"Bah!!" A volley of bullets hit the rubble, leaving a row of potholes. Behind the ruins, Soviet soldiers huddled themselves, dodging bullet-ridden debris and flying stones.

A German tank slowly advanced through the streets of Moscow, stopping itself in a place of sudden enlightenment, and in front of it was a wide river, the Moskva River, which crossed Moscow. The river meanders through the center of Moscow, and Moscow's Red Square is not far from the west bank of the river.

Although this position was still some distance from the bank of Moscow's Red Square, the Germans finally approached the river in Moscow, which also marked the fact that the Germans had truly entered the heart of Moscow. The word defeated is now the perfect way to describe the Soviet defenders in Moscow.

After committing the last reserves to the Soviet Union, the defenders of Moscow in the Soviet Union no longer had the strength to continue to strengthen their defenses in one direction, and they could only be beaten passively, reinforcing others by abandoning some positions. The most direct effect of this is to multiply the rate of losing positions, and the blocks that could have been defended by only a few companies have to be abandoned because there are really no extra troops.

"Comrade General! The German troops are preparing assault boats on the other side of the river, and it seems that in a little while they will begin to force their way across...... Our machine guns are out of ammunition, not even grenades are left. An officer crawled to the side of a ruin, and with a steel helmet, he reported the battle to the dusty General Vatutin.

Vatutin, who was reloading his revolver, raised his head and squinted at his subordinates after hearing this report: "The remaining 150 people of the 1st Regiment of the 1st Guards Division are guarding over there, and there are only 93 people left in the 2nd Regiment, all of whom are near us...... The 4th Guards Division could not be contacted, and the only tank of the 5th Tank Guards Division had just run out of shells...... There's only so much we can do, there's nothing we can do. ”

As the battle progressed, in fact, the entire system of Soviet units had collapsed, the logistical supply of the troops was completely cut off, and the soldiers did not even know where to get food and ammunition. In the end, even the command system of the troops collapsed, the power outage and the shelling completely destroyed the originally intact telephone system, and the radio equipment was also out of order, and one was missing......

In the beginning, because the area was wide enough, the shelter was better, and cars and horses could be used. And at this time, because of the successive losses of positions, these vehicles could not be used - everyone ran on two legs, and if they did not want to be killed by shells, they could only run on two legs.

A month earlier, the Soviet defenders in the Moscow encirclement had been able to increase the strength of entire regiments near the defensive positions that had been broken through by the Germans, and then gradually reduce their size to battalion by battalion, and finally to a company or even half a company...... At this time, each reinforcement has even been reduced to the extent of a platoon, or even a squad.

And reinforcements of this scale, in the face of the German army's tidal attack, are simply a drop in the bucket, and will not play a role in preventing the German army from continuing the offensive. With the depletion of ammunition and the reduction of reinforcements, the losses of the Soviet defenders in the defensive positions were also increasing, and the rout was getting faster and faster.

It's easy to understand that when there are plenty of bullets, tactics can be executed well, so defensive positions can be held for longer. There is no need to retreat frequently, and there is no need to be frequently exposed to enemy fire, and casualties will naturally be reduced. But now the situation in the Soviet Union is the opposite, they are forced to keep retreating, and they are constantly losing more soldiers.

Now, on the Soviet position, the soldiers in a trench come from a variety of units and units, and the infantry of a company may be the remnants of several companies. The soldiers may have come from several combat units, some even from logisticians, the Moscow Self-Defense Forces, and even tax collectors and policemen.

Of course, there were also large numbers of reinforcements, which were more complex, including female soldiers, workers, salesmen, and teenage children. It is obviously unrealistic to expect these people to give full play to the combat effectiveness of the regular army, so it is not only the number of reinforcements that is reduced, but also the quality of reinforcements.

Losses have increased exponentially, even to the point where no one counts them. According to the battle diary of the German Army Group F, on June 25, the Germans advanced a total of 1,300 meters on the outskirts of Moscow, killing and capturing more than 2,900 Soviet defenders, and in early August, the Germans advanced a distance of one kilometer in the city and killed more than 6,700 Soviet "soldiers", many of whom were armed with guns without military uniforms and steel helmets.

Although the German battle statistics alone could not accurately reflect the actual losses of the Soviet defenders at that time, even Field Marshal Kluge admitted in his memoirs that the Germans had killed civilians in the battle in Moscow. However, because the Soviet side really did not have any record of combat losses, it could only rely on the German record to make a reluctant guess.

Soon, the German sappers prepared their troops for the forced crossing, and the assault boats were carried by the German soldiers to the river bank, and the machine guns and rockets on the opposite bank hit the Soviet positions as if they didn't want money. On the Soviet side, on the other hand, because of the limited amount of ammunition, it was no longer possible to make any decent counterattacks.

Because of this, the forced crossing went smoothly, the Germans first used a tractor to temporarily modify the "bulldozer" to push some sand and gravel into the Moscow River, and then the German infantry who rushed across the opposite bank carried out a small-scale blasting operation on the embankment, and the smooth and sloping embankment was blown out of an angular path, which was very convenient for the follow-up troops to climb.

"Their earthwork is really fast, and they seem to be so skillful in their cooperation, it's like they're in a drill. Vatutin looked through a gap in the wall as the Germans erected the pontoon bridge in front of him, and said with emotion that about ten meters to his left, a Soviet light machine gun finally couldn't help roaring, and swept the few remaining bullets towards the position where the Germans erected the pontoon bridge.

However, after only a few seconds, the German MG-42 machine gun responded to the firing Soviet machine gun, the bullets made a dense sound on the Soviet positions, and the stray bullets splashed everywhere made everyone dare not poke their heads out and shoot. But this was only the beginning, soon a German 60 mm mortar hit the light machine gun where the light machine gun had just been, and the huge explosion kicked up billowing smoke, so that Vatu Kyoto, ten meters away, had to squat in the bunker with his head in his hands to hide.

"Medic, some wounded, some wounded!" As soon as the smoke from the shells had passed, the shouts of the Soviet defenders could be heard, and most of the people in this trench were administrative staff and logistics officers of the headquarters, so the current situation was not quite clear.

"Shut up! Where can I go to find the medics? Even if there are medics, there will be no medicine for a long time!" a veteran scolded in the trench with a weapon, and no one questioned his unruly problem at this time: "Look at his injuries to see if he wants to die, if he wants to die, if he wants to die, if the wound is not big, he may be able to survive if he bandages it quickly." ”

Looking at the comrade-in-arms who was still bleeding at his feet, how did the front army officer, who was originally in charge of the telephone, know how to judge whether the injury was serious or not. So when the other party's scolding came, he could only pull out the handkerchief in his pocket and help another telephone operator suppress the wound of the unlucky guy on the ground.

Once again, Vatutin's eyes were fixed on the tiny crack in the wall, through which he could see that in a short time the German sappers had docked several dinghys side by side, nailed the bolts, and laid the rails and planks on them. A bridge-building tank slowly drove down the slope on the opposite bank, and had lifted the upturned iron bridge in mid-air.

Because of the lack of heavy weapons, the Soviet defenders could only watch, they could neither open fire to reveal their positions, nor rush over to disrupt the German deployment, those who had crossed the river in advance had already established defensive positions on the river embankment, and the Soviet defenders' hiding positions were only separated by a road, about 50 meters away.

If Vatutin had more troops at his disposal, he might have ordered a counter-attack to retake the beachhead, which might have inflicted huge losses on the Germans. But he could not draw even a company of soldiers in his hands now, let alone repel the wolf-like German grenadiers on the German beachhead.

The shouting in his ears had calmed down, and it seemed that the unlucky guy who had been hit by shrapnel from the mortar shell had not survived and had died in the trenches. As the minutes passed, the second German bridge tank had already driven onto the pontoon bridge and lowered the second iron bridge in the direction of the riverside near the Soviet defenders.

A pontoon bridge was erected in a short time, and the German soldiers crossing the river on this side immediately launched an assault on the Soviet positions. The battle suddenly became fierce, and white-knuckle battles were fought in many positions. German soldiers, under the cover of armored vehicles, crossed the pontoon bridge in hundreds, and soon poured into the positions of the Soviets.

"Long live Führer Accardo, Rudolph!" shouted like a tidal wave, and the German soldiers got closer and closer to Vatutin—

Eh, the dragon spirit has a day off, and the arrears will be made up tomorrow, and the continuous outbreaks are really sad, please understand...... Today's two watches, a lot of forbearance