Every army had a relatively fixed mode of fighting, and the Soviet army was no exception. Not long after the bombardment ended, the Soviet artillery shells came with a similar scream, and the village and the surrounding positions naturally became the area of concentrated attack, and the village buildings that were basically intact before the bombardment gradually turned into ruins under the heavy bombardment and continuous shelling of the Soviet army, and the German battle flag that was originally flying on the flagpole also disappeared in the artillery fire. The village, along with a large area around it, was filled with the light and smoke of the explosion, and there was not a single figure in sight!

The shelling lasted for nearly half an hour before it ended, and with such a resolute artillery fire, the Soviet command obviously wanted to avenge the T-34 and its fighters for being sloppy. Following the offensive habits of the Soviet troops, as soon as the artillery fire stopped, the slogans of the officers sounded in the positions surrounding the village. With the "butcher" by her side, Lynn didn't have to worry about her combat role and position, and these withdrawn soldiers were supernumerary personnel in this defense area. After waiting for a while, a young ensign officer ran along the trench, judging by the insignia and insignia on his uniform, who was also a member of the SS division "Nordic". Seeing Lynn's four dirty guys, the second lieutenant paused for a moment, recognized that the "butcher" was the highest-ranking person, and hurriedly and loudly confessed, while pointing with his right hand to the woods outside the trench. The "butcher" nodded his head twice without humility, and finally said in a calm tone, and the second lieutenant pointed his left hand in the direction he had just come and hurried away.

The "butcher" shook his head at his only three soldiers: "Fowolou-m!" (German: Follow me)

Because of the slight difference between this pronunciation and the English "followme", Lynn rarely understood another sentence. He hurriedly followed the "butcher" and walked some distance north along the trench, when he saw a gap where a non-commissioned officer wearing a cloth military cap stood and distributed ammunition to the passing soldiers. Seeing that the soldier was carrying a rifle or submachine gun, he would take out bullets wrapped in brown paper from two different boxes, but instead of giving them one by one, he would open them and distribute some to each person. Behind him was another wooden box containing a long-handled grenade with the German symbol, two for each submachine gunner, one for each rifleman, and some for the riflemen, and some of them were not given at all.

As she got closer, Lynn noticed that the quartermaster was standing on a wooden ammunition box, and that his real height might not even be 1.6 meters.

The "butcher" stepped forward alone, and the quartermaster had only grabbed a handful of bullets to give it to him, but the "butcher" said something to him, and the short non-commissioned officer stared at him for three or four seconds, and then reluctantly grabbed three slightly larger and two slightly smaller brown paper bags from the two boxes next to him, and "lost" them in his arms. Immediately after that, he took four more grenades from the box behind him, and the tall soldier with Lynn hurriedly stepped forward and stretched out his hand, with a smile on his face, and the quartermaster gave him the grenade unhappily.

Although he didn't say anything in front of him, when he turned to leave, the "butcher" looked very bad. The other companion who was waiting in the same place hurriedly picked out three slightly larger brown paper bags from his arms, and the "butcher" took advantage of the situation to stuff the two that remained in his hands into his pocket, took a grenade from his companion and stuck it on his belt, muttered, and then walked forward with a cold face.

The two companions did not speak, and they groped and divided the remaining three packs of ammunition and three grenades. This was the first time Lynn had touched a grenade, but in this case she didn't have the heart to fiddle with it at all, so she just stuck it on her belt. The whole bag of bullets in my hand has a heavy texture. In fact, Lynn had seen such brown paper packets on the first day, and each pack should have fifty rounds of rifle or submachine gun ammunition. When he was at the front, he hadn't distributed more than thirty rounds at a time, and he didn't know what the "butcher" said to the quartermaster-looking guy. However, fifty rounds of ammunition did not make Lynn feel like an "upstart", after all, I don't know when the next time I will get an ammunition supply!

Having obtained the ammunition, the "butcher" walked back with his head down, almost in the position where they had previously avoided the bombardment and shelling, he found a relatively narrow place in the trench, put his hands on the edge of the trench, and stepped on the two walls of the trench with his legs in turn, and climbed up easily, his movements were not affected by the injury to his left hand at all. Lynn and the three of them did the same, but each of them carried a Mauser rifle and a "** sand", and the action of climbing the trench was more clumsy.

Leaving the trench, the four men soon came to the edge of the grove that the second lieutenant had pointed to, where five or six Big-Eared Helmets were recovering their quadruple machine guns with fresh branches. The forest faces the village on a gentle slope the size of a badminton court, the top of the slope is about two meters above the ground, and when you walk up to the top of the slope, you will find that this forest is actually "smaller" than you think, with less than 100 pine and fir trees combined, and the whole forest occupies such a small hill. Several shells fell here from the shelling of Soviet troops, and Zigan blew up several fir trees and some pine trees. Due to the damp environment, the shelling did not ignite other trees, leaving a charred crater that could barely be used as a foxhole.

All around, there are a number of such hills and groves within three kilometers of the village (East Prussia is mainly hilly), and in the face of powerful modern weapons, such hills and woods have little topographical advantage. As long as the Soviets are willing to spend some time, they can crush trees and climb to the top of a hill with a T-34 or a heavy tank!

Under the leadership of the "butcher", Lynn and the others each found a bomb crater to garrison, and they were very close to each other. Putting down his guns and backpacks, the "butcher" took out the shovel to reinforce his new position -- he held the shovel handle in his right hand, and his injured left hand was on the shovel handle at the base of his palm. Knowing that the "butcher's" surname was stubborn, the three of them did not go up to help, but each wielded a shovel to dig the crater deep and built a low retaining wall on the east-facing side. Before they could complete the small project, the Soviet shells came again, and although the first few shots were directed straight to the front of the village, the four of them quickly hid their heads and bodies in the crater, and only occasionally poked their eyes out to observe the situation on the battlefield.

The subsequent Soviet shelling seemed to be only a distraction from the defenders, and the intensity and intensity of the artillery fire were much less intense than before, but the shells were relatively concentrated, and the village and the front trench area were once again shrouded in gunfire.

Gradually, getting accustomed to the scene of "lightning and thunder" on the battlefield, and summarizing the different sounds made when the shells flew near and far, Lynn was able to face such shelling more calmly. The hill three kilometers ahead was where she had almost lost her life, and it was the only way to get to the village from the east, and in addition to keeping an eye on it, Lynn took the time to look around the village. Sure enough, as he thought, the German defense was not always fixed in a certain position, and in anticipation of the enemy's ground attack, several "bushes" came alive - two groups of German soldiers moved the anti-tank guns from the rear of the village against the edge of the woods to gain a more forward attack position, and one group moved forward from the rear of the village until it was ambushed into the ruins. In addition, several artillery groups did not change positions, but soldiers hidden in trenches or woods returned to their gun positions, including the "tank opener" with an exceptionally tall gun carriage and an exceptionally thick barrel, and the famous German PAK41/43 88mm gun!

It was known that at least seven tanks and assault guns were deployed on this front, and seeing such a number of anti-tank guns made Lynn feel reassured. He felt that although the defensive firepower of the previous front was also very strong, what needed to be defended was a frontal road dozens of kilometers wide after all, and the terrain was relatively open, so the defensive situation was not as good as this small village. In addition, the battlefield mobility of tanks and assault guns has a very positive significance for revitalizing the situation of positional defensive warfare, not to mention that two of them are still the German army's "Land Combat Overlord" Tiger tanks?

Under the guidance of experienced German gunners, the position of the three anti-tank guns was quickly adjusted, one of which was placed behind the quadruple machine guns, less than thirty meters from Lynn. At such a distance, Lynn could clearly see the gunners fixing the gun mounts, adjusting the muzzles, and removing long, pointed-tipped shells from the square wooden cartridges. At the end of World War II, the German army was equipped with a wide variety of anti-tank guns, some were developed and manufactured by themselves, some were captured from the Soviet army, and there were modified French guns, but there were still divisions in appearance. Based on the pictures in his memory, the length of the barrel and the size of the shell of the gun in front of him, Lynn judged that this was a German-made 75 mm anti-tank gun, and it was probably a later model - and the reason is also very reliable: most of the good weapons produced in Germany during this period were preferentially allocated to the SS.

The shelling lasted about ten minutes, and more than 1,000 shells fell, and quite a few of them seemed to be rockets. Just when Lynn didn't pay much attention, Soviet artillery fire clearly "took care" of the forward zone of the German position, that is, the area where minefields would normally be laid. When the Soviet tanks rumbled into view, the sound of artillery gradually subsided, and the two coincided with each other, and the connection was very tacit.

This time, the first Soviet tanks to hit the hill were still Lynn's familiar T-34s, which were lined up in loose formations, followed by combat infantry in white capes, and then some "new faces" appeared on the hill. Their appearance is somewhat similar to that of the "horned fairy" of the insect world, with a huge body and a huge head, a thick barrel that looks extremely incongruous, and an oversized muzzle brake, which always makes people feel that they will fall top-heavy when they go downhill.

Seeing these guys who were obviously one size bigger than the T-34, Lynn couldn't help but take a breath of cold air: With the commander of the Soviet army, Joseph. The IS-2 heavy tank named after Stalin, the Soviet Army's most ferocious land ace in World War II! Some people regard it as the terminator of the German Tiger tank, and even call it the "Tiger Hunter", its 122mm tank gun can overwhelm the Tiger 88mm gun in firepower, and its excellent defense and superior mobility give it an unshakable "killer" status!