On a cold winter night when you can't see your fingers, the gale howls in the mountains, sweeping everything with snowflakes the size of goose feathers. Bischofshofen, a small Austrian town in the northern foothills of the Alps, is as peaceful as ever. After the signing of the armistice agreement between the Soviet Union and the Allies, a battalion of Soviet officers and soldiers would be stationed here until the following spring, after which the Soviets would retain only five large military bases in Austria, and the management of internal political security would gradually be handed over to a local government with sufficient capacity to maintain order.

Midnight had passed, the temperature had dropped to its lowest point of the day, and most of the Soviet garrison had fallen asleep except for the sentry posts around the town, and there was no sign that the night was any different from the many previous nights without incident, but at one o'clock in the morning, a large number of armed men seemed to emerge out of the darkness out of thin air, and at the same time and in a precise and ferocious manner attacked Bischofshofen - the attackers silently killed the Soviet sentries with silenced guns or sharp blades, So much so that in several camps on the periphery, most of the Soviet officers and soldiers were killed in the barracks before they could take up arms; When the Soviets stationed in the town heard the warning of the gunfire, the opponent had already occupied a favorable terrain around them, and the MG42 strafed from the high point, the bullets raining down on the Soviet barracks, and the small-caliber mortars and grenades also played an excellent close combat effect in the street fighting environment. From the very beginning of the battle, the Soviet troops who rushed to the battle stood in the leeward of the favorable time, place and people, even though they had rich combat qualities and full courage in the snow. In such a battle that is close to confrontation with death, it is impossible to escape. The sound of gunfire and explosions woke the sleeping Bischofshafen until 3 a.m. The Austrian inhabitants, fearing that they would be affected by the war, waited nervously until dawn, and the victors began to inform them from house to house to carry clothing and rations to the air-raid shelters built during the war. And when they arrived at the air-raid shelter, they were surprised that the dilapidated space had regained an inexplicable sense of security after a simple cleaning. Not only that, but the German-speaking victors also prepared some kerosene stoves and medicines for heating, and told them that it was best to stay here for the last half month, and if they had to go home due to special circumstances, it was best to go there at night when there was no unusual movement outside.

At dawn, Lynn, dressed in heavy warm clothing, stood on a hillside more than 20 kilometers north of Bischofshofen. Bischofshofen in the valley is connected by two main roads, one leading south into the heart of the Alps. The terrain is extremely steep, with one leading north to Salzburg, a city at the foot of the Alps. A large number of Soviet troops, including mechanized troops, were stationed and looked north from Lynn's position with high-powered binoculars. At the end of the line of sight is Salzburg. Before the attack on Bischofshofen, the telephone lines to the outside world had been completely cut off, and the radio communication signal in the mountains was often affected by the terrain and climate, but the hundreds of garrisons suddenly lost their voices, and the Soviet command in Salzburg, the largest cantonment point within a radius of more than 100 kilometers, would quickly react. Sure enough, just after noon that day, a Soviet plane flew over the pass in the snowstorm, and it struggled to find Bischofshofen in the harsh weather conditions, trying to lower the altitude to check the situation. The thumping of cannon rang out and echoed through the valley, and Lynn watched calmly as the plane returned in disarray, bringing with it a challenge to the Soviet troops.

Another long, cold winter night had passed, and the wind and snow that had ravaged the northern foothills of the Alps showed no sign of abating, but the outposts deployed in the direction of Salzburg had early heard that the Soviets had sent reinforcements of 16 tanks, 17 armored vehicles and 59 trucks, with a preliminary estimate of 1,200 combatants. …,

The hooked fish is certainly not fat, but Lynn says you can't be too greedy. The gifts offered by the Soviet army with good intentions must be accepted with a good smile.

A few kilometres south of Salzburg is a narrow pass in the valley. It is also the most common transport route throughout the Alps. In the past, Napoleon's army crossed the Pyrenees (the southwestern extension of the Alps) between France and Spain, and it is a classic because of the difficulties caused by the steep terrain. If it weren't for the Austrians, they had no intention of fighting. The Soviets did not try to occupy many Austrian towns in the mountains, but Italy and Switzerland now used the precipitous mountains as a barrier to the northern border, avoiding the danger of direct contact with the powerful steel torrent of the Soviet army.

The whole journey from Salzburg to Bischofshofen is only sixty or seventy kilometers, and the road renovated and expanded with quasi-modern technology can be opened to traffic in the weather covered by heavy snow, and the Soviets have accumulated some fruitful methods from their past experience in cold zone warfare, they did not concentrate their tanks and armored vehicles in front of the road, but placed most of the tanks and trucks at intervals, and the first few tanks were followed by trucks full of cinders, and when they reached the turn or undulating section, the Soviet soldiers scooped up the cinders and sprinkled them on the road. Combined with the auxiliary towing of the tanks, the wheeled vehicles were able to move forward relatively smoothly - the speed of the entire convoy seemed slow, but in fact it was able to reach speeds of 15-20 km/h, and it was assumed that the morning departure would reach Bischofshafen before dusk.

The weather couldn't slow down the Soviet advance, but Lynn had enough of a headache for the Soviets by having his soldiers sprinkle water into ice on the bend in advance, pry off large chunks of ice from the hillside, or use artificial blasting to create a small avalanche. Although the Soviet tanks were powerful, they could not resist the large blocks of ice that were tightly frozen with the ground and the large amount of snow that fell from the landslide. In this case, Soviet sappers stepped forward and cleared the obstacles by manual work or small demolitions. In order to minimize the delay caused by these obstacles to the convoy, the leading Soviet tanks and engineering vehicles sped away from the large group, and whenever the sappers cleared the obstacles, the tankers used their guns and machine guns to watch for every possible ambush location, and the accompanying infantry would leave the road to conduct a small reconnaissance alert near the hillside. Unbeknownst to them, at the far end of the line of sight above the horizon, Lynn had been staring coldly at them from the hillside where the operational headquarters had been set up. This time, the resisters were no longer planning a bandit-like raid and run tactic, and the fighting forces lying in ambush on both sides of the valley far exceeded the Soviets' expectations. More than 3,800 soldiers of the Imperial ** Brigade and the Free German Regiment have been waiting here for two days, and they have the will to endure, the morale is high, and the weapons are sharp enough, including Empire-made wheeled mountain assault vehicles loaded with 75 mm long-barreled anti-tank guns, vehicle-mounted recoilless guns with 80 mm armor-piercing shells "captured" from the US army, improved "tank killers", "bazooka", and a considerable number of remote-controlled bombs, wire-controlled bombs, and anti-tank mines. Such a large formation and sufficient preparation are enough to be worthy of this big fish sent by the Soviets!

Thanks to the obstacles along the way, as well as the harsh wind and snow, the Soviet tanks and engineering vehicles at the head of the platoon had blurred their vision as they passed through the center of the ambush zone. There are tanks in front of them to explore the way, and so far there has been no confirmed enemy situation, and the Soviet vehicles behind have turned on their headlights for driving safety, and from a distance they look like a golden dragon coiled in the mountains, or a big snake with golden scales.

In order to avoid exposing the target, Lynn and his subordinates did not use open flames for two days, which was a kind of torment outside in minus ten or twenty degrees, and now this unbearable torment was finally coming to an end, and every frozen red face was more or less excited. When was the last time you fought the Soviets and won? Some have to go back to 1945, some to 1944, and some are even unlucky enough to have to chase back memories before 1942. …,

The Soviet tanks at the head of the platoon continued to advance, and the roar of Soviet-made diesel engines and the grinding of steel tracks could be clearly heard in the bunkers of their headquarters in Lynn, less than a kilometer away, so everyone stayed in their own shelters, and the well-arranged bunkers were enough to avoid the detection of Soviet officers and soldiers who did not dare to go too far from the road in the current light - from patriots to occupiers, their fearless spirit seemed to be frozen by bad weather, or consumed in the seemingly endless anti-guerrilla warfare.

Before dark, the light-looking Soviet fighter made its last reconnaissance flight of the day, in order to avoid the steep mountains, its flight altitude was completely unfavorable for the observation of ground targets, and over Bischofshafen, it was expelled by the anti-aircraft guns of the Soviet garrison as usual, and the distant gunners once again attracted the attention of the Soviet troops in the valley, they were full of speed, and at this moment many people may feel that they would be ambushed, but the bad weather completely restricted the air force and paratroopers. For the sake of the slim vitality of the battalion and the brothers of the company, for the sake of the inviolable authority of the occupiers, for the sake of politics, strategy, or the face and future of the superior commanders, they had to continue their advance towards a dangerous area, even if it was about to be enveloped in darkness for ten hours......

Judging from the situation of both sides, this one-sided battle will be one-sided, but on the battlefield, the roles of swords and fish are not completely fixed, and when the time finally comes, Lynn also waits for the expected report: the outpost finds that the second force has just left Salzburg, and due to the darkness, it is impossible to discern the exact size of the troops, but the headlights of various vehicles can be observed converging into a spectacular river. At the same time, many Soviet units stationed in southeastern Germany and western and northern Austria were moving in the snow. Looking down on the map, they were weaving a wide net, large enough to encircle the enemy who had raided Bischofshofen.