
"It's a pity that there are too many obstacles in front of the enemy's position." Yakov said with emotion when he saw this: "Otherwise, I could have the transport hovercraft carry the commando team, and under the cover of the assault hovercraft, charge towards the enemy's position. Using the hovercraft
With such speed, we can rush into the enemy's position in less than two minutes. By then, the enemy may not have woken up from the artillery fire, and our commando team can easily occupy the enemy's position."
Although Sokov once had such an idea in his mind, he knew very well that it was unrealistic for such advanced equipment as hovercraft to be used in battles for ground positions. Various obstacles in front of the positions would put the hovercraft at risk.
Causing huge damage. He turned to Yakov and said: "Yasha, I think the hovercraft is suitable for landing operations. If used in such a place, it will be restricted due to the terrain."
Since the attacking troops were trotting all the way, in less than five minutes, the troops were less than one kilometer away from the German position. In the past, when the Soviet troops reached this position, they would be attacked by German mortars, but today they were silent
.
"Comrade Sokov," Shtemenko asked: "Why are there no movements from the Germans? Could it be that they were all wiped out by our artillery fire?"
Since today's bombardment was carried out in two parts, the casualties caused to the German army must be much greater. But it is impossible to say that all of them were wiped out. Sokov smiled lightly and said nothing, because he did not know why the German army did not move.
.
When the Soviet army was still 156 meters away from the German position, gunshots rang out from the position. Several MG42 general-purpose machine guns in the civil fortifications fired carefully and violently at the attacking commanders and soldiers. The soldiers at the front were
The soldier seemed to have hit a transparent wall, paused on the spot, and then fell directly to the ground. The remaining commanders and soldiers quickly lay down on the spot and started shooting with the machine guns on the position.
When Sokov saw this situation, although he was anxious, he did not show it on his face. Now those participating in the attack were his elite troops. If he could not solve this problem, it means that the commander is incompetent. When the battle is over,
When it's over, you can consider replacing people. Anyway, you have a lot of talents now, so letting them serve as division commanders shouldn't be a big problem.
Fortunately, the performance of the airborne troops did not disappoint Sokov. He soon saw the soldiers establishing several rocket launch positions. The next moment, seven or eight rocket vehicles dragging fireworks rose into the sky and headed towards a
The German position two hundred meters away flew away. After a series of explosions, all the exposed fire points were destroyed. The soldiers, suppressed by the firepower and unable to raise their heads, got up again and continued to charge towards the German position with their guns in hand.
"Yasha," Sokov put down the telescope in his hand, turned around and said to Yakov with a smile: "It seems that your short-term training was very effective. The rockets launched by these soldiers basically hit the target."
"The main reason is that these airborne troops are of high quality and learn things very quickly." Yakov replied: "I just had someone introduce them to how to use the new rockets, and it took them less than three hours.
He mastered this weapon skillfully."
Before the airborne troops could rush into the German positions, several more firepower points emerged, suppressing them again so that the commanders and soldiers could not use the craters as bunkers to avoid the enemy's intensive firepower.
This time, it was no longer the new rockets that were used to deal with the German firepower point. After all, it was only fifty or sixty meters away from the position. It would be a waste to use them again. I saw a soldier carrying rockets stood up from the crater and aimed at a firepower point.
The trigger was pulled. When the rocket flew towards the fire point with a trail of white smoke, the soldier did not care whether it hit the target or not, and simply retreated into the crater to avoid being hit by the enemy's bullets.
The rocket landed in front of the firing hole of the fire point and exploded. Apart from raising a pile of soil, it did not affect the shooting of the German machine guns at all. Soon, the soldiers carrying the rocket launcher on their shoulders leaned out from other bomb craters, aimed at the firing point and pulled the trigger.
Trigger. The rocket launched this time did not miss, and went straight into the shooting hole, causing a big explosion inside.
Then, several more soldiers carrying rocket launchers destroyed the German firepower points one after another, and the covering troops continued to rush towards the German position.
Seeing the commanders and fighters rushing into the German positions, Shtemenko, who was originally nervous, finally breathed a sigh of relief. He put down his telescope and said to Sokov: "Comrade Sokov, you are using new rockets and rockets like this."
The way it played gave me an amazing feeling that my eyes lit up.
You must know that when our army attacked in the past, when it encountered fierce enemy firepower, it would either use a group charge to forcefully break through the enemy's defense line; or it would allow the troops to retreat first and wait for the artillery to bombard the enemy's position again before launching a new attack.
charge."
Sokov has always known that the Soviet offensive tactics are rigid. If the attack fails in one place, they will never consider changing the direction of the attack. Instead, they will try again and again until they break through the enemy's defense line. Of course, their
Most of the time when attacking, they will be defeated by the enemy who is waiting for work; even if they are lucky enough to win, they will pay huge casualties.
At this moment, Sokov's men used new rockets and rockets to destroy the firepower points on the German positions, allowing the offensive troops to quickly break through the enemy's defense line with few casualties. This will naturally give Shtemenko a refreshing experience.
a feeling of.
“Comrade Deputy Chief of the General Staff,” Sokov said to Shtemenko, “I think that if we want to win, we must find ways to use various effective means to reduce the casualties of the troops in the battle and achieve the maximum at the minimum cost.
victory."
Listening to what Sokov said, Shtemenko couldn't help but raise his eyebrows, thinking to himself: The slogan of victory with "less bloodshed" was immediately criticized by his superiors as an unreasonable slogan after the arduous and arduous Finnish campaign.
Correct, a slogan that leads the army to dream of an easy victory. Therefore, since the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War, no one has even mentioned reducing the casualties of troops in combat, so as not to be criticized by their superiors. Unexpectedly, Sokov was very casual today.
Said this matter.
"Comrade Sokov," Shtemenko asked calmly: "Why do you want to reduce the casualties of the troops in the battle?"
Shtemenko's question stunned Sokov. He stared at the opponent for a long time before murmuring and replied: "If we don't care about the casualties of the troops during the battle, then there may be
After every battle, the situation of soldiers must be replenished. No matter how strong the combat effectiveness of an army is, if it suffers all casualties in every battle, and the quality of the newly added soldiers cannot be compared with the original veterans, it will inevitably...
Dilute the combat effectiveness of the troops. As long as such battles occur a few times, even the most elite troops may become rubbish troops with extremely poor combat effectiveness."
If other commanders had said such things, Shtemenko would have been loudly scolded by him. But for Sokov, a man who has repeatedly created miracles, he was very tolerant and even thought in his heart: Could it be that we
It was a mistake to refute the idea of less bloodshed at the beginning. If this is really the case, when I return to Moscow, should I talk to Antonov to see if I can correct this mistake?
It only took the commanders and fighters of the Airborne Division more than twenty minutes to clear out the remaining enemies and occupy the first line of defense of the German army. When Afunin called him to tell him the good news, Sokov said to the microphone with a straight face.
"General Afnin, please tell Colonel Konev immediately that it is precisely because we have captured the first line of defense that we cannot stop and rest. We must continue to pursue the victory and continue to attack the enemy before they have recovered their senses."
The defense is advancing in depth!”
Faced with such a severe order from Sokov, Afnin did not dare to refute, and could only bite the bullet and replied: "Understood, Comrade Commander, I will immediately notify Colonel Konev to let the 3rd Airborne Division continue to attack the enemy's defenses.
Push forward in depth.”
"Comrade Sokov," Seeing Sokov put down the phone, Shtemenko asked the question in his heart: "The troops have just occupied the enemy's first line of defense. What they need to do at this moment should not be to eliminate the remaining enemies.
, and strengthen the fortifications to prevent possible counterattacks by the enemy?"
"Comrade Deputy Chief of General Staff, this is what I think about." Sokov explained to Shtemenko: "I saw many enemies escaping from their positions. If our troops follow and pursue them, they will continue to attack the second line.
The defense line advances. The enemies holding the second line of defense will definitely not fire when they see that their own people are escaping. However, our troops can take advantage of the enemy's fear of accidentally injuring their own people and rush in behind the broken troops.
After hearing this, Shtemenko laughed: "Comrade Sokov, it seems that I came to the front line at the right time. With you, I can have different surprises at any time. This is why I am here
You can't see it in other troops. If possible, I will promote your tactics throughout the army."
"Comrade Deputy Chief of General Staff, you are very grateful." Hearing that his tactics were to be promoted throughout the army, Sokov was immediately startled. These tactics of his were incompatible with the conventional tactics used by the Soviet army. If it were true,
If you want to promote it, you may make yourself the target of public criticism. This promotion to general will attract an unwarranted investigation. When the tactics are promoted throughout the army, they will be hated by others, so it is better not to be the first person: "I am on the battlefield.
The tactics used in the army are all based on my imagination. If another person uses them, they probably won’t work. I think it’s better not to promote them throughout the army.”
Although Shtemenko felt strange about Sokov's attitude, he did not stick to his point of view. He just said a few perfunctory words and let the matter pass.
Seeing that the attack in the Safran area was going smoothly, Sokov picked up the phone on the table and called the group army headquarters, wanting to know about the progress in the Velishanka area.
"Comrade Chief of Staff," as soon as he heard Smirnov's voice, he asked straight to the point: "How is the progress of the 49th Army?"
"It didn't go well, Comrade Commander." Smirnov said with some regret: "Although the artillery fire preparations destroyed most of the German fortifications, our army still encountered strong resistance from them when they attacked. He was the first to attack.
The echelon paid a heavy price."
"How could this happen?" Sokov asked angrily: "It took three hours for the front army to prepare artillery fire. Even if all the fortifications on the position were not destroyed, most of them could not be used. The Germans who relied on these fortifications to resist,
Facing the powerful offensive of our army, it is simply impossible to withstand it."
"..." After hearing what Sokov said, Smirnov suddenly felt speechless.
Hearing that Smirnov didn't speak, Sokov slowed down and asked: "Which unit is responsible for the first attack?"
"214th Infantry Division."
"The 214th Infantry Division?" Sokov thought for a moment and felt that although the division had many soldiers, its combat effectiveness was not the strongest among the 49th Army, so he said to Smirnov: "Comrade Chief of Staff, take action immediately.
Colonel Tilitz's 116th Division was transferred up, and they took over the attack of the 214th Division."