Chapter 667: Hell Hill (Part 3)

In order to cope with the battle that may come at any time, Malashenko, together with Political Commissar Petrov and his deputy Lavrinenko, prepared several sets of combat plans for different tactics such as counterattack and defense, and adjusted them according to the actual situation of Mamayev Kurgan.

But now it seems that all these combat plans prepared in advance have become useless. The offensive force that the German army invested in Mamayev Kurgan to make the final decision is even more fierce than Malashenko expected.

Originally, it was planned to launch a counterattack against the German army before the possible attack to disrupt the opponent's offensive deployment. The combat plan prepared by Chuikov was also completely disrupted because the German army did not play cards in advance according to the routine. He had to try to get through this level with difficulty under the unprecedented fierce offensive firepower of the German army.

In fact, whether it was Malashenko or Chuikov, almost everyone underestimated the powerful effect and side effects of Hitler's injection of stimulants on Paulus.

Paulus was now desperately throwing all his strength into a frenzied attack, and Mamayev Kurgan, an important high ground that could cut Stalingrad in half, was the top priority in his plan.

After a full hour of artillery preparations for Mamayev Kurgan, the 51st Army of the Sixth Army, which concentrated all its forces to attack Mamayev Kurgan, finally launched a real attack.

After a fierce bombardment, the German army, which was so angry that it even skipped the tentative attack of fire reconnaissance, and more than 60 tanks directly opened the charge formation and swept the armored grenadiers to Mamayev Kurgan.

The earth-shaking artillery bombardment directly collapsed many Soviet anti-artillery holes and hidden bunkers on the front-line positions, and the Red Army soldiers who hid in them to avoid the German artillery bombardment were directly buried alive and suffocated to death.

But more Red Army soldiers staggered out of the anti-artillery holes and bunkers that were not destroyed by the German artillery fire. The soldiers, whose bodies were so shaky that they could not even hold their weapons steadily, were still struggling to move forward. The moment they jumped into the trench, they immediately picked up their weapons and aimed them at the enemy troops that were about to attack them.

"Quick! Dig it quickly, dig it out quickly! The German tanks are coming!"

In front of a huge crater that was previously a well-built anti-tank gun position but was now just buried in the soil, a second lieutenant was directing the soldiers around him to try their best to dig something out of the soil with their hands.

The concerted efforts of the people were finally not in vain. A ZIS-3 76mm anti-tank gun that was buried by a large piece of loose soil raised by the artillery fire gradually revealed its true appearance.

The Red Army soldiers present were immediately ecstatic after seeing their gains. This anti-tank gun was the last one left in their entire company. The rest of the equipment was destroyed or abandoned by the Germans in the final suburban defense battle. Without this only anti-tank gun, they could not deal with the German steel behemoths that were coming towards them.

"Well done, comrades! Now push it out and destroy those German tanks!"

More than a dozen Red Army soldiers used all their strength to pull the anti-tank gun that survived the artillery attack out of the pit by hand.

The second lieutenant who was digging the soil with a shovel in his hand found the ammunition box buried by the loose soil almost at the same time. After prying it open with an iron shovel, he directly picked up an armor-piercing shell and turned around to put it into the gun barrel.

"Aim at the German tanks! Fire!"

Boom——

The first sound of the defensive artillery was the initial starting point for the full firepower of the entire position.

More and more Red Army soldiers who survived the bombardment ran out of the anti-artillery caves and began to join the brutal battle to block the German attack.

From the sound of gunfire in twos and threes to the dense and continuous fire, the German tanks at the front quickly felt a lot of pressure and realized that the opponent's strength still existed.

Some German tanks that were originally charging stopped, turned the turrets and aimed the black muzzles at the exposed anti-tank gun positions.

The bottom-up charge was not in a favorable position for the German tanks. The Soviet anti-tank guns with a wide field of view could easily destroy the German tanks. It was imperative for the German army to destroy the anti-tank guns that were threatening as soon as possible.

Many of the troops stationed at the forefront of Mamayev Kurgan were troops that had participated in the counterattack and retreated.

These troops were ill-organized, poorly equipped, and especially lacked technical weapons and heavy weapons. The anti-tank minefields that had been laid in advance to block the German armored forces' charge were almost completely destroyed by the Germans in the fierce artillery preparations just now.

The outermost positions on the hills, which had already weak anti-tank firepower, were quickly crushed by German tanks at a slight cost. The German armored grenadiers who followed closely behind rode on half-track vehicles, suppressing the remaining Soviet infantry with machine guns, while opening the rear hatch and filing out, picking up the automatic firearms in their hands and firing at the nearby opponents.

The Red Army soldiers, who were equipped with a large number of PPSh-41 submachine guns, continued to fight to the death even when their trenches were run over by German tanks. The German armored grenadiers who broke into the positions to clear out the remaining enemy infantry encountered unexpectedly strong resistance. The PPSh-41 submachine guns in the hands of the Soviet infantry were simply death harvesters in the close-range trenches.

Seeing the outermost position being crushed by the German army, Chuikov, who was closely watching the real-time battle situation in the command post, immediately ordered a tank brigade with a total strength of only 19 T34s to be sent up, and ordered to drive the German tanks out of the hill as quickly as possible.

Chuikov put down the telescope and frowned solemnly. Except for the last ace reserve of Malashenko's First Guards Heavy Tank Breakthrough Regiment, Chuikov now had no tanks that he could dispatch to fill the gap.

The fierce battle was obviously tilting in an extremely unfavorable direction for the Soviet army. The battle had just started for more than two hours, and there was a dangerous momentum that the position was about to collapse and be penetrated by the German army in one fell swoop. Chuikov, who thought he had made sufficient preparations, began to frown and think about the worst possible situation.

What Chuikov did not expect was that Malashenko, who was personally ordered by him to wait for orders and wait for an opportunity to attack, took the initiative to come to the army headquarters at the most critical moment of the battle, and the demands he made were somewhat unexpected to him.