As Finland refused to agree to the Soviet Union's proposed territorial exchange plan, on November 29, 1939, Debenko and Lin Jun, who were in the Leningrad headquarters, received orders from the Kremlin to "attack". www.biquge.info On that day, thousands of kilometers of northern borders, thousands of kilometers to the north, countless small detachments entered the dense forests of Finland, and Vasily was one of them (don't wonder why some troops move before the general offensive, real wars are like that). ）。

And on the Karelian Isthmus, which was crucial to the overall situation of the war, a full 500,000 front-line troops were on the Soviet side of the border, and behind them were the same number of reserves and logistical structures.

At 8:30 a.m. on the morning of the 30th, at dawn Debenko gave the order to attack on all fronts, and for a time thousands of heavy guns let out a roar of rage, throwing hundreds of tons of red-hot steel at the Mannalien Line, which the Finns were proud of.

On the western side of the isthmus, as soon as the 123rd Mechanized Infantry Division of the Seventh Army crossed the Shestra River, it was blocked by the Finnish fortifications near Terrijoki and Okuraka, and the defenders were unusually strong.

The prolonged shelling had blown up the barbed wire and minefields built by the Finns, but despite this, most of the Finns' super-strong fortifications were still there, and they did not suffer much damage from the covered shelling, and the 123rd Division would face a tough battle.

"Tanks! We need tanks! ”

The commander of the assault battalion, Zhulev, yelled into the microphone that his troops were blocked by a large group of bunkers in a line of seven companies, the Finns were constantly firing heavily at their side with machine guns and cannons hidden in the fortress, and the RPG-7 in the hands of the infantry was powerless against the bunkers on the gentle slope.

Zhulev will not have a hot head, so that the fighters hidden in the mounds and craters will use their flesh and blood to storm the bunker, and there will be a tank formation of their own people nearby, and they will hurriedly call for support.

"Zhulev, a platoon of heavy tanks is right behind you, arrive in 3 minutes, let your infantry make room for tanks!"

The voice of the regimental commander was louder than he was heard through the earpiece: this was one of the most fortified areas of the first line of defense of the Finns, and the division headquarters had already equipped the assault battalion with sufficient supporting firepower. Originally, the KV-1 heavy tank was supposed to take the lead, but due to the undulating terrain and the influence of a large number of large craters, those tough infantry actually ran in front of the tank, leaving behind the stupid guy who weighed 43 and a half tons and had a maximum off-road speed of only 12 kilometers per hour!

Before the regiment commander could reprimand himself for his "excessively fast behavior", Zhulev had already heard the unique roar of the KV-1, "Our tank has arrived!" ”

After saying that, he threw down the microphone and lowered his head to watch the four big guys crush the dirty snow and drive towards him.

Seeing that the signs were wrong, Zhulev raised his voice and shouted: "Get out of the way of the tanks and hide your head!" They're going to fire! ”

After crossing a small hurdle, the four tanks could already see the Finnish bunker five or six hundred meters away, and the direct fire distance was just right, and the tanks all stopped, and if they rushed forward, they were about to press their own infantry. The tank soldiers planned to rely on their heavy armor and sharp guns to shoot accurately, and they were called one by one.

Before the tank platoon commander's seat could speak, the Finn artillery had already greeted him first, and a medium-caliber shell accurately hit the command tank, and shrapnel flew everywhere, which made Zhulev worry for a while.

At the same moment that the KV-1 was hit, three other tanks launched an artillery fire, two of which accurately hit the largest bunker, and one shot missed several meters, sending dirt and snow more than ten meters high.

The command tank seemed to be fine after receiving a 77mm grenade fired directly from the Finns, opened fire two seconds later, and when it saw that the passage ahead was unobstructed, it put up gear and roared forward.

The four KV-1s bombarded the fortifications of 7 bunkers and more than a dozen artillery pieces on both sides, which gave the infantry a taste of the consequences of the rapid assault: the howitzers of the Finns were basically no threat to the KV-1, and the howitzers were not suitable for direct fire, and it was rare to hit one out of ten rounds, but the infantry hidden in the crater complained bitterly.

It was not only the assault battalions who complained, but also the Finns in the bunkers: they found that their improved Type 1887 field guns could not cope with the monster-like tanks of the Soviets, and the two German-made 37-mm anti-tank guns were even more waste!

"Prepare bazookas and explosives, follow behind the tank!" Zhulev gave the order loudly, although few people could hear his shouts in the environment where the guns were full of gunfire.

Fortunately, the previous infantry and tank cooperative training was not in vain, and some fighters had already come out of the hidden places and followed behind the four tanks.

It was not only Zhulev who was "okay", but the tank platoon commander Rudevich also shouted "okay" in his heart! He also had his own troubles: although his "Red Cruiser" was not afraid of the shelling of the Finns, he also found that his 76.2mm tank guns could not deal with the pillboxes in front of him! Seven shells were fired at the largest one in the middle, two armor-piercing shells and five high-explosive shells all hit, but the Finns were still firing!

"What iron turtle?! Sturdier than Lao Tzu's tank! ”

The only option now was to cover the infantry rushing forward and let the infantry deal with the Finns in those bunkers.

The early covered artillery fire and tank shelling were not without effect, originally guarding this pillbox group was a battalion of Finnish troops, but after the covered artillery bombardment, the outer open air and semi-permanent fortifications were basically destroyed, and the Finnish troops in the ground protection were also partially killed and injured by scattered shrapnel, and could not come out under the suppression of tank machine guns and artillery fire, not to mention that the will of the Finnish soldiers still accepted the shock brought by the continuous hitting shells.

If the assault battalion had faced the Finnish fortifications unscathed at the outset, it would have reimbursed most of the entire battalion.

The nearly two-meter-thick reinforced concrete ramparts blocked the KV-1's shells, but could not stop the KV-1's advancing tracks, and the Finns watched as the steel monsters rushed straight at them.

Rudwich's tank was the first to rush to a distance of 50 meters from the central pillbox, the loader stuffed a high-speed armor-piercing shell into the chamber, and the gun commander aimed directly at the cannon port of the central fortress, through which he could even see the Finns reloading.

"Die!" With a muffled roar, the tank shook violently, and saw a white smoke at the mouth of the bunker, which was the effect of a high-speed armor-piercing projectile breaking concrete on the inner diameter: an armor-piercing projectile with an initial velocity of nearly 1,000 meters per second into the bunker caused no worse damage than a high-explosive bomb, and it would not "explode" in advance!

I didn't have time to imagine the situation in the bunker, so I turned the gun muzzle and pointed it at the bunker on the right, and there was a tank fighting bayonet, and after two shots, I re-mounted and rushed to the platform, and the rear was handed over to the infantry.

Once the infantry was allowed to get close to the bunker, the Finnish resistance was over, and the daring bazooka men even fired rockets into the Finns' long machine gun slit at a distance of 30 meters, while the Finnish machine gunners inside were being hit by their own machine guns!

There were also soldiers carrying explosives who approached the rear of the fort and sent the Finns inside to the west with explosives and grenades.

After 10 minutes, the assault battalion completely took the platform, but Zhulev was not happy at all: because of his aggressive command, only 326 of the 576 comrades were still fighting after taking the position, including the lightly wounded. Thirty-five were seriously wounded, and the rest died under the fire of the Finns.

In addition to the "accident" at the beginning, the Finns' super-strong fortress was also the reason, and the ordinary pillboxes could not withstand the shelling of 76.2 mm tank guns.

While Rudevich and Zhulev stormed the Finn fortress, a fort battle broke out in Terijoki, two kilometers to the left.

The Terryjoki Fortress is named after the local town, and it is a bit unworthy of the name to say that it is a fortress, because it is more like a small fortress, and the degree of solidity is not comparable to that of the little guys captured by Rudwich, because it is the central support point of the entire Terrijoki protection zone!

In the early stage of aviation reconnaissance, the Red Army command had already discovered the Terryjoki fortress, and it is clear from the photos that this fortress and the auxiliary fortifications on the side could not be solved by tank guns. In order to deal with this "Mannarin Line" near the strongest fortress on the coast of the Gulf of Finland, the command gave the 123rd Division a special battalion of special heavy artillery units, and the temporary commander was Lieutenant Colonel Sergei Sergeyevich Valenzov, a heavy artillery specialist.

The vanguard was stopped by 1.5 kilometers in front of the fortress, and the fortress, located on a rock wall more than ten meters high, completely controlled the frontal area, and the assault would only increase casualties in vain, and it was estimated that even the 152-mm howitzers for suppression could not do anything to them.

Valentsov and his big guys have been trying to follow the front-line troops: they did not participate in the suppression of the shelling, they were specially prepared for these point targets of reinforced concrete structures.

After observing the situation at the Terryjoki fortress, Valentsov gave the order: "Drag two BR-17s up!"

Two "Voroshinov Warrior" tractors rumbled behind him with two 210-mm cannons, and the men of the two artillery crews immediately began to dig the foundations on the frozen hard ground, and they were ready for shelling within 10 minutes.

The tanks in front were trying to bombard the fort, completely attracting the attention of the Finns, who did not notice that in the woods two kilometers away, four Red Army soldiers as strong as oxen were carrying a clipper with a 133-kilogram concrete destructive shell, shouting and sending the shells into the loading slot.

Valentsov, who had studied the Savastopol fortress, knew that the cannon was more effective than the mortar against such a "faceless" fortress as the Terryjoki fortress, not to mention the distance of less than two kilometers -- a near-direct shot was no worse than a high-trajectory drop projectile.

At the sound of an order, the two BR-17s let out an earth-shattering roar, and three seconds later, a violent explosion occurred at the Terrijoki Fortress, and its concrete outer wall more than two meters thick was blown out of two large holes more than one person high, and it was completely hopeless! (To be continued.) )