Chapter 124: Strangling Yelnia (VI)

When all 12 Soviet KV1 heavy tanks were broken down and destroyed on the second German position, the battle situation where the scales of victory trembled violently did not mean the end of the war. A life-and-death struggle that burned bones and flesh had just begun from this moment.

"Ivan and others are coming! Machine gun team, concentrate fire, quick!"

"Red Army soldiers! For the motherland! Attack!"

At a distance close enough to see each other's facial features and expressions, a fierce trench advancement battle was launched. The roars of people and the roars of various weapons that took lives together wrote the most magnificent chapter in the history of modern human warfare.

Under such a close combat distance in the trench, the Mosin-Nagant bolt-action rifles equipped by most Soviet soldiers, after adding a close combat bayonet, were more than 6 meters long.

Although such a rifle comparable to a long gun is nothing in the hands of the tall and strong Soviet soldiers, it is not an exaggeration to describe it as a matchstick.

But the width of the German infantry trench is only enough to accommodate two people walking side by side, which is undoubtedly not enough for the Mosin-Nagant rifle with a bayonet to fully display its fists and feet.

If the Soviet soldiers holding the bayonet Mosin-Nagant encounter the Germans in the trenches and engage in close combat, the habitual horizontal and left-right gun-changing posture will not only make the Soviet soldiers extremely uncomfortable, but also difficult to gain the upper hand.

On the other hand, the German side has the MP38 and MP40 submachine guns that have been mass-produced and officially equipped. There is no doubt that they are the magic weapons for this close-range trench battle.

After the buttstock is retracted, the short gun body of only half a meter will hardly be affected by the width of the trench and can be used freely. The powerful feature of continuous shooting is to suppress the Soviet army's Mosin-Nagant rifles that fire one bullet at a time, which gives the German army a great advantage.

The predecessor of the PPSh submachine gun, the Popod submachine gun, equipped by the Soviet Red Army in the summer of 1941, was so rare that it was enough to move people to tears. For the current massive Soviet Red Army, it was only better than nothing.

To rely on these weapons that are as scarce as pandas in the hands of the front-line Soviet troops to compete with the MP series submachine guns in the hands of the German army, which are already street goods, such an idea is simply as far away as the Zenith Star.

The Red Army soldiers holding relatively primitive and simple light weapons bravely advanced in the trenches, fighting for every inch of land with the German army's joint forces composed of the SS Imperial Division and the Wehrmacht's Grossdeutschland Infantry Regiment.

Although the Soviet soldiers, who were seriously lacking in automatic firepower for the grassroots units, had a continuous support force advantage and were almost several times more numerous than the German soldiers on the defensive in the trenches, the price they had to pay for each step forward in the trenches was extremely painful and huge in the face of the German automatic firepower.

The Soviet soldiers holding the Mosin-Nagant rifles with bayonets often had not rushed to the effective attack distance enough to raise their guns and stab forward, and the submachine gunners at the front of the German defense team would kill them with short bursts of fire in turns.

The vast majority of the submachine gunners in these German front-line troops were composed of German veterans who had participated in the earlier blitzkrieg against Europe. Their skilled tactical skills and combat experience from surviving the bloodbath were completely enough to suppress these fledgling Soviet soldiers.

The fishing-like tactics of firing in turns to suppress the reloading of ammunition instead of pouring out all the firepower at once, caused the Soviet army to fail several times when they mistakenly thought that the German assault gunners had started to reload and took the opportunity to launch a charge.

Not far behind them was the German troops at the location of the field command of the Great German Infantry Regiment, which had no way to retreat. After losing the first line of defense, if they lost the second line of defense, the result would undoubtedly be failure.

With the influence of the fearless death of the SS lunatics around them, the Great German Infantry Regiment became more desperate and fierce. The Soviet side, unwilling to be outdone, was also unwilling to give up at such a moment of failure.

The Soviet infantry, who constantly attacked the various defense groups in the German trenches with the swarming human wave tactics, finally approached the closest attack distance that was enough to offset the German automatic firepower advantage at the cost of blood all the way. The Soviet infantry group, holding their bayoneted rifles and stepping on the bodies of their fallen comrades while shouting "Ura", immediately collided head-on with the German infantry who were already prepared.

The dazzling cold light of the bayonet intertwined with the bloody engineer shovel blade, and the Luger P08 and Tokarev TT33 pointed at each other and burst into hot flames almost at the same time.

Privates, non-commissioned officers, lieutenants, squad leaders, platoon leaders, company commanders, and even colonels and battalion commanders

All humans fighting on this blood-soaked land are trying to kill more soldiers of the other side in various ways to the best of their ability before they die.

After the SS squad leader used up all the ammunition in his submachine gun, he didn't even have the opportunity and time to change the magazine. He simply grabbed the barrel of the submachine gun, swung the gun body, and roared and rushed towards the nearest Soviet soldier in front of him.

The Soviet private soldier, who had stabbed the Wehrmacht private soldier in front of him with all his strength, had no time to care about the painful expression on the other side's face. The bayonet that was tightly grasped by the Wehrmacht private soldier with both hands could not be pulled out for a while. The Soviet private soldier simply bent down and picked up the German engineer shovel that fell to the ground. With a strong swing, he directly chopped the head of the good man with a painful expression and spurted blood far away.

Commanding the soldiers of their respective guard squads to join this super-position melee, the two major infantry battalion commanders of the Soviet and German sides, who had become lone commanders, soon discovered each other.

Almost at the same time, they raised their Ruger and Tokarev pistols and fired at each other. After the gunshot, the Soviet battalion commander was the first to lean back slowly with an angry and unwilling look on his face. The trigger he pulled with all his strength accurately pierced the center of his forehead under the skull cap badge. The powerful 62mm Tokarev pistol bullet almost blew off half of the head of the second-level assault battalion leader of the Imperial Division who was responsible for leading the rescue.

The flying bullets and broken shrapnel did not care about anyone's rank or family background.

Here, in this hellish battlefield of hand-to-hand combat.

A Wehrmacht officer of Prussian noble origin might not survive as long as an ordinary German private soldier, and a heavily protected Soviet front-line officer might be killed on the spot by a stray bullet that jumped from nowhere.

War is so desperate and fair.