boom! boom! boom! Every time the cannon exploded, the ground shook. The barrels have a lifespan. The five independent heavy artillery regiments have been established for many years, and they have never been able to fire for half a day like they are now.
"It is estimated that after this battle, this barrel will be useless." Artillery regiment commander Cheng Feixiang looked distressed. This cannon is the lifeblood of the artillery. Especially this kind of giant cannon is even more valuable. The new pain comes back to heartache. The military orders are overwhelming. The artillery must be fired when it is time to fire. We can only ask the soldiers responsible for observation to be more careful and more careful to ensure the hit rate as much as possible and not to waste even one opportunity for artillery fire.
The reconnaissance plane came back from a circle, dropped a copper pipe, opened it and took a look at the data inside. The four 305 cannons quickly adjusted the scale, waited for the reconnaissance plane to send back the information, and continued to fire. This is because we have air control in our hands, so we dare to do it so economically. The Tashkent defenders, who had no air power at all, could only bear it silently at this time.
The main targets of the giant artillery were two strong forts on the hillside outside the city. The Soviet army dug holes on the hillside and placed two 122 howitzers in the holes. The ground troops tried to rush up several times, but were beaten by the defenders. Down, two of the 122 howitzers caused the greatest casualties. Cannons like Lao Maozi have a long range and are very powerful, which caused a lot of trouble for the offensive of the National Defense Forces.
The prelude to the siege of Tashkent is to clear the fortifications at the north and south ends of the city defense and the forts scattered on a dozen large and small hills on both sides of the road. The Soviet army, which was starving and cold, was now trapped in a fight. I don't know what caused the trouble, and few surrendered. During the interval of shelling, a C-47 flew over the city defense position and dropped leaflets.
The content of the leaflet is to persuade the Soviet soldiers in Tashkent to surrender, telling the Soviet soldiers in Tashkent: You have been abandoned by Moscow and will never receive even a grain of food. Stop making meaningless resistance. Don't kill if you surrender your gun. The Wehrmacht gives preferential treatment to prisoners! A million leaflets were scattered everywhere like rain.
In fact, Tashkent was almost out of food at this time. Ordinary soldiers could only get 2 taels of black bread a day, and they would eat it before they even tasted it.
The C-47 flew away, and the cannon with the scale adjusted fired again. Just one cannonball dropped, and the ground shook violently! An unknown mountaintop suddenly trembled violently like an earthquake, followed by a loud noise and thick smoke billowing around it.
Cheng Feixiang was shocked. Just one shot could produce this effect. Are all the dozens of previous rounds in vain? Quickly use the telescope to observe. It was discovered that the accident happened to be at the fort. In fact, a shell miraculously landed on a temporary pile of shells beside the fort. The power of the cannon was huge, coupled with the explosion it caused, the defenders suffered a tragedy. Not a single person was left alive in the fort, and 80% of the hundred or so people were shocked to death.
When a company of infantrymen carefully touched the fort, what they saw made many people vomit on the spot. There were severed human limbs everywhere. In a shell hole, about fifty soldiers were all staring, bleeding to death. This is the result of all the internal organs being shattered. Looking at the fort again, the solid concrete exterior wall is full of cracks and the inside is full of rubble. There was another gun, the 122 howitzer, which was intact, but all the soldiers were killed by the shock, and there were seven or eight others farther away who survived. But it was almost done, with only one breath left to hang on. The infantry stepped forward and gave them a bayonet to send them away.
The turret built by Lao Maozi is very interesting. The shooting angle is actually 180¡ã, which means that as long as the turret is not lost, it can still attack opponents attacking the city by turning its head. It happened that the Independent Heavy Artillery Regiment had no suitable targets to continue using its heavy artillery, so it simply sent a squad over. After finding the ammunition depot, it used the remaining 122 howitzer to blast the Soviet positions ahead.
The peripheral clean-up campaign started a month ago. The forts and positions held by the Soviet army were captured one after another, and the Soviet army was repeatedly compressed. Before January 30, the Soviet army in Tashkent was compressed within two kilometers of the city's periphery, and about 200,000 Soviet troops were annihilated. There were only more than 30,000 prisoners, and our army's casualties were about 20,000, which shows the tenacity of the Soviet army's resistance.
In order to completely resolve Tashkent, an unpopular blockade, the Central Asian Front Army concentrated 600,000 troops to clear out the surrounding Soviet troops from three directions: north, south, east, and complete the three-sided encirclement of Tashkent. Although the west side was left open, the Lu Jin didn't dare to run. It was very simple. Two legs couldn't outrun tanks and cars on the grassland. You can think with your toes that there is at least one mechanized army waiting for the Soviet army to break out and retreat.
Lu Jin¡¯s refusal to run away doesn¡¯t mean that the soldier is willing to wait for death here. Even if he waits for death, he will be hungry all day long.
Fang Rui got his wish and was promoted to Major General Commander of the 55th Division. Generally, Class A division commanders are lieutenant generals, and they are only forty years old. Fang Rui's identity was so special, and he crawled out of the dead. No one in the entire front army dared to question it.
As the siege battle was about to begin, the 55th Division was placed on the front line again. This is Fang RuiAt his own request, Chief of Staff Zhang Zhizhong informed Liu Mingzhao and approved it. Seeing that the siege was about to start tomorrow, Fang Rui habitually walked to the front line to take a look. In particular, a regiment of the 110th Brigade will launch the first wave of charges as a commando.
Fang Rui knew very well what commando meant, so he used his personal connections to get a lot of good things from the logistics department. Several trucks were loaded with chicken, duck, fish, meat, Chinese cabbage, potatoes, beef, etc.
In order to avoid casualties as much as possible, the siege troops dug trenches to about one thousand meters in front of the Soviet position. When you stay in a place like this, you have to be careful when you fart. The Soviet snipers and our snipers are all waiting in a dark corner for the next named target.
When Fang Rui touched it, Yituan was preparing to have dinner. In the low command post, the regiment commander, chief of staff, and life director were all nervous when they saw the division commander coming. Fang Rui's identity has long been spread, and everyone in the front army knows that the president's eldest son almost died on the battlefield. This thing is very morale-boosting. Whose life is more valuable than the eldest son?
"Commander, what are you doing here at this time? It's too dangerous. Lao Maozi's sniper is very powerful, and he will also fire a mortar out of nowhere." The regiment leader Liu Gaoming is a big man from Shandong, with a beard and a military uniform. Looks dirty.
"Whose life is not life? Stop talking nonsense and hurry up and get something to eat. Those who have walked this way for more than ten kilometers dare not take a car for fear of being spotted by Maozi's artillery observers." Fang Rui looked indifferent. The people below can't do anything about it. Liu Gaoming quickly asked someone to prepare lunch, and he and the chief of staff reported on the pre-war preparations.
After a hurried dinner, Fang Rui walked along the traffic trench and walked into the frontline trenches. After a strong morale boost, it was getting dark. When he was about to go down, someone suddenly shouted in a low voice on the position: "Don't move!"
"Don't shoot, don't shoot!" The voice was not loud, and soon a Soviet soldier climbed into the trench and sat in the trench breathing heavily: "Give me some food, I'm here to surrender, I didn't bring any weapons. "Lao Maozi's Chinese is very stiff, but he can basically understand it.
Soon the Soviet soldier was brought to Fang Rui. There was no hope for dinner. Fang Rui asked someone to give him a piece of compressed biscuit and a can of luncheon meat, and then get some water for the Soviet soldier. The dirty-looking soldier ate the biscuits and cans. When he ate two cans and asked for more, Fang Rui stepped forward to stop him and said, "Eat less, so as not to hold on. Tell me your name, position, What are you doing here? Why can you still speak Chinese?"
"Yusuf, a local, second lieutenant platoon leader of the Soviet xxx Infantry Division. My family is from Tashkent. I often deal with Chinese businessmen, so I learned some Chinese. In order to save food, the Soviet army killed everyone they could. Now The locals in the city, except for me who had joined the army, the rest were women. These women were almost starving to death. The Soviet soldiers only had 2 taels of bread a day, so how could they care about them. I came here to surrender just to take revenge. All my family members were killed. My father, my mother, two younger brothers, and a younger sister. I didn¡¯t even dare to go back and take a look, for fear that the Soviet soldiers would discover something strange about me. Today The instructor went to a meeting in the evening, and I took the opportunity to creep over quietly."
The hatred flashing in Yusuf's eyes cannot deceive anyone. Although his tone seems calm, this is not numbness, but a precursor to an explosion. Fang Rui handed him a cigarette, lit it with his own hands and said, "I need information!"
"Give me a pen and paper!" Yusuf took a deep puff of his cigarette, grabbed the paper and pen that was handed over and started drawing. Soon, a firepower distribution map gradually took shape. Fang Rui calmly watched him draw slowly. About an hour later, Yousuf stopped and handed it to Fang Rui and said, "That's all I know. I hope to participate in the war tomorrow."
Fang Rui said: "I still need to confirm your information." After saying that, he handed it to Liu Gaoming. Several staff members began to compare the results of the usual investigations. In less than ten minutes, Liu Gaoming came back and said: "Yes, this picture is real. Yes, and there are several firepower points and mortar positions that we have not discovered. If we really want to fight, these firepower points are enough for us to drink a pot, and dozens of lives will be lost."
"Find him a military uniform to put on, and give him a submachine gun. That's it, I'm going back. Tomorrow morning, I hope to see a regiment planting the flag on the Soviet position."
Yusuf changed into clothes and wrapped himself in a down jacket. He found a random corner in the trench and began to sleep. Soon he was snoring like thunder. The soldier responsible for monitoring him was stunned for a while, but he didn't know that Yusuf was having a nightmare at this moment. In the dream, he witnessed his parents and brothers lying in a pool of blood, and his sister screamed under the Soviet soldiers.