According to Magruth's idea, although his troops were reduced in number during the battle, it was still a relatively easy task to deal with the guerrillas who had little combat effectiveness.
Unexpectedly, after the train had been running for more than ten minutes, a series of earth-shaking explosions were heard from the front, and then the train he was riding on came to a sudden stop. The huge inertia caused everything on the shelves to clatter down, and everyone sitting on it fell. Magrus below was smashed to pieces.
After Magrus was helped up from the ground by the guards, he asked sharply: "What happened?"
"Your Excellency, Commander!" Magruth's box was hung at the end of the train. After something happened, the adjutant crawled off the ground. Regardless of the pain all over his body, he rang the phone and asked the officer at the front of the train what happened. As soon as he understood the situation, he immediately reported to Magruth: "The guerrillas destroyed the railway ahead, and the armored train that opened the way derailed, rolled over after running off the track, and caused the explosion of ammunition in the train. . And because the train we were traveling on was 150 meters away from the armored train, the train driver dealt with it in a timely manner after the accident, so the train did not derail..."
After learning that the armored train leading the way derailed and exploded, Magruth's face turned livid. He covered his head and asked, "Can we continue to move forward?"
"Due to the explosion of the armored train, at least two hundred meters of the rails ahead have been completely destroyed. We will not be able to pass until the rails are repaired." The adjutant shook his head and replied: "If we want to continue on our way, we must get off the road. Car and walk.”
Get off the car and walk? ! Hearing what the adjutant said, Magruth couldn't help but be stunned for a moment. He was silently calculating in his mind whether he could reach the 564th kilometer station faster by waiting for someone to repair the railway and then continuing by car, or by walking. He looked at the adjutant and asked expressionlessly: "How far is it from our place to the station?"
"Based on the speed of the train," the adjutant said in an uncertain tone, "I think this place is only about ten kilometers away from the 564th kilometer station."
It's about ten kilometers, and if you march on foot, you can reach your destination in two hours at most. After repeated deliberation, Magruth decided to march on foot to the 564th kilometer station. Thinking of this, he immediately said to his adjutant: "Order the 544th Regiment at the front of the train to get off the train immediately and march on foot towards the 564th kilometer station."
In fact, after the German army made an emergency stop on the train, many people got off the train and went to the place where the armored train overturned in front to try to save people. But in the blazing armored train, the sound of explosions of various ammunition could not be heard, and the rescuers could not get close at all. They could only listen to the screams of the survivors coming from the car.
After receiving Magruth's order, the commander of the 544th Regiment immediately assembled his troops and marched westward quickly in four columns along the roadbed on both sides of the railway track, preparing to rush to the 564th kilometer station as soon as possible.
As a result, they had just passed the still burning armored train. Several soldiers walking in front stepped on the landmines laid by the guerrillas, shrapnel and falling gravel, knocking down the German soldiers near the explosion point in pieces. .
Seeing that the soldiers in front had stepped on the mines, the soldiers following behind quickly scattered to hide. Some people shouted loudly: "Engineers, where are the engineers? Come quickly and clear the mines."
Magrus, who was in the back car, naturally could not understand what was happening ahead in time. He was dictating a telegram to the military headquarters to a communications staff officer: "As our division moved towards the 564th kilometer station, the road-opener The armored train hit a mine and derailed, causing the railway line to be damaged. The train carrying the entire division could no longer proceed. I have ordered the 544th Regiment to get off the train and march on foot, rushing to the 564th kilometer as quickly as possible..."
Magruth, who was dictating the telegram, did not know that the armored train derailed not because it ran over a mine, but because the guerrillas destroyed the rails at the turn. Following Sokov's instructions, they dismantled the large connecting rails and sleepers. Bolts, everything looks normal on the surface of the track, but as soon as the train turns here, it will rush out of the track and the car body will overturn.
The bearded man who led the team to block the enemy thought that even if the armored train that opened the way overturned, it would only cause some casualties to the soldiers in the car. But when he held up his telescope and saw the armored train overturning, it exploded and burned immediately. He was stunned. After a while, he murmured: "Oh my God, I really didn't expect that, we Just by removing a few bolts, one of the German armored trains was completely destroyed."
The bearded man put down his telescope, turned around and asked a middle-aged man next to him: "Have you laid all the mines?"
"Don't worry, Comrade Captain." Hearing the bearded man's question, the middle-aged man said impatiently: "When have I ever made a mistake in laying landmines? One hundred and thirty landmines are guaranteed to blow up the Germans. .”
"Sharpshooter, are the sharpshooters in place?" After the middle-aged man with a beard finished speaking, he shouted to the back: "When the Germans see that the railway is impassable, they will definitely continue to advance on foot. The sharpshooter will be there later. Just target the German officers, do you understand?"
Seeing the bearded man chattering incessantly, a female health worker next to her carrying a medical kit said impatiently: "Comrade Captain, this is the first time I have seen you so verbose. Laying landmines and deploying sharpshooters to ambush are both You asked it yourself, and now you keep asking it here, are you still done?"
After listening to the female health worker's scolding, the bearded man grinned and said: "Yina, isn't this the first time I have directed such a large-scale battle? I was inevitably a little nervous, so my words naturally became a little wordy. I really didn't expect that. A commander from the regular army taught us a method so effective that he actually killed an enemy armored train in one go."
The female health worker known as Yina pursed her lips and scolded her beard with disdain: "If someone doesn't have any real ability, can he be a captain of the Guards? But I heard from others that the methods he told you, They were all mentioned in the telegrams sent by the division headquarters in the past few years.”
"A message from the division headquarters?" The bearded man was stunned for a moment, and then he wanted to understand what Yina meant, and quickly asked: "Are you talking about the division headquarters at Mamayev Ridge?"
Ina looked at her captain with contempt and said impatiently: "Besides that division headquarters, where are other division headquarters? I have already inquired about it. The captain Guchakov who assigned us the task is From Mamayev Kurgan. If you think about it, if a captain is so powerful, then his superior must be even more powerful."
"Although we have destroyed railways in the past, the results have never been great." Bearded man said thoughtfully: "Since we cannot remotely detonate explosions, when we destroy railways, we can only plant bombs under the railway tracks and watch the enemy trains Come over and send someone to light the fuse.
If the detonation is early, the German train drivers will be able to see the railway being damaged from a distance, and they will brake immediately and decisively; if the detonation is late, most of the trains have already passed the explosion point, even if one or two trains behind them are blown up. The enemy can continue to move forward after throwing down these blown-up carriages. "
When Luo Xiu commanded the attack battle before, he may have never summarized the gains and losses in the battle. Today, staying in the forest five or six hundred meters away from the railway, he actually felt relaxed and thought about the relationship between previous battles and this operation. The gap has come.
After receiving the blocking mission here, Lu Xiu's first thought was that he wanted to die. With just the hundred and ten men under his command, it would be difficult to stop even a company, let alone a German division. But since he made the arrangements according to Guchakov's instructions, he found that he seemed to be thinking too much. No one wanted to plot against him. As long as he made good use of the terrain, he could delay the enemy for several hours with just the few people under his command. , there is still no big problem.
The 544th Regiment, which was marching on foot, stepped on a mine. In fact, it did not cause many casualties. No more than 40 people were killed or injured. But for the German soldiers who had just witnessed the tragic scene of the armored train being blown up, they were filled with inexplicable fear. Before the arrival of the engineers, no matter how much their commanders scolded or even kicked or kicked, all the soldiers could not get up from the ground. The soldiers were worried that there were landmines buried all around. If they moved a little, they might step on them and kill them. Mine of life.
Engineers came over from the car behind and started detecting mines with mine detectors. However, it is easy to detect mines in other places, but it is very difficult to detect mines on railway lines. The railway tracks will interfere with the accuracy of the mine detectors, so that in less than five minutes, nearly a hundred false alarms occurred, making it very difficult. The German soldiers lying on the ground were even more frightened.
Shortly after the Magrus telegram was sent, he received a reply from Kurtzbach: "In order to prevent the Russians who occupied the station from burning supplies, your division must arrive at the 564th kilometer station within an hour."
When he saw this telegram, the muscles on Magruth's face twitched violently several times. He thought to himself that now the troops are marching on foot. If they can reach the destination within two hours after a distance of more than ten kilometers, they will have already arrived. Pretty good. To recapture the 564th kilometer station within an hour is simply a fantasy.
But since Kurtzbach has issued such an order, he still needs to speed up the march of the troops. Magruth had just made up his mind. Before he could order his adjutant to call the commander of the 544th Regiment in front of him, the other party called first. As soon as he heard Magruth's voice, he hurriedly said: : "Your Excellency, Division Commander, our regiment stepped on a mine laid by the Russians during the march. Now the soldiers are frightened. I think they may not be able to move forward until the engineers remove all the mines." "
"No, Mr. Colonel." After hearing the report from his subordinates, Magruth immediately replied in a stern tone: "The latest order given to us by the military is to recapture the 564th kilometer station within an hour. I now order You, immediately ask the troops to speed up their march, and be sure to get to the 564th kilometer station in the shortest possible time and eliminate the Russian guerrillas occupying the station."
The German commander, urged by Magruth, understood that the war was urgent and could not wait for the engineers to dispatch the mines planted by the guerrillas bit by bit. After heaving a long sigh, he ordered the soldiers to leave the roadbed and go to the forest a hundred meters away. He did not believe that the guerrillas would step on landmines in the forest.
Unexpectedly, the soldiers left the roadbed and walked less than 20 meters toward the forest when another soldier stepped on a landmine. The German soldiers, who were already frightened, fled back to the roadbed with a roar. What they didn't expect was that the guerrillas had actually planted less than ten landmines in this area, and three of them had just exploded. As for the remaining few, unless you are extremely lucky, your chances of stepping on them are really slim.
When the guerrillas laid mines here, they never thought about hitting the enemy. After all, the chance of the enemy getting off the train was low. Even if they get off the train, they will move along the railway embankment. The only things that can hit them are the mines buried on the embankment. If Beard hadn't emphasized that this was the order of the Guards Captain, they wouldn't have laid mines here at all.
Now it was unintentional, and a few landmines blew back the enemy who tried to leave the roadbed. The guerrillas hiding in the nearby forest were all excited when they saw this scene. Especially the several sharpshooters deployed here. They were originally considering, if the Germans really poured into the forest, should they shoot or not? The few rifles I have are no match for the Germans. I'm afraid they will be beaten into pieces by random shots if they don't fire two shots.
Now that they saw the enemy being hit by a few exploding mines, they were so frightened that they fled back to the roadbed, lying on the roadbed like a shrunken turtle, waiting for the engineers using mine detectors to clear the mines. The sharpshooters were even more reassured. The task they received was to eliminate the engineers who were clearing mines. Now things seem to be developing as the Guards Captain said. The concealed sharpshooters raised their muzzles one after another and locked their respective shooting targets. They only waited for the other party to get closer before they opened fire immediately.
Since the demining effect of the German engineers was not high, it took a full twenty minutes for a pathfinding team composed of five engineers to appear at the best shooting distance. Seeing that the target had entered the shooting position, the team leader of the sharpshooter team quickly began to give orders: "Everyone, pay attention, the enemy's engineers are less than a hundred meters away from us. Everyone locks on their targets and is ready to shoot. I give the order Shoot, everyone shoots again..."
Before he finished speaking, there was a crisp gunshot next to him. It turned out that he was a sharpshooter who couldn't hold his breath. He was too nervous and accidentally pulled the trigger. The sharpshooters in the guerrillas cannot be compared with the sharpshooters or snipers in the regular army. Their psychological quality is much worse. When they hear someone shooting, they immediately pull the trigger instinctively.
After a series of gunshots, the five engineers who were using mine detectors to detect mines on the railway embankment all threw away the mine detectors in their hands, covered their wounds, and fell down on the embankment.
