Early the next morning, the northern and southern hills of Mamayev Hill were simultaneously shelled by German artillery.
Sokov, who was staying in the tunnel, listened to the faint sound of artillery outside and knew that this was the precursor of a large-scale German attack. He issued orders to the battalion commanders over the phone, asking them to attack after the enemy's shelling ended.
Immediately enter the surface position and prepare to block the attacking enemy.
In the past, Sidorin was responsible for assigning tasks. Seeing Sokov solemnly assigning tasks to the battalion commanders, Sidorin approached Belkin and whispered: "Comrade political commissar,
Have you noticed that the brigade commander seems a little strange today?"
Belkin nodded: "Yes, I also noticed it. You know, you are usually responsible for these tasks. But today he personally called each battalion commander. After assigning tasks, he repeatedly
Tell the other side some things to pay attention to. It looks like the next battle will be very fierce."
After Sokov finished calling the battalion commanders, Belkin asked: "Comrade Brigade Commander, isn't the chief of staff responsible for assigning tasks to each battalion? Why did you personally give the task to the battalion commander today?
Where are we on the phone?"
In Sokov's memory, the German army launched continuous fierce attacks on Mamayev Heights during the three days from September 13th to 15th. Together with the 13th Guards Division that had just arrived in Stalingrad, here
A brutal tug of war ensued, resulting in the death and injury of Rodimtsev's troops.
Although there are tunnels in Mamayev Heights that are difficult to destroy by enemy artillery fire, the next battle will still be extremely fierce if the enemy is to prevent the enemy from seizing the city's commanding heights. That's why Sokov called the battalion commanders.
He personally deployed defense matters to them. When he heard Belkin's question, he hesitated for a moment and replied: "Comrade Political Commissar, haven't you heard that the two hills we are holding have been heavily shelled by the Germans?"
? This shows that the Germans will soon launch a large-scale attack on Mamayev Hills."
Belkin tilted his head and listened to the movement outside. Since the headquarters was deep underground, the sound of artillery had become very soft. He listened for a while before nodding and said: "Yes, Comrade Brigade Commander, outside
The shelling was very violent." After sitting up straight, he said disapprovingly, "The enemy will carry out such shelling before every attack. I don't think anything is wrong."
"Before the enemy's previous attacks, the target of the artillery bombardment was either the North Hill or the South Hill, but they never shelled both hills at the same time." Sokov said with a straight face: "This means that once the shelling is over, the enemy will
They will launch a fierce attack on two hills at the same time, and I estimate that the battle will be extremely fierce."
Perhaps it is because every German attack on Mamayev Hills ended in a disastrous defeat. Not to mention Political Commissar Belkin, even Chief of Staff Sidorin did not realize that today's German artillery bombardment before the attack was different from usual
What's the difference.
…………
When Mamayev Heights was under heavy shelling, the German 21st Grenadier Regiment launched another attack on the central railway station. Based on the scout's report, Colonel Lengok learned that no less than one battalion of garrison troops had been added to the station.
After entering the army, he adjusted his tactics in time. He did not attack the station directly, but made the employee dormitory area near the station a new target of attack.
The reason why he made this decision was that the Soviet army concentrated its main forces at the station and the defense force in the dormitory area was weak. Once he occupied the dormitory area, he could use it as a starting point to attack the station and shorten the impact distance.
.If the station can be captured and the station is at arm's length, even if the Soviet army launches a counterattack against the station, it can still attack the Soviet army from the side and rear.
The station staff dormitory is about one kilometer away from the station. There are more than fifty four-story buildings. Although the Soviet army did not deploy many troops here, and the defenders were mainly composed of militiamen composed of railway employees.
But it would not be easy for the Germans to occupy this place.
As Major Hayden's troops rushed forward along the street, they were fired upon by a Maxim heavy machine gun. Many soldiers were killed on the street. When they hid against the walls of buildings on both sides of the street, they were attacked again.
Then came the cold gun attack from the buildings on both sides. In just a few minutes, twenty German soldiers were killed and more than thirty people were injured to varying degrees.
Seeing that the situation was not good, Haydn quickly called the regiment leader Lengek: "Mr. Commander, when our battalion was attacking the dormitory area, it was attacked by cold guns. It is difficult to continue to move forward. Please provide us with support.
"
After receiving a call from Major Haydn, Lengerk immediately rushed over with two tanks to support him. Since Lengerk determined that the defenders in the dormitory area did not have anti-tank weapons, he ordered the infantry to rush forward behind the tanks.
Facing the oncoming tanks, the soldiers and militiamen hiding behind the windows of the house hurriedly started shooting. Although the bullets hit the armor plate like hail, they did not stop the tanks from advancing at all.
The infantry following the tanks had many ways to deal with the exposed firepower points. They rushed against the wall to the window where the soldiers were, threw the white-smoking grenades in, and after a loud bang, hid behind
The soldiers or militiamen in the house were cleared.
For some firepower points that were inaccessible, the tanks that were clearing the way in front stopped, turned their guns, and only needed to blast there with one shot. Then the whole world became quiet and the German army could move forward again.
Although the German tanks and infantry were constantly clearing the Soviet fire points hidden in the buildings, they never discovered the location of the Soviet heavy machine guns. As long as the Soviet heavy machine guns fired, they would take them away.
The lives of several German soldiers.
Haydn was furious at the casualties this ghost-style heavy machine gun had caused to his men, but he could do nothing about it. Although the tank brought by the regiment leader Lungek had destroyed many Soviet firepower points,
But so far, no one has discovered the location of the heavy machine gun. Even if the tank wants to destroy it, it cannot find the target.
Seeing Haydn being so rude, Lengerk said calmly: "Major, as a commander, you must always remain calm on the battlefield, so that you can defeat your enemy. Do you understand?"
"Mr. Colonel," Haydn said with some hesitation: "This Russian machine gun poses a great threat to us. If we don't eliminate it, we will not be able to occupy the entire residential area."
"According to my guess, the Russian heavy machine gun must be hidden behind the window of some building. Because the muzzle of the gun does not stick out of the window, our people cannot detect it at all." Lengek held up the telescope.
While observing, he said: "So we must be patient and find this heavy machine gun of the Russians. As long as the machine gun is killed, the Russian resistance in the dormitory area will collapse."
About three hundred meters away from Lengok and Haydn, there was a half-collapsed building. In the ruins of the building, there were two soldiers wearing helmets, a man and a woman, lying on a pile of rubble.
In the middle, one person is holding a rifle with a scope, aiming at the soldiers moving on the street in the distance. The woman is Zina from the sniper team of the guard company, and the man was just taken from the guard by Sokov last night.
Vasily is coming from the 42nd Regiment.
Zina felt particularly uncomfortable when she received a sniper mission with Vasily early this morning. She didn't understand what her superiors would do to arrange for her and a new recruit to carry out such a mission. She was worried that Vasily would panic.
She lost control and exposed the target during the mission, which led to the failure of the mission and even threatened the lives of the two people. Therefore, she specifically said to the company commander Seryozha: "Comrade company commander, how can you let me lead a new soldier?
To carry out such a dangerous mission? Maybe a cannonball would land and explode fifty meters away from him, and he would be so frightened that he would run around like a frightened rabbit..."
When Zina said this, Vasily was standing not far from her. He just smiled honestly and did not express any opinion. For Seryosha, the guard company commander, he was not willing to let Vasily
To carry out such a task, but this matter was explained by Sokov himself, and he could not object. Facing Zina's complaints, he could only say helplessly: "Comrade Zina, let the new soldier Vasily carry out such a task."
The sniper mission was personally arranged by the brigade commander, and his orders can only be carried out unconditionally. Do you understand?"
Hearing that Seryosha moved out of Sokov, Zina knew that no matter how much she objected, she could only accept this reality, so she nodded and said helplessly: "Okay, comrade commander, since it is an order from the superior.
, I resolutely obey. But I want to declare to you in advance that this is just this one time, and I will never carry out such a mission with him again in the future."
Zina took Vasily to the staff dormitory area and found an inconspicuous ruin to hide. In order to prevent Vasily from firing randomly due to nervousness and exposing the target, Zina also reminded him specifically: "We are snipers, not ordinary people."
soldiers, so our target of attack is not ordinary German soldiers, but officers, machine gunners, gunners, and communications personnel; you cannot shoot casually before I give the order to shoot. Do you understand?"
The good-tempered Vasily waited patiently for Zina to finish, then nodded and replied angrily: "I understand."
When the German troops rushed in from outside the dormitory area, Zina's heart was in her throat. She was deeply afraid that Vasily would lose his composure and shoot at the enemy without obeying his orders, so she used the corner of her eye to shoot from time to time.
Glancing at Vasily, she felt a little more at ease when she saw Vasily lying there motionless like a sculpture holding a sniper rifle.
Lengek and Haydn stood at the window of the command post, raised their binoculars and searched the buildings on the roadside little by little, trying to find out where the Soviet heavy machine guns were located. He searched very carefully, and the two buildings on the roadside were
He stopped at almost every window above the building. After looking at it for a while, he suddenly said: "Major, I found a Russian heavy machine gun."
"What, found it?" When Haydn heard what Lungek said, a look of surprise appeared on his face, and he quickly asked: "Mr. Captain, where is it?"
Lengek held the telescope, pointed in the distance, and said: "Look at the building No. 17 on the right side of the street, in the leftmost window on the third floor."
Haydn looked along the direction provided by Lungek. After looking for a moment, he said with some doubt: "Mr. Commander, do you really think the Russian heavy machine gun position is there? I saw that the windows were full of
Closed."
"Major, just because the windows are closed, we often ignore these places when searching for targets." Lengek explained to Haydn with a smile: "But if you look carefully, the bottom two windows are missing.
, the heavy machine gun installed in the house shoots outside through the glassless window."
Although Lengerk had spoken so clearly, Haydn was still a little doubtful. He did not immediately order the communications troops to get in touch with the tanks and let them attack the window, but continued to raise the telescope to confirm. Lengerk was delayed when he saw Haydn.
He did not carry out his order, guessing that the other party might still have doubts about what he said, so he did not speak, but raised his telescope and looked in another direction.
After waiting for about two or three minutes, Haydn saw a half-foot-long flame coming out of the window. He couldn't help but trembled. He secretly said that it seemed that the regiment leader was right. The Russians had indeed hidden their heavy machine gun in the window.
If the group leader hadn't been careful, he definitely wouldn't have been able to discover this firepower point.
Haydn quickly put down the telescope, turned around and shouted to the telegraph operator not far away: "Contact the tanks in front immediately and ask them to attack the first window on the left side of the third floor of Building 17..."
After receiving the order, the German tank immediately turned its muzzle and aimed at the window where the Soviet heavy machine gun was located and fired a shot. After the shell flew in from the window, an explosion occurred soon after. A Soviet soldier and some machine guns were fired.
The parts were lifted out of the house and fell directly downstairs.
"Mr. Commander," Haydn couldn't help but dance with excitement when he saw that the tank took out the Soviet heavy machine gun position with one shot: "Our tanks took out the Russian heavy machine gun."
"Major," Lungek raised his hand to look at his watch and said to Haydn: "Now that the Russian heavy machine guns have been killed, I hope you can completely occupy this residential area before noon. Do you understand?"
"Understood, Mr. Leader." Haydn saw that the heavy machine gun firepower point that threatened him the most had been eliminated, and he immediately became confident. He quickly assured Lungek: "I will definitely capture this before noon.
Residential area." Lengek nodded, then left the headquarters with an accompanying staff officer and walked outside.
There was a black car parked outside the building. After Lengerk came out of the building, the accompanying staff officer quickly walked to the car, bent down and opened the door, and respectfully asked Lengerk to get in. But
He soon saw that a cloud of blood mist spattered on Lungek's chest without warning, and then his boss spun around in a circle and fell softly. The staff officer was shocked by this scene.
Dumbfounded, he just watched Lengek fall to the ground in a daze.