"Fight alarm!" The platoon leader shouted loudly, his voice seemed particularly loud in the quiet night, but he was worried that his shouting would not wake up the sleeping soldiers, and then blew the whistle hanging around his neck hard. The sharp whistle immediately resounded throughout the position.
As the whistle sounded, the soldiers who were awakened from their sleep rushed out of the cover with their weapons amid the shouts of their squad leaders and ran to their respective shooting positions.
Seeing that all his soldiers had entered the shooting position, the platoon leader lay beside Grissa and reported: "Comrade Commander, all the rows are in place."
"Everyone listens to my command!" The light on the position was too dark. Apart from the few soldiers around him, Grissa could not see clearly where the other soldiers were. So he raised his voice and shouted to the left and right: "Prepare for battle!"
After his shout, a sound of pulling the bolt immediately sounded around him. Grissa turned his head and said to the signal soldier who was squatting behind him: "You find a safe place to hide and hit a flare every two minutes. Do you understand?"
"I understand, comrade of the company commander." The signal soldier agreed and bent down and ran away.
When the new flares rose into the air and the soldiers lying in the trenches were stunned when they saw the water in front of the position, full of German soldiers moving towards the position. They thought that the so-called battle alarm was just a sneak attack of more than a dozen or twenty German soldiers, but at this moment, the enemies in their sight were more than two hundred, which made some new soldiers who had never fought a war feel frightened and their bodies began to tremble uncontrollably.
The German commander who was staying by the river saw that his actions were discovered by the Soviet army. While ordering the troops who were wading forward to speed up, he ordered people to establish a machine gun position on the river bank and start shooting at the Soviet position.
Listening to the bullets flying overhead, some new soldiers were frightened and squatted in the trenches, while others turned around to escape from this place. Fortunately, they were caught by the veterans beside them and beaten and scolded to let them return to their positions, which prevented the appearance of deserters.
With the help of the light of the flares, Grissa silently calculated in his heart how far the German army was from the position. When the enemy was still 150 meters away from the position, Grissa yelled: "Fight~~!" After shouting, he shot the enemy with his pistol first.
The pistol fired at such a long distance and had no lethality at all, but the gunshot was a signal of fire. A bean-like gunshot sounded suddenly on the position, whether it was a machine gun, a rifle or a submachine gun, they all fired at the enemy at the same time.
Hearing the sudden sound of gunfire, the German soldiers who were marching hard in the water immediately started running faster. They all knew very well that they could not lie on the ground and hide in such a deep water. In that case, even if they were not killed by the Soviet bullets, they would be drowned. If they wanted to survive, they had to rush forward quickly and rush into the Soviet position as soon as possible.
After occupying Kursk, the troops had replenished a large number of troops, so that Grissa's company had as many as 400 people. At this moment, there were more than 100 soldiers in the row of enemy troops on the position, which was more than a company of friendly troops. However, except for dozens of veterans, the rest were all new soldiers. Although these new soldiers had been used as militias or had military training, they seemed panicked when facing the rushing enemy. Although they were desperately shooting at the enemy, few bullets hit the target, which only made the water around the German soldiers feel like they were burning the pot.
The soldiers who were still operating machine guns were all veterans in the army. They used the seized MG34 machine gun to shoot wildly at the rushing enemies, knocking them down in pieces in the accumulated water. Without them, the German soldiers might have rushed to the front of the position and engaged in melee and hand-to-hand combat with the soldiers in the trenches.
Seeing that the firepower on the Soviet position was too strong and continued to rush forward, the German army turned around and ran back. Seeing that the enemy had left nearly a hundred bodies in the water-storing area and retreated, a platoon leader shouted at Grissa: "Comrade Commander, there are us here, you should go back to the company first. Don't worry, we will definitely block the enemy's attack."
Seeing that although the enemy was repelled, there were still enemies coming from the other shore. He was worried that it would be difficult for a row of soldiers to defend the position, so he returned to the company, summoned the other two platoon leaders, and assigned combat missions to them. Then, he called the brigade command and reported the battle here to the on-duty personnel there.
The gunshots sounded in the south of the city woke Sokov in his sleep. He sat up from the camp bed, rubbed his eyes and asked Belkin, who was also surprised: "Comrade Political Commissar, have you heard the gunshots coming from outside?"
"The gunshots are very dense." Although Belkin is now a political worker, he used to be a military cadre. After listening for a while, he said to Sokov: "It seems to be coming from the south of the city. Could it be that the enemy is attacking the position of the 2nd Battalion's first company?"
Sokov bent down and put on his boots, and walked out with great strides: "Let's go, comrade of the political commissar, let's go to the command center to find out if the defense positions of Grissa Company are in progress."
When he arrived at the next battle room, Sokov asked the busy staff officer: "What's the matter with the gunshots outside? Where is the battle going?"
A staff officer quickly straightened his body and reported to Sokov: "Comrade Brigade Commander, I have verified that the position in the south of the city was attacked by the German army and the battle is underway."
When Sokov learned that it was indeed Grissa's defense area and fought with the enemy, he couldn't help but feel nervous. He asked quickly: "How is the situation now?"
"The enemy's first attack has been repelled by our army." The staff officer replied: "The army suffered little casualties, only a dozen soldiers died and twenty were injured."
"Immediately connect me with the frontline positions," Sokov knew that in order to get a comprehensive report, he could only ask Grissa himself, so he ordered his adviser: "I will talk to Lieutenant Grissa myself."
After the phone was connected, Sokov heard Grissa's voice coming from the receiver and immediately asked impatiently: "Lieutenant Grissa, report to me in detail the battle that happened there."
"Comrade Brigade Commander, this is the situation. More than half an hour ago, a sentry reported to me that he heard something from the river, so I rushed to check it out..." Grissa introduced what happened in detail to Sokov on the phone, and said: "At present, I have mobilized both the second and third rows to make them ready to support the first row at any time."
"Good job, Lieutenant Grissa." After listening to Grissa's report, Sokov praised him and then said, "Don't worry, you are not fighting alone, I will provide you with the necessary help."
After finishing the call with Grissa, Sokov used another phone to connect to the artillery company. Porochenko, who was dealing with the phone, said: "Comrade Lieutenant, the position in the south of the city is being attacked by the enemy. I order you to send artillery observers immediately to establish observation posts so that they can provide them with necessary artillery fire support."
As soon as he assigned a task to his subordinates, Rotmistrov called from his military command. He asked on the phone: "Lieutenant Colonel Sokov, my subordinates reported to me that there was a fierce gunfire in the south of the city. What happened?"
"The German army sent a unit to cross the Tenebra River quietly and tried to sneak attack the positions of the 2nd Battalion Company 1. But when they crossed the river, they were discovered by our vigilant sentry, so their sneak attack turned into a strong attack." Sokov said to the microphone: "Because the commanders and fighters of the first company responded in time, the enemy's attack had been repelled, while our army had little casualties."
"Lt. Col. Sokov, we are friendly forces." Rotmistrov smiled on the phone, "If you need it, call me and I will provide you with the necessary help."
Hearing Rotmistrov say this, Sokov immediately thought about it: the terrain there is not conducive to the use of tanks, but after the tank army was replenished with warehouse supplies, there were two artillery battalions. If they cooperated, it would be enough to form artillery fire enough to eliminate the German offensive troops. Thinking of this, he quickly said to the microphone: "Comrade General, the terrain in the south of the city is not conducive to the use of tank troops, so I hope you can provide artillery fire support for our troops and eliminate all the German troops crossing the river by the river."
Regarding Sokov's request, Rotmistrov was silent for only a moment and agreed: "No problem. I will ask the artillery director to contact your artillery company commander to discuss ways of fighting together to eliminate the enemies by the Tenebra River."
After the first attack of the German army was repelled, the German commander did not hastily launch a second attack, but instead contacted the other shore with radio, and sent several mortars to the other shore, preparing to use artillery fire to suppress the machine gun fire points on the Soviet positions and cover the infantry to launch another attack.
After waiting for about half an hour, five mortar groups were sent to the other side. The German commander said to these artillery soldiers: "Your mission is to destroy the Russian machine gun fire points and cover our infantry to charge towards the Russian positions."
After a gunman waited for the commander to finish speaking, he asked carefully: "Where are the Russians in the trench, don't you care about them?"
"From the situation of the battle just now, they were all recruits, and their shooting had no accurate point at all. The only headache was their machine guns. Those machine gunners were obviously veterans and the guns were shot very accurately. We failed the first attack and two-thirds of the soldiers fell under the gun's muzzle." The German commander said to the mortar with a serious expression: "So, you must do everything you can to destroy the Russian machine guns and reduce the casualties of our soldiers. Do you understand?"
"I understand, Commander." Several gunners quickly replied loudly: "We will definitely destroy all the Russian machine guns."
After the task was arranged, the machine guns that had been silent on the river bank for a long time sounded again, and dense bullets flew to the Soviet positions in the distance. The soldiers sitting by the river also stood up and wade into the Soviet positions with guns.
The Soviet army's position remained silent until the German scattered troops were only one hundred meters away from the position, and a row of long men blew the whistle hard and issued a shooting order. The entire position suddenly sounded like a crackling sound again, whether it was a rifle, a submachine gun or a machine gun, fired at the same time.
After repelling the first German attack, the new recruits in the trench had some confidence. Faced with the German soldiers who rushed forward, they were no longer so panicked. Their shooting gradually began to have a clear head, and from time to time, groups of German soldiers fell under their platoons.
But what caused great casualties to the German army was the five or six MG34 machine guns on the position, and the long dark red flame mouths, like fire whips desperately against the German scattered troops, slashing one German soldier after another to the ground.
When the German mortars saw the Soviet machine guns, they did cause considerable casualties to the attacking troops, so they each chose a target and launched shelling attacks on them.
In the first round of volleys, the shells did not hit the target, and several mud pillars soared into the sky in the trenches. Seeing that the first round of volleys did not hit the target, the gunners adjusted the shooting elements and fired again. This time, the volleys achieved results. After the explosion, a machine gun was blown into piles of hot parts. The sacrificed machine gunners lay in a crater.
"Great." The German commander applauded when he saw the mortar destroying a machine gun fire point, and then ordered: "The Russians have four machine guns left, and they will be knocked out immediately."
The soldiers who acted as machine gunners on the position were all a group of veterans. When they saw two or three machine guns being destroyed by German artillery fire, they immediately realized the seriousness of the problem. They did not dare to stay in a fixed position like they did just now, but instead used guerrilla tactics. After a bullet link, they immediately moved their positions, making it impossible for the German mortars to destroy the target in time.
Although a row of soldiers were fighting tenaciously, the German army was getting closer and closer to the position. After approaching the position, the German soldiers immediately started shooting with their weapons, causing certain casualties to the soldiers in the trenches.
Seeing that the enemy was getting closer to his position, the platoon leader felt that the situation was a little bad, so he quickly picked up the microphone and reported to Grissa: "Comrade Commander, the enemy has rushed to a place only fifty meters away from our position. I was worried that I would not be able to defend it, so I asked for support, request support."
Chapter completed!