Boxes of artillery shells were opened and placed in front of six mortars that were ready to fire. In order to ensure nothing went wrong, Second Lieutenant Chernushenko also measured the ruler himself. After confirming that it was correct, he decisively gave the order to fire.
The outgoing shells screamed across the sky and hit the German marching column. The soldiers near the explosion point were directly blown away by the air wave, and shrapnel flew everywhere with a sharp whistle. They either cut down the soldiers next to them, or hit the tank's armor plate with a clanking sound.
The German soldiers who were marching were suddenly bombarded. A few soldiers who responded quickly fell down on the spot to avoid the bombardment. Most of the soldiers were either standing there in a daze, looking around for the direction in which the shells were coming; or they were scurrying around like headless flies.
Seeing the chaos of the enemy in the distance, the two machine gunners turned their attention to Afanasyev, wondering why their platoon leader had not given the order to shoot. "Comrade Lieutenant," Vasily asked Afanasyev in a low voice when he saw Afanasyev's delay in giving the firing order. He was worried about causing Sokov's dissatisfaction, "Why don't you fire yet?"
"Wait a minute, Sergeant Vasily, wait a minute." Afanasyev stared at the German soldiers in the distance who were being stunned by artillery fire, and said without looking back: "The enemy is not chaotic enough, wait for them If they are a little more chaotic, we can use machine guns to inflict maximum casualties on them."
When did the artillery and machine gunners fire? Sokov, who was standing aside, did not express any opinion. He just stared at the enemy in the distance, secretly wondering if the five minutes he had prescribed was a bit short. You know, the tank crews The field of view inside the tank is limited, and it takes a long time to discover where the shells are coming from. His subordinates can just use this precious time difference to eliminate more enemies.
Seeing that Sokov didn't speak, Vasily set up the sniper rifle in his hand, preparing to take advantage of the enemy's confusion to kill several valuable targets. As soon as he set up the gun, he saw the roof of a tank parked in the middle of the road open, and a tank crew member wearing a black one-piece tank soldier's uniform carefully leaned out of the turret. He placed his hands on the hatch and looked around with his eyes, as if trying to figure out the direction in which the shells were coming from.
Vasily quickly locked onto the target, lightly pulled the trigger, and heard a "pop" sound. The bullet quickly penetrated the tank soldier's forehead and flew out from the back of the head with a trace of blood foam. The tank soldier raised his head back, paused, and then slid into the turret.
"Well done, Sergeant Vasily." Seeing Vasily kill the advancing tank crew with one shot, Sokov shouted good, and then said to him: "The enemy tank crew probably wanted to figure out where the fire came from. direction, so I came out to observe. You kept a close eye on them and killed each one as soon as they came out."
Vasily moved his eyes away from the scope and shouted to a soldier next to him: "Hurry up and call a few more snipers." After the instructions, he put his eyes close to the scope again and continued. Search the tanks parked on the streets to see if there are any tank soldiers who are not afraid of death and come out as targets.
Sokov felt that by using snipers to suppress the German tank crews and prevent them from conducting effective observations, the artillery bombardment against the enemy could last longer. Thinking of this, he shouted to Chernushenko: "Comrade Second Lieutenant, let someone bring a few more boxes of shells up. While the Germans are in chaos, we must teach them a lesson."
"Understood." Chernushenko agreed, quickly came to the soldier who made the call, knelt down and said to him: "When you let those snipers come up, call a few more people, and each one will carry a box of shells." , we want to use artillery shells to teach the Germans an unforgettable lesson."
In less than three minutes, a dozen soldiers came up from downstairs, all carrying a box of artillery shells. Several soldiers put the shell boxes next to the mortars, quickly ran to the side of the roof, took off the sniper rifles on their backs, and began to aim at the chaotic group of German soldiers in the distance.
With new snipers in place, the Germans' nightmare begins. Not only the tank soldiers who emerged from the tanks became the priority targets of snipers, but also the officers who stood in the middle of the road waving their pistols and trying to stop the soldiers from running around became the targets of the snipers one after another. The souls of the dead.
Seeing that the German soldiers were almost in chaos, Lieutenant Afanasyev finally gave the order to shoot. The machine gunners, who had been holding back their energy for a long time, immediately aimed at the running German soldiers and pulled the triggers hard, as if they wanted to shoot out all their resentment with bullets.
The German soldiers crowded in the middle of the road were unable to dodge, and their bodies were riddled with holes from the hot bullets. After a while, they all lay down. But with the firing of machine guns, the surviving German soldiers finally discovered where the attack came from. They quickly hid in the blind spot of the shooting and fired back in the direction of the Vasily Building.
Second Lieutenant Chernushenko's mortar team immediately adjusted the shooting angle and bombarded the place where the enemy's gunfire was densest. The shells that exploded one after another knocked many enemies who were shooting away, and then landed heavily in other places. The masonry of the ruins became a sharp weapon in the explosion, smashing the German soldiers hiding nearby until they howled like ghosts.
Throughout the battle, the German tank crews were the most frustrated. Although they could see artillery shells falling and exploding around them through the lookout holes, and heard the sound of shrapnel clanking on the armor plates, they could not see the enemy clearly. Where did the attack come from. Someone finally took the risk to poke his head out, but was killed by the opponent's sniper before he could see the target clearly. After a dozen tank crews died in a row, all the tank crews stayed in their tanks and did not dare to show up easily again.
But just when they were desperate, a German officer covered in blood got into the tank from the bottom and shouted at the surviving tank crew: "Russians, the Russians are in the building to the south. You kill them immediately with artillery fire."
The tank crew in this tank immediately used the radio to notify other tanks of the news. The tank crews who were worried about not having an attack target immediately took action, slowly turning the turret, preparing to use artillery fire to suppress the Soviet firepower in the building.
Sokov, who had been observing the battlefield situation, saw that the enemy's tank muzzle had slowly turned to his position, and guessed that the enemy must have figured out which direction they were being attacked. He quickly put down his telescope and shouted loudly to the officers and soldiers who were fighting fiercely: "Everyone listen to my order and retreat downstairs immediately. The enemy tanks are about to start shelling."
But because the gunfire was too loud, the soldiers did not hear Sokov's order clearly. Seryosha, who always stood behind Sokov as a human background, saw that there was no reaction from everyone, and guessed that they must not have heard Sokov's order, so he repeated Sokov's order loudly to everyone.
As soon as Seryosha spoke with a loud voice, all the soldiers heard it. Although everyone still wanted to stay on the roof and teach the Germans a lesson, there were military orders. Since Sokov had already given the order to retreat, there was no need to do anything. Room for negotiation. The artillerymen and machine gunners packed up their weapons and retreated down the stairs in an orderly manner.
When Sokov saw Vasily and several snipers still holding their guns and shooting at enemies in the distance, Sokov bent over and ran behind him and shouted at him: "Sergeant Vasily, I have ordered The troops have withdrawn, why don’t you withdraw?”
"Comrade division commander," Vasily continued to shoot, tilting his head and said to Sokov: "You can retreat first, I want to eliminate a few more German devils."
"That's enough, Sergeant Vasily, I order you to retreat immediately." Sokov was worried that Vasily would get angry and not want to retreat. If the building collapsed by German artillery fire, the people on the roof would probably be in trouble. few. 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 regretfully put away his sniper rifle, and reluctantly agreed: "Yes, I will retreat now!" After that, he called the snipers to retreat together.
Seeing that all the commanders and fighters upstairs had evacuated, Sokov took Seryosha towards the stairs. Unexpectedly, as soon as they reached the top of the stairs, they heard a loud "boom", and then the entire floor shook violently, knocking both Sokov and Seryosha to the ground.
"No, Misha, it was a German tank that fired at the building." Although Seryosha rarely participated in battles since he became the commander of the guard company, it did not mean that he had no combat experience. From the sound of the explosion and the vibration of the floor, he judged that the enemy tank was firing. He got up on his hands and knees, helped Sokov up from the ground, and ran down the stairs with him.
Mortar crews, machine gunners, and even snipers ran downstairs, but Vasily remained on the stairs, fearing for Sokov's safety. Seeing Seryosha helping Sokov down the stairs, he quickly came over and asked with concern: "Comrade division commander, are you injured?"
"No!" Sokov shook his head and found that Vasily was the only one on the stairs. He thought that those snipers came in only ten or twenty seconds before him. How could there be no one so soon? Could they fly? ? With this question, he asked Vasily: "Where are the others? Why are none of them missing?"
Hearing Sokov's question, Vasily pointed to the steel pipe next to the stairs and said: "Comrade division commander, the snipers have all slid downstairs along this steel pipe. What we are most afraid of when sniping at the enemy on the roof is It was under shelling or bombing, so the snipers thought of a way to erect a steel pipe here to evacuate the roof of the building as quickly as possible."
Sokov was determined to slide along the steel pipe to the bottom of the building, but Seryosha disagreed: "Misha, I don't know if this steel pipe is strong or not. What if you slide halfway and the steel pipe breaks? I think we should still Run down the stairs."
Vasily also agreed very much with Seryosha's proposal: "Comrade division 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 before the enemy starts a large-scale shelling." .”
As soon as Sokov and others returned to the basement, they heard continuous gunfire outside. A crumbling wall to the north collapsed under the bombardment of German tanks. Fortunately, there were no soldiers hiding behind it, otherwise it would have been a disaster.
Vasily pulled the telephone on the table in front of him, grabbed the crank of the base and shook it a few times, then picked up the phone and asked, "Hey, hey, observation post? How about reporting the situation outside quickly?"
"Comrade Sergeant," Sokov heard Vasily calling the observation post and said to him quickly: "The enemy will not attack us until the enemy's shelling stops. Let the observation post come back first, don't let him stay Adventure outside.”
Vasily quickly covered the microphone with his hand and explained to Sokov: "Comrade Division Commander, the observation post I contacted is not located in this building. He is hiding on top of a nearby building and can clearly see around us. environment of."
"You are so thoughtful. In that case, let him stay outside to monitor the enemy's movements."
"Hey!" Vasily released his hand covering the microphone and said to the observation post: "Closely monitor the enemy's movements. If you find any signs that they are attacking the building, report to me immediately."
After putting down the phone, Vasily reported to Sokov with a relaxed look: "Comrade division commander, the observation post reported that the enemy tanks that were attacked by us have gathered together and are shelling our building..."
"Sergeant Vasily," Sokov thought that the observation post was not in the Vasily Building and might be able to see the German casualties more clearly, so he asked tentatively: "Can the enemy's casualties be seen clearly from the observation post?"
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 either."
"That's such a pity." Thinking of not being able to understand the losses just caused to the enemy in time, Sokov couldn't help but feel a little disappointed: "I really want to know how many enemies we just killed."
"Comrade Division Commander, our sniper team has probably killed more than ten enemies. Coupled with the results of mortar and machine gun fire, at least nearly two hundred enemies have been killed." After Vasily said this data, he remembered again One incident, I specifically added, "A shell happened to hit the open hatch of an enemy tank and caused an explosion. I think that tank can be considered destroyed by us."
"Comrade Sergeant, the results you have achieved today are very good." Sokov did not expect that a small ambush could achieve such results. According to his original idea, being able to kill fifty or sixty German soldiers would be pretty good. He raised his hand and patted Vasily on the shoulder, "I will ask the political commissar to take credit for you."
