The closer you are to your position, the more lethal you will be to the enemy when you fire suddenly.

If you fire at an enemy too far away, the reflexes will lie down and use their crawling stance to approach their position, requiring more precious bullets to take out those lying on the grass.

The German army is now fighting deep into the hinterland of the Soviet Union, and the supply lines are getting longer and longer, coupled with the obstruction of the "Russian-style bad road", the supply efficiency is greatly reduced, and it is necessary to use the ammunition in its hands carefully.

The artillerymen had stopped firing, and all that remained was a contest between the infantry.

Major Piper's firing opened the gates of hell, and the muzzle of the MG42 machine gun from the position spewed fire, and the unique hissing sound of the fire resounded outside the town of Stamnice.

The Soviet infantry who rushed to the front was suddenly knocked down, and the second wave of infantry stepped over the corpses of their comrades, and rushed firmly or numbly towards the German positions, repeating actions such as jumping, lying down and shooting.

The destroyed KV-2 tank on the battlefield used its residual heat to serve as a cover for the attacking Soviet infantry.

On the territory of each KV-2 tank, at least one Dzeggalev light machine gun was firing.

Next to the KV-2 tank, the Maxim heavy machine gun was also relieved of the fate of being dragged and turned its gun to shoot at the Germans.

A dense rain of bullets weaved through the battlefield, and the ruins where Major Piper was hiding were hit by stray bullets, and the walls were smacked with numerous bullet holes.

The artilleryman, as the god of war, immediately joined the battle, and the 76.2 mm anti-tank gun made an eerie "poof-thump" sound.

The anti-tank gun projectile, numbered ZIS-3, flew extremely fast, with a discharging speed ranging from 660 to 680 meters per second. German soldiers usually did not hear the sound of artillery fire. The shells have landed.

To the Soviet infantry who cowered behind the wreckage of the tank. MG-42 machine gun bullets flew head-on, clanged on the tank body, sparks splashed everywhere, and looked imposing, but they could only suppress the Soviet machine gunners and make them dare not show their heads.

The real killer struck, the German mortar turned the muzzle, and 81-mm mortar shells were stuffed into the chamber. Immediately on the battlefield, the whistling of mortar shells "Riri" was heard.

Under the skillful and accurate calculation of the German gunners, the shells drew a graceful parabola in the air, accurately smashed into the Soviet troops hiding behind the wreckage of the KV-2 tank, or directly hit the tank body, and the sharp shrapnel was everywhere, ruthlessly harvesting the lives of the nearby Soviet troops, and almost every shell could knock out a Soviet firepower point.

In this battle between the infantry, it was Major Piper's troops who had the upper hand, after all, they had the fortifications that took the middle of the night to build, albeit rudimentary. But he was able to save his life at a critical moment, and this was the case during the shelling of the Soviet army. The same was true in the confrontation with the Soviet troops.

Major Piper, seeing his men gaining the upper hand in this battle, showed no smile on his face, and he keenly observed a detail on the battlefield.

A road runs through the town of Stennis from west to east, splitting the town in half, and on a machine-gun position on the south side of the town's east junction, the machine gunner is fighting hard, and his head is suddenly struck by an invisible hammer, and he jerks backwards, and a fiery red blood flower bursts out of his face, and he falls limply into the foxhole.

The deputy shooter dragged away the corpse of his comrade, turned into a front shooter, and continued to fire at the Soviet troops, but it didn't take long for the same head to burst out with a ball of blood, and the deputy shooter, who had just completed the transfer, also followed his comrades, so soft that he was in the trenches, leaving only the machine gun that had lost its owner there.

Sniper! A terrible term popped out of Major Piper's mouth.

Recalling the scene when the main and secondary shooters of the machine gun were killed, Major Piper judged the general location of the sniper based on the position of the two soldiers who were shot, and hurriedly summoned a herald beside him to explain a few words to him.

The herald sped away, ran to the side of a tank destroyer No. 4, climbed onto the roof with his hands and feet, and slammed the hatch on the roof with his fist.

The hatch was quickly opened by the commander, and after a few words of explanation from the commander, the herald turned and jumped out of the car and ran back to Colonel Piper.

The No. 4 tank destroyer staggered its tracks, and the body steered due east where the Soviet sniper might be hiding, and the gunner and the commander worked together to quickly find the Soviet sniper hiding on top of a fruit tree with the help of a periscope.

The vehicle-mounted machine gun on the right side of the artillery opened fire quickly, and the sniper fell from the fruit tree on his back.

In the era of widespread use of machine guns, it was impossible to break through enemy positions with infantry charges alone, a truth that had already been proven in the First World War.

Blocked by German infantry artillery and tank destroyer No. 4, the corpses of hundreds of Soviet soldiers lay in front of the positions of Camp Piper, and the green grass was stained red with red blood.

The surviving Soviet troops retreated like a tide, the guns gradually subsided, and the wails of the wounded replaced the sound of firefighting.

Under the command of Major Piper, every minute is racing against time to rescue the wounded.

Either supported or carried on stretchers, the bodies of the wounded and fallen soldiers on the positions were carried to the west of the town and then loaded onto trucks and sent to the rear.

Repelling the first attack of the Soviet army, Major Piper was full of doubts, this attack of the Soviets was too fragile, where were the hundreds of tanks that were promised?

Listening intently to the sound of gunfire coming from all directions, Major Piper had a bold guess in his mind that the enemy's main attack direction was not here, but on both flanks.

Major Piper's guess was very accurate, on the north and south flanks of Dubrovno, on the position on the east side of the pontoon bridge, the main force of the Soviet army divided into two routes, with the city of Dubrovno as the center to make a centripetal assault, intending to break through the German defense line in one fell swoop, meet the division in Dubrovno, and encircle the troops in the central direction where Major Piper was located.

In the eyes of the Soviet commanders, Major Generals Yeremenko and Krivoshin, the fate of the German troops in the central direction where Major Piper was located awaited was to be surrounded by two flanks, and then encircled and annihilated.

The ideal is very plump, the reality is very skinny, and the Soviet troops who are doing centripetal assaults on the north and south sides have each hit the iron plate.

Also after a sea of artillery preparations, the 219th Motorized Rifle Division of the Soviet Army on the South Route launched an attack on the positions of the 9th Armored Division south of Dubrovno.

This motorized rifle division was reinforced by a tank regiment of the friendly 50 tank division.

The Soviet army was led by seventeen or eighteen KV-1 tanks. Seventy or eighty T-34 tanks followed. Infantry in the final offensive formation.

on German positions. The smoke and smoke from the Soviet artillery and the explosion of the shells cleared, revealing the e-40 tank's graceful and fierce body behind the German position.

In the face of the wolf pack of Soviet tanks, the E-40 tanks of the 503rd Heavy Armored Battalion stood like a rock behind the infantry.

The powerful E-40 tank not only gave the infantry strong anti-tank fire and mental support, but also gave strong cover to the weakly armored Type 4G tank of the 33rd Panzer Regiment behind them.

When the distance of the Soviet tank was displayed as about 800 meters on the tank gunner's Zeiss scope, the commanders of the 503 Heavy Battalion heard the battalion commander's shout of fire on the FUG5 on-board radio.

The powerful KWK36 88mm tank gun roared and named the Soviet tanks coming from afar. Soviet tanks returned fire with 76.2mm tank guns.

While Soviet tanks stopped and stopped, repeating the maneuvers of stopping, firing, and starting again and again, the E-40 tanks only adjusted their angles in place to face the enemy with the most reliable frontal armor.

Soon after the battle began, both the T-34 and KV-1 tankers discovered the harsh reality that the 76.2mm guns they were carrying were too weak to penetrate the armor of the E-40s.

In the cabins of Soviet tanks, the indignant shouts of Soviet tankers were heard.

"Missed that damn guy again."

"And it didn't penetrate the enemy's armor, what the hell is this X-type tank made of? Diamond? ”

I don't know when the T-34 tank was unable to stand the slow pace of the KV-1 tank. I couldn't hold back and started to overtake, and I galloped on the grass like a mad dog. Rushing towards the German positions.

Using speed to close the distance, there will always be a distance that can penetrate the armor of the X-tank, and the tankers of the T-34 tank launched the tank version of the "Ulla" charge with simple but firm conviction.

In the tail exhaust pipe of the T-34 tank, black smoke from the V-2 diesel engine dragged on the rear of the vehicle, which looked like the tail of a mad dog.

The collective charge of more than 70 T-34 tanks burst out with the momentum of a steel wolf pack.

The T-34 tank charge caused a lot of trouble for the German tankers, and in this era of naked eye observation and all-manual operation, hitting high-speed moving targets is a very high-tech job.

In the face of a rushing target, the hit rate of the E-40 tank dropped sharply, and in order to increase the hit rate, the gunners had to increase the aiming time, which in turn reduced the rate of fire.

When the Soviets' iron wolves were closing in on the German positions, and the infantry in the foxholes were already wielding their iron fists and tank-killer anti-tank bazookas, the long-dormant Type 4G tank group finally waited for the order to open fire.

More than 90 No. 4G tanks that the 33rd Panzer Regiment could use opened fire one after another, and the momentum of the T-34 tank group was immediately stopped, and the T-34 tanks in the charge instantly decreased by almost one-third.

Only then did the T-34 tank group notice the No. 4 tank group hiding behind, and immediately turned the target to the relatively vulnerable No. 4G tank, and the intensity of the tank battle quickly escalated.

The T-34 tank stopped and quickly rushed to the German position, only to be hit by another unexpected wave.

The infantrymen's iron fists and tank-killer anti-tank rockets dragged a stream of fire at the Soviet tanks that rushed in front of them, and the Soviet tanks returned fire with machine guns.

A T-34 tank fired at the gunfire and rushed towards the German positions as it fired, ignoring the blows of armor-piercing shells and anti-tank rockets.

With two bullet holes, the T-34 frantically ran over a German foxhole and slammed straight into the E-40 tank facing it.

The T-34 tank, which weighed nearly 27 tons, was hit with all its strength at a speed of more than 40 kilometers, and the E-40 tank's 45-ton weight could not be resisted, the huge body trembled and fell back more than two meters away, and the 88-mm tank gun was also twisted and deformed because it hit the turret of the T-34 tank.

The frenzied ramming tactics shocked all the witnesses, and the infantry in the foxhole were even more dumbfounded, staring at the vehicle and the victim at the scene of the accident, temporarily forgetting their duties.

The bravery of a T-34 tank could not recover the disadvantage faced by the Soviet tank cluster, and the 503rd Heavy Armored Battalion and the 33rd Tank Regiment fought side by side, and the E-40 tank and the No. 4G tank worked together to contain the Soviet tank cluster charge, and then took the initiative to attack and pursue it for a short distance to expand the results.

In the pursuit of the 503 heavily armored battalion, the real victims were tanks of the KV-1 type.

Can't beat and can't run, this is the dilemma that the KV-1 tank is in.

The heavy and slow KV-1 tanks were wiped out in pursuit, and the Soviet tankmen jumped out of the tanks and fled frantically, before being hit by machine-gun bullets and lying next to their vehicles.

In the south of Dubronono, a scene similar to the battlefield in the north of the city was staged.

Chen Dao's Governor's Guard sent a heavy armored battalion to cooperate with the infantry of the Guard Flag Corps, and joined hands with two No. 4 tank destroyer companies seconded from the 9th Armored Division, PAK40 anti-tank guns and 88-mm anti-aircraft guns from the division's anti-tank artillery battalion, to form a steel fortress, so that the oncoming Soviet tank cluster would "break the head and bleed".

Columns of black smoke rose from the wreckage of the tank, and from a distance, they looked like curling smoke

On the west bank of the Dnieper, at the headquarters of the Guard Flag Division, Lieutenant General Chen Dao and Lieutenant General Dietrich received telegrams from the front line incessantly, and soon learned the good news that the Soviet attack had been completely repulsed.

Chen Dao turned his head to look out the window, and then looked at his watch.

"The battle had only been going on for more than five hours, and it was still early in the morning. What worries me most now is that this armored unit of the Soviets will be frightened by our strength and turn around and flee to the far rear, leaving a hidden danger for the next stage of combat operations. No, we have to get the Soviets to do it again in order to carry out our plan. ”

Dietrich smiled innocently.

"The Soviets won't run, they know that once they retreat, Orsha will immediately fall into our hands, and even cause the entire defense line of the Nieper River to collapse, and they won't go unless we drive them out." 'Let's hope so, but we still need an attack, an attack on the top of the defence.' Chen Dao said as he stared at the direction of Stennis Town on the map.

"We can't manipulate the Russian mind, we can only wait." Dietrich said

"What? Encountering a large number of powerful Type X tanks on the north and south flanks? Major General Krivoshin exclaimed.

A major with a bandage on his head and a bloody face panted and said with palpitations: "On the northern route of our attack, there are at least twenty X-type tanks, and I have seen with my own eyes Comrade Badanov's tank use ramming tactics to kill one, that kind of tank is so powerful that we can hardly penetrate its frontal armor at almost zero distance." ”

Major General Krivoshin's eyes flashed with a cold light.

"The enemy's X-tanks are scattered on both flanks, except in the middle, and this seems to be our chance." (To be continued.) )