Chapter 434: Hardship 3 - Crazy Revenge
On October 7, 1777, Murphy, a sniper on the Kentucky Rifles of the Continental Army of North America, killed General Simon Fraser, a British general who was leading a reconnaissance team, at the Battle of Saratoga. The death of Fraser www.biquge.info directly affected the outcome of the war, leading to the collapse of the British general John Berg's breakout plans, and the Battle of Saratoga became a turning point in the American Revolutionary War. In a sense, Sniper Murphy fired perhaps the heaviest bullet in human history.
During the American Revolutionary War, the snipers established and developed on the initiative of Colonel Patrick Ferguson in the British Army were called the most dangerous units of the British colonial army by the Continental Army. Ferguson himself was a well-known sniper, but it was his famous "missed shot" that made him famous: near Germantown, Pennsylvania, when Ferguson aimed at an American officer from a distance of 125 yards, and because the officer turned away, Ferguson probably did not shoot him in the back because of his gentlemanly demeanor. He could have changed the whole of history, because the man he was targeting was none other than George Washington, who led American independence.
In a way, the measure of a sniper's success is not how many people he shoots, but how much impact he can have on the enemy. Snipers can often thwart the enemy's attack if they can kill the enemy's officers, and of course, snipers can make the opponent's troops feel a lot of fear, which can play an important role in damaging the morale of the enemy army.
In the Northern War, Vasily may have killed a Finnish general, but it is not confirmed, but now the German retaliation convinced him and Ludvik that they must have killed a very high-ranking German officer, definitely a general!
While Vasily and others were hiding in the basement and being shelled, the unusual actions of the German army had already attracted the attention of the Minsk City Defense Command, and Chuikov ordered the west bank of the Svisloch River to report what was happening, and finally the city defense commander had a direct telephone conversation with Colonel Yelin, the commander of the 87th Regiment of the 42nd Infantry Division.
"Comrade commander, according to the observer's report, 5 minutes ago, our snipers from the Pavlov building on the left side of our command launched two sniper attacks on German targets, and now the Germans are carrying out retaliatory shelling, and the entire building and the adjacent area are surrounded by explosions! Not a single retaliatory shelling has yet been carried out on such a scale, and some shells have already fallen on the head of my command! โ
Yelin was reporting in a roaring voice, the quality of the radio call was not clear, and the explosions were as endless as the fireworks of the festival, at least two artillery regiments were bombarding the Pavlov building! The earth was trembling, and the Svisloch River behind the building was covered with huge columns of water, and Ye Lin felt that his ears were almost unable to hear even in the closed bunker!
"Beware of the attack of the German infantry, I will give you artillery support, and you must cooperate with the defenders of the Pavlov Building to defend the building! Do you hear that!? โ
"Yes, resolutely hold the Pavlov building! I would have the operator keep the Germans moving. Ye Lin put down the microphone, picked up the assault rifle beside him, and shouted to several people in the regiment headquarters: "Except for the operator, everyone else will follow me to the battlefield and hold the Pavlov building!" โ
The Pavlov building is now a glorious banner for the whole of Minsk and even the whole army, and Yelin has to defend the Pavlov building even if his regiment is fully reimbursed, which is related to the morale of the whole army, and the colonel has no choice!
Except for one operator, everyone rushed out of the headquarters and into the front line, ready to support the Pavlov building from the flanks - they were only 150 meters from the building!
At the city defense headquarters on the east bank of the river, Chuikov asked the staff officers to turn on the artillery, so that Pozarisky's artillery was ready to directly support the defenders of the building: in the Pavlov building there was Comrade Vasily, one of the top snipers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and Chuikov knew this, and the deputy commander told him about the amazing sniper in the guard. For the Germans to retaliate so frantically, it must be that Vasily's sniper team killed some important target, so that the Germans will lose their minds like this!
In two days and one night, both sides had done their best, and the Germans would never have spent such artillery shells if it were not for a certain level of figure - on the west bank of the Svisloch River in the city, the Red Army had not many footholds, and the Pavlov building was not just a flag, but a nail, and could threaten the Lenin Bridge from the flank, and it had to be defended!
Who exactly did Vasily kill? At 850 meters, the Pavlov Building was the closest Red Army position to the German-controlled six-story building, and with the onslaught of a day and two nights, the sniper operations in this area had long since died down - and all that remained of the building was a frame and a few remnants of the wall: less than 200 meters to its left flank was the ruins of the newly occupied German army, and the northwest flank was also occupied by Germans, but it still stood!
At the beginning of the siege of Minsk, the 9th Army of Army Group Center was the main attacker, but the troops of Army General Adolf Strauss had already been exhausted in the continuous offensive and had already withdrawn from the city to rest. The German troops who came to support from the north and south did not take part in the siege of the city, and it was the headquarters of the Fourth Army of Army Group Center that stormed the city for the past two days.
When Vasily's tiny warhead spun at high speed over 850 meters in the air, one man never had the chance to celebrate his 50th birthday again - the Ninth Army was at its best, but the Red Army's desperate resistance made the offensive ineffective. The order from the "wolf's den" went directly to the headquarters of the army group, and the commander of the army group wanted to see the positions of the Red Army blocking his attack in order to carry out the next round of deployment: why did the stubborn Wehrmacht fight so hard ?!
The bullet entered the left side of the target's back at a speed exceeding the speed of sound, breaking a rib, and the high-speed forward bullet and the broken rib instantly pierced the target's right lung. Vasily did not speak of gentlemanly manners like that pathetic Colonel Patrick Ferguson: the bullet pierced the upper body of the target, Field Marshal Hans Gรผnther von Kluge fell in a pool of blood, his entire right lung was punctured and churned!
When the marshal was hit by a bullet, the Germans in the room went completely crazy, and the adjutant could only watch the blood continue to be coughed up from the marshal's mouth and could not do anything. In just a few moments, Klug became the first marshal of the Third Reich to die in battle, and the first marshal in the history of the world to be killed by a sniper!
When the marshal fell, a German colonel 5 meters away was also hit, and he went to God at about the same time as the marshal - he was even more unlucky than his marshal because he was killed by a German-made bullet, and his marshal died at least under the Russian bullet.
Ludvik's "crow's mouth" really hit the mark: "Is it not a general, is it a marshal?!" โ
Yes, Vasily killed a German field marshal! The distance is 850 meters.
Soon, the German troops near Lenin Square received an order: hit all forces! All power! No matter what the cost, the building that the Russians call the "Pavlov Building" must be captured, and not a single defender of the building must be spared! Have to! Otherwise, wait for a court-martial!
The German commanders at all levels of the 4th Army had received similar strict orders, but they were not so severe, especially when the orders stated: not a single building defender can be spared!
They did not yet know that the commander of their army group had been killed by Red Army snipers, because this was a matter of military concern and had to be kept secret.
The troops quickly gathered and waited for the attack after the dense artillery fire - the Germans on the left flank, who were closest to the Pavlov building, received the same order, leaving a small number of troops to defend the Lenin bridge, and everyone else was to participate in the assault on the building, at any cost!
When Vasily rushed up to the upper floor, the entire interior of the building was covered in smoke and dust, and if it were not for the building's solid frame structure, the fortress of the Brest Fortress would have collapsed (the frame structure was sometimes easier to preserve, because it was a "frame"). ๏ผใ
Pavlov shouted for his comrades to get into the position as soon as possible, and the second round of shelling would come, but Vasily and others could not get into the basement - the German infantry had come up!
On the left flank, which was closest to the German position, Sergeant Sobugaida led seven Red Army soldiers and more than 10 armed citizen comrades to shoot wildly with a Maxim and more than 20 assault rifles and submachine guns, ignoring the bullets and shrapnel flying around.
People are constantly falling, and they don't even have time to bandage the wounded - they are densely packed with German troops, and if they rush up, they will die!
The Germans are crazy! Never before had such a frantic attack, Vasily emptied 4 magazines in just a moment, and Pavlov next to him was already changing the third magazine. The Germans seemed to have lost their textbook offensive steps, and many of them did not even make a move to find cover: one by one, piece by piece, but there were still German troops rushing to this side in the distance!
Countless firing points around Lenin Square were firing at the building, and bullets were hanging around like hailstones, even hell!
The water plant tried its best to provide fire support to the building, but it could not cover the German troops coming up from the southwest side - just when Colonel Yelin saw the German posture clearly, he immediately returned to the headquarters: he could not hold the building by his own strength, and he wanted the headquarters to support!
Aunt Yurina and several elderly women comrades came up with ammunition on their backs, and behind them, a platoon of Red Army infantry who had rapidly reinforced the Pavlov building through the sewers also came out of the basement exit, and everyone immediately went into battle - Yellin had already clearly seen the intentions of the Germans, the Pavlov building was their target, and even if the waterworks were lost, they would have to keep the building, so that the guards platoon could quickly support Pavlov.
Chuikov's original plan for the later stage of the campaign was to "drag" in order to minimize the attrition of the Minsk city defense troops -- a "drag" word and repeated battles for positions with the Germans would have the same effect on the situation in which the "red whirlwind" was about to be launched. Because of this, Chuikov, who controlled the city on the east bank of the Svisloch River, had no plans to regain the lost positions on the west side of the river with his own troops, leaving more seeds for the troops, but this would seem to be unworkable.
Without time to think about who the sniper's bullets had killed, Chuikov's command was fully operational - the artillery group received a new order: to urgently suppress the German buildings around Lenin Square, and an artillery regiment to directly bombard the German bridgehead on the west side of the Lenin Bridge.
The commander of the 87th Infantry Division, Alexander Ilyich Rodimtsev, received a call from Chuikov: "Gather all your active people, recapture the bridgehead on the west side of the Lenin Bridge under artillery cover, support the Pavlov building, at any cost!" โ
In this area, the fastest unit that can be put into battle is the 87th Division, and Chuikov has no time to think about leaving some backbone for the 87th Division - there are only 2,000 infantry, and it is enough to charge once!
Rodimtsev immediately ordered the regiments to prepare urgently, the fierce exchange of fire on the west bank of the river was heard and seen here, and the Pavlov building was experiencing a fierce battle that had never been seen before.
Under the target indication of the forward observation post, the artillery group of the army under the command of Major General Pozarisky fired shells whizzing across the Svisloch River and accurately hitting the German control buildings around Lenin Square, which immediately delayed the German offensive temporarily.
The howitzers bombarded the bridgehead on the west side of the Lenin Bridge, and the officers and men of the 87th Division, under the cover of a small number of tanks and countless machine-gun fire, braved the artillery fire and shouted to rush across the broken Lenin Bridge and engage the Germans in close combat!
Colonel Yellin in the direction of the waterworks had already sent two batches of reinforcements to the Pavlov building, and more than half of the nearly 80-strong troops had lost more than half of them within minutes of arriving at the building. The colonel was ready to abandon the water plant, and ordered all the personnel to get ready, all support the building, blow up the sewers, and defend the building! At this time, the shells temporarily blocked the onslaught of the German army, and a fierce exchange of fire was heard in the direction of the Lenin Bridge in the distance, and Yellin knew that his superiors had finally sent reinforcements.
A small trigger can lead to a change in the tide of battle, and the bullet fired by Vasily is the trigger, but fortunately it does not affect the "red whirlwind" - in the midst of the sudden fierce fighting, the armored train "Marshal Plunyakov" arrived at the freight platform of the Minsk Tractor Plant, and Lin Jun heard a sudden and dense explosion and firefight in the carriage. (To be continued.) )