Chapter 999: Moscow Is Behind

Lieutenant Political Deputy Battalion Commander Vasily Georgievich Klochkov Tiev is now curled up with his eyes closed, squatting in the cold and damp muddy water, letting the bullets whistle in his ears. The future hero of the Soviet Union had no choice but to resign himself to his fate and let the master in the shadows decide whether to let German bullets or bombs take away his life.

As a loyal communist fighter, what scares Captain Tiev the most is not death, but watching helplessly the armies of imperialism and Belarusian gangsters approaching step by step towards the heart of the great Soviet motherland.

Now that Leningrad, the second capital of the motherland, has fallen, and Moscow is behind him, he feels that he and the communist warriors of Panfilov's division have no way to retreat.

Time passed slowly in torment, the roar of the aircraft motor, the roar of the guns, and the explosions that overwhelmed all other sounds, kept singing in Captain Tiev's ears over and over again. I don’t know how long it took, but all these dizzying sounds finally subsided, and human voices resounded in the trenches - shouts and screams!

Captain Tiev knew that he was intact and was obviously not injured in the air strike just now. He opened his eyes and saw another hellish scene with heavy casualties: the remains of martyrs and wailing wounded could be seen everywhere in the trenches, and the blood had dyed the coffee-colored muddy water into dark brown or dark red.

However, Tiev did not show any panic or discomfort. He was not a newbie on the battlefield (nor was he a Kazakh). Before joining the 8th Guards Infantry Division, he had fought with the Germans in many places, and he had long been accustomed to scenes of heavy casualties.

It can be said that the casualties caused by German aircraft this time were nothing in Tiev's battlefield experience.

But he also knows that the battle has just begun!

"Comrades!" Tiev stood up from the muddy water and shouted loudly, "Get ready to fight! The enemy is coming, and we must defeat them, because although Russia is big, we have no way to retreat, and Moscow is behind us! Behind it is Moscow!”

Although the 8th Guards Infantry Division is still more than 270 kilometers away from the border of Moscow Oblast, everyone knows that the current battle is to defend Moscow! The great capital that defends the Soviet Fatherland.

If Moscow falls, the Soviet Union may really be destroyed!

Following the shouts of Captain Tiev, two infantry companies of the 1075th Infantry Regiment, an anti-tank destroyer platoon (with three ZIS-3 76mm cannons) and two tanks of the 28th Guards Tank Destroyer Brigade dispatched The "Diev Battle Group" composed of SU-57 tank destroyers immediately started running quickly like a war machine at full power.

Under the urging of military officers and political workers, many Kazakh soldiers, who had been huddled in the trenches full of mud and water for almost an hour and were tortured by the seemingly endless bombings and machine gun and cannon fire, picked up various items one after another. Various weapons - Mosin-Nagant rifle, Bobosha submachine gun, DP large turntable light machine gun, M1910 heavy machine gun, Red Fist anti-tank grenade launcher, bazooka rocket launcher, PTRS and PTRD anti-tank rifles There were all kinds of grenades, ******--walking along the same muddy traffic trenches towards the forward positions.

Three ZIS-3 76mm cannons have been hidden in a forest behind the forward position, quietly waiting for the prey to approach... They must be very close, so that the spool-type high-speed armor-piercing projectiles used by the ZIS-3 76mm cannon can exert their power.

This armor-piercing bullet with a carbide core and soft shell can penetrate a 92mm homogeneous steel plate at a right angle at a distance of 500 meters, and can penetrate a 102mm homogeneous steel plate at a right angle at a "suicide distance" of 100 meters. In theory, it can The "shrinking tiger" (Tiger H type) that threatened the Germans.

However, in actual use, the ZIS-3 76mm cannon is basically a "disposable" weapon and is easily destroyed by the powerful German artillery fire. Therefore, the loss exchange rate is very unsatisfactory, and 3 gun groups may not be able to be replaced with 1 vehicle. German tanks.

Therefore, the anti-tank firepower that Tiev can really rely on, in addition to the individual anti-tank weapons in the hands of the infantry (a bad anti-tank gun is usually not as useful as a Panzerfaust anti-tank grenade launcher), is the two SU- 57 anti-tank destroyer. During the German air raid just now, they were carefully hiding in an inconspicuous forest, and their bodies were covered with camouflage.

Now, while the German planes were flying away, the motors of these two precious SU-57 tank destroyers also began to roar, and their tracks rolled over the muddy land towards the preset positions ahead. There they would set up an ambush and await the approach of German tanks and armored vehicles.

Tiev himself also went to the front line in person. At this time, German tanks and assault artillery had already appeared in the sight of the Soviet front line.

Of course it's not the terrifying Tiger tank and E-50 tank. These two tanks also have another unexposed "Cheetah" tank destroyer (equipped with a 105mmL/68 gun). They are all equipment used for tank battles. No. Used to attack Soviet positions.

So what Jiyev and his comrades saw now was only the armored group composed of the "Grizzly" assault guns and the No. 4 H tanks, and the infantry led by the armored group. It may be because the road is muddy, and a large number of personnel and equipment are stuck in the mud, so the offensive force deployed by the German army now does not seem to be very large, about twenty tanks/assault guns and three or four hundred infantry. These personnel and vehicles are still far away, and the speed of movement is also very slow. It seems that it will take a while before they can engage in battle.

Just when Jiyev was slightly relieved, the German artillery placed somewhere opened fire.

"Bang!"

The strong shock wave formed by the shells that fell on the Soviet position and exploded swept over, and Jiyev just lowered his head slightly, instead of shrinking back to the bottom of the trench like those Kazakh recruits who had not been on the battlefield much-this level of artillery bombardment is simply a child's play compared to the artillery bombardment that Jiyev encountered before on the Polish front and the Smolensk front.

When Jiyev heard the sound of the shells exploding, he knew that it was the German 150mm artillery firing, probably the "Wild Bee" 150mm self-propelled artillery. Considering the current road conditions, the only thing that could be driven up at the first time was this type of tracked self-propelled artillery.

The target of the German artillery attack was not the Soviet trenches, but the muddy ground in front of the trenches, with the purpose of detonating the mines there to clear the way for tanks/assault artillery. However, Jiyev's men did not bury mines in the muddy ground in front of the position, because the muddy season also had a huge impact on the Soviet logistics. Jiyev's battle group did not receive enough anti-tank mines, so they could only use them at the most critical time.

When the German self-propelled artillery stopped firing, although they saw that the German tanks had approached the Soviet front line, many Soviet engineers bravely rushed out of the trenches and risked their lives to bury anti-tank mines.

At the same time, many Red Army warriors holding "Red Iron Fist" rocket launchers crawled from the trenches to the pre-dug foxholes dozens of meters ahead. They will risk their lives to attack German tanks there!

And they cooperated with a 2-meter-long anti-tank rifle. There are two main types of Soviet anti-tank rifles, PTRD and PTRS. Because they are very similar, they are called "brother guns". The caliber is 14.5mm, and they use non-streamlined tungsten core armor-piercing bullets. They can penetrate 40mm homogeneous steel plates at right angles at a distance of 300 meters. It is definitely not possible to use them to deal with the frontal armor of the Type 4 H tank and the "Grizzly" assault gun. As for hitting periscopes and observation holes, they basically cannot hit them.

However, this gun can be used to break the tracks. After breaking the tracks, the German tanks and assault guns cannot move. At this time, the death squads ambushed in the front foxholes will rush out and risk their lives to use the "Red Iron Fist" to deal with the immobile German tanks. In addition, the two SU-57s and three ZIS-3s in ambush could also take the opportunity to shoot at their sides.

In short, the Soviet infantry, which had been baptized by a long war, was no longer powerless to fight back against the powerful German armored forces.

The German tanks also knew that the enemy they were facing was not so easy to deal with, so they did not rush forward blindly, but stopped abruptly 600 meters away from the Soviet front. Because most of the Soviet anti-tank firepower had the problem of insufficient accuracy, the threat to German tanks/assault artillery was not great at 600 meters.

Then, all the "Grizzly" assault guns began to roar, throwing 150mm caliber ammunition onto the Soviet positions. The No. 4H tank pointed its muzzle forward, with a discarding sabot armor-piercing shell loaded in the barrel, waiting for the ambushed Soviet tanks or tank destroyers to open fire and expose the target - as long as the distance does not exceed 800 meters, this discarding sabot armor-piercing shell can even deal with the Soviet JS-2 heavy tank in one shot!

However, the German commander soon discovered that the Soviet positions in front seemed to be unmanned, just standing up to take the beating, and no artillery fired back.

However, the equally experienced German army did not launch a cluster of tanks and assault guns, but let the infantry holding the Mkb-42 automatic carbine launch a charge.

At the same time, some German mortar teams and machine gun teams followed the tanks/assault guns and moved up. Now they are also set up, using machine gun bullets and mortar shells to cover the attacking infantry.

The outpost battle of the Battle of Moscow was launched between two infantry units with quite good quality!