In the dimly lit basement, a huge explosion landed in the distance, causing a vibration that caused a small amount of dust to fall from the ceiling. The dust crackled on the walls and on the drawings stacked on the table. The light bulbs hanging from the ceiling swayed back and forth with the vibrations, tearing at the shadows of everything in the room, giving the entire basement a sense of immediacy as a group of demons dancing.

Khrushchev sat in his place, holding the teacup in his hand in a daze, he was only less than 20 kilometers away from the front line, and every morning, he could hear the rumbling artillery of the German attack here, and what was even more desperate was that this kind of artillery was getting closer and closer.

The fortress defense system of the Crimean Peninsula, the Soviet Union, or the former Tsarist Russia, operated successively for almost thirty years. The fortified system is endless, and tunnels and bunkers are as common as drains.

In the area with Sevastopol and Kerch as the core, several floors of reinforced concrete fortifications were built. The mountains are dotted with batteries and trenches, as well as barbed wire and minefields. Some of these defenses are very old, born before the First World War, and some are very new, which were hastily built after Khrushchev and Voroshilov retreated to the Crimea.

Now, like coffins, these positions have become the final destination of the Soviet Red Army in the Crimea, where they fought, where they died, where they were buried in the snow.

The good news is that it is also snowing in the Crimea now, although it is not big, but it has affected the ubiquitous Luftwaffe, the sunny weather a few days ago, so that the Soviet Red Army lost a large number of peripheral defensive positions along the way, and now almost half of the Crimea is in the hands of Manstein, which is inseparable from the Luftwaffe's extremely accurate and terrifying bombing on an extremely terrifying scale.

Now that light snow was falling in the sky and the cold air from the north was moving south, the area was beginning to enjoy a moment of calm brought by bad weather, and the strong air support of the German army could not be used, so it had to fight a plane war similar to the First World War with the Soviet Union.

A German soldier jumped into a trench that looked very well-built, holding on to a steel helmet. Once a Soviet defender's position, it has now become a base for German soldiers to take refuge from the wind and cold. At the far end of the trench, on a hidden machine-gun position, a German sergeant was holding a telescope to observe the positions of the Soviet Red Army not far away.

"Company commander, there is a very wide minefield on the front, and if you attack it with sappers, the losses will be very large. The scouts introduced the layout of the opponent's defense to the company commander and several platoon commanders waiting in the trenches, and it was obvious that this was a key defensive position of the Soviets, and the defense was very tight.

The scout pointed to the enemy pillbox not far away and continued: "There are crossed machine-gun positions, as well as anti-tank mines and infantry anti-personnel mines to cover the front and both flanks, which is not easy to do. ”

"It says that the reinforcements will arrive in a moment, I don't know what troops they will send, if it is only infantry, I would like to apply to cancel this attack, we need at least the cover of tanks before we dare to try to attack. The company commander looked at the simple map that the scout had sketched on the papyrus, and said helplessly.

After a while, their reinforcements arrived, a platoon of German soldiers, protecting a squad of sappers, whose weapons were nothing special, except for a flamethrower for the storm. But with these soldiers was a strange tracked combat vehicle, the turret was removed, and a strange device was installed on it.

"Lieutenant, we have been ordered to support your attack, can you tell me about tactics? The men I brought with me are elite veterans of trench warfare and can accomplish all sorts of tasks. ”

"We are more than capable of attacking head-on, now the problem is that they have anti-tank mines and infantry anti-personnel mines. The lieutenant company commander pointed to the defensive line of the Soviets on the opposite side and briefly introduced the situation: "The most common crossfire, heavy weapons are very few, except for the trouble of mines, everything else is relatively simple. ”

The platoon commander who had brought people with him turned his head and glanced at the strange chariot hidden behind a breastwork about a hundred meters away, and then said: "I heard that the matter of mines can be handed over to this big guy, and the rest of the matter will depend on us." ”

Soon, the strange tank began to adjust its angle under the lieutenant's bewildered eyes, and the equipment of this engineering tank, which was modified from the chassis of Tank No. 3, looked like an armored crane.

There is a huge winch on the rear of the whole car, which is coiled with a special strap like a water pipe, and the sappers on it are using the artillery mirror and the level gauge to repeatedly check the surrounding surface information. They were busy, making the German soldiers around them dizzy, these veterans who had been on the battlefield for more than a year, and the recruits who had only been on the battlefield for only ten days, did not know what these sappers were busy with.

"What are they doing here? So that they can clear mines? This also makes such a dangerous thing as demining too child's play. A German soldier asked the company commander standing next to him about the last time he attacked the fortified position, and this company had killed 10 soldiers, half of whom had been hit and died in the process of demining.

The company commander couldn't imagine what tricks these sappers were playing, he could only watch the strange chariot prepare little by little, anyway, the attack didn't start, and everyone was usually very bored to get together and wait for new orders, and now there was a magical object to visit, which was much better than repeating a monotonous life. So the company commander was there to watch with great interest, and seemed very interested in this strange tank.

The sappers stretched out the straps that were coiled together, stacked them loosely at their feet, and tried to get away from the things around them, and after making sure that these weird straps could be stretched quickly, they connected one end of the straps to the back of the barrel on the strange chariot, and the reason why this chariot is weird is because there are only two such barrels on this chariot, but there is no armored turret to protect these two barrels.

"All right, gentlemen, get ready to attack! But before you do, you need to protect your ears. The captain of the sapper, who was standing in the trench in the distance, reminded the infantry around him with a wicked smile: "This thing is a bit big, but it is very useful." ”

As soon as he finished speaking, with an order to open fire, a puff of flame erupted from the barrel of the cannon with the strap attached, and a rocket flew out of the barrel and sped towards the Soviet position. And as the rocket dragged forward, the strange strap flew out with it.

The belt coiled on the ground quickly decreased, and it took less than a second for the belt to form a curved line in the air, connecting between the positions of the Soviet-German army, the tail end was more than ten meters in front of the German position, and the top flew over the Soviet trench and landed on the other side.

"Oh my God!" The German company commander finally knew what these sappers were doing, and they used rockets to spread detonators on the opponent's position in one breath, which was really a terrible way of demining, so terrible that before the other side could react, all the demining work on this side had been completed -- what was even worse was that the passage opened up was similar to a trench, which was convenient and safe, and there was simple protection on both sides.

Sure enough, before everyone could come to their senses, one earth-shattering explosion after another began, and the explosion continued from the Germans to the Soviets in one breath, and the tremendous destructive force lifted up the dirt and flew into the sky with gravel and other things, leaving one crater after another in the ground.

"Attack!" The first reaction of the German company commander, who was staggered by the explosion, got up from the ground and held his steel helmet in his hand, was to loudly order his soldiers to start attacking. Some of the veterans had already jumped out of the trenches, and more were rushing towards the passage.

The Soviets were obviously stunned by the terrible explosion, and their firepower did not develop slowly until long after the German attack had begun, but the crossfire on both flanks could not hurt the Germans in the trenches at all, and the vanguard of the German soldiers who attacked quickly had already entered the Soviets' trenches, and the whole battlefield became a mess.

The gunfire grew thicker, and the German soldiers engaged in a brutal battle with the dazed Soviet soldiers in the trenches. But after the Germans captured a delayed Soviet Red Army machine-gun position at the cost of four soldiers killed, the battle turned into a one-sided massacre. The Soviets abandoned their positions and began to rout backwards, while the Germans pursued them until they captured all their positions and killed the last Soviet who refused to surrender.

A flag was slowly raised over the Soviets' positions, and as another series of explosions came, the latest German rocket demining vehicles came this time with a double salvo, which immediately cleared more minefields. German tanks and other equipment that arrived began to cross the minefield, and Manstein captured another Soviet military stronghold.

Taking the battle report from his men, General Manstein signed his name with a blank face. Then he handed the entire report to his adjutant and ordered softly: "Send this report of victory to Berlin with my name attached." Let's just say that this is a gift from the entire M Army to the Führer, and at all times, the M Army is on the Führer's side!"

"Sign my name as well. Behind Manstein, Brauchitsch's son followed, saying: "All Imperial soldiers should forget their own self-interest and fight for the Führer!"