Boxes of shells were opened and placed in front of six mortars that were fired at any time. In order to ensure that everything was foolproof, Second Lieutenant Chernushenko personally measured the ruler and confirmed that it was correct before decisively issued the order to fire.
The shells that were out of the bore crossed the sky with a sharp roar and smashed into the German marching formation. The soldiers near the bombing point were directly blown away by the air waves, and shrapnel splashed everywhere with a sharp roar, either cutting down the soldiers next to them or jingling on the armor plate of the tank.
The German soldiers who were marching suddenly were bombarded, and a few quick-responding soldiers lay down on the spot to avoid shelling. Most soldiers either stood there in a daze, looking for the direction of the shells flying; or were running around like headless flies.
Seeing the enemy in the distance in chaos, the two machine gun shooters turned their attention to Afanasiev, wondering why his platoon leader had not issued a shooting order. "Comrade Lieutenant," Vasily saw that Afanasiev had not issued a shooting order for a long time, worried that it would cause Sokov's dissatisfaction, so he quickly asked the other party in a low voice: "Why haven't you opened fire yet?"
"Wait a minute, Sergeant Vasily, wait a minute." Afanasiev stared at the German soldiers who were dizzy by artillery fire in the distance, and said without looking back: "The enemy is not messy enough. When they are messy, we can use machine guns to cause the greatest casualties to them."
When did the artillery and machine gunners start fire? Sokov, who was standing beside him, did not express any opinion. He just stared at the enemy in the distance, wondering in his mind whether the five minutes he stipulated was a little short. You must know that the tank soldiers' vision in the tank was limited, and it took a long time to find out where the shells were flying from. His subordinates could just use this precious time difference to eliminate more enemies.
Seeing that Sokov was not speaking, Vasily set up the sniper rifle in his hand, preparing to take advantage of the chaos of the enemy to kill several valuable targets. As soon as he set up the gun, he saw a tank cap parked in the middle of the road open. A tanker wearing a black one-piece tank soldier costume carefully poked out half of his body from the turret. He supported his hands in the hatch, and looked around with his eyes, as if he wanted to figure out where the shells came from.
Vasily quickly locked the target, pulled the trigger lightly, and with a "pop" sound, the bullet quickly drilled into the tank soldier's forehead and flew out from the back of his head with a trace of blood. The tank soldier's head raised back, his body paused, and then slid into the turret.
"Good fight, Sergeant Vasily." Sokov saw that Vasily shot and killed the tank soldiers who had emerged, shouted, and then said to him: "The enemy's tankers probably wanted to figure out where the fire came from, so they came out to observe. If you keep a close eye on them, you will kill one."
Vasily moved his eyes away from the scope and shouted at a soldier next to him, "Call it quickly and call a few more snipers." After the orders, he put his eyes closer to the scope again and continued to search for the tanks parked on the street to see if there were any tank soldiers who were not afraid of death to be targeted.
Sokov felt that using snipers to suppress the German tankers, so that they could not make effective observations, so that the enemy's shelling would last longer. Thinking of this, he shouted at Chernushenko: "Comrade Lieutenant, please bring a few more boxes of shells. We must teach them a lesson while the Germans are in chaos."
"I understand." Chernushenko agreed, quickly came to the caller's soldiers, squatted down and said to him: "When you ask those snipers to come up, call a few more people, each carrying a box of shells. We will use shells to teach the Germans a lesson that will last forever."
In less than three minutes, more than a dozen soldiers came from the ground downstairs, all carrying a box of shells. Several soldiers put the shell boxes next to the mortar and quickly ran to one side of the roof, took off the sniper rifle on their backs, and began to aim at the chaotic German soldiers in the distance.
As the new snipers were in place, the German nightmare came. Not only the tank soldiers who emerged from the tanks became the priority targets of snipers, but even the officers who stood in the middle of the road, wielding pistols, trying to keep the soldiers from running around, became the dead souls of the snipers one by one.
Seeing that the German soldiers were almost in chaos, Lieutenant Afanasiev finally issued an order to shoot. The machine gunners who had been holding on for a long time immediately aimed at the running German soldiers and pulled the trigger hard, as if they were going to shoot out their resentment with the bullets.
The German soldiers crowded in the middle of the road could not dodge, and were hit by the hot bullets and were covered with holes. After a while, they all lay down. But with the shooting of the machine gun, the surviving German soldiers finally discovered where the attack was. They hurriedly hid in the dead corner of the shooting and fought back in the direction of the Vasily Building.
Second Lieutenant Chernushenko's mortar team immediately adjusted the shooting angle and bombarded the enemy's most dense gunshots. The explosions of shells drove away many of the gunshot enemies and landed heavily elsewhere. The ruined bricks and stones became a sharp weapon in the explosion, smashing the German soldiers hiding nearby to howl.
During the entire battle, the German tank soldiers were the most afflicted. Although they could pass the lookout hole and see shells falling and exploding around, and hear shrapnel jingling on the armor plate, they could not see where the enemy's attack came from. Finally, someone took the risk of probing his head out, but before he could see the target clearly, he was killed by the opponent's sniper. After more than a dozen tank soldiers died, all the tank players were buried in their own tanks and did not dare to appear easily.
But just in their despair, a blood-filled German officer got into the tank from the bottom of a tank and shouted at the surviving tank hand: "Russians, Russians are in the building to the south, you will immediately kill them with artillery fire."
The tank soldiers in this tank immediately reported the news to other tanks using radio stations. The tank soldiers who were worried about not having any targets of attack immediately took action, slowly turned the turret, and prepared to use artillery fire to suppress the Soviet fire in the building.
Sokov, who had been observing the situation on the battlefield, saw that the enemy's tank gun had slowly turned to his position, and guessed that the enemy must have figured out which direction the attack they were attacking. He quickly put down his telescope and shouted loudly at the commanders and fighters who were fighting in full swing: "Everyone will take my orders and retreat immediately to the stairs. The enemy's tanks will start shelling."
However, because the guns and cannons were too loud, the soldiers did not hear Sokov's order clearly. Selyosha, who had always stood behind Sokov as a human background, saw that everyone had no reaction and guessed that they had not heard Sokov's order, so they repeated Sokov's order loudly to everyone.
As soon as Selyosha opened his loud voice, the soldiers heard it. Although everyone wanted to stay on the roof and teach the Germans a lesson, the military orders were as high as a mountain. Since Sokov had issued the order to retreat, there was no room for negotiation. The artillery and machine gunners packed up their weapons and retreated down the stairs in an orderly manner.
Seeing that Vasily and several snipers were still holding guns and firing at the enemies in the distance, Sokov bent over and ran behind him and shouted at him: "Sergeant Vasily, I have ordered the troops to retreat, why don't you retreat?"
"Comrade Commander," Vasily continued to shoot, tilted his head and said to Sokov: "You retreat first, I want to destroy a few more German devils."
"Enough, Sergeant Vasily, I order you to retreat immediately." Sokov was worried that Vasily would be in full swing for a while and did not want to retreat. If the building was blown down by German artillery fire, the people on the roof would probably be in danger. He was unwilling to lose the sniper god, so he said in a stern tone: "This is my order, execute it immediately."
Hearing the displeasure in Sokov's tone, Vasily could only put away the sniper rifle with regret and agreed helplessly: "Yes, I'll retreat now!" After that, he invited the snipers to retreat together.
Seeing that all the commanders and soldiers on the upper floor retreated, Sokov took Selyosha toward the stairs. Unexpectedly, as soon as he reached the entrance of the stairs, he heard a loud "boom", and then the entire floor shaking violently, shaking Sokov and Selyosha to the ground.
"No, Misha, it was the German tanks firing at the building." Although Selyoshao has rarely participated in battle since he became the company commander of the guard, it does not mean that he has no combat experience. From the explosion just now and the vibration of the floor, he judged that the enemy tank was firing. He climbed up with his hands and feet, helped Sokov up from the ground, and pulled him down the stairs.
Mortars, machine gunners, and even snipers ran down the stairs, but Vasily was worried about Sokov's safety and stayed on the stairs. Seeing Selyosha supporting Sokov down the stairs, he hurried over and asked with concern: "Comrade Commander, are you injured?"
"No!" Sokov shook his head and found that Vasily was the only one on the stairs. He thought to himself that the snipers came in just ten or twenty seconds earlier than him, how could there be no one so quickly? Can they fly? With this question, he asked Vasily: "Why are there no one else?"
Hearing Sokov's question, Vasily pointed at the steel pipe next to the stairs and said, "Comrade Commander, the snipers have slid downstairs along this steel pipe. When we sniped the enemy on the roof, we were most afraid of being bombarded or bombed, so the snipers thought of a way to erect a steel pipe here, which can evacuate the roof as fast as possible."
Sokov intended to slide along the steel pipe to the bottom of the building, but Selyosha disagreed: "Misa, I don't know if this steel pipe is firm. What if you slide halfway and the steel pipe breaks? I think we'll run down the stairs."
Vasily also agreed with Selyosha’s proposal: “Comrade Commander, you have not slipped through the steel pipe. If you use it rashly, I am worried that you will be injured. Let’s go downstairs quickly while the enemy has not started a large-scale shelling.”
As soon as Sokov and others returned to the basement, they heard continuous gunfire sounds outside. A crumbling wall in the north fell down under the shelling of German tanks. Fortunately, no soldiers hid behind, otherwise it would be a great disaster.
Vasily pulled the telephone on the table to himself, grabbed the crank of the base and shook it a few times, picked up the microphone and asked, "Hey, hey, is the observation whistle? How about reporting the situation outside quickly?"
"Comrade Sergeant," Sokov heard Vasily call the observation post and quickly said to him: "The enemy's shelling will not attack us until the enemy's shelling stops. Let the observation post come back first, and don't let him stay outside and take risks."
Vasily quickly covered the microphone with his hands and explained to Sokov: "Comrade Commander, the observation post I contacted is not set up in this building. He hid on the top of a nearby building and could clearly see the surrounding environment."
"You think so carefully. If that happens, let him stay outside and monitor the enemy's movements."
"Hey!" Vasily let go of his hand covering the microphone and said to the observation post: "Correfully monitor the enemy's movements, and report to me immediately if they find signs of attacking the building."
After putting down the phone, Vasily reported to Sokov with a relaxed look on his face, "Comrade Commander, the observation post reported that the enemy attacked by us had gathered together and was shelling our building..."
"Sergeant Vasily," Sokov thought that the observation post was not in the Vasily building, and perhaps he could see the German casualties more clearly, so he asked tentatively: "Can the observation post clearly see the enemy's casualties?"
Vasily shook his head and replied, "The building where the observation post is located is basically at the same level as us. We can't see clearly, and he can't see clearly."
"That's a pity." Sokov couldn't help but feel a little disappointed when he thought of not knowing the losses he had just caused to the enemy: "I really want to know how many enemies we just killed."
"Comrade Commander, our sniper team killed more than ten enemies. In addition, the results of mortar and machine gun firepower have killed at least nearly two hundred enemies." After Vasily finished speaking of this data, he remembered another thing and added specifically, "A shell happened to hit the open hatch of the enemy tank and caused an explosion. I think that tank could be considered destroyed by us."
Chapter completed!