784 Sunset XI of the Soviet Empire defended Moscow

Just as the great leader of the Soviet Union hurried from the secret passage to go. His hundreds of thousands of Red Army soldiers were huddled in the cold and damp trenches, crowded into cramped and stuffy anti-artillery bunkers, enduring the scorching air filled with thick gunpowder smoke that was almost ignited by artillery fire, enduring the hammer of Thor that could descend at any moment, the heart-rending screams of their comrades, and the angry eyes and reprimands of the political commissars and internal affairs personnel who had gone completely crazy......

The German shells seemed to be free of money, and they came in groups and fell accurately on the positions of the Soviet troops, columns of smoke and fireballs were raised in rows, and the explosion points of the shells were so dense that they could not be distinguished, and only patches of red light could be seen flashing continuously, and the flashes in front had not disappeared, and the ones behind had lit up. In the end, we can only see that the entire Soviet position is shrouded in fire and smoke, and tens of thousands of people are slowly melted and burned to ashes in this artillery purgatory!

The Soviet artillery counterattack was very difficult to hit tens of thousands of shells at the beginning, but it was too sparse for a few shells to explode on a 200-kilometer front. But soon, the Soviet artillery group could not even fight such a sparse counterattack!

Because the promise of the super-fat Goering is now about to be fulfilled, thousands of German planes are roaring from the western sky, almost obscuring the entire sky! All the planes, whether they were the Ju-87 Stuka, or the BF-109 and FW-190, or the HE-111 and the Ju-88, were now full of bombs, and they were all bombers. Anyway, the Red Air Force of the Soviet Reich had long since disappeared from the sky, and the sky had completely turned into a paradise for the free movement of fascist bandits. Countless strings of bombs, screaming and falling from the sky, first blew up all the Soviet artillery positions that were still trying to fire shells into ruins, and then the bombs fell on the Soviet front-line positions that were shrouded in artillery fire.

All of a sudden, shells, bombs, and dive strafing from airplanes descended on the heads of the Soviet Red Army entrenched on the outskirts of Moscow. And these poor people are now finally realizing the fact that they are dead! Because they're in hell right now, maybe they've been living in hell for twenty years...... Most people have completely given up hope of survival, and are just waiting for their destined German shell or bomb! Well, thanks to the great leader Stalin, at least these unlucky bastards can enjoy the first-class German goods at the last moment of their lives! Of course, not everyone can enjoy it.

……

“…… The Battle of Moscow began with 6 hours of indiscriminate bombardment of the enemy by 5,000 artillery pieces and 5,000 aircraft! It's unthinkable that anyone can survive six hours in that furnace-like place! The survivability of those Russians is really amazing. I remember very vividly that it was 11 p.m. on July 9, 1938, and we had just finished our lunch with hard sausages and black bread. As soon as the meal was over, the shelling stopped, and the planes in the sky flew away. Then the order to attack came down...... We thought that there would be nothing alive on the Soviet positions on the opposite side, so we turned out of the trenches and routinely discharged loose skirmishers. Our battalion commander Lu Zhaoqi was very difficult to walk in the front of the team, and while walking, he was telling jokes with the soldiers around him, which seemed to be very inappropriate. As a result, the Russians' bullets came! He was shattered in the skull by a 7.62mm rifle bullet and hung up without even screaming, so I became the acting commander of the battalion. A fierce and brutal battle unfolds at the same time! The above is an excerpt from the memoir "My World War II" by General Hao Boxiong, who was the chief of the General Staff of the Chinese National Defense Forces.

"Follow me, don't stop! It's more dangerous to stop...... Mortar! Take out the enemy's machine guns, machine guns suppress the enemy's trenches, artillery observers, call in artillery to bombard their rear! Others on bayonets! Rush with me! ”

Major Hao Baixiong, who had just taken over the post of battalion commander on the battlefield, carried a Min-26 automatic rifle and gave a loud order while strafing the Soviet positions on the opposite side. His battalion was now in an open area that had been bombarded by shells to the surface of the moon, with no shelter except for a few craters. However, these craters are not a good place to hide, because Soviet mortar shells are raining down. And lying still, the Soviet position would not lose on its own, and after a short period of panic, the officers and men of this battalion quickly regained their composure and rushed forward with shouts.

Such a situation is being repeated in the entire area of the 18th Army that is responsible for the attack! Well, of course, there seems to be only one battalion commander who was killed. But fortunately, the 18th Army has already experienced too many fierce battles in this war, and it has long been a tried and tested elite force. This kind of firepower of the Soviet troops on the opposite side is nothing to them at all. With the calm and calm command of officers at all levels, and the near-perfect coordination of infantry artillery, the resistance of the first line of Soviet trenches was quickly crushed. At 11:20, a yellow flare representing the success of the assault was launched into the sky, and a huge cheer echoed over the 18th Army's position......

Unlike in the past, the Soviets, who had lost their positions, did not organize a counterattack for the first time, but retreated to the second line of trenches. The commander-in-chief of the German army, von Murray, who did not wait for the Soviet counterattack. General Bock had already sensed the weakness of the Soviet resistance, and he guessed that Stalin might well have left. Otherwise, he would have forced the Soviets to launch a suicidal counterattack...... So Feng. Admiral Bock decided to intensify the attack southwest of Moscow, and two tank regiments armed with 180 No. 2 tanks were drawn from the 3rd Panzer Army and assigned to the 6th and 7th armies, respectively.

At 2 p.m. on July 9, after nearly two hours of artillery preparation and aerial bombardment, the German offensive on all fronts began again.

In the Podolsk area southwest of Moscow, where the Chinese 18th Army was responsible for the attack, the second line of defense of the Soviet army was deployed on a tributary of the Moskva River. This thirty or forty-meter-wide river has now become a "moat" blocking the middle ** people. In order to force the crossing of the river, Huang Wei ordered the mobilization of more than 200 150mm howitzers and 105mm howitzers, 81 75mm mountain guns, and more than 100 120mm heavy mortars. At 4 p.m. on July 9, hundreds of artillery pieces were pushed to the front of the Soviet position, only 2 kilometers away, and began to approach and bombard the Soviet position, and in just 30 minutes, each cannon consumed half a base of ammunition. It didn't take long for German planes to join in, diving again and again to drop bombs, dropping bombs accurately on the intended targets, and a thrilling rumbling explosion sounded on the Soviet positions, and everything was drowned out by the flames of the smoke columns! At the same time, several hundred sappers of the engineer regiment belonging to the 18th Army began to risk their lives to build bridges over the river that could be passed by tanks.

Admiral Hao Boxiong, who liked to write memoirs after his retirement, described the scene he saw at that time as follows: "...... At that time, my battalion was responsible for covering the sappers to build the bridge, and those sappers were the bravest men I had ever seen in my life! More than 600 people braved Soviet mortars, machine guns and rifle bullets from snipers to build bridges. These people are working with their heads covered like crazy, and the comrades around them are killed without looking at them, and they only think about building bridges wholeheartedly! This kind of scene was unimaginable to people who grew up in a peaceful environment, but no one felt that there was anything abnormal at the time, because this is our mission, and this is how a world empire was made! There is no other way......"

"Let the tanks of the Germans come up! Come up now......" Hao Baixiong thought of tanks at this time, about 60 No. 2 tanks were assigned to the 52nd Division of the 18th Army, and the pontoon bridge that killed many people was erected for them. Major Hao Baixiong is no stranger to Butan coordination, and the original 18th Army was also equipped with a tank regiment, equipped with more than 100 No. 1 light tanks. However, the regiment suffered heavy losses in the battle at the end of 1937, and almost all the No. 1 tanks were destroyed, so in the end it was completely abolished, and the remnants of the regiment were all incorporated into the 8th Panzer Division. And at this moment, Hao Baixiong had a flash of inspiration, and what he thought of was 60 No. 2 tanks, aren't they 60 75mm cannons? It would have been ideal to have these tanks drive up to the river beach to cover the sappers. 60 cannons fired under the noses of the Soviets, and those Russians still had the heart to fire at the sappers who were building bridges?

After receiving Hao Boxiong's request, the battalion commander of the German tank battalion drove 60 No. 2 tanks to the river beach only 300 meters away from the Soviet position, lined up, and bombarded the Soviet position opposite with 60 75mm cannons. At such a distance, even a rifle can accurately hit the target, let alone a 40mm cannon with a caliber of 75 times? The Soviet trenches quickly rose up one after another, and several reinforced concrete fortifications with solid structures that could withstand howitzer bombardment were also lifted into the air. The firepower on the Soviet positions suddenly weakened a lot.

After completely suppressing the fire of the Soviet troops, the speed of the bridge was suddenly accelerated, and about 30 minutes later, the first pontoon bridge was erected. Then a tank painted with a German iron cross rumbled onto the pontoon bridge, Major Hao Baixiong, who was in charge of covering the erection, also waved his automatic rifle and loudly gave the order to attack, and groups of Chinese soldiers carrying rubber boats poured into the river beach, shouts, explosions, the sound of MG37 machine gun fire tearing canvas, and the roar of tank and aircraft motors constituted the most magnificent battlefield symphony, and also the prelude to the rise of two world empires.

The news of the breakthrough of the defense line on the Moscow River was like a thunderbolt in the command of the Moscow Front! Budyonny could not have imagined that in less than a day, the Germans and Chinese would break through the two lines of defense on the outskirts of Moscow. At this rate, it is estimated that before the great leader Stalin arrives in Tbilisi, Moscow will fall! This speed is too fast, although there are no illusions about holding Moscow, but Budyonny also knows that Moscow cannot be lost in such a short time, because a large number of supplies and elite troops have not yet reached the Transcaucasus. Without Moscow as a tool to attract the attention of the Germans, it would have been difficult for the transferred supplies and troops to reach their destination safely. It is likely that the Germans will launch a surprise attack on Stalingrad, where there are not many troops now, and the Germans can take it almost without a fight, and as soon as they take Stalingrad, the road to Transcaucasia will be blocked.

Although he knew that nothing could be done, Marshal Budyonny gritted his teeth and threw himself into the reserves and launched the first counterattack operation on the outskirts of Moscow. The remaining 300 or so artillery pieces of the entire Front Army were concentrated, and some 120mm heavy mortars were pieced together, and with the support of these artillery, several Soviet Red Army infantry divisions and a Chinese volunteer with the GC International Eastern Brigade logo began to launch a counteroffensive against the positions of the 18th Army.

……

July 9, 7:30 p.m. The artillery group of the Moscow Front of the Red Army began to fire, and by this time it was already dark, so the Soviet artillery group did not have to worry about the threat of German aircraft. Although there were only more than 300 artillery pieces and more than 100 heavy mortars, the fire was still very heavy because it was concentrated in a small area. And this night's counterattack was naturally very bloody!

According to the recollection of General Zuo Q, commander of the GC International Eastern Brigade who participated in this counterattack operation at that time: "...... The sky was dark, and countless streams of fire suddenly passed over our heads and flew south, and then the roar of explosions and fires lit up the sky. I know that it is the Chinese National Defense Forces that are guarding there, and they are the most ferocious enemies of GCISM! In the 1937 campaign of Latvia and the Polish campaign, there were very good performances! As soldiers, they have received the most rigorous training, and have withstood the most severe battlefield tests, and they are indeed the best. However, it is a pity that they embarked on the road of counter-revolution and betrayed the revolutionary line of Dr. Sun Yat-sen.

The Soviet artillery bombardment lasted only about 5 minutes that night, and the artillery counterattack of the 18th Army of the Chinese Wehrmacht began. The army was armed with more than 300 cannons, almost as much as the entire Moscow Front! And they also had a very good listening artillery company (sound measurement company), which quickly found the location of the Soviet artillery positions and dumbed them all. At this time, the Soviet artillery did not have the same level of technology. Their losses since the beginning of the war were too great, there were very few experienced officers and soldiers left, the newly formed units had little training at all, and even weapons were very poor.

After that battle, several junior officers of our GC International Eastern Brigade secretly came to me and told me that they had found that at least half of the soldiers in the several Soviet infantry divisions that fought alongside us did not have a single weapon, and were completely machine-gunned down by the political commissar with their bare hands! I really don't know what these Soviet political commissars think? I'm going to give two grenades anyway! ”

The Soviet counterattack on this night turned into a catastrophe, and the Red Army's sea of men was quickly engulfed by the fire of the fascist army...... Even if you give those unarmed Red Army soldiers two grenades, it is for nothing. There is no way for them to break through the dense fire net of the Chinese and German teams. The Soviet suicidal offensive lasted for most of the night, and by two o'clock in the morning of the next day, the entire front line of the 18th Army positions on the north bank of the Moscow River was densely packed with corpses of Red Army soldiers, many of whom belonged to Chinese volunteers! Well, these people are real Marxist-Leninists and certainly patriots at the same time. Although they are fighting against the squadron, it is not their fault that they are at fault, but the Chinese imperialists, who have embarked on the road of aggression and expansion! The history of mankind has proven more than once that the aggressor will not end well in the end!

Of course, those aggressors who have a good end are not aggressors according to the viewpoint of historical materialism, but represent the advanced productive forces and the will of the broad masses of the people. For example, the Mongol conquerors, who killed tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions, of peoples of various countries, and the Manchu rulers, who slaughtered countless Han compatriots, were just and progressive, while those who rebelled against them were reactionary forces......

At 7 a.m. on July 10, the German army and the squadron launched another attack on Moscow, thousands of artillery pieces roared at the same time, and thousands of German planes circled in the sky. The whole of Moscow was shrouded in smoke and flames, and the citizens who had not had time to evacuate crowded into the Moscow subway to escape the air raids, and a small number of Soviet anti-aircraft guns were still firing in vain. On the outskirts of Moscow, two armies also began a death match at the same time.

After a good result on the first day of fighting, von. General Bock seems to have forgotten about the question of sending armored forces to outflank the Soviet rear. Instead, two German panzer divisions were put into battle, with about 800 tanks roaring across the battlefield, followed by hundreds of thousands of heavily armed infantry from China and Germany.

At this time, the Soviet army had completely lost the strength to fight back, and could only rely on strong fortifications to hold out on to resistance. The only thing that gives us hope is the optimism of Comrade Stalin's radio, in which he assures the resisting Red Army fighters that more than a million men are coming from Siberia to relieve the siege, and they are all elite divisions equipped with new tanks and heavy artillery. By July 15 at the latest, reinforcements will be in the battle. When the time comes, the whole war will develop in favor of the Soviet Union, and the epic Battle of Moscow will be a turning point in this war!

……