Five Hundred and Fifty-Five Comparisons

"Confirmed? The Soviet Union is experimenting with a large-scale sniper team? Are you sure it's a team? Not a single person?" The statistical officer of the division headquartered carefully read the notebook sent by the front line, and even found a Russian translator to correct the information on the notebook. Things have been meticulously translated.

The small book recorded the content of the opponent's sniper's lecture, including how to clean and maintain the gun, how to adjust the sight, and how far to fire and so on. It also includes where it is easy to spot German snipers and so on. It is all-inclusive and quite comprehensive, which makes the Germans who read it feel a little incredible.

"It can be printed and distributed as a reference." After reading the translated version, the division commander said: "Send it to the military headquarters in the name of our division headquarters and see how they use it."

So the two were arranged to get on a car to the military headquarters, and they had to personally report to the army commander and the chief of staff the problems they encountered on the front line. It seems that the German army attaches great importance to the sniper training of the Soviet Union.

Just as the two of them came out of the division headquarters, there was a fierce exchange of fire between the Soviet Union and Germany dozens of kilometers away. Since the Soviet-German ceasefire tacitly agreed with each other and started negotiations in Berlin, the Soviet-German army has not conducted such a large-scale combat operation.

The Soviet Union used 4 artillery regiments and 5 infantry divisions to launch a crazy attack on the German positions. It seems that the Soviets feel that the progress on the negotiating table is too slow, and they need to speed up the entire Soviet-German battlefield slightly.

"Soviet troops are attacking! Yes! The artillery fire is quite fierce! They are trying to approach the eastern bank of the Dnieper River!" On the phone, the commander of the front-line German command was very anxious. He was ordered to hold on to the eastern bank of the Dnieper River and cover the troops to reinforce the western bank defense system.

On the phone, you can hear the Soviet artillery fire all over the mountains and plains, hitting the positions of the German troops densely like raindrops. Since the failed offensive that began with the Soviet invasion of Germany, there has never been an offensive of Soviet troops on this scale. The German position is crumbling and seems likely to be breached at any time.

The troops ordered to defend fought very hard. After Zhukov arrived at the front line, the Soviet Red Army started a round of "exploratory attack" with all its strength. This famous Soviet general from the Far East guessed the strategic intentions of the German army after he arrived at the front line, so he wanted to disrupt the opponent's campaign deployment as much as possible.

He keenly discovered that the German army was preparing to retreat to the Dnieper River to deploy defenses. If countermeasures were not taken as soon as possible, the German troops with almost no losses would complete their defensive deployment in Ukraine. Thousands of people have to fill it, but it may not be able to conquer it. Once Ukraine has been out of the control of the Soviet Union for too long, everyone knows that this place can no longer be the territory of the Soviet Union.

So Zhukov immediately changed his combat plan and brought forward the offensive that was postponed until the autumn to the present.

He ordered the troops to immediately regain the banks east of the Dnieper, and then used artillery to interfere with the progress of the Germans in building fortifications along the banks.

Facts have proved his judgment. In fact, there are not many German troops staying on the east coast, and almost no decent armored forces are retained. The German troops in most areas only resisted symbolically and gave up their defensive positions. . Seeing the victories of the Soviet troops, even the Soviet negotiators in Berlin became more and more straight.

Soviet soldiers flocked to the German defensive positions like a tide. Sometimes a German machine gun position hit all the spare barrels scrapped, but it still couldn't stop the opponent's desperate charge regardless of casualties.

Zhukov has never been a general who cares about the casualties of his troops. When he faced the Japanese army on the Eastern Front, and on the premise that he had a lot of advantages in the early and mid-term, he was able to play a shameful one-for-one in the later stage. In order to achieve a quick victory, he ignored the loss of troops.

In the frontline headquarters of the Soviet Red Army, a combat staff officer and several political workers were reporting to Zhukov the progress of the frontline offensive. One person is responsible for pointing the pointer at the map and explaining the specific combat area, one is reporting the remaining ammunition of the troops, and the other is counting the losses of the troops.

"We are only 17 kilometers away from the closest place to the Dnieper River. Here and here, we are organizing a larger-scale attack, but the casualties of the troops are very serious, and the opponent's defense is too efficient." A The staff officer said in a low voice.

"The German army dispatched the air force to attack our material storage location, and the supplies of the troops on the front line are very short." An officer of the logistics department looked at the report and said helplessly: "The other party's air supremacy on the front line is very strong, and our air force has been lost. With 310 fighter jets, there is still no ground force that can prevent the opponent from using the Stuka to attack us."

"The American P-40 fighter jets didn't work?" Zhukov frowned, and asked a question he was more interested in.

"The performance of the p-40 fighter is not as good as the German fw-190d fighter. type of fighter jets, the gap in weapon performance between the two sides has once again widened.”

"..." Zhukov fell silent when he heard this. Because this is a new situation, he originally thought that the participation of the P-40 fighter jets in the war could offset part of the Luftwaffe's air superiority, but now it seems that this hope is a bit too naive. The scientific and technological advantages accumulated by Germany's deliberate efforts are indeed not easily surpassed.

Looking at it now, the role of investing in new tanks will not be too great. At most, it can only be icing on the cake and slightly reduce a part of the loss. Speaking of losses, Zhukov frowned again. He didn't care about the loss of infantry, and losing 10,000 people a day was not unacceptable to him.

"Order the troops to continue to attack! Use reserve divisions to replace several main divisions that have been fighting continuously, but the offensive must not stop! Do you understand?" Zhukov gave the order to continue fighting. In his heart, the German army must be better than his troops. Need more rest.

"General, can the order to let the political workers take the lead in the charge be changed?" A political officer complained to Zhukov with a mournful face: "It is not impossible for us to set an example, and our loyalty to Comrade Stalin is beyond doubt, but... the other party's The snipers are too powerful, and our losses are simply unbearable."

As soon as Zhukov came to the Soviet-German front line, he issued an order that political workers must take the lead in attacking. He hated these people pointing fingers behind him, and thought that it would be better to let them set an example and lead Take part in the battle with others.

These people always look aloof at ordinary times, and they claim to be extremely loyal to the Soviet motherland and Comrade Stalin, so Zhukov also used this as an excuse to let them lead others to sacrifice for the motherland together by example. Although this order has indeed had some effect in a few days, the loss of political workers is also very desperate.

The snipers deployed by the German army are demons everywhere. Their marksmanship is accurate and their concealment is ingenious. Often the commanders and political workers just get up and shout slogans to mobilize the soldiers to attack, and they will shoot and kill these leading commanders and fighters. . And the offensive that has just been organized will quickly collapse due to the death of the commander. These German snipers are often more effective than a machine gun at this time.

4,100 grassroots and middle-level political cadres were killed in one day. This was an unimaginable situation in the past. Now many political leaders are preparing to jointly sign a letter to Stalin, suing Zhukov for deliberately crowding out the Bolsheviks in the army. Zhukov can't bear this charge. He has to think of countermeasures to appease these political workers who have failed to succeed and failed.

"I have no intention of crowding out your personnel in the army." Zhukov explained and proposed a compromise between the two sides: "For those who lose, you can choose your own substitutes, so that the basic structure will not change. But the battle It must continue, it cannot be stopped."

The two political commissars glanced at each other, knowing that Zhukov was using personnel power to buy them off, but both of them could see a gleam of joy in each other's eyes—after all, it was something they could only wish for in the army. Good thing, once they hold the power of life and death and build their own team, it will be a matter of course to go further. So they agreed to Zhukov's exchange conditions almost at the same time, patting their chests to ensure that the battle can continue.

Some losses can be made up. For example, the losses of political workers are relatively easy to make up. However, some losses are obviously not easy to make up for. For example, snipers are very difficult to train. The number of Soviet snipers lost in the battle skyrocketed, which also allowed Zhukov to clearly see the huge gap in the capabilities of snipers between the Soviet Union and Germany.

Within 7 days, 98 of the 300 snipers that had just been trained on the Soviet side were killed by the Germans, and each of these Soviet snipers was considered a valuable asset of the Soviet Union.

They are equipped with custom-made 3x magnifying scopes from the United States. This kind of sophisticated special equipment for snipers cannot be produced in the Soviet Union. For these equipment, the Soviet Union loaded hundreds of tons of wood on American freighters. As a result, almost one-third of these expensive equipment has now become the spoils of war of the Germans.