Chapter 137: Fighting with the Ship
Seeing that Sun Hui was so vigorous and agile, the officers and men of the Soviet Navy continued to applaud warmly.
Colonel Andlopov, the captain of the "October Revolution", came over surrounded by several officers, saluted the "521" crew, and explained to the five of them with some apologies that it was because of the excessive wind and waves at sea that they did not put the gangway, but used the crossbar rope ladder to board the ship, Sun Hui and the girls did not care, after all, for them, even if they jumped directly from the gunboat to the battleship, it was not a difficult task.
On behalf of the officers and men of the "October Revolution," Captain Andlopov extended a warm welcome to the arrival of the "521" crew and specially arranged for the officers to lead them on a tour.
Shortly after the "521" crew came on board, the bridge received an order from the fleet command on the shore to set off for the "October Revolution" to shell German positions. Seeing that they had caught up with the real battle, Sun Hui and the girls were very excited.
Bridge Commander Tari, Sun Hui watched the Soviet naval officers perform their duties, and the huge battleship began to anchor and slowly sailed forward under the escort of two destroyers and a submarine hunter.
Not long after, Sun Hui saw the battleship "Marat", which was almost identical to the battleship of the "October Revolution", but this giant ship had now become a floating battery at sea and could not be driven.
"What are we going to bombard now?" Sun Hui withdrew his gaze from the floating turret of the "Marat", came to the chart table, and asked a staff officer.
"It's the enemy's artillery position, and the location coordinates have just been sent by the headquarters." The staff officer replied.
The officer told Sun Hui that it was not the first time that the "October Revolution" had carried out such a combat mission.
As early as the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War in 41, the vanguard of the Soviet army defending Leningrad was the first to fight the German army, and a small detachment of this unit carried out infiltration reconnaissance missions found that the Germans had set up a temporary artillery observation point and headquarters in a high-rise building on the outskirts of Leningrad, surrounded by a German anti-aircraft battalion and SS garrison, which could not be easily captured. The Germans, on the other hand, could deliver accurate fire strikes against the Soviets through the observation points inside the building.
With the heavy losses of the Soviet Air Force at that time, it was no longer possible to launch an air strike, and the fastest way was to destroy the building occupied by the enemy by fire from the guns of the battleship "October Revolution" moored in the harbor. At the speed of the German build-up at that time, there would be a second wave of attack in 2 hours, and if the building could not be destroyed in time, all Soviet defensive lines and fire support points would be completely exposed under the enemy's artillery ports.
At the height of the situation, a Soviet scout risked his life to cross the German blockade and deliver the coordinates of the building to the commander of the ship "October Revolution", half an hour before the Germans launched the largest pincer offensive of the encirclement. The battleship "October Revolution" then launched five waves of bombardment against the coordinates, during which a large number of German planes came to bomb and dropped more than 120 bombs on the "October Revolution," but none of them hit. But four of the five bombardments of the October Revolution completely covered the building, and by the time of the third bombardment, it was already in ruins. The "October Revolution" successfully destroyed the observation posts and headquarters of the German army and defended Leningrad. In the brutal battles that followed, the battleship "October Revolution" repeatedly undertook the task of providing fire support to the Soviet troops fighting under the city.
After listening to the officer's account, a bold idea suddenly popped into Sun Hui's mind.
If there had been an accident in his plan to surprise Himmler, and Himmler was located close to the coast, could he have asked the "October Revolution" to give Himmler a lethal shelling?
The power of 12 305mm cannons is much greater than that of 4 tanks' 85mm tank guns!
Sun Hui was thinking about it there when the roar of a motor suddenly came from the sky, and then a group of German bombers appeared. The planes flew in groups towards the coast where the Soviets were located. Suddenly, part of the planes changed the direction of their flight and swooped straight for the "October Revolution".
"Enemy aircraft spotted!" Soviet sailors at the observation post shouted, and then the air raid sirens sounded.
After a while, the German planes were already flying over the "October Revolution," and the "October Revolution" was immediately launched with all its anti-aircraft firepower and began to fire at the German planes.
In order to cope with the constant attacks of the Luftwaffe, the "October Revolution" was equipped with a large amount of anti-aircraft firepower, and at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the "October Revolution" was equipped with 10 76-mm anti-aircraft guns (3 on each of the main turrets 1-4 and 1 twin anti-aircraft guns on each stern side), 12 37-mm anti-aircraft guns (3 on each of the main turrets 2-3, 3 on the front and rear superstructures). In March of this year, three more 37-mm anti-aircraft guns were added to the aft superstructure of the "October Revolution"; In April, the bow of the "October Revolution" was fitted with a twin 76-mm anti-aircraft gun of the same type as the two broadboards, and a "46-K" quadruple 37-mm anti-aircraft gun (similar in performance to the quadruple 40-mm "Bofors" anti-aircraft guns, and with a fully enclosed armored turret) originally intended for the "Soviet" class battleships was also installed behind the 76-mm anti-aircraft guns in the bow, and the "October Revolution" was the only warship of the Soviet Navy to install this type of anti-aircraft gun.
Sun Hui left the command tower, came to the bridge, looked up at the sky, and saw the German "Stuka" dive bombers constantly flying and dropping bombs on the giant ship, but the powerful anti-aircraft fire of the "October Revolution" seriously interfered with the bombs dropped by the German pilots, and the captain of the "October Revolution" Colonel Andlopov had an extremely high level of steering, maneuvering the giant ship to turn to dodge, although the German planes dropped dozens of bombs in the first wave of attacks, but none of the bombs hit, and all fell into the sea.
At this time, Sun Hui saw a "Stuka" dive bomber flying over the bridge of the "October Revolution" with a sharp and piercing hissing sound, and then kept pulling it up, and he couldn't help but be vigilant.
The "Stuka" circled and ascended, and soon came to the sky above the "October Revolution", and then swooped down on the "October Revolution" in an almost vertical position.
The surrounding Soviet anti-aircraft gunners spotted it and desperately fired at it with anti-aircraft guns, but its dive position was extremely tricky, and the rain of bullets fired by the anti-aircraft guns was fierce, but they could not accurately hit it.