Chapter 602 Pilot
I have something to do tonight, so there is only one chapter, which will be made up tomorrow.
After a few "chi chi" sounds, rockets exploded in front of the bunkers.
These rockets are used for anti-tank, with a range of 1 thick steel plate, and the bunkers in front of the airport are only 150MM thick... The fortifications built by the Soviets near the airport are largely to prevent infantry or provide a little buffer time for the airport.
The reason is very simple. This is an airport. The combat radius of fighter planes is at least several hundred kilometers. Generally, there will not be a situation where the enemy is in front of the airport while the aircraft is still in the airport. Even if there is, it is the enemy's troops infiltrating the rear, such as paratroopers, and the famous German Brandenburg detachment.
Therefore, the positioning of these bunkers is to block the attack of light equipment. Even if the "four" tank drives here, it may be possible to blow down these bunkers with its 75MM caliber artillery.
Of course, there was no need to use the "Panzer IV" tank at this time. After a few rockets were fired, a miserable scream came from the bunker... Being pierced by a high-temperature metal jet was not a pleasant thing. At least the smell of roasted meat around the wound was unbearable.
However, their pain did not last long, because soon several German soldiers rushed up and threw several smoking grenades into the bunker.
"Bang bang" a few times, a muffled sound came from the bunker, like the sound of firecrackers being lit in a closed space. You can feel its vibration but the sound is not very loud, but you can imagine... the sound outside is not very loud, which means that even the sound is suppressed inside and borne by the Soviet soldiers.
The tanks continued to "rumble" forward. After the German soldiers solved another bunker, no Soviet soldiers dared to hide in the bunker and shoot, because they all realized that in front of the German rockets, these bunkers would not only fail to protect them but would become their graves.
This made the First Infantry Regiment rush into the airport as if it were no one's land, and then fired a burst of shots at the backs of the Soviet soldiers who were fleeing in front of them.
Qin Chuan followed the troops into the airport, and the space suddenly opened up. More than 100 meters away, on the upper right, was the fighter runway. There were five runways from left to right, which meant that five fighters could take off at a time. At this time, someone was busy in the lights at the other end of the airport, obviously trying to take off fighters urgently.
"Block the runway!" Qin Chuan shouted.
The soldiers immediately set up machine guns and mortars in front of the runway, and fired at the other end of the runway without thinking, but they were 500 meters apart, and it was difficult to see whether they hit the target at night. Qin Chuan only heard a "rumbling" engine noise, and it was obvious that a fighter took off urgently.
Looking closely, there were indeed two fighters speeding along the runway in the hail of bullets. The German soldiers picked up the MP43 and fired at the two fighters, but only one of them was hit so hard that it emitted black smoke and lost balance and fell beside the runway. The other one was getting faster and faster and was about to take off and escape from everyone's eyes.
In a flash, a 38T tank rotated its turret, and then fired a shell with a "boom". After the loud noise, a bright flame burst out in front of everyone, and the whole plane disintegrated into pieces and fell from the sky piece by piece... This is probably one of the few cases where a tank shot down a plane.
With Slaine's order, three 38T tanks drove onto a gun lane... The tanks themselves can become obstacles to prevent fighters from taking off. Tanks may not be able to deal with fighters on the battlefield, but if they are playing a collision game, tanks will definitely not lose to fighters.
"Surround them!" Colonel Slaine ordered loudly: "Don't let anyone escape from here!"
The German soldiers responded and quickly launched attacks in all directions to block all exits.
Colonel Slaine's order was certainly correct, because Soviet pilots were more valuable than fighter planes... In fact, Soviet fighter planes were not very useful to the German army, especially these low-speed biplanes with backward performance. If pilots were arranged to fly these fighter planes into the air to fight, it would be a waste of German pilots.
However, it turned out that they were not scrap metal, because the German army could hand over these fighter planes to vassal states, such as Latvia and Romania.
But the effect of doing so was still limited. If there was any effect, it was that the Soviet army instantly reduced more than 200 fighter planes, which greatly affected the combat effectiveness of the Soviet Air Force in the Caucasus... The Soviet 4th Air Force Group had only more than 900 fighter planes in total, which caused the Soviet army to lose a quarter of its strength.
The more important role was actually the Soviet pilots in Solione.
As mentioned before, Solione's strategic location was very important, and the fighter planes were damaged very quickly... This resulted in as many as 500 pilots stationed here, in addition to mechanics, airport management personnel, etc., all of which were important strategic resources for the Soviet army.
If a plane is damaged, it can be rebuilt in the factory, but if a pilot who takes several years to train is lost, it will not be restored in a short time.
Therefore, the goal of the First Infantry Regiment was very clear from the beginning, the focus was not on the plane but on the pilot.
It was not difficult to do this because there was a wall around the airport. The German army only needed to occupy each exit and guard the wall, and then everyone inside would be trapped.
The Soviet pilots originally planned to occupy several buildings to resist stubbornly... In the words of Colonel Hryzov, as long as they hold on for half an hour, reinforcements will soon arrive to rescue them.
This should be true. There is also the 86th Infantry Brigade of the Soviet 47th Army to the north of Solyony, with a strength of 9,000 people. They sent reinforcements to the airport as soon as they received the airport's distress telegram, and they will indeed arrive within half an hour.
However...
After the German soldiers fired a few rockets at the building, the Soviet pilots realized that it was almost impossible to hold on in the building for half an hour... Pilots are not infantrymen. Many of them even have only pistols in their hands. At the same time, they may be good at flying planes and diving down to madly strafe and drop bombs on targets, but they are good at ground combat.
Therefore, they soon suffered heavy casualties under the German attack.
The Germans did not want to capture them alive. Living pilots were of no benefit to the Germans because they could not become German pilots. They wanted to prevent these pilots from returning to the Soviet army and flying again. So the mortars, machine guns, etc. were fired at them desperately, making the Soviet pilots scream.
Finally, after resisting for fifteen minutes, the pilots chose to surrender, including Colonel Hryzov.