This forced Shurka to temporarily mobilize a group of artillerymen with 15MM caliber and 85MM caliber artillery... The artillery operation of different calibers was different, and even the number of gun crews was different.
Replacing personnel before the battle was originally a taboo for military strategists, but in fact it made no difference because the Soviet army had no training from beginning to end, so there was no replacement.
The troops spent half an hour overhauling and familiarizing themselves with the equipment, then added some communications troops and set off.
Among them, Shulka requested additional communication troops.
Shulka was speechless about this. The careless Soviets could actually forget about the communications troops... You must know that the combat plan clearly requires long-distance operations in coordination with forward artillery observers. If there are no communications troops and no radio stations, the artillery observers
How to direct these artillery fire operations?
Akimovich's explanation was that they thought the artillery would solve this problem on its own... In normal times, this was indeed a matter for the artillery, but now it is a matter of reorganizing a small force with only thirteen guns, and each artillery unit
If there are dozens or dozens of artillery crew members, how can the artillery unit be willing to assign precious radio stations to them?
Of course, the Soviet army has very few communication equipment, and it is impossible to equip every self-propelled artillery with a radio. Shurka can only equip artillery with the same caliber with a radio, and then assign as many telephone soldiers as possible.
, as soon as the self-propelled artillery stops, the telephone line must be pulled nearby.
In terms of external communications, self-propelled artillery will be much stronger than tanks.
This is mainly because the tank is fully enclosed, and once the hatch cover is closed, it is almost isolated from the outside world.
However, because the self-propelled artillery has no top armor, it can relatively easily communicate with nearby infantry, such as signal flags, signal lights, and even directly communicate with the gun crew members without much problem.
"Are you ready?" Shulka asked Arinsimovich loudly.
Arinsimovich is the commander of this newly formed self-propelled artillery battalion. He was originally a tank company commander and commanded T4 tanks to fight the German army. However, their T4 tanks were either destroyed by the enemy or were injured due to malfunctions and lost their combat effectiveness...
Arinsimovich's command vehicle was no exception. It was penetrated by an armor-piercing projectile and the driver was killed on the spot. The gunner was seriously injured and died. Only Arinsimovich and the loader escaped death.
Escaped from a burning tank.
Due to the shortage of T4 tanks, Arinsimovich was assigned to command the self-propelled artillery.
In fact, Shulka believed that the commander of this unit should be artillerymen, because they are actually cannons rather than tanks, but Golikov believed that they were more like tanks, so of course they must be commanded by tank commanders
.
Shulka stopped insisting after thinking about it, because in this battle, these self-propelled artillery were actually used to fight the enemy's "new tanks", so it was not unreasonable to use tank troops to command them.
Arinsimovich did not hear Shulka's cry at first. This was probably because Arinsimovich's hearing had not fully recovered... The tank was penetrated by an armor-piercing projectile. Although he was not directly injured, it was quite serious.
Yu hid in a big bell and was beaten hard.
So Shulka asked again in a louder voice, and this time Arinsimovich responded.
"Don't worry, Comrade Shulka!" Arinsimovich replied: "I won't need you to take us out of the enemy's encirclement like others!"
As he spoke, Arinsimovich burst into laughter, and his subordinates nearby also laughed, although it was not funny at all.
But he was handsome for less than three seconds. When Arinsimovich cast his eyes on the map, he asked awkwardly: "Comrade Shulka, location number one is near the bakery on Red Star Street, right?
Shulka almost sprayed a mouthful of blood onto the ceiling, but he still didn't know where the No. 1 position in the battle plan was at this time.
After a few more minutes of discussion with Arinsimovich, the troops continued their advance along the street.
There are only thirteen self-propelled artillery in total, so there is no need to worry about being discovered by the enemy... Its small size, coupled with the fact that it is advancing among buildings and in the dark, make it difficult for even German night reconnaissance planes to detect it.
The team stopped at the state-owned agricultural tractor station... The Soviet Union was implementing a planned economy at this time and needed an organization to provide agricultural machinery operation services to collective farms, farms, mutual aid groups and agricultural production cooperatives.
The reason why Shulka arranged the self-propelled artillery here is because there are three to five-story buildings everywhere in the agricultural machinery station, and the road surface is flat, which is very suitable for self-propelled artillery to hide and move... In fact, self-propelled artillery sometimes even
There is no need to move, because as mentioned before, it is difficult for the enemy's artillery protected by buildings to hit the self-propelled artillery hiding in the blind spot.
"Get ready to fight!" Captain Arinsimovich ordered loudly, and then shouted to a lieutenant beside him: "Comrade Arkady, the rest is left to you!"
Shulka couldn't help but fainted, and then he realized that this was what Arinsimovich meant by "ready"!
However, there is nothing wrong with Captain Arinsimovich's actions, because at the beginning the battle was an artillery battle, that is, the self-propelled artillery was used as artillery. At this time, it should be the artillery's business, and that Lieutenant Arkady was the artillery.
Shurka was not satisfied with this, because it was obvious that their preparations were not sufficient. They should have at least conducted a pre-war drill, but they did nothing, so Shurka believed that the results of this attack would not be ideal.
What Shulka didn't expect was that it was precisely because of such loopholes that the attack worked.
A few minutes later, the Soviet attack began.
After three red flares, a regiment of Soviet infantry launched an attack.
Although this unit is a regiment, one of its battalions is a "punishment battalion".
Needless to say, its role is to launch a charge and then let the enemy organize a defense, so the Soviet army discovered the enemy's firepower point.
Then, under the guidance of artillery observers, the self-propelled artillery fired shells into the enemy's positions one after another and destroyed their fortifications.
This is especially true of the 15MM caliber artillery. The weight of this artillery shell alone is 4.6 kilograms. Once it explodes on the enemy's position, the ground will shake like thunder, and bunkers, sandbag fortifications, etc. will be wiped out in an instant.
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But because it has a curved trajectory as a howitzer, when it is used as a direct-fire artillery to fight enemy tanks, its longest range is only 700 meters... Beyond 700 meters, it is not a question of whether it can penetrate or destroy enemy tanks, but a low hit rate.
At the same time, even if it hits, it is easy to ricochet because the ballistic curve forms an acute angle with the armor. (To be continued)