No Soviet soldier was intact. Many had a large number of small wounds on their bodies, and their uniforms were so damaged that some soldiers simply threw away a few "rags" from their jackets, picked up their guns with their bare arms, and plunged into the enemy's army.
Ambush in the rubble. Peak 23S.
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Now, Lavrenti has to face a very disgusting situation.
The few combat artillery pieces that were originally regarded as the backbone of the city's defense were now completely destroyed, and there were very few usable recoilless rifles left. The only heavy weapons available to the Soviet army were some RPGs and a large number of fragmentation grenades modified from cans.
Can we repulse the enemy's attack with these equipment alone? Everything depends on the development of the battle situation.
In a hurry, Lavrenti blocked three lines of defenses, the last of which was a key defense based on the riverside road.
He prepared for the worst, that is, the German army would fight all the way to the riverside road, and he must not lose this road.
Finally, in their uneasiness, the Soviet sentries saw the German troops in the distance. Accompanied by a large number of half-track armored vehicles, they rushed towards the city.
Lavrenti grabbed the walkie-talkie of the telegraph machine carried by the communication soldier: "Attention all troops, the German army is attacking in full force. You must hold your position unless you are all sacrificed!"
In street fighting, the offensive and defensive sides can only fight for each other street by street or even room by room. Neither side has better tactics. They must either fight with human lives or use superior weapons. The German army has already used up all the ammunition in reserve.
Jing, the 100th Army did not expect that the battle would turn out like this. Fortunately, after the heavy blows, Lechica's enemies should be out of ten.
Thousands of German officers and soldiers saw the spectacular sight of the bombardment, and their worries were swept away.
Accompanied by nearly a hundred half-track armored vehicles and the last five No. 3 assault guns, they began the decisive battle on the 29th.
The soldiers were in a good mood, and some even sang military songs. They were full of confidence in victory, and many believed that they would spend the night in Lechica tonight.
However, what greeted the German vanguard was indeed a large number of Soviet bullets.
Perhaps in order to seize the lead, the three armored vehicles separated slightly from the main force and rushed towards the ruins of the city. The three armored vehicles also shouldered the important task of pathfinders. When they were aiming at a street and were about to enter, they were suddenly attacked.
Attack from the rubble!
The Soviet soldiers who were ambushing here were operating RPGs. The warheads and launchers were officially manufactured by the Soviet army. Their power was relatively small, but the missiles were real armor-piercing projectiles!
The hot molten metal penetrated the cab, directly killing the driver. The molten metal also caused a fire in the car, directly forcing the roof-mounted machine gunner to abandon the car and escape.
Only one squad of Soviet soldiers defended this narrow alley. They were warriors on the first line of defense and were prepared to die in battle.
The three armored vehicles had no time to fight back before being destroyed by the RPG. The two machine guns of this infantry squad, the machine gunner's back was bare and covered with dust, and his face was blackened by gunpowder smoke.
Beautiful ambush battle.
Twenty people from the German infantry platoon accompanying the attack fell in an instant, and the rest looked for cover everywhere, even hiding behind armored vehicles that were on fire.
However, this infantry squad's good luck soon came to an end.
There were too many German troops, especially the subsequent armored vehicles. Because this street was the first to exchange fire, the exchange itself surprised the German troops. The German troops naturally concentrated fire on this location. At least ten mg34s were directed at the Soviet troops.
The infantry squad's position was suppressed by fire, and three soldiers were quickly killed, while the remaining seven were unable to lift their heads due to the horrific barrage overhead.
Even so, Soviet soldiers exposed their firearms to the rubble and fired blindly in demonstration.
This move made their situation even more dangerous. The German army quickly established some 50mm micro mortar positions and fired more than ten small artillery shells. The entire Soviet infantry squad was wiped out!
"The fight finally started!" Lavrenti muttered nervously while sitting by the river.
At this moment, there were only a few temporary staff officers and a small number of guards around him. The so-called frontline headquarters was simply wherever Lavrenti was. After the battle started, he really wanted to follow him with a submachine gun.
The brothers fought side by side, but when I thought about it again, if I died, who would command the five thousand troops on both sides of the Lechitsa River?
Yes, after experiencing that barbaric bombardment, the Soviet army still had more than 5,000 people alive.
The fierce exchange of fire in the city was a positive signal. Two independent regiments with good strength on the other side of the river began to be ordered to cross the river for reinforcements. Even the gunboats on the right wing of the river began to provide shelling support.
The Type 1124 gunboat has a small tonnage and weak firepower, but now it has become a new firepower. This gunboat has achieved outstanding results in more than a month of battle, and the crew even jokingly claimed that it was a cruiser.
The shells of the two tank guns have all been fired. Currently, its firepower relies on the six recoilless rifles on the deck. In a sense, it supports the ground troops, and its firepower is quite fierce.
Lavrenti handed over the command of the gunboat to his close comrade Yevgeny, who led more than 300 people and was ordered to defend the railway station area.
In this battle, the gunboat will definitely show its prowess.
Twenty minutes had passed since the battle started, and there was a full-scale exchange of fire on the outside of the city. The German soldiers were shocked. Could it be that 8,000 rounds of artillery shells could not blow up this group of Russians? Could it be that they would really take cover?
The battle has begun. The three German regiments have received the order to capture the city without death. Without the order from the commander, they must fight to the end.
The Soviet Union and Germany fought among the rubble. As the defending Soviet army, even though it suffered heavy casualties, it occupied a favorable terrain and dealt a severe blow to the German army in the battles on various streets.
The Soviet army deployed defenses at every intersection, and the soldiers received orders to kill the last person in the battle. So many comrades died, and the living were no longer afraid. They were like fighting machines. The soldiers looked solemn and operated light weapons deftly to stop the German army.
Rubble was everywhere, and the entire wall collapsed and formed a low slope. The German heavy artillery shells were not large in number, and the large number of 75mm shells had limited damage to the city's buildings, so the eight thousand shells did not level the city at all.
Those collapsed guns have become natural roadblocks. Whether it is a half-track armored vehicle or an assault gun, it has to waste time to break through these roadblocks.
They were vigorous at first, and used their powerful firepower to severely damage the Soviet first line of defense. The Soviet army's tenacious resistance made the battle very difficult. The German army fired a large amount of ammunition before tearing through the Soviet first line of defense.
Ten openings.
By the time the Germans finished this, the battle had lasted half an hour.
Originally, the first line of defense was for containment, and the Soviet army's defense focus was on the second line of defense. The so-called second line of defense, here is the real city center area, with relatively high concrete buildings and a large number of them. Their collapse became
More roadblocks were built, and more importantly, the second line of defense was generally only 1,500 meters away from the river.
It only takes a well-armed soldier seven or eight minutes to run across a 1,500-meter wilderness, but in fierce street fighting, this is bound to be a bloody and drawn-out journey.
The German army did not break through the first line of defense for a moment, which surprised Lavrenti. With this momentum, the German army's success rate was not high if they wanted to break through the second line of defense.
Not only did the Soviet army deploy more troops, but also the fire support weapons were finally put to use!
Yevgeny lost all his vanguard troops. He defended the train station and is currently leading more than 260 people to fight.
A German infantry platoon suddenly broke through the ruins of the dilapidated platform and terminal building, and was directly exposed in a small square full of bomb craters. The German army suffered a head-on attack and had to withdraw.
"Haha! You should know you are afraid, right? Don't come again!"
Yevgeny muttered like this until two huge creatures came out of the corner.
"Asshole! It's an assault gun!" Before he could react, the two machine gun fire points were blown away by the Germans.
Yevgeny's ears were ringing, but he still had a way to deal with it all.
He grabbed the walkie-talkie and shouted: "Captain! How are you prepared? Can you bombard us immediately?"
"We're ready. Where do we bomb?"
"Bomb the train station square hard! Don't worry about bombing us, just fire three rounds very quickly!"
The six guns in the barrel slightly adjusted their firing angle, and only thirty seconds after receiving the order, the first gun was ejected from the chamber!
The gunboat was really like a cruiser, spitting out a lot of smoke when it fired, and the six black gun barrels hit the train station in a beautiful parabola.
The frontal armor of the assault gun is sloping, and it has a high probability of deflecting armor-piercing projectiles that hit the front. But when faced with a howitzer with a high elevation angle, its thin top armor is really vulnerable!
Just eighteen shells destroyed the two assault guns and the entire German infantry platoon accompanying the attack.
The German company commander in the rear was taken aback, and the entire company had to evade tactics. The German army's attempt to capture the train station square in one fell swoop was thwarted.
"Well done, captain! I need your continued fire support." Yevgeny responded happily.
"I am honored to support the front line."
"Now immediately bombard Hongqi Street and attack the depth of the German offensive."
The gunboat has sufficient artillery shells. In fierce battles, its strategic value is increasing. Therefore, there are special rafts to transport artillery shells to it.
It was difficult to achieve a good support effect by relying on this gunboat alone. As the German infantry attacked in depth, they gradually entered the attack range of the artillery on the other side of the river.
Artillery shells flew over the Dnieper River one after another. The artillery shells also hit and exploded at a small angle. The artillery team also bombed the depth of the German front line. In fact, a considerable part of the artillery shells hit the ruins of buildings, and only a few of the artillery shells directly killed the enemy.
The German army still suffered casualties, which came from falling rubble. At this moment, the attacking German army had to pay attention to the rubble falling from the sky. The Soviet army had been attacked before, and this time it was the German army's turn.
After all, the German army had the upper hand, and they desperately attacked the Soviet second line of defense. The battle lasted until 11 o'clock at noon. A German infantry battalion, paying a heavy price of half of the casualties, finally captured Lechicha Primary School. Guarding here
The Soviet officers and soldiers, under the indiscriminate bombardment of the German mortars, really fought to the last man. The last soldier even pretended to die. When the enemy stepped forward, he suddenly pulled the grenade cord...
The battle started when the sun rose. The German division commander Genus thought that the city would be captured with a single charge of infantry. But the battle lasted for four hours, and the German army was still far away from occupying the whole city! Thousands of German troops were trapped in the city.
Street fighting, in an area of up to twelve square kilometers, is full of battlefields. Every collapsed building may have an ambush, and every collapsed house may have a muzzle sticking out.
Bad news from the front line came one after another, and Genus was overwhelmed by the information.
He was anxious in his heart, but he had no good solution. He asked the officers around him, especially the chief of staff, but he didn't get any advice.
"Oh! My God, are my troops going to suffer heavy losses here?!" If the troops suffered heavy casualties here, there would be no need for the troops to go to Smolensk.
Now the 370th Division is riding a tiger, and the troops are fully engaged in street fighting. The troops have captured at least half of the city, but it is really a difficult journey to capture the other half! Armored vehicles and assault guns once again suffered heavy losses, and to make matters worse, there are interruptions everywhere in the city.
Walls, roadblocks, and bomb craters were densely packed. The armored vehicle struggled to move forward in such an environment, and in the end it was completely unable to move.
It is precisely because of their slow movement that armored vehicles have become the target of public criticism. Many vehicles have their tracks deliberately blown off by Soviet grenades. Such vehicles are not scrapped. They can continue to run as long as the tracks are repaired, but during the battle, there is no time to repair them.
The armored vehicles were unable to go deeper for various reasons, and the infantry had to rely on their flesh and blood to move closer to the ruins further east. More and more soldiers were knocked down and pulled back by their comrades.
The playground of Lechica Primary School, which was occupied by the German army, became a temporary gathering place for wounded soldiers.
As of 11 o'clock in the morning, more than 400 Germans had been killed on the spot, and as many as 500 were injured. The Germans suffered such heavy casualties, and their advance was finally contained.
Of course, the Soviet army also suffered heavy casualties. The casualty ratio between the two sides was basically three to two (most of the casualties came from German shelling). However, the Soviet army still had a strong late-attack force, and two additional battalions were deployed across the river.
As a new force, they devoted themselves to this bloody battle and guarded the second line of defense, becoming a major reason why the German army was unable to break through.
Genus was not aware of these circumstances, and he had no time to complain now. Many soldiers were killed, and the army's attack encountered huge obstacles, but the army must not retreat, because once it retreats, its morale will collapse.
It was also impossible for him to launch another artillery support, because each artillery gun only had a few rounds of reserve ammunition that symbolized dignity. Not only was it a drop in the bucket in the battle, but it was also very likely to blow up one of his own people.
You can't get in even if you fight, and you can't get out even if you retreat.
And at twelve o'clock at noon, a disgusting telegram was sent from the front line.
Gnus stomped his feet angrily: "Damn Russians! You actually bombed our wounded soldiers, are you still human?!"
It turned out that two groups of Soviet troops planned to infiltrate the occupied elementary school campus and look for a way to retake it. They found that a large number of enemy wounded soldiers were placed here, and they immediately retreated risking their lives. After a while, the gunboats began to retaliate.
From beginning to end, because the gunboat was short in stature and was covered by building debris, the Germans never knew that the Soviet army had such a war weapon.
The gunboat fired another eighteen rounds of artillery shells. Due to the high concentration of German wounded, countless small shrapnel from the artillery shells started a crazy massacre of the wounded. More than a hundred wounded soldiers were concentrated here. When the bombardment ended, almost all of them were dead.
Even if they don't die quickly, blood is still spurting out from a large number of small wounds. What awaits them is the most painful death.