Chapter 55

Kroshkov was particularly happy to see us safely back in position. In particular, when he saw that many of the people who participated in the night attack had returned, he was even more excited to call the division headquarters immediately to report the results of the night attack tonight.

I disbanded the soldiers and went back to the shelter. Seeing me open the curtain and enter the room, kroshkov put his hand over the microphone and said, "Comrade commander, the teacher wants to speak to you." Then he handed over the microphone.

I took the microphone and said calmly, "Hello, Comrade General."

"Hello, comrade o'shanina. Just now, I heard from the first level instructor that you personally took the detachment to attack the German camp. How was the result? "

"The German army is still fighting each other, so we can't count our results for the time being. However, after such a toss, it is estimated that the enemy's attack will be delayed or cancelled after dawn. "

"How about the casualties of the night attack team?"

"There were no casualties." When I said this, I stopped for a moment, reorganized the words in my mind, and then said, "if you can add 300 people to me, I am confident that I will catch the same number of prisoners and give them to you."

"Alas I heard a sigh from Panfilov, and I knew that he was powerless. Even if he sent all his staff officers to the front line to serve as soldiers, he could not change the situation of serious shortage of troops.

After the call with Panfilov, kroshkov asked me, "Comrade commander, what are your plans next?"

"No plan," I sat down on my camp bed and began to take off my camouflage clothes. "Now the most important thing is to sleep. I'll talk about other things after dawn." Then I pulled the curtain beside the bed.

The gunfire in the German camp lasted most of the night, and then gradually subsided.

As I expected, it was almost noon, and the German front had not launched a new attack on our position. In his spare time, kroshkov called the three company commanders to the shelter for a meeting.

The atmosphere of the meeting was very harmonious. Speaking of fighting back the German attack, he held the position; Although the small unit of the night attack did not kill many enemies, it succeeded in letting the enemy fight each other, thus disrupting the enemy's combat deployment. Speaking of this happy thing, we are all very excited.

When it was kroshkov's turn to speak, he coughed and said, "Comrade commander, I have some opinions on you. Can you tell me?"

"Go ahead." I was in a good mood, so I agreed very readily.

"Although the night attack last night has achieved great results, I think if we attack on the whole line, even if we can't eliminate all the enemies, we can drive them far away from our position."

"Ah?" Listening to what he said, I couldn't help but be stunned. My heart said, it's not that you don't know the current situation. The troops with less than 200 people are reluctant to defend their positions, let alone attack.

Seeing that I didn't refute him, he continued: "also, the tactics of sneak attack are used by guerrillas. As a regular army, we should fight face to face with the enemy in positional warfare

"Have you ever thought that if we attacked all the lines last night, then the sneak attack might turn into a strong attack. Do you think it is possible for us to win when our troops and weaponry are not dominant? If the attack is thwarted and the German army takes the opportunity to fight back, do you think our disabled soldiers will be able to hold the position

"Comrade commander, this is a defeatist argument." As for my series of rhetorical questions, kroshkov could not accept them. He refuted me and said, "our Red Army is invincible. As long as there is still one person alive, the enemy will not want to move forward."

"Invincible!" When I heard this word, I had no choice but to smile bitterly. The number of prisoners of the Western Front Army and the reserve front army in the encircled viagima area has reached more than 600000. I really don't know how to draw the conclusion that the army is invincible.

Seeing that I didn't speak, he continued: "and in the battle of yesterday's day, you ordered the soldiers to only fight the German infantry, and let the tanks break through our line. You know, you are taking risks. If the soldiers didn't show their bravery and destroy these tanks in time, the consequences would be unimaginable. "

"Enough." "Every single word or phrase, I interrupted him with a patient's voice," I am the highest commander of the battalion, and has the final say in the military aspect. If I lose my position, I will take all the responsibility. "

"If you lose your position, all the flanks of the group army will be exposed to the enemy. If the troops are surrounded, can you bear the responsibility?"

Seeing that our two quarrels turned red in the face, several company commanders next to us were both eager to talk and stopped talking, but they didn't dare to persuade us. Finally, there was a sudden sound of shells landing and exploding outside, which interrupted our quarrel.

"The enemy has begun to attack!" Next to a company commander reminded.

"You all go back to your respective units and get ready to fight." I tried to command the three company commanders in a smooth tone.

"Yes." They stood up, agreed neatly, and then turned away from the shelter.

I came back to my senses at this time. I spoke well in the meeting. How could I suddenly quarrel with kroshkov? But now I can't care so much. The first thing to consider is how to beat the German army back first. So I rushed out of the shelter with my submachine gun and ran into the trench. The German attack was led by tanks and followed by infantry. However, after a toss at night, the German army could not put in many infantry. I counted them, and they were not more than 100. German tanks stopped more than 50 meters in front of our position, then fired at our position in a line, covering the infantry to charge us. The heavy machine gun, which was less than 20 meters away from me, roared and immediately knocked down the German devils who rushed in front of me. In less than a minute, the machine gun position was directly hit by German tank guns, the main and auxiliary machine gun hands fell into a pool of blood, and the heavy machine guns were blown to pieces. A soldier put up a long anti tank gun beside me, just fired a gun, then threw the gun and put his hands around his head. I saw the fresh blood gushing out of his head as soon as he lifted his cotton cap. He gave me one last look with helpless eyes, then fell back into the trench. Maybe I've seen too many deaths now. I'm numb to them. When I saw this soldier die in front of me, my mood didn't fluctuate too much. Very calmly, I shot out all the bullets in my magazines at the infantry who came, hung the submachine gun around my neck, then rushed to grab the anti tank gun, put it back up, and pulled the trigger at a tank. I could clearly hear the sound of armor piercing shells hitting the turret, but the tank seemed unaffected at all and continued to fire at our position as if nothing had happened. I threw the antitank gun, bent over and trotted all the way into the shelter. Grabbing the phone on the table and trying to get through to the artillery company, I yelled, "gonchazin, target German tanks, fire quickly." The tanks standing in line in front of the position are much easier to fight than when they are moving. They are just good targets for shooting. As soon as the nine anti-aircraft guns of the artillery company opened fire, they almost fired without fail. Most of the shells hit the tank accurately. After losing seven or eight tanks in a row, the German army began to retreat. Although the German attack was defeated, we also paid a great price. In the battle just now, more than 40 soldiers were killed or wounded, and the number of soldiers on the battlefield dropped sharply to 150. The German attack was held back until dark, and there was no second attack. I thought I would spend the night in peace, but in the middle of the night, there was a fierce gunfire outside, which woke me up from my sleep. I pulled back the curtain and asked kroshkov, who was sleeping outside, "Comrade instructor I, what happened and where was the exchange of fire?" He picked up the phone on the desk, shook the handle, and asked, "what's the noise of guns outside?" After putting down the phone, he said to me with a serious look: "the sentinel reported that our right-wing position had been attacked by the enemy and was exchanging fire." I can't help but sigh to myself that the German commander opposite is really not simple. He learned the tactics of night attack so quickly.