It was obvious that if Shulka's company charged like the others, the result would be the same... groups of soldiers and tanks rushed forward, and then groups were destroyed and knocked down.
Under the double suppression of German artillery bombardment and anti-tank gun locks, the Soviet T26 was as if it was made of tofu and had no protection at all.
If it can do anything, it is that the smoke emitted after being destroyed can provide some cover for the charging infantry.
Therefore, Shurka's suggestion is correct, and one should be able to adapt to local conditions on the battlefield... However, not long after the war broke out, the Soviet army was still under strong dogmatic constraints, which did not allow frontline commanders to have much freedom.
The German army is much better in this regard. Their superiors set strategic goals and let them freely develop what to do. This is also one of the reasons why German officers disobeyed orders on the battlefield but were not held accountable. It also made the German army's
Combat is as flexible as art.
Of course, as the battle became more and more difficult, Hitler, who thought he was a military genius, interfered more and more in the troops. Especially after an accidental attack plan was leaked, in order to keep it secret, Hitler did not even allow the German officers to know anything other than their own tasks.
Intelligence... This is equivalent to killing the commanding art of frontline German officers in the cradle.
These are all digressions.
Shulka believed that if it weren't for the fact that his previous suggestions were effective, Second Lieutenant Davydov would not have accepted his suggestions on this urgent front line.
Needless to say, there are risks in this... Second Lieutenant Davydov is likely to take the entire blame for this, that is, the entire battalion's failure was due to the fact that the third company did not join the attack and chose to play dead.
What's more, even if you accept Shulka's suggestion, you may not be able to successfully break through the German defense line. Even if you successfully break through the German defense line... you may still end up disobeying your order in the end.
So, why should Davydov accept this suggestion? It would be much easier and easier to choose to execute the order!
Later Shulka learned that the reason why Second Lieutenant Davydov chose to accept suggestions rather than execute orders was not entirely because of Shulka's reputation.
"It's very simple, Comrade Shulka!" Second Lieutenant Davidov said to Shulka with emotion: "Of course, your reputation is one reason. If it were an ordinary sergeant, I would probably give him
A few slaps in the face sent him back to his unit! But that was you, our 'escape hero'..."
"Are there any other reasons?" Shulka asked.
"Of course!" Lieutenant Davydov replied thoughtfully: "At that moment I knew what would happen. I knew that if we continued to fight like this, we would probably all die there! In this case... I mean,
Anyway, I will die, why don’t I give it a try?”
This is indeed a good reason. They are all going to die anyway, so what else is there to worry about?
Disobedient?
It’s just death!
You can even live longer if you disobey orders.
Therefore, if you think about the same thing from different angles, you will get two completely opposite conclusions.
So the plan unfolded smoothly.
The moment the German artillery fired, Davydov ordered the smoke bombs to be fired.
Because of the smoke from the shells and the cover of the explosion, the Germans did not even realize that the Soviets had fired smoke bombs. They just felt that the smoke on the battlefield seemed to be thicker.
Then, Lieutenant Davidov led more than 100 people from the third company and seven tanks to hide in the anti-tank ditch... Because they had received the order before, they did not scatter like other troops and fled.
Of course, there were also losses. One tank was hit by shrapnel before it could hide in the anti-tank trench. It malfunctioned and stopped in place.
Fortunately, the tank crew was more flexible and immediately abandoned the tank and hid in the anti-tank trench with the infantry.
It should be said that the anti-tank trench is not an ideal hiding place because it is too wide... The width of the anti-tank trench is generally about three meters. It is too narrow to block tanks at all, and tanks can easily cross it.
A width of three meters means that more shells will directly hit the anti-tank trench.
That is to say, hiding in it does not mean safety.
However, it can be said that no place on the battlefield is truly safe. In any case, the lower parts of the anti-tank trenches will be much safer than other places.
Shulka only felt patches of muddy water rushing towards his position... This made it impossible for him to stay lying on the ground, because the muddy water would flood his mouth and nose, making it impossible for him to breathe.
But at the same time, Shulka did not dare to get up, because getting up would mean suffering more shrapnel and paying the price with his life.
Therefore, he could only hold up his upper body like doing push-ups, and at the same time, he had to constantly spit out the mud that splashed into his mouth... In this case, he couldn't breathe through his nose.
The painful thing is that sometimes mud is not just mud, it also smells of blood.
Shulka didn't dare to think too much because he was worried that he would vomit all yesterday's dinner.
After an unknown amount of time, the sound of the cannons finally subsided.
However, Shurka still didn't dare to act rashly, because their mission was to pretend to be dead... So Shurka carefully looked around and made sure it was a blind spot before turning over and squatting down.
Carefully rubbing his sore arm, Shulka turned his eyes around to search for his comrades.
The results of the search made Shulka feel a sense of fear, because he found almost no living people.
Soon Shurka realized that this was a misunderstanding... The mud and water stirred up by the shells gave everyone a natural protective color, and it was not easy to spot them in the smoke.
This was of course beneficial to the Soviet army, because it would be more difficult for the Germans who were farther away to discover that there was actually a company here that was "pretending to be dead" collectively and staying in the anti-tank trench only more than 200 meters away from their defense line...
…anti-tank trenches dug by the Germans.
Even tanks are no exception.
Six tanks successfully hid in the anti-tank trench, but the anti-tank trench was not deep enough and the entire turret was exposed. (Note: T26 is 2.4 meters high)
But this does not prevent it from "playing dead", because layers of mud are covering it, and there are even blood, corpses and broken limbs.
It can be said that as long as it does not move, everyone will believe that it is "dead".
Looking at the attacking Soviet troops, they have retreated... in fact, they were beaten back, leaving behind a lot of corpses and tank wreckage.
A "mud figure" climbed over cautiously, and Shulka almost didn't recognize it was Davydov.
"You are right!" Davydov whispered: "We should be dead now!"