Chapter 127 Seesaw
Dense artillery fire exploded like plows on the slopes of Mamayev Kurgan. This small hilltop, which was not very large but overlooked the entire city of Stalingrad, had become a hell. Billowing smoke and rising dust and gravel enveloped the place. Even at a distance of just a dozen meters, the vision had already begun to become blurred.
In order to prevent the German army from capturing the hill, Yuri arranged a regiment of troops at Mamayev Kurgan. Six trenches were built in a semicircular structure on the periphery of the top of the hill. Unfortunately, although these trenches were dug relatively deep, due to limited preparation time, the defensive effect, especially the effect of defending against German artillery attacks, was not very good.
The German attack had not yet been formally launched, but after only a 30-minute round of bombardment, the Soviet troops stationed on the high ground suffered huge losses. The bodies of some Soviet soldiers were lying in the trenches and even outside the trenches. Of course, the bodies of more Soviet soldiers who were killed in the bombing could not be found, and their bodies turned into broken limbs scattered everywhere.
The surviving soldiers tried their best to curl up and hide themselves in the tunnels. The regiment responsible for guarding Mamayev Kurgan was a Soviet unit with rich combat experience. It can be said that every soldier had experienced brutal battles, and only such soldiers would not lose their will to fight under such fierce artillery fire from the German army.
The German artillery fire that lasted for half an hour finally stopped. A Soviet lieutenant who was almost buried in the soil climbed out of the trench. Without even shaking off the dirt on his body, the lieutenant impatiently set up a telescope and looked down the hillside.
The telescope's field of view was filled with thick smoke and dust, the vision was very unclear, and almost nothing could be seen.
The lieutenant hesitated for a moment, but finally chose to climb out of the trench, moved forward some distance, hid in a bomb crater that had been blown up before, and looked down the hillside again.
This time, the view was much clearer. Through the telescope, one could see German tanks coming out of the rubble-covered and chaotic streets in the ruins of the city at the foot of the mountain, slowly heading towards the hill. Behind the tanks were German infantrymen who were coordinating the attack.
The lieutenant turned over and climbed up from the single pit, moving quickly towards the rear trench. At the same time, he put the whistle hanging on his chest into his mouth and blew it hard.
In an instant, shrill whistles sounded throughout the entire position, and the Soviet soldiers hiding in the tunnels appeared one after another, setting up previously hidden weapons such as heavy machine guns and anti-tank rifles in front of the trenches.
The lieutenant who returned to the trench immediately ordered the signalmen to contact the rear command. They needed artillery support from across the Volga River.
After the fighting broke out in the urban area, no matter how intense the war was, the 62nd Army Command did not transfer the artillery units to the urban area, but always arranged them in the right bank of the Volga River.
The artillery cluster was hidden in the area on the right bank of the Volga River. On the one hand, it could avoid the bombing of German aircraft and reduce losses. On the other hand, the narrow terrain of the Stalingrad city area determined that even if the artillery unit was on the right bank of the Volga River, it could provide all-round artillery support for the battles in the left bank city area.
Take the location of Mamayev Kurgan for example. The artillery cluster on the right bank of the Volga River can easily cover the area north of the high ground with artillery fire and smash the German army's assembling offensive cluster.
After dealing with the Germans for nearly a year, Yuri had a certain understanding of their tactical characteristics. Yes, compared to the Soviet army, the German soldiers were generally of higher quality, they were disciplined, had good technical and tactical skills, and had better weapons and equipment than the Soviet army, but at the same time, these advantages would sometimes become disadvantages. For example, because of their strict discipline and good technical and tactical skills, the German army became more rigid in its offensive tactics. They had a set of standard offensive procedures, and basically every offensive would be implemented according to this procedure: first, there would be bombing by aircraft, artillery preparation, and then there would be tank assaults. The infantry would only formally launch an attack after the tank troops were in place.
In view of this characteristic of German tactics, Yuri also adjusted tactics in all aspects. He ordered the artillery units on the right bank of the Volga River to be in a mobile state ready to move at any time. Once the German aircraft carried out a large-scale bombing of a certain area of the left bank city, the artillery units on standby would move to the rear of the area and quickly build artillery positions. In this way, when the German ground forces were attacking, the artillery units of the 62nd Army on the right bank of the Volga River could often strike at their offensive clusters.
Such tactics played an important role in the battle for Mamayev Kurgan. The German army suffered heavy losses in the process of advancing in the previous offensives. Under the German artillery fire, the Soviet army responsible for defending Mamayev Kurgan suffered heavy losses, while the German army responsible for attacking also suffered heavy losses under the Soviet artillery fire. The tug-of-war between the two sides became an artillery battle, with one side taking the stage and the other taking the stage, but the high ground of Mamayev Kurgan was always controlled by the Soviet army.
Just as the German army once again launched an offensive on Mamayev Kurgan, less than 2 kilometers to the east, in the ruins of a building where the Kolonitzky station was located, Sergeant Shaykin was quietly crawling under a twisted and deformed railway track.
A week ago, this section of rail was quietly laid on the railway bed 30 meters away . German planes completely blew up the entire section of rail. This nearly 7-meter-long section of rail flew into the air and hit the roof of the building, then knocked through two floors and hit the living room on the first floor.
Of course, this building, which was supposed to be the station's office building, has now become almost a pile of rubble. The floor between the first and second floors has completely collapsed, and the eastern corner of the floor is supported on the ground, while the westernmost part is still connected at the joint. As a result, an almost triangular gap appeared between the floor and the western wall. Sergeant Shayikin was lurking at the tail end of this gap.
As a lurker, this position was an excellent one because right in front of Sergeant Shayikin, there was a bowl-sized gap, from which one could see the ruins of the building opposite, where about a platoon of German troops were stationed.
The ruins of the building opposite were marked by the Soviet army as Position No. 25. The German army occupied it the night before. In the following two days, the Soviet army tried several times to retake the building, but failed. Sergeant Shayikin's mission was to harass the German troops occupying the building and kill as many of them as possible.
Sergeant Shayikin's weapon is a rifle equipped with a scope. The scope is not an optical scope, but an ordinary scope, which is very simple. As for Sergeant Shayikin himself, he is not a real sniper. He received only two hours of sniper training, if that can be considered training.
But even so, Sergeant Shayikin still felt very honored, because there were only 30 snipers selected in the first batch from the entire army group, and it was an honor for him to be among them.
Who can be born with a skill? Whether it is planting potatoes or being a sniper, isn't it something that is learned later in life? Sergeant Shayijin is a very good shooter, otherwise he would not have been selected to join the sniper team. Therefore, he believes that what he lacks now is just experience, the experience of being a successful sniper, and he believes that he will succeed.
The gun barrel wrapped with rags slowly poked out from the hole. Sergeant Shayikin first observed the building opposite and searched for the position of the German army. After finding nothing, he put his eyes close to the sight and carefully examined the building through this thing that had a similar function to a telescope.
Like the building where they were hiding, the building opposite was also severely damaged in the German bombing . Perhaps the building had caught fire before, so that the outside of the building, especially the windows, were blackened by thick smoke.
Sergeant Shayikin only searched for half a minute before he made a discovery. He found something unusual about a window on the east side of the building.
That window perhaps could no longer be called a window. It was more like an irregularly shaped hole. And just slightly above the hole, a metal round tube wrapped with thatch protruded from the hole - it was a gun barrel. If nothing unexpected happened, the thing hidden in the window should be a German tank.
"Mole-like fascists!" Sergeant Shayikin cursed in his heart, then he carefully turned his hand over, took out a small notebook from his pocket, and wrote down the location of the tank - his duty was not only to kill the German troops, reconnaissance was also one of his tasks.
The Germans had stationed a tank in that building, apparently to deal with the Soviet attacking squadron, and marking the location of this tank might be useful in tonight's battle.
After marking the position of the tank, Sergeant Shayijin had just put the notebook back into his pocket when he suddenly felt an inexplicable palpitation in his heart, as if some danger was approaching.
Without any hesitation, Sergeant Shayijin pulled back his rifle and crawled away from the carefully selected position. Although this position was good, he did not fire a single shot, but he firmly remembered what the instructor said during the two-hour training, "Trust your intuition, which is very important for every sniper."
After retreating from his hiding place, Sergeant Shayikin quickly left the building, climbed over a broken wall covered with rubble, and like a civet cat, he dived into the second hiding spot that had been prepared earlier.
Less than five minutes later, a dozen German soldiers entered the ruins where he had been hiding before, and Sergeant Shayikin, who had just joined the ranks of snipers and had not yet achieved any results, escaped.
