Red Moscow

"I am Lieutenant Sergeyev, the commander of the cannon company!" The tall, thin man on the left first saluted Sokov.

As soon as he finished speaking, the slightly shorter lieutenant beside him also saluted Sokov and said clearly, "I am Lieutenant Ajik, the commander of the anti-tank gun company."

Sokov glanced over the faces of the two of them again, and asked, "Are you all ready?"

"Yes, Comrade Major, we are ready for battle." Sergeyev immediately replied loudly: "We are ready for battle at any time."

But Ajik didn't say anything, just nodded vigorously, expressing that he was ready.

"We can't go into battle for the time being, because the commanders and fighters in the battalion are on their way to Susinich." Sokov smiled at the two and asked, "Which one of you has a map? We can take this opportunity to I studied the terrain of the combat area."

"I have a map." Ajik quickly agreed, untied the map bag, took out a map from it, and spread it out on the table next to him.

Sokov took out a pencil from his satchel, marked the four villages to be captured on the map, and said to the two: "Commrades company commanders, the four villages ordered by our superiors to be captured form a diamond shape on the map." Distribution. Since the names of the villages are long and difficult to pronounce, for the sake of easy memory, I use numbers to distinguish them and use them as our attack order."

Ajik stared at the map for a while, looked up at Sokov, and asked tentatively: "Comrade Major, I would like to ask, how many troops does the enemy have in these villages?"

When accepting the task, although the chief of staff of the division did not specify how many enemies were in these villages, according to Sokov's estimation, the number would not be too many. "According to the introduction of the division chief of staff, the German army has occupied more than a dozen of these villages. According to my estimation, there is about one platoon of troops in each village."

After listening to Sokov's answer, Ajik thought to himself: After such a long battle, the major's battalion should have very few troops left. Are they capable of capturing these four villages? Thinking of this, he tentatively asked: "Comrade Major, may I ask how many people are in your battalion?"

"More than nine hundred people." After answering this question, Sokov said without waiting for Ajik to ask again: "The whole battalion is equipped with all German equipment, and the number of machine guns and submachine guns accounts for half. But it is regrettable Unfortunately, there is not a single artillery piece in the battalion, but fortunately with your participation, I should have no problem capturing villages occupied by the enemy."

"There are more than nine hundred people in a battalion?!" Hearing this number, Ajik and Sergeyev looked at each other, and they both saw surprise in each other's eyes: "Many infantry regiments now have only five or six hundred people, you There are more than 900 people in a battalion, which is really unbelievable."

"Nothing strange." Sokov folded the map on the table, handed it back to Ajik, and said lightly: "Our battalion has replenished a lot of commanders and fighters rescued from the prisoner-of-war camp, so we can reach such a large number of people."

Sokov waited for Ajik to place the map, and asked with a smile on his face, "How many cannons do you two companies have, and how many shells does each cannon have?"

Sergeyev was the first to answer the question: "Our company has six artillery pieces, each equipped with thirty rounds of shells."

Ajik went on to say: "I have four anti-tank guns in my company, and the shells are not too many. Each gun has only eighteen shells."

Sokov's smile immediately froze on his face. According to his original idea, to attack each village, first let the artillery company cover the German army in the village with firepower, and then launch the attack after the enemy is blinded. But now each cannon only has 30 shells, not to mention the firepower coverage, if you don't save some time when you attack the first village, when you attack the next three villages, you can only let the soldiers risk the enemy's artillery fire. , charged forward one after another.

Thinking of this, Sokov said to the two company commanders: "Come on, follow me to see the terrain."

When leaving the division headquarters, Sokov left behind a soldier from the guard class and asked him to stay here to wait for Belkin, while he and the two company commanders brought the rest of the soldiers and followed the division. The guides of the soldiers rushed to the area where the troops were about to attack.

Under the leadership of the guide, they stepped on the knee-deep snow, walked through the forest, and came to the vicinity of No. 1 village. On the road, Sokov still felt quite strange. The 16th Army had occupied Susinich for a long time. Why didn't they take down this village so close to the city?

After they stopped at the edge of the forest, Sokov found an ideal observation position, raised his binoculars and looked towards the village. I saw that the houses in the village were one family in the east and one family in the west, which seemed very scattered. Sokov was very satisfied with such a distribution. If the houses in the village were too concentrated, after the troops rushed into the village, they would huddle together and become the enemy's target.

Although from a distance, the whole village is covered by snow. But based on his own experience, Sokov soon discovered that there were trenches built by the German army and some civil firepower points in the south of the village. There was a fire at the entrance of the village, and two German soldiers in military coats were surrounding the fire to keep warm. Not far behind them, parked a tank covered in snow.

Sokov put down the binoculars and said to Ajik: "Lieutenant Ajik, have you seen the tank at the entrance of the village?" Without waiting for the other party to speak, he continued, "When the battle starts, you will concentrate your artillery fire to destroy it. Otherwise, it will cause huge casualties to our attacking troops. And you, Lieutenant Sergeyev, the task of your company is to directly destroy the enemy's civil firepower at the entrance of the village by direct shooting."

Sergeyev checked the distance with his eyes and said with some embarrassment: "Comrade Major, the distance from our position to the entrance of the village is more than a thousand meters. My company is full of recruits and lacks combat experience. It's a little difficult for them to hit a target that far away."

When he was looking at the terrain just now, Sokov was thinking in his heart, if his artillery platoon could equip them with a few cannons, not to mention the firepower outside the village, even the tanks parked at the entrance of the village could be cleaned up together. . Hearing Sergeyev's worries at this moment, he said carelessly: "Comrade Lieutenant, I have a group of experienced artillerymen under my command, and I can lend them to you temporarily."

"Aren't you commanding an infantry battalion?" Sergeyev asked in surprise, "Why is there artillery in the battalion?"

"I am commanding a battalion of mixed arms," ​​Sokov said with some trepidation: "In addition to artillery, there are also tank troops, engineers and communications troops. If conditions permit, I would like to form another flying squadron... ..."

When Ajik heard this, he couldn't stand it anymore, and quickly interrupted Sokov: "Comrade Major, when are we going to attack the village?"