Eight Hundred and Thirty Eight Warm Up

"Report! It's the artillery support called by the 3rd unit of the Special Forces." An officer walked over from the direction of the radio, holding a filled-in record form in his hand: "They discovered the Soviet Union during their secret infiltration. A battalion of the people directly called for artillery strikes."

"..." Rundstedt felt that he didn't know what to say. For a long time, especially since the First World War, it has become the pursuit of all commanders to eliminate opponents in an organized way. Although the German army often managed to kill a battalion of the opponent's troops when advancing in the field, they had never killed a battalion headquarters so cleanly in street battles.

What's even more exaggerated is that the official offensive has not yet started, and only a force responsible for infiltration has achieved what was possible before with heavy casualties. Lundstedt suddenly felt that his shells were worth hitting, and they were very worthwhile! He turned around, took the form, and saw the detailed statistics on it, including which unit called for the artillery support, what the purpose was, and whether it had achieved results.

"The firepower requirements for the troops are still too great." After reading the form, Rundstedt finally said with some helplessness. This style of play is almost to compress the firepower of a division or even an army to a battalion for support. Of course, no matter what kind of opponent it faces, this battalion can kill an enemy battalion.

Of course, using the heavy firepower of a division to cover a battalion can certainly achieve unexpected results, but when it comes to issues such as the consumption of ammunition, the current Rundstedt is more willing to lose some soldiers-the soldiers of this era Life is much less valuable than in the 21st century, but Germany's steel and weapons production capacity are very precious, and the ammunition produced cannot be wasted on such a large scale.

The street fighting style of the later generations is based on smooth communication, high-precision weapons, and improvements in firepower. If you try to practice it at this stage, it will look gorgeous, but you can only bear the pain in the end. Abandoned combat methods.

However, Lundstedt still has the family background of such a fight in Smolensk, and he urgently needs such a quick assault to end the street fighting in Smolensk, consolidate his defense line and give the troops time to rest. So he felt that at least this time, the ammunition consumption he invested was worth the fare. As for the next time-he was not sure yet.

But I have to admit that the street fighting method proposed by the head of state can indeed reduce the loss of troops, and it has pointed out the direction for street fighting in future wars. Rundstedt's puzzling solution to street fighting was solved by redistribution of firepower to form a fist assault.

Cooperate with a special forces team of 10 people to conduct infiltration and artillery positioning attacks on the enemy's important defense nodes, and then widely deploy snipers to cover the occupied areas and front-line positions, and block the enemy's dispatch in street battles to the greatest extent. And interspersed, it really effectively solves the dilemma that conventional tactics cannot completely sort out the city.

"We don't have time to spend ammunition like that,

Waste your precious time. "Lundstedt glanced at the officers of the special operations forces around him, and said: "Use your people, your method, to cut this city into four pieces, and I will fill in the most elite grenadiers to prevent The enemy fled and interspersed. "

He pointed to the map spread out on the ruins, and drew a cross on the entire city of Smolensk. The two intersecting lines were like two sharp knives, cutting in the center of the entire city: "Then I will Let the recruits start to clean up these areas one by one, as long as they can't run around in the city, I plan to speed up the capture of the entire city at a cost of 5,000 to 10,000 people."

Zhukov was staring at the frontal battlefield, and Lundstedt did not dare to delay too long in a city that had already been encircled. He is afraid that the weak side of the German army's logistics will be seen by the opponent. Once this happens, the problems facing the German army will be very serious.

I'm not afraid of Zhukov's immediate counterattack. After all, the German army still has reserves of fuel and enough ammunition in their hands. I was afraid that Zhukov would hit the entire line of defense with a short assault. After consuming the limited supplies of the German army, he would concentrate his strength to launch an attack, which would be the most deadly. According to the best estimates of Rundstedt and Brauchitsch, after this situation occurs, the German army will at least surrender the entire Belarus to the Soviet Union.

In this case, if the Soviet Union did not choose to go west, but chose to go south, Guderian and Manstein would be quite dangerous. Once the German army in the Caucasus was in a dilemma, the entire German plan to attack the Soviet Union failed completely. The German army will be caught in an endless war of attrition. Even if it wins in the end, it will lose its power and opportunity to contend for world hegemony.

"Forgive my cold blood, Colonel." Rundstedt sighed and said regretfully to the officer in charge of special operations: "I am a marshal, and sometimes I have to make difficult choices. To ensure victory, I It is a pity that tens of thousands of soldiers are pushed to the front line to die. This is war, a helpless war."

The officer nodded and said to the marshal in front of him: "I completely understand your feelings. My troops are formed to reduce casualties, but when there are other elements of time that are higher than casualty control requirements, we don't It is necessary to execute tactics stubbornly."

On the front line, a German infantryman poked his head out from the corner of the wall and looked at the silent street opposite. There were still a few flames burning on the roof, the glass windows were shattered, and the windows were black. It looks like a cannibal mouth.

He retracted his head, and then made a few gestures to the infantry behind him. From his weapon, it could be seen that this unit was not the battalion used by the German army for experimentation, nor was it the main force, but just a group of troops. Infantry used for attrition in urban combat. Most of the weapons in their hands are Mauser rifles, and most of them are not even equipped with white smocks for winter combat.

Some German troops behind were struggling to push up heavy equipment. They pushed something like a cannon, but compared with the German 75mm caliber field gun, this guy was taller and more cumbersome.

Two German soldiers rubbed the wheel vigorously with their hands, and the rest of the soldiers pushed and pulled hard, and finally got the large weapon to the corner, at this time the canvas covering it was pulled open, revealing the true face of the weapon.

This is a mass-produced version of the "Infantry Frederick" customized according to the needs of the front line, which is the factory official production version of the multiple iron fist rocket launcher improved by the original infantry. Its weapon code name is "Marx", but soldiers still like to call this thing "building destroyer". They have been using this name for almost a year, so it is more affectionate and easier to remember.

"Get ready!" As the platoon leader commanding on the front line yelled the slogan, a group of German soldiers suddenly pushed the multiple rocket launcher over the corner and set it up on the spacious street. The bullets from the Soviets on the opposite side generally hit the rocket launcher, making a tinkling sound.

A soldier was shot in the knee, fell to the ground and screamed, and was dragged back to the corner by the straps of his tactical vest by two comrades in arms. With an order, the engineer pressed down the launching device, and the rocket launcher began to eject rockets one after another while shaking violently.

"Be careful! Pay attention to safety!" Following an order, everyone lowered their bodies as much as possible. With the sound of swishing, the ejected rockets swayed slightly with the entire rocket launcher frame, and spread to the front of the building at the end of the street, like a heavy hammer, hitting the wall of the building one after another.

The smoke and dust began to spread, and as the number of holes in the building's walls continued to increase, as the load-bearing structure collapsed to the outside world after the rocket bomb exploded, it began to slowly collapse, and finally collapsed in the white smoke, bringing dozens of Soviet soldiers inside. , falling to the ground and breaking into rubble.

A German soldier rushed out of the corner through the smoke, passed the smoking rocket launch vehicle, and ran to the other side of the street. He raised the assault rifle in his hand to cover another soldier who followed him.

After running across the street, the soldier crawled on the side of the road, quickly set up a machine gun, and pointed the black muzzle in the direction of the enemy. Beside him, the third German deputy shooter who ran over left the ammunition box beside him, and then held up the belt of the machine gun.

Then more German soldiers began to grope towards the end of the street against the wall. They advanced very quickly, bending over to minimize the possibility of being shot. Soon these soldiers completely occupied the street, and the follow-up troops began to enter the corridor to check one by one whether there were Soviet soldiers hiding.

The gunfire gradually became denser from sparse to dense. The German army and the counterattacking Soviet army engaged in fierce firefights separated by several buildings, and the casualties began to increase gradually. It was full of 400 wounded soldiers.

Smolensk, which originally planned to stick to it for a month, was unable to form effective support and mobilization under the fragmented environment caused by the new German style of play, and lost a quarter of the city in just one day. The German army combed the streets in an orderly manner, enduring casualties and forcibly fighting the Soviet army in turn, causing the Soviet defenders to pay a heavy price.

On March 25, 1939, the street fighting in Smolensk continued, but the weather in the Soviet Union had changed from cold to slightly warmer.