The position that Andre's third battalion held in the east of the city was a national defense fortification built by the Soviet army before the war. Due to various reasons, it was not completed until the outbreak of the war. In addition, the defeat of the Soviet army and the advancement of the German army were too fast, the fortifications did not play any role, and they fell into the hands of the German army together with the city.
After the German army occupied the city, they ignored the fortifications around the city, and neither sent people to reinforce or garrison. If the German army arranged a squad of troops in the fortifications, it would not be easy for Sokov to lead troops to attack Kursk.
Although the German army once launched a half-hour shelling of the Third Battalion's positions, the severely damaged were only crisscrossing trenches, and only a handful of reinforced concrete fortifications that were as thick as one meter were destroyed by artillery fire. It was precisely because of the strong fortifications that Andrei was also confident that he would hold his position without artillery fire support.
Andrei stood in his observation room and looked at the German tanks approaching the position with a telescope. He became uneasy. In addition to the soldiers who were supplemented from the prisoner-of-war camp, there were nearly a thousand new recruits who had just joined the army yesterday. Although they had been militias or had military training, when the enemy tanks rushed to them and the machine guns fired at them, I wonder if they would stay on the position to continue fighting, or would they turn around and flee?
The German tanks stopped five hundred meters away from the position. Since there was no barbed wire and no minefield in front of the Soviet position, it was unnecessary for them to continue to move forward and open roads for the chargeable infantry. They lined up and suppressed the fire points on the Soviet position with artillery fire.
Although there was support from tank fire, the German infantry waited until the machine gun company established a machine gun position step by step and began to strafuse the Soviet position before crossing the line, bombarding the tanks that were bombarding the Soviet position and rushing towards the Soviet position.
Seeing the German army rushing towards their positions, the new recruits hiding in the fortifications were a little restless. The enemy was still three or four hundred meters away from the position, they began to fire guns and flew out like a bullet without any money. However, few German soldiers charging in the distance were shot and fell to the ground. They continued to rush towards the position.
The exposed fire point became the first target of German tank guns. One round of shells flew over and hit the target accurately. Amid the huge explosion, soldiers were occasionally blown into the air by the explosion air waves, and then fell heavily. Many soldiers near the explosion point were also cut down by flying shrapnel.
The new first company commander saw that the enemy was still several hundred meters away from his position, and his soldiers were suffering heavy casualties under the enemy's artillery fire. He was worried that if he continued like this, his people would die before the enemy rushed to the position. He hurriedly asked Andre for help: "Comrade Battalion Commander, the first company suffered heavy casualties under the enemy's artillery fire. Please support, I ask for support."
When Andrei saw that the position of the first company was bombarded by tanks, he was extremely anxious. However, Sokov was unwilling to provide them with artillery fire support, and he had no choice. Although he had complained to Sokov in his heart, he quickly figured it out that although there were artillery soldiers in the city, as long as they opened fire, they would inevitably be countered by the German artillery. Although there were many artillery seized in the warehouse, there were only dozens of soldiers who could use these artillery. Once they were all sacrificed, even if there were many artillery, it would be useless.
Therefore, when it comes to the first company commander's request for help, he could only harden his heart: "Comrade Lieutenant, use the reinforced concrete fortifications on the position to firmly block the enemy's attack. When necessary, I will send troops to reinforce you."
Seeing that the battalion commander Captain Andrei did not send him reinforcements, the first company commanded the troops to shrink and retreated all the soldiers surviving in the trenches into the fortifications, preparing to rely on the strong reinforced concrete fortifications to resist the German attack. Not long after, he realized how correct the decision he had made was.
When the German infantry was only two hundred meters away from the position, the MG34 machine gun set up in the fortifications opened fire violently, knocking down the charge of the German army in groups. Seeing the fire points emerging from the Soviet position, causing considerable casualties to the attacking troops, the tanks behind immediately aimed at these fortifications and opened fire violently. Although the 75mm short-barrel artillery equipped by the No. 4 tank had strong lethality to the enemy infantry and fortifications when using high-explosive shells, they seemed a little overwhelmed when encountering these reinforced concrete fortifications in front of them. Unless the shells flew directly into the shooting hole, they could not destroy the fire points that continuously killed German officers and soldiers.
The German tankers were having a headache for not being able to destroy the Soviet fortifications, and the Soviet army, who were standing on the position, also had a headache for the German tanks. Since there were no anti-tank guns, they could only stare at them. In fact, there were many German 37mm anti-tank guns in the warehouse, but Sokov considered that this anti-tank gun, known as the "step-knocking brick", had an effective range of only 300 meters and could not deal with German tanks parked four or five hundred meters away, so he was not assigned to the troops below.
Sokov, who was in the command post in the city, kept learning about the situation on the battlefield from Andre and the observation post outside the city. After learning that the Third Battalion performed poorly in the battle, Sokov frowned and said to Belkin: "Comrade Political Commissar, it seems that the situation is worse than we imagined. Although the Third Battalion expanded from more than 100 people to more than 1,500 people, their combat effectiveness did not improve as a result. I am worried that it will be difficult for them to block the enemy's attack."
"What should we do?" Belkin asked quickly.
Sokov stared at the map in front of him and frowned and said, "There are only two ways at present. One is to let the tank troops attack in advance and attack the enemy from the side; the other is to start building fortifications in the city and prepare to fight street battles with the enemy. We must use every street and building in the city to fight with the enemy, and while consuming their strength, we will wait for the arrival of reinforcements."
Chapter completed!