Red Moscow

  Chapter 516 Factory Defense Battle (12)

  The tank detachment sent by the factory manager Peter wandered around the assembly workshop several times, giving the German scouts hiding in the distance the illusion that at least one tank brigade was here for reinforcements.

Lieutenant General Sang Nei, the commander of the 100th Jaeger Division, saw that his two attacks on the north of the factory ended in failure. When he was gathering troops to launch another attack, the division chief of staff came over with a telegram and told him The report said: "Your Excellency, the division commander, just received a report from scouts that the Russians have sent an additional tank brigade to the assembly workshop in the north of the factory."

"What, the Russians have sent an additional tank brigade?" Sanneh took the telegram, and after reading the content, he frowned and asked, "Our artillery and air force are constantly shelling and bombing the Volga River. How did the tank troops get across the river?"

Faced with Sanne's question, the division chief shrugged his shoulders, spread his hands, and said helplessly: "I'm sorry, sir, I don't think I can answer your question. But the scouts carefully defeated the Russians." It is only because of the number of tanks that we have come to such a conclusion. I think the news that the Russians have sent a tank brigade to the assembly workshop should be credible."

"Damn, how did this happen?" After hearing what the division chief of staff said, Sanne frowned and said, "The 24th Armored Division was attacked by Russian artillery fire on its way north, and was unable to catch up because of heavy casualties. Come to cooperate with us in fighting. And here the Russians have sent an additional tank brigade, it seems that the battle here at the Red October Factory is not easy to fight."

   "Your Excellency, Commander!" The division chief of staff asked respectfully, "What should we do next?"

"Order the troops attacking the north of the factory area to stand by." Sanne ordered the chief of staff of the division: "Aim all the artillery at the residential area, find a way to eliminate the Russian guards entrenched in this area first, and then turn around to deal with the inside of the factory area. Russians."

   "Understood," the division chief of staff quickly agreed, "I'll give the order right away."

  Because Sanne ordered to adjust the direction of attack, the German army in the north of the factory area did not launch a new round of attack before dark. Seeing that the enemy stopped attacking, Balshak and Cousteau came up with new ideas, and they went to Sokov to discuss: "Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, since the Germans are not attacking anymore, we might as well go for a sneak attack at night. Even if it does not cause heavy losses to the enemy, it can disrupt their offensive steps."

"It's nonsense, it's nonsense." After listening to the proposal of the two, Sokov immediately denied it: "We don't know the enemy's defense situation and how many troops there are, so we will carry out a sneak attack recklessly. Maybe in the end, Instead of being wiped out, the enemy took away what little strength we had."

Although his proposal was rejected by Sokov, Balshak still said unwillingly: "Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, our workers are very familiar with the terrain in this area. And retreat."

"Major Bolshak," Sokov worried that Bolshak would secretly take the fighters from the destroyer battalion to attack the German army behind his back, so he specially reminded him: "The Germans suffered from us during the day, and they must be dreaming." They all wanted revenge. I think the reason why they didn’t attack later was that they were confused by the fake tank troops we sent, so they didn’t dare to act rashly. I can tell you clearly now that the enemy must have deployed a lot of tanks outside the factory area. Scouts are secretly watching us here, if you want to lead troops to attack, maybe as soon as you leave the factory, the Germans will know that you are leaving, and they can set a trap in advance and wait for you to jump inside."

After listening to Sokov's words, Balshak thought for a long time, and felt that what the other party said made sense, so he nodded and said, "Okay, Lieutenant Colonel Sokov, I think you have convinced me, then Cancel the attack plan."

   "Comrade workshop director," Sokov called out to Cousteau after seeing that Balshak had given up on his risky night attack plan, "I have something to do for you."

   "Please tell me, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel." Cousteau said respectfully: "We will definitely complete the tasks you entrusted to us."

Sokov raised his hand and pointed to the roof, and said: "Comrade workshop director, the anti-aircraft gun position on the roof is no longer usable, but the remaining four anti-aircraft guns placed on it are always a hidden danger. Once the building is shaken, The roof may collapse, and the anti-aircraft guns falling from above may kill the soldiers staying below. Therefore, I beg you to send professionals to dismantle the anti-aircraft guns and lower them from the roof.”

  The reason why Sokov issued such an order was that dismantling the anti-aircraft gun was a trivial matter for the workers in the assembly workshop, and there was not much difficulty. Sure enough, as soon as he finished speaking, Cousteau nodded and said: "Don't worry, Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, I will immediately send skilled workers and lifting workers to the roof and put down the anti-aircraft guns left on it."

   "Comrade workshop director, if the roof collapses, it will kill people." Sokov reminded Cousteau: "So when the roof is under construction, remember to evacuate the staff below."

   When Cousteau arranged for workers to go up to the roof to dismantle the anti-aircraft guns, Balshak tentatively asked: "Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, after these four anti-aircraft guns are lowered from the roof, do you still plan to use them as anti-tank guns?"

"Yes, Major Borshak." Sokov nodded and said affirmatively, "Although the antiaircraft guns have to be within 400 meters to penetrate the frontal armor of German tanks when used on the ground, they always It's better than letting our soldiers rush up with explosives and cluster grenades to blow up tanks."

   Cousteau sent his best workers to the roof to dismantle the anti-aircraft gun. Afraid of exposing the target and attracting German shelling or bombing at night, the workers first covered the anti-aircraft gun with a canvas before dismantling it, then hid in the canvas, and began to disassemble the parts of the anti-aircraft gun with the help of a flashlight.

  This kind of thing is easy to say, but it is not so simple to do. Four groups of people worked at the same time, and it still took nearly two hours to disassemble the four anti-aircraft guns into parts. Just when the lifter was going to use simple equipment to lower these parts from the roof, a fire suddenly rose near the wall, followed by a dull explosion.

   Sokov, who was talking to Balshak in the corner of the factory building, heard the explosion, stood up abruptly, looked in the direction of the fire, frowned and said, "Someone stepped on a landmine."

  Borshak also heard the explosion. He also stood up and looked in the direction of the factory wall, but because the light was too dark, he saw nothing but darkness. He tentatively asked Sokov: "Comrade Lieutenant Colonel, is it a surprise attack force sent by the German army?"

Sokov listened carefully, but did not hear any movement. He shook his head and replied: "There was only an explosion. It seems that it was not a surprise attack force sent by the Germans. It might be a few scouts or engineers who accidentally stepped on the ground." The mines we planted."

   "Does a battle alert need to be issued?" Knowing that the enemy might have entered the factory area, Bolshak couldn't help asking nervously: "In case it is really a surprise attack force sent by the Germans, we can give them a head-on blow."

   Head on? Hearing Balshak say this word, Sokov couldn't help but secretly smiled wryly. He thought to himself: According to the fighting power of the destroyer battalion and the militia, if we carry out a counter-assault in the night battle, I'm afraid it will fall into chaos due to poor command. When people fight with their own people, the gains outweigh the losses.

   At best, a few scouts from the German army entered the factory area, and there might even be hares running past. It would be too much of a fuss to call all the soldiers to prepare for battle in order to make an explosion. So Sokov once again rejected Balshak's proposal: "No need, let the observation posts and machine guns on duty pay attention to observe, confirm that there are enemies approaching the factory building, and it will not be too late to shoot."

   After more than ten minutes, there was another explosion sound more than 100 meters away from the factory building. The observation post fired a flare, illuminating the open space in front of the position like daylight. With the help of the bright light of the flares, they carefully observe the surrounding environment, hoping to find the approaching enemy. However, until the flares went out, they did not find any moving objects in the open space.

  Sokov frowned when he received a call from the observation post and learned that he hadn't noticed his movements. He thought to himself, what the hell, two landmines were detonated in a row, but he didn't find the enemy approaching the position. What's going on?

  For the sake of safety, he immediately said to the observation post: "Fire two more flares and notify the machine gun on duty to shoot immediately if it finds a suspicious target."

   The observation post agreed, and soon fired two flares into the air to observe the situation in front of the position. Sokov found a hidden place, raised his binoculars, and carefully checked the situation in front of the position with the help of the light from the flares. During the daytime battles, many German soldiers were killed on the ground, and now their bodies are lying in disorder in the open space. Sokov scanned the corpses back and forth twice with a telescope, but found nothing abnormal.

   Just when he moved the binoculars to another direction, he suddenly felt a shock all over his body, and felt that there seemed to be more corpses lying in the open space than he saw during the day. He pointed the binoculars at the corpses again, and patiently began to count them. After counting for a while, he found that there were at least twenty more corpses.

  The flares went out, and Sokov felt that the light outside the factory building was darker than before. He quickly picked up the phone beside him and took over the observation post. He said loudly into the microphone: "Among the corpses of German soldiers killed during the day, there should be living German soldiers hidden. Immediately order the machine guns to shoot at these corpses."

  After receiving Sokov's order, the observation post immediately fired flares again. At the same time, the machine gun on duty also rang out, and the dark red flame mouth was like a whip of fire, slamming at the corpses lying on the ground. The corpse that was shot in front was bounced and fell by the bullet, but at this moment, Sokov noticed that a corpse not far away moved, and soon rolled into a nearby crater.

"My God, there are really Germans approaching." Seeing the corpse rolling into the crater next to him, Sokov confirmed that there was indeed an enemy secretly approaching the factory building, and he quickly called Briski , Said to him: "Comrade Captain, an unknown number of German soldiers are approaching your position. Immediately organize the soldiers to destroy this enemy."

   "Understood, Comrade Brigadier Commander." Briski waited for Sokov to finish speaking, and immediately stated: "I will immediately organize the manpower and wipe out all the Germans who touch it."

  Shortly after putting down the phone, the gunfire outside the factory building changed from sparse to dense. Since the enemy's hiding place was more than 100 or 200 meters away from the Soviet position, the grenade could not be thrown that far, so Briski ordered the only two 82mm mortars in the battalion to aim at the enemy's position To shell.

  The German soldiers who felt it were very cunning. They did not shoot back immediately, but hid in the bomb crater to avoid the bullets fired by the Soviet army. Some experienced soldiers quickly climbed out of the crater while the Soviet soldiers were changing magazines, rolled into another crater, and approached the Soviet position step by step.

Sokov heard gunshots and explosions outside, but through the observation through the telescope, it seemed that the effect was not obvious, so he called Briski again and said angrily: "Comrade Captain, How did you do it? Before the enemy’s shadow is seen, you are shooting desperately. Don’t you know that our ammunition reserves are limited? Once the bullets run out and the enemy rushes up, what do you do? Fight the bayonet?"

  Bliski, who was scolded by Sokov, quickly ordered the soldiers to stop shooting, but let the sharpshooters shoot suspicious corpses, hoping to eliminate the German soldiers disguised as corpses in this way.

  However, the Germans seemed to be prepared. After they saw that the shooting on the Soviet positions became sparse, they threw grenades one after another. The grenade exploded in the open space, and the smoke produced blocked the defenders' sight. The Germans took advantage of this short time to jump from the crater, quickly jumped into another crater, and then threw the grenade... That's it, Using this tactic, the German army rushed to less than 50 meters from the position in only two or three minutes.

Sokov only saw countless black figures approaching the fourth battalion's defensive position under the cover of gunpowder smoke. He couldn't help feeling a little impatient, and picked up the phone again to scold Briski: "Comrade Captain, what the **** are you doing?" What's going on? The Germans are approaching your position, but you don't seem to be able to do anything. Are you really going to wait for the Germans to charge up and fight you with bayonets? If they charge a little further, they can hand grenades Throwing them into your trenches, hurry up and find a way to repel them."

  (end of this chapter)