Seven Hundred and Fifty-Seven Gifts for the Head of State

In the dark basement, a huge explosion landed in the distance, and the vibration caused a little dust to fall from the ceiling. The dust hit the paper hanging on the wall and the blueprints stacked on the table, making crackling noises. The light bulbs hanging from the ceiling swayed back and forth with the vibration, tearing the shadows of everything in the room, giving the whole basement a sense of sight of demons dancing wildly.

Khrushchev sat in his seat, holding the teacup in his hand in a daze. His place was only less than 20 kilometers away from the front line. Every morning, he could hear the rumble of German artillery attacking here, which was even more impressive. Desperately, the sound of the cannon was getting closer.

The fortress defense system of the Crimean Peninsula, the Soviet Union, or the former Tsarist Russia, has been operating continuously for almost 30 years. The fortress system here is continuous, and tunnels and bunkers are as common as drainage ditches.

In the area with Sevastopol and Kerch as the core, several upper and lower floors were built, and the reinforced concrete fortifications were strong and permanent. There are forts and trenches all over the mountain, as well as endless barbed wire and minefields. Some of these defense systems are very old, born before the First World War, and some are very new, built hastily after Khrushchev and Voroshilov retreated to the Crimea.

Now, like coffins, these positions have become the final destination of the Soviet Red Army in the Crimea. They fought here, they died here, and they were buried here by heavy snow.

The good news is that it is also snowing in the Crimea now. Although it is not big, it has affected the ubiquitous Luftwaffe. The sunny weather a few days ago caused the Soviet Red Army to lose a large number of outer defensive positions along the way. Now the Crimean Almost half of the total fell into the hands of Manstein, which is inseparable from the extremely accurate and extremely terrifying scale bombing of the Luftwaffe.

Now there is light snow in the sky, and the cold air from the north is coming down south, so that here also begins to enjoy a moment of tranquility brought by the bad weather. The powerful air support of the German army cannot be used, so they have to fight with the Soviet Union similar to World War I. plane war.

Holding on to his helmet, a German soldier jumped into a well-built trench. It used to be the position of the Soviet defenders, but now it has become a base for German soldiers to escape the wind and cold. At the far end of the trench, on a concealed machine gun position, a German sergeant was observing the Soviet Red Army position not far away with a telescope.

"Company commander, there is a very large minefield in front of us. If engineers attack by force, the losses will be very large." The scout introduced the defense layout of the other party to the company commander and several platoon leaders waiting in the trench. It is the key defensive position of the Soviets, and the defense is very strict.

The scout pointed to the enemy bunker not far away, and continued to introduce: "There are intersecting machine gun positions, and there are anti-tank mines and infantry anti-personnel mines covering the front and two wings. It is not easy to handle."

"It says,

The reinforcements will arrive soon. I don't know what kind of troops they will send. If it's just infantry, I want to apply to cancel this attack. We need at least the cover of tanks before we dare to try to launch an attack. "The company commander looked at the simple map drawn by the scout on the straw paper, and said helplessly.

After a while, their reinforcements rushed over. It was a platoon of German soldiers protecting a squad of engineers. The weapons of these people were nothing special, except for a flamethrower responsible for attacking. But following these soldiers, there is also a strange tracked combat vehicle, the turret has been removed, and a strange device is installed on it.

"Lieutenant! We were ordered to come to support your attack. Can you tell me about the tactics? The people I brought are all elites who have fought trench warfare and can complete various tasks."

"We are fully capable of frontal attack. The problem now is their anti-tank mines and infantry anti-personnel mines." The lieutenant commander pointed to the Soviet defense line on the opposite side, and briefly introduced the situation: "The most common cross-fire , there are very few heavy weapons, and apart from the troublesome landmines, other things are relatively simple.”

The platoon leader who brought the people turned his head, glanced at the strange chariot hidden behind a parapet about a hundred meters away, and then said: "I heard that the matter of landmines can be handed over to this everyone." Guys, the rest is up to us."

Soon, the weird tank began to adjust its angle under the bewildered eyes of the lieutenant. This equipment similar to an engineering tank modified from the No. 3 tank chassis looked like an armored crane.

There is a huge winch on the rear of the whole vehicle, with a special belt like a water pipe coiled on it. The engineers on it are using artillery mirrors and level measuring instruments to repeatedly check the surrounding surface information. They were busy, making the surrounding German soldiers dizzy. These veterans who had been on the battlefield for more than a year, and the recruits who had only been on the battlefield for more than ten days, didn't know what these engineers were busy with.

"What are they busy with? This way they can clear mines? This also makes such a dangerous thing as mine clearance too childish." A German soldier asked the company commander standing next to him, the last battle, A full 10 soldiers were killed in this company, half of whom were shot and died during mine clearance.

The company commander couldn't imagine what kind of tricks these engineers were playing. He could only watch the weird chariot getting ready little by little. Anyway, the attack didn't start, and everyone usually gathered together and waited very bored. New orders, now there is a magical object to visit, it is much better than repeating the monotonous life. So the company commander looked there with great interest, and seemed to be very interested in this weird chariot.

The engineers stretched out the coiled straps, piled them loosely by their feet, and tried to stay away from the surrounding things as much as possible. After making sure that these weird straps could be stretched quickly, they connected one end of the straps to the cannon on the weird chariot. The reason why this chariot is weird is because there are only two such barrels on this chariot, but there is no armored turret to protect these two barrels.

"Okay! Gentlemen! Get ready to attack! But before that, you have to protect your ears." The engineering captain standing in the trench in the distance reminded the surrounding infantry with a smirk: "This thing It's a bit noisy, but it's very useful."

He had just finished speaking, and with an order to fire, the gun barrel connected to the belt spewed out a burst of flames, and a rocket flew out of the gun barrel, flying towards the Soviet position at high speed. And as the rocket was dragged forward, the strange belt also flew out.

The belt coiled on the ground decreased rapidly, and it took less than a second for the belt to form a curved line in the air, connecting between the positions of the Suderian Army, with the end more than ten meters in front of the German positions. place, the top flew over the Soviet trenches and landed on the other side.

"My God!" The German company commander finally understood what these engineers were doing. They used rockets to spread the detonators on the opponent's position in one go. This is really a terrible way of demining. When he didn't react, all the demining work here had been completed—what's more, the passage opened up was like a trench, which was convenient and safe, and there were simple protections on both sides.

Sure enough, before everyone came back to their senses, earth-shattering explosions began one after another. The explosion continued from the Germans to the Soviets in one breath. The huge destructive force lifted up the soil and brought gravel Something else flew up into the sky, leaving a series of large pits on the ground.

"Attack!" Holding his helmet with his hands, the first reaction of the German company commander who was shaken by the explosion was to get up from the ground and order his soldiers loudly to attack. Some veterans have jumped out of the trenches, and more soldiers are rushing to the passage.

The Soviets were obviously stunned by this terrible explosion. Their firepower did not start slowly until long after the German army launched the attack, but the crossfire from the two wings could not hurt the German army in the trench at all, and the rapid attack The vanguard of German soldiers has entered the trenches of the Soviets, and the entire battlefield has become chaotic.

The gunfire gradually became denser, and the German soldiers fought brutally with the dizzy Soviet soldiers in the trenches. But after the German army captured a trailing Soviet Red Army machine gun position at the cost of killing 4 soldiers, the fight became a one-sided massacre. The Soviet soldiers abandoned their positions and began to retreat, while the Germans chased them all the way until they occupied all the positions and killed the last Soviet who refused to surrender.

A national flag was slowly erected on the Soviet position, and as another series of explosions came, the latest German rocket demining vehicle fired a double salvo this time, and immediately cleared more minefields. Arriving German tanks and other equipment began to cross the minefield, and Manstein captured another Soviet military stronghold.

After receiving the battle report sent by his subordinates, General Manstein signed his name expressionlessly. Then he handed the entire report to his adjutant, and ordered softly: "Send this victory report to Berlin and attach my name. Just say that this is a gift from the entire m group army to the head of state, regardless of any At that time, the m group army was on the side of the head of state!"

"Sign my name too." Behind Manstein, Brauchitsch's son said, "All imperial* people should forget their own self-interest and fight for the head of state!"