Chapter 72: Welcome to the Mannerheim Line (14)
Nothing was said all night.
At noon the next day, Simon found traces left by the Soviets in the snow, which seemed to have passed by the day before, and the number of people was estimated to be between 100 and 200, and there were rut marks on the snow, which meant that the other side was probably equipped with heavy machine guns.
The two chased after skis for an afternoon, and finally approached their target just before sunset.
The speed of this Soviet army is very slow, it is very difficult for both men and horses to walk on the snow half a meter thick, and even sometimes soldiers have to push the carriage, the bad weather and the continuous news of casualties from the front line have made the morale of the soldiers very low, this time has long exceeded the original 16-day combat period, if Zhang Heng is not mistaken, the Soviet Union has already had many troops eliminated by the guerrillas as a formation, and they have achieved very few results.
Now every unit sent to the front line is worried, the morale of the cross-border battle is usually lower than that of the local fighting side, although the Soviet Union also carried out a certain amount of public opinion mobilization before the war, but the effect can only be regarded as unsatisfactory, especially after the Great Purge, the experienced middle and high-level officers of the Soviet army were either executed, or exiled to Siberia to accompany the polar bears.
Many of the young officers who have been promoted quickly now have just graduated from the military academy, and they are impeccable in terms of loyalty, but they only know that they rigidly carry out the military orders above, and there is no problem in fighting a good fight, but once they encounter a difficult situation like the current one, they will not be able to appease the soldiers under them.
Simon glanced at it twice and handed the telescope to Zhang Heng.
Behind the lenses is a typical Soviet infantry company, with a combat strength of about 150 men, including three infantry platoons and a machine gun platoon, equipped with twelve light machine guns, two heavy machine guns, and some grenadiers that look like shovels, of course, more soldiers are still equipped with M1891 Mosin Nagant, because stable performance has always been the main weapon of the Soviet Union.
In terms of firepower, this unit is still quite strong, especially the two Maxim heavy machine guns on the carriage, the theoretical rate of fire can reach 600 rounds per minute, and it can even shoot down planes in the sky.
Because he was worried that the reflection of the lenses would expose the position of the two, Zhang Heng didn't dare to look at it more, and planned to retreat one after another and wait until it was dark. As a result, Simon had already begun to collect the snow on the ground in front of him, and the girl made a gesture to him, meaning to let him retreat one after another.
Zhang Heng had trained with Simon for a week before, and originally thought that he knew enough about the latter's marksmanship, but when he guessed the girl's intentions, even with his usual calmness, he couldn't help but gasp.
The distance between the group of Soviet troops and them has exceeded 700 meters, what kind of concept is this, using machine sighting, after 300 meters, the crosshair is even larger than the target itself.
And the eyesight recognition range of ordinary people is 500 meters, 700 meters - this has completely broken common sense, in this case, Zhang Heng does not know what other way a sniper can complete the shooting.
However, the first rule on the battlefield is to trust his companions, although Zhang Heng was stunned when he heard this, he nodded and quietly retreated a mile away with the skis and backpacks of the two, he heard the gunshots not long after he was lying down, and then there was a commotion in the Soviet troops in the distance, Zhang Heng couldn't see the specific situation over there, but he could roughly guess the reaction of those Soviet soldiers.
They should have fallen down at the first moment, and then blindly returned fire while looking for the sniper's location, but unfortunately, even if they tried to break their heads, probably no one could guess that the bullet was fired from more than 700 meters away.
The exchange of fire continued for a while, after which the two Maxim heavy machine guns fixed on the carriage also fired, accompanied by grenades, and the power was amazing, but in this way, even the sound of the M28 guns was masked, and the Soviet soldiers could not find the attacker.
The blow to morale in this way of fighting is amazing, don't look at Simon only one person and one sniper, and the Soviet army on the opposite side is a galaxy behind in firepower, but in the current situation where you can only be beaten passively and can't find out where the enemy is, your ferocious firepower will only make people more desperate.
Panic began to spread through the ranks...... It wasn't until five minutes later that the gunfire gradually stopped, but there were still many Soviet soldiers nervously looking around with rifles in their hands, and some of them were so nervous that they accidentally injured their companions next to them.
Although the Soviet army didn't find anyone there from beginning to end, there were still some indiscriminate bullets that landed in Simon's area, which couldn't help but make Zhang Heng a little worried, but fortunately, he soon saw the girl who had withdrawn from the front line.
Simon was almost unchanged from before, except that his breathing was a little shorter, he spit out the snow in his mouth, and made a number twelve at Zhang Heng.
The girl knocked out a total of two cartridges and thirty rounds, and the hit rate was about more than a third, don't underestimate this achievement, considering her range this is amazing enough, her main target is the most threatening machine gun platoon, two squads of fourteen people were killed by her, in addition to hitting an officer and several grenadiers.
While the Soviet army was still in chaos, the two of them distanced themselves from the enemy again.
So the first battle of Zhang Heng's guerrilla career came to an end, he didn't fire a shot, he acted as a spectator throughout the whole process, and witnessed his partner killing people.
Simon, on the other hand, seemed to have done only one insignificant thing, without any excitement on his face, as if he had just faced a hundredfold enemy and calmly shot the person who harvested the head was not himself.
…………
There was still about half an hour before it was completely dark, and the girl didn't plan to waste it, so she changed directions with Zhang Heng and repeated the previous thing.
The Soviets have almost nothing to do about it, they do far surpass the guerrillas in terms of numbers, but if they really want to conduct a large-scale search, more than 100 people scattered in the woods are not enough, but it gives the enemy the opportunity to break through one by one, and the advantage of heavy weapons after the formation is disrupted is also difficult to play.
This was in fact an unsolvable problem that plagued all Soviet commanders in the Winter War.
The only one who can deal with snipers is the sniper.
It's a pity that the Soviet Union at this time did not realize the importance of snipers, and it was not until the later stage of the war that they learned from the pain after paying the price of hundreds of thousands of casualties, and began to vigorously strengthen the training of snipers.