Chapter 693 Autumn Artillery Fire

September 5, 0400 hours, on the west bank of the Tiber River, the position of the 16th Infantry Division of Plosen.

Sergeant Andreas used a captured telescope to observe the Anters' position across the river.

"Sergeant!" A young voice came from behind, "I've already oiled the machine gun!"

Andreas turned around and saw the young recruit's face.

The recruit, Maramon, was still a child, a real child.

More than a year ago, Andreas, who had just been added to the army, was not so immature. At that time, he had already been doing national labor for more than half a year, building the Western Wall in the Carolingians. After the labor was over, he carried out six more After months of recruitment training, by the time he entered the army, he was already 21 years old and an adult.

But the new recruit Maramon is only eighteen years old this year, and his face is still childish.

Andreas even suspected that he had lied about his age and was actually just a seventeen-year-old kid.

"Sergeant?" Malamon whispered.

Andreas: "I saw it, it was a good wipe."

Maramon smiled: "Thank you for your appreciation."

Andreas was a little unaccustomed to it. His batch of recruits had all served in the labor camp for more than half a year and trained for half a year. They were already full of swear words and looked like "real soldiers."

"Malamon, don't use honorifics, don't be so polite. On the battlefield, Anters' bullets will not let you go just because you are polite."

"I'm sorry, Sergeant."

Andreas sighed and continued to observe the other side.

Maramon asked worriedly: "This morning, I heard someone say that maybe the Ant people will attack today. Does the sergeant also think that the Ant people will attack today?"

"I don't know. It's the generals' job to judge when the enemy will attack. All we can do is survive as much as possible when the Anters attack."

"What? Survive? Don't you want to destroy the attacking Ants?"

Andreas silently put down the telescope, took out a cigarette and held it in his mouth.

Maramon immediately took out a match, struck it and lit it for Andreas.

Andreas took a big breath, and then exhaled slowly. The smoke blew out of his nose like a small train.

"You were in the boot camp and this is what they taught you?"

Maramon: "Yes, the people from the Propaganda Department said that Ant is bleeding out his last blood. They are sending women and children to the battlefield, and we will win soon."

Andreas took another drag on his cigarette: "So on the way here, you didn't encounter any air raids or see any dead people?"

Maramon's expression dimmed: "Of course, when we got off the train at Bogdanovka, we saw the logistics force cleaning up the wreckage left by the Ant Air Force bombing, and many bodies were lined up next to the railway tracks.

"The second lieutenant of the supplementary battalion said that this situation is a special case."

Andreas: "How many times have the Anters shelled you in the past few days since you arrived at the front line?"

Maramon: "Shouldering every day."

"Then what makes you think they don't bomb the station every day?"

Maramon: "Do they...have so many shells and bombs?"

"Yes, even if Ant can't produce it himself, the United States will deliver it to them. If you don't believe it, look carefully at the shell fragments. Some of them are written in the Onsa language of the United States."

As he spoke, Andreas blew out the cigarette that had left only the butt on the ground, stamped it out with his foot, and then looked at his watch.

"It's bad, the Ant people didn't start the bombardment on time today."

Maramon: "What does this mean? Doesn't the enemy have enough shells?"

"No, this means that the enemy has to coordinate the artillery of the entire front army and wait for the leader of the front army to give the order to fire." Andreas grabbed Maramon's shoulder, "Quickly go, enter the anti-gun hole!"

While the two men were running wildly in the traffic trench, they met many veterans who were also running towards the bombhole.

Sergeant Kosrek was among them, with two new recruits.

As soon as Andreas saluted Sergeant Koslyk, there was a roar in the air.

Andreas fell directly to the ground and pushed the overwhelmed Maramon to the ground.

Almost at the same moment, the ground began to shake.

Mud kept falling on Andreas' head and poured into his clothes along his collar.

This time the bombardment was more violent than the previous bombardment. Even though Andreas had adopted a defensive posture and opened his mouth, his head was still buzzing due to overpressure, and his ears were ringing like crazy. Not even the explosion of the shells could be heard.

I heard that Marshal Rokossov of Ant issued an order to flatten the entire position by one meter. Judging from Andreas' experience, one meter may not be achieved, but flattening the ground by 30 centimeters is definitely possible.

Therefore, the experienced Ploson troops now dig trenches about 30 centimeters deeper than what is stipulated in the operating regulations.

Suddenly, someone tapped Andreas on the shoulder.

He raised his head and saw the company commander shouting something to him.

"What?" he shouted back.

The company commander pointed in the direction of the river bank.

Andreas guessed that Ant must have been crossing the river during the shelling, but he had no desire to stand up or go to the gun emplacement.

The company commander was still working hard, but a heavy artillery round landed next to the trench, and the shrapnel directly cut off his head from the chin up.

Andreas saw the captain's tongue still attached to his chin, swinging in the air, and blood spurting out from somewhere behind the tongue like a fountain.

The company commander's limp body fell like this.

"Fuck!" Andreas cursed and continued to lie on the ground without moving.

If you get killed, you won't be able to defend your position. The company commander who just graduated from the military academy probably doesn’t understand this!

The bombing continued, and Andreas lost all sense of time. He wanted to look at his watch but found that there was a layer of dirt on the dial.

The walls of the trench continued to collapse, and the mud threatened to bury Andreas.

I don’t know how long it took, but the surroundings finally became quiet.

Andreas got up driven by instinct and looked for his secondary shooter first.

Maramon seemed to be still breathing, so Andreas pulled him up and ran towards the fighting position.

After running for two steps, he remembered to pay attention to the situation of his old friend, Sergeant Kosrek, and looked back, just in time to see the sergeant dragging one of the two recruits up.

The recruit's ears were bleeding. It was obvious that his anti-cannon posture was not standard and he was shocked.

Kosrek slapped him and turned to grab another recruit.

Andreas no longer looked at the sergeant, believing that he could take care of everything. After all, my previous escape was all due to the sergeant.

He pulled Maramon and rushed into the bunker, grabbing the overturned tripod: "Come and help me, set up the machine gun!"

Maramon didn't respond, looking in the direction of the Tiber River in a daze.

Andreas also looked at the Tiber River and saw densely packed sampans crossing the river, like migrating cattle.

There was a roar in the air, but this time it was from the division's artillery. The shells raised water columns in the middle of the Tiber River, but did not hit any sampans.

More shells fell into the river.

The 16th Infantry Division, as the second wave of infantry divisions, has 36 heavy artillery, and there should be 150mm infantry artillery in the infantry regiment.

But the density of the shells falling in the Tiber River is not very high now. It seems that only a dozen cannons are firing.

Some of them are small-caliber mortars.

The first batch of Ant boats had already docked, and the caped Guards infantry jumped off the boats, spontaneously formed a skirmish line, and walked towards the Sixteenth Division's position.

Andreas grabbed the confused Maramon, imitated Sergeant Kosrek, and slapped him several times.

Maramon covered her face and woke up, looking at the sergeant in surprise.

Andreas: "We have to straighten the machine gun and fire!"

"Oh, yes! Sergeant!"

Only then did the two men turn over the machine gun. The surface of the freshly oiled machine gun was covered with sand.

Maramon opened the ammunition box and inserted the cartridge belt into the gun.

Andreas tightened the pressure plate, adjusted the tripod's wheel, and then started shooting.

The bullets knocked down several Ante soldiers, and the other soldiers immediately fell down, but the enemies who were not targeted by Andreas ran and showed no intention of lying down.

Andreas turned his gun towards the warriors and fell down as soon as he knocked down one of the others.

But elsewhere the Anters stood up again.

Damn the Ant Guards, the intimidating power of machine guns seemed to be non-existent in front of them.

While Andreas was complaining like this, the suppressive firepower of the Anters came, and the bullets hit the sandbags that were blown to pieces, and some bullets hit the tripod.

Andreas had to get down.

Damn the Ant Guards!

At this time, another Prossen machine gun rang out, and the Ant's supporting firepower immediately misfired.

Andreas had no proof, but he thought it was Staff Sergeant Kosrek.

He immediately got up and continued shooting.

At this time, the battalion headquarters finally reacted and realized that it was too wasteful to use mortars to blast the water. Mortar shells continued to fall on the beach.

Andreas saw the Ant Guards being blown into the sky, their cloaks spread out like spinning windmills.

He felt certain in his heart that after today's battle, the river beach would be full of Ant corpses.

He continued shooting until the barrel turned red.

"Change the barrel!" Andreas shouted.

"Yes!" Maramon stood up and put on his gloves according to the operating instructions——

Andreas pushed him away, opened the gun, grabbed the hot barrel with his hand, pulled it out, and threw it on the ground.

"Think about how I got the scars on my palms!" He cursed, skillfully installing the new barrel in place.

After completing the replacement, Andreas opened fire on the Ant who had rushed to fifty meters.

One of the Ants threw a grenade, which landed outside the sandbag of the bunker.

Sand thrown up by the explosion obscured the view.

But Andreas didn't stop shooting.

Anyway, the scale of the machine gun is set. Even if you push the machine gun back and forth with your eyes closed, you can still shoot at the enemy and stop the enemy from advancing.

After finishing the first cartridge, Andreas removed the machine gun and kicked Maramon in the butt: "Quickly move! Change positions!"

As soon as they ran out of the bunker, a grenade fell into the bunker.

Sand and dirt kicked up by the explosion caught up with Andreas from behind.

He didn't care much, and pulled Maramon running wildly, shouting as he ran: "Stop the Ant people, cover us to change positions!"

"Understood, Sergeant!" Someone replied, but Andreas didn't look.