Chapter 98: An Insurmountable Barrier

readx;

7 April 1951, Hamburg, Germany

It is still a ruined city, still a splendid and cruel war, still a dangerous atmosphere, black smoke rolling in the air, scarlet blood flowing on the ground, and blazing fireballs devouring everything at any time...... In the more than 1,000-year history of this port city, there has never been a period of such intense fighting. In just five months www.biquge.info the Soviet red flag and the German tricolor alternated like day and night, but this change was not a natural law, but was made up of the bones of thousands of soldiers. This time, the Soviet army launched a massive offensive from east to west, and the newly formed North German Front, after conquering Lübeck, split its forces in two directions, one north to Schleswig, Holstein, and one west to Hamburg and Lower Saxony. In the strategic map of northern Germany, Hamburg's geographical location is like a crossroads, and it is also an important port of entry for shipping, so it is natural that the two sides will be the focus of contention. After conquering Weissenberg, Aslenburg and other places one after another, the 2nd Shock Army, a temporarily reorganized offensive group of the Soviet army, arrived under the city of Hamburg in early April. In view of the lessons learned from the previous Battle of Hamburg Bremen, the Soviets did not force the siege of the city with armored forces, but carried out fire clearance with air force and artillery, and then attacked the city with heavy armored vehicles and infantry.

With a population of one million before the war, Hamburg was an unassuming metropolis nestled between forests and rivers, with lush vegetation and a network of water, and a complex terrain connected by thousands of bridges between the city and its suburbs. When the offensive began, the Soviets cut off the city of Hamburg from the outside world by land and blocked the German sea lanes with air force and long-range artillery, while the German defenders voluntarily abandoned the area on the east bank of the Ulster River. In the face of modern tools of warfare, an ordinary inland river can no longer be called a "moat", using a variety of bridges and river crossing tools, the Soviet army established more than a dozen bridgeheads in the city on the west bank of the Alster River overnight, but these bridgeheads wedged into the German defense line not only failed to tear through the German defense. On the contrary, it became a constraint for the Soviet commanders to maneuver - in order to resist the repeated bombardment and shelling of the Soviet army, the German defenders built a large number of strong fortifications, thus preserving the living force under the suppression of Soviet fire, and launching a strong and effective counterattack after the initial crossing of the river by the Soviet army. Cornered the troops of the Soviet army in a number of bridgeheads. In order to avoid the magnification effect of the loss of front-line troops, the Soviets continued to send additional troops to these bridgeheads and launched offensives in nearby areas to contain the German counterattack. Over the past ten years, the Soviet and German armies have engaged in countless encounters in various theaters, and tactics can be changed, but the methods of combat and habitual thinking are not elusive, and the German commanders clearly foresaw the Soviet countermeasures. In the center of Hamburg alone, the German defenders thwarted several Soviet attacks, pinning down more than 3,000 Soviet officers and soldiers in a small area southwest of Lake Inner Alster (the wide body of water through which the Alster River flows, known as the "lake"). In order to create this ingenious "rat trap", the Germans placed American-made 155mm and 203mm heavy howitzers in subway tunnels and fired at them through concealed launches, plus German mobile artillery using small vehicles carrying rocket launchers, to suppress Soviet troops and block the river day and night.

Biting the nose of the Soviet army, you have to resist the fist of the Soviet army. After the accumulation of a long war. The Soviets gradually developed a set of effective urban assault tactics, with brave and experienced infantry and handy melee weapons, thick heavy tanks and fierce heavy assault guns. The siege of Hamburg. After the Soviets crossed the river with infantry and amphibious vehicles, the heavy and sturdy IS2, IS3 and IS4 tanks quickly reached the bridgehead with the help of pontoon bridges, and the ISU122 and ISU152 heavy assault guns, which the veterans called "Stalin's Iron Fist", also fired directly at targets on the opposite bank from the riverbank. However, war was a natural catalyst for the development of weapons technology, and many near-perfect weapons could not escape the fate of obsolescence, and with the "doomsday technology" of the Third Reich combined with the industrial production capacity of US imperialism, a large number of new weapons became an effective tool for German officers and soldiers to deal with the Soviets. A set of X9 wire-guided anti-tank rockets with a total weight of 28.6 kg. Two German infantrymen who received a week's worth of training had the opportunity to take out a Soviet heavy tank that cost 50,000 man-hours and more than 40 tons of metal, and then burrow into the rubble and escaped. With the superiority of the Soviet Air Force, the Germans continued to develop a unique idea of mobile artillery, and various wheeled off-road vehicles became vehicles for anti-tank or anti-aircraft rocket weapons, which were agile and elusive. Although the accuracy of the first generation of guided weapons needs to be improved, the low cost and abundant numbers greatly make up for this shortcoming, making each step forward for the Soviet army to pay a much greater price than during World War II and even World War III.

Aachen, Germany, 9 April 1951

This German city near the border between the Netherlands and Belgium is a well-known spa resort and a center for industrial production, trade and transportation, and since the outbreak of the Second Soviet-German War, millions of tons of military supplies have entered Aachen through Aachen under the guise of humanitarian aid, which has become an important target for Soviet bombing. Because it is only a few kilometers away from the border, the accuracy of traditional bombing methods cannot avoid the occurrence of accidental bombing, and Soviet bombs often fall into the territory of the Netherlands and Belgium, causing certain casualties and property losses, and the governments of the two countries have also mobilized people to evacuate the border areas. Under the political influence of the Western allies, most European countries, including the Netherlands and Belgium, were clearly inclined to support Germany, so in many international forums it was common to hear representatives of both countries complaining about the brutality of the Soviet army, and those photographs and videos were also a strong evidence of the Soviet bombing, thus putting additional diplomatic pressure on the Soviet government. Based on the adverse effects of this negative incident, coupled with the fact that the German army continued to strengthen the air defense forces in Aachen and other places, and the new anti-aircraft missiles with longer range and greater power also caused the Soviet army's bombing loss rate to continue to rise, and the Soviet high command had no choice but to reduce the bombing intensity of Aachen and other border cities. On the other hand, the German squadron secretly expanded its air bases in these border areas and used the fighter planes provided by the United States and Britain to expand its aviation unit -- the number of fighter squadrons was expanded from 19 to 199, and the bomber unit was also created from scratch, and the Luftwaffe even had a strategic bomber force in the true sense of the word for the first time.

In the dim sunset, four bombers painted in gray and green, with a white Iron Cross logo painted on the tail, slid off the ground with a huge roar. Compared with the Heinkel, Junker, and Dornier series bombers that were active on various fronts during World War II, these aircraft are larger, faster, and stronger, and they can carry tons of bombs back and forth for thousands of kilometers to carry out air strikes on strategic targets in the enemy's depth, thus inflicting a double blow on material and psychological. Although these superior strategic bombers did not help the Western allies win the camp war with the Soviet Union, they greatly damaged the industrial base of the Soviet Union, and then caused unimaginable chain reactions. If the Soviet Union in 1949 had the combined production capacity of 1946, it would have been difficult for the German team to survive the winter of 1949, let alone launch an effective Jedi counterattack in 1950.

Protected by dozens of jet fighters, more than 100 bombers assembled in formation in the airspace over Aachen and then drifted away with the sunset on their backs. After flying along the southern Baltic Sea, they will pass through Lithuania, Latvia and the Russian hinterland, drop bombs over the Soviet capital Moscow, and then return along the way, a distance of nearly 4,000 kilometers. Distance is not the most terrible enemy, as early as during the East-West War, the Soviet Union urgently developed high-altitude fighters and anti-aircraft rockets to intercept Allied bomber groups, and with the development of jet fighter technology, MiG-9 and MiG-15 have also been added to the equipment list of high-altitude interception forces, and high-power pulse radars can also provide long-range early warning information for the Soviet Air Force.

Vast expanses of clouds floated in the silent, serene night sky, a clear full moon hanging above the clouds, and silver light shining through the occasional slit on the sparkling sea. Distant in the sky, the sound of an unnatural machine gradually became apparent, the metal flying machine with huge wings and four large engines dwarfed all the creatures in this world, and the whole air was only the dull roar, and the huge black shadow moved rapidly on the rolling clouds, and the powerful air currents carried by it set off waves of clouds. Before they knew it, they had flown nearly a thousand kilometers, and the blurred coastline was ahead, when suddenly, a group of flying machines with a silver-gray sheen appeared in the far end of their sight. The difference in size makes them look like poor creatures with mantis arms at first glance, but in the Amazon River, no one dares to underestimate the "insignificant" piranhas, and the Soviet fighters also have the ferocity of piranhas, which come head-on and charge the German fleet with lightning speed. According to the experience of the Allied strategic bombing, more than 100 German bombers were like a group of whales that were not alarmed, and they steadily maintained a dense defensive formation, and the rain of bullets bursting out from the planes formed a spectacle in the night sky.

Master duels are often one-move winners, but they can also get into a fierce battle. Soviet fighters used rockets and machine guns to shoot down several German bombers, but they failed to disrupt the formation of the German bomber group, and their own side also lost several planes, so they had to circle around the German group, waiting for an opportunity to attack targets that could not be covered in all directions. After a few round-trips, these short-legged fighters were forced to return because they ran out of fuel, but it was too early to judge the victory or defeat, and in the vast territory of the Soviet Union, many aviation bases were already brightly lit, and the combat readiness duty personnel were quickly in place, ready to defend the honor and dignity of the country with their own lives. In this respect, Soviet servicemen were as respectable as their German counterparts. (To be continued.) )