Chasing the Soviet deserters was the 179th Regiment Battalion of the German 60th Motorized Infantry Division.
In fact, it does not have a battalion, because the mission of the battalion is to occupy coastal buildings and cover the main force's attack.
This task seems simple but is actually difficult and dangerous.
First of all, because the target of its attack is buildings. As we all know, capturing buildings is the most difficult, and there will always be various unpredictable emergencies.
The second thing is to defend these buildings.
In this regard, the battalion commander, Major Paul, mainly relied on artillery and air force. Otherwise, a battalion of soldiers would not be able to defend dozens of buildings along the coast, some of which were large buildings.
Therefore, when the granary was reached, the battalion only had two companies... The strength of one company had been dispersed to the previous buildings and started to compete with the Soviet army.
The geographical location of the granary is very special, because it dominates the bend of the Tsaritsa River. It is like a nail driven into the German offensive line, which must be removed first and then quickly.
However, Major Paul felt relieved after discovering that several three-wheel machine gunners had been killed by the enemy.
The Soviets were not prepared to garrison the granary, which can be seen from the resistance they just encountered.
The lack of dense gunfire indicated that the enemy had few troops. After a few gunshots, five machine gunners were killed. Only snipers could achieve such precise shooting.
Therefore, Paul immediately judged that the enemies stationed at the granary only had a small number of snipers.
Then, Major Paul gave the order: "Suppress with fire and occupy quickly!"
The adjutant understood and immediately conveyed the order step by step.
Fire suppression consists of machine guns and mortars, most of which are machine guns. Because mortars are direct-firing cannons, it is difficult to drive shells into buildings. At the same time, mortar shells are like scratching an itch when they hit the roof of the granary.
It had no effect, so after firing a few rounds, the adjutant stopped the mortar.
For the rapid occupation, the seventh company was responsible for the main attack, and the eighth company served as the reserve force.
The Seventh Company immediately divided the troops into three parts: the first platoon attacked from the front, and the second and third platoons divided the troops from two wings to outflank them.
This was standard procedure when the Germans attacked a building.
The reason is that there are too few entrances to the building, and concentrating all the troops on one side is obviously not conducive to attack.
The German army will try to attack simultaneously from other directions or even launch a surprise attack by increasing entrances through blasting.
But this time, they found that it was very difficult to blast a gap in the wall, because the wall on the first floor of the granary was made of reinforced concrete more than half a meter thick, which was almost as thick as a bunker, and explosives could only be placed on it.
A small crater was blown.
Therefore, they can only look for barn doors and windows.
The problem is that the granary only needs ventilation holes and no windows... Only the living areas need windows, the granary only needs ventilation.
So there are only four entrances left, all of which are warehouse doors that can allow two cars to drive in side by side.
According to common sense, this width would be enough to attack the German army, but the German army soon discovered that this was not the case.
"Bang bang"...
With the sound of gunshots, several German soldiers fell at the door of the warehouse, and they didn't even know where the enemy was.
But this did not stop the German army from charging. They had rich combat experience and knew one thing: when dealing with enemy snipers, you must not wait and see from a distance and shoot at the enemy. That is just looking for death.
The correct way is to take advantage of the large number of people to fight the opponent at close range. Then your own firepower will quickly suppress the opponent and win the final victory.
Therefore, the company commander Second Lieutenant Bauch ordered loudly: "Move quickly, rush in!"
Several submachine gunners fired with their MP40s regardless of whether they had discovered the enemy. The riflemen took advantage of this opportunity and filed in.
However, it was only when German soldiers broke into the warehouse that they realized something was wrong.
Because there is almost nothing to hide near the gate, except for a few load-bearing beams.
Looking deep inside the warehouse, there are piles of sandbags, abandoned tanks, cars and other debris...
"Take cover!" Lieutenant Bauch shouted, and then hid behind the load-bearing beam.
But before he could give another order, there was a "bang" and a bullet whizzed through his head.
Lieutenant Bauch fell to the ground without even making a sound.
The adjutant immediately took over the command of Second Lieutenant Baugh.
Then the adjutant suddenly found himself in a dilemma: he had realized that this was probably a trap set by the enemy.
Under normal circumstances, if you fall into an enemy trap, you should withdraw as soon as possible.
The problem was that the German army was attacking in a coordinated manner from several directions.
Coordinated attacks can indeed give the enemy a great impact, but if one of the troops retreats early and the other troops continue to attack, the consequence will be to put friendly forces in danger and waste all previous efforts.
Therefore, the adjutant's decision was to persist. Maybe the friendly forces could attack from other directions to suppress the enemy.
Watching the soldiers around him fall one after another, the adjutant realized that if this continued, his unit would soon collapse.
"Ask for reinforcements!" the adjutant shouted to the signal soldier: "Let them send the reserve team up!"
"Yes, Lieutenant!"
After receiving the intelligence, Major Paul felt a little puzzled. Hearing the sound of gunfire, the battle in the warehouse was not intense, but he received requests for help from two detachments.
However, the major did not hesitate, because he knew that to deal with snipers, one must seize the opportunity to suppress them with force, otherwise such casualties would happen again in the next wave of attacks.
So two platoons of reinforcements were quickly dispatched.
But at this moment, mortar shells roared in one after another. These shells exploded accurately at the entrance of the warehouse. The reinforcements lay on the ground and did not dare to move.
After a while, the sound of artillery stopped, but as soon as the reinforcements got up, another artillery shell roared in.
Major Paul quickly understood that the enemy was blocking the entrance to the warehouse with mortars.
Major Paul's guess was correct. This was Shulka's defense strategy for Warehouse No. 5.
There is only one platoon of snipers in the warehouse. Even if they are prepared and unprepared at the same time and occupy the geographical advantage, a platoon is still stretched to deal with a steady stream of enemies pouring into the building.
The way to solve this problem is to artificially control the number of enemies entering the building.
The mortars deployed on the second line are temporarily used for blockade.
In this way, the German attack will be separated, that is, batches will enter the building in turn and be digested batch by batch.
Of course, the role of mortars is not limited to this.
Just when Major Paul was about to contact artillery and air power to suppress the Russian mortars, he found that the surrounding buildings and ruins were full of mobile mortars, and they fired several shells in the direction of the Germans from time to time.
Because the targets are too scattered, the air force and artillery even feel like they have nowhere to hit. (To be continued)