Chapter 711: Raid

At 4:35 in the morning, the first ray of sunlight shined through the clouds onto the Volga River.

Captain Popokarev got up and took a shower as usual. He planned to drink a bowl of millet porridge before going to inspect his troops.

Captain Popokarev was the battalion commander of the third battalion of the 109th Regiment in the Soviet fortification area. They built cement fortifications on the Beanglev Sandbank before the Battle of Stalingrad.

This should be said to be a coincidence, because the fortifications they built were not aimed at Stalingrad... No one expected that there would be such a cruel and protracted battle in Stalingrad.

The 109th Regiment will build fortifications on the sandbar, originally to consolidate the Volga River, which is the defense line of the Southeast Front. For it was obvious that fortifying and deploying artillery on the sandbar in the middle of the river would serve as an outpost and provide cover for the South-Eastern Front.

Unexpectedly in the end, the fortifications on the sandbank and the air defense troops deployed there became the main force of the Southeast Front to reinforce Stalingrad... Even during the day, the Soviet army could forcibly cross the river under the cover of the sandbank's anti-aircraft firepower. Of course, this still comes with certain risks.

Popokarev was very confident about his fortifications on the sandbar, because there were bunkers every two hundred meters on the outside of the sandbar, with an underground passage built in the middle as a link, and at the same time connected to the trenches between them, with deployment behind them An artillery battalion and an anti-aircraft artillery battalion were established, and there was sufficient ammunition.

Popokarev had reason to believe that any German army that wanted to attack the sandbar would be blasted to pieces by the machine guns of these fortifications and the artillery on the sandbar or sink into the Volga River to feed the fish.

Therefore, Popokarev could still maintain his own work and rest habits even when Stalingrad was in danger... Go to bed early and get up early, and sometimes he would even go for a morning jog by the river, even if there were people around him from time to time. One or two shells were fired.

After brushing his teeth, Popokarev set up a mirror fragment on a birch tree next to him, and then shaved in front of the mirror.

After only passing it for a while, he faintly saw a few small dots coming out of the smoke behind him in the mirror.

Popokarev did not care at first. His first reaction was that they were planes used by the Germans to implement a blockade of the Volga River.

Most of the targets of these aircraft are transport ships on the river. As for the anti-aircraft firepower on the sandbar...

On the one hand, these firepowers are well hidden and some are even mostly in reinforced concrete fortifications, so it is not easy to blow them up.

On the other hand, it was the Germans who knew that there was little point in blowing up these anti-aircraft equipment... The sandbar was very close to the east coast, and if one was blown up, another one would be transported immediately to replenish it.

Therefore, the sandbank is very safe, so safe that Popokarev can often ignore the fighter planes flying in the sky.

However, Captain Popokarev soon discovered that something was wrong, because the speed of these black spots was much slower than the German fighter planes he usually saw.

Captain Popokarev looked back in confusion, then hurriedly grabbed the telescope and looked into the sky, and saw ten strange planes flying towards the sandbank.

Although Captain Popokarev didn't know what kind of plane they were, his intuition told him that something was wrong, so he hurriedly shouted to the orderly who was helping him get the wash water: "Quick, get everyone up and do it." Ready for battle!"

But it was too late to give the order at this time. Several German fighter planes swooped down like a whirlwind and fired a string of bullets around them. Captain Popokarev pounced in the direction of the rain of bullets, and was stunned. He managed to avoid the fighter jets... Popokarev was a veteran, and he knew which direction to avoid at this time to have a higher chance of survival.

The orderly was not so lucky. A few bullets turned him into a bloody man. He fell to the ground and twitched in pain, with blood spitting out from his mouth.

Popokarev climbed up from the ground. He wanted to get into the bunker to warn others, but suddenly there was the sickening roar of the "Stuka" bomber overhead.

Then with a "boom", a bomb exploded near the bunker. The air wave pushed Popokarev to the side and fell to the ground.

Popokarev was not injured, but his feet were stuck by the downed birch tree, so he could only watch those weird planes flying above his head, and then he was surprised to see the plane sliding on the ground. The next soldier with a gun in his hand...

These soldiers are the commando team led by Qin Chuan.

Qinchuan divided the ten helicopters into five groups of two, one in each direction, and then assigned another group in the middle.

Considering that the defense of the sandbank is strong on all sides and weak in the middle... The outer circle of the sandbank is full of bunker fortifications facing the river, especially towards the west bank, which is towards Stalingrad. There are air defense troops and artillery units scattered in the middle. .

Therefore, the ten helicopters chose to rappel inside the defense circle and attack from the inside out.

This is of course correct, because if you land outside the defense circle, you have to face the defensive front of the Soviet bunker fortifications. If you don't have the effect of a surprise attack, you still have to attack from the front in a orderly manner. If you look at it from the inside, you are facing the rear of the bunker fortifications, which is obviously easier to break through.

In fact, this is not just a matter of easier breakthroughs... The helicopters are responsible for four groups in four directions. Their mission is to quickly occupy these bunker fortifications, otherwise it will be troublesome if they are allowed to react and prepare.

So, these helicopters even hovered directly above the bunker fortifications. The soldiers slid down from the ropes and landed at the entrance of the bunker as soon as they touched the ground. They fired a volley of bullets and then several grenades into the bunker without saying anything. The Soviet soldiers inside died before they even reacted to what was happening.

The two teams led by Qin Chuan and Kuhn were responsible for the occupation of the central part.

The characteristics of the central part are that the enemy has a large number of troops but insufficient firepower... There is an anti-aircraft artillery battalion and a howitzer battalion in the middle, with a total force of about 700 people.

Of course, this is just Qin Chuan and others' speculation based on the artillery and fortifications photographed by the reconnaissance aircraft... Even the Soviet soldiers in Stalingrad did not know the deployment of troops on the sandbar, so it was difficult to get detailed intelligence here.

But in fact, there were more than 1,100 Soviet troops in the central part, which was much higher than Qin Chuan and others' speculation.

But this did not make a big difference, because these soldiers did not even have enough rifles... Most of their rifles were used to urgently reinforce Stalingrad. And most of them were artillerymen who had never fought in infantry battles.

But the Germans were all professional infantrymen armed to the teeth with MP43s.