The decisive battle against the Third Reich

German fighter planes quickly entered the battlefield, but to no avail.

Because as mentioned before, the pontoon is composed of many small boats and has very good anti-sinkability. Even if a series of bullets from a fighter plane hit the target, there will be basically no reaction.

"Stuka" bombers are of course useful, but the problem is that the pontoon bridge is long and thin and in motion. In addition, a large amount of smoke is released at the central ferry, which makes the bottom low and the three "Stuka" dives. I dropped six shells but failed to hit.

Then the pontoon bridge entered the position between the sandbar and the east bank, and the Soviet artillery fire also stopped.

Obviously, the Soviet pontoon bridge was accurately calculated. Its length is slightly shorter than the distance between the sandbank and the east coast, which is more than two hundred meters... If it is too long or just right, it will be difficult to enter the river valley and adjust its position. Short Some do not have this problem, and the Soviet army at the other end, on the east bank of the valley, has also prepared other iron boats and tools for splicing. It will not take long to complete the entire pontoon bridge and launch a charge.

Before the pontoon stopped, Qin Chuan gave the order to fire.

However, the firepower on the sandbar failed to cause much damage to the pontoon bridge. As mentioned before, the end of the pontoon bridge facing the German sandbar was built with thicker armor and larger ships. There was even a similar ancient siege crossing at the head of the bridge. It is an iron baffle like a moat. Machine gun bullets hitting it will only make a "clang, clang, clang" sound and then be bounced away without exception. Even anti-aircraft guns are powerless against it.

Then the baffle was slowly lowered. Originally, Qin Chuan thought that he could use firepower to kill and block the Soviet troops on the pontoon. However, after the baffle was lowered to form a bridge, a T34 tank was revealed. The "bang" in the direction was an artillery shell... Although it had poor accuracy and failed to hit the target on the uneven pontoon, it was enough to shock the Germans, because this T34 had already formed a certain fire suppression and cover in front of them. As subsequent Soviet troops continued to attack the sandbank along the pontoon bridge.

Sure enough, the Soviet troops then launched a steady stream of attacks on the sandbank from the pontoon.

The Soviet assault was not just along the pontoon bridge.

In fact, a T34 has blocked almost half of the bridge deck of the pontoon bridge, so only a very narrow channel is left at the bridgehead facing the German army. If they just launch a charge along this channel, the German army only needs a few MP43 A round of shooting was enough to seal it off.

When the Soviet troops reached the end of the pontoon bridge, they jumped into the river from both sides and entered the shoal. Then they spread out from both sides and charged forward.

What's worse is that there is more than one pontoon bridge, and soon another pontoon bridge floats down the upstream... These pontoon bridges always use power to rush one end onto the sandbar and run aground on the beach, with an anchor thrown in the middle, and the other end is fixed with a rope and then repaired by engineers. Once they reach the gap, Soviet soldiers can launch a charge. Even light tanks can "rattling" onto the pontoon bridge to cover the infantry charge.

Therefore, attacking this sandbar is very different from a naval battle. In a naval battle, there is basically no situation of building a pontoon bridge to attack, but this is not the case on the sandbar.

"Call artillery reinforcements!" Qin Chuan shouted.

"Yes, Major!" Eberhard responded, and immediately directed the observer behind the artillery to report the coordinates to the rear artillery unit.

In less than a minute, large artillery shells roared from behind and blasted water columns into the sky on the Volga River. Along with these water columns, sections of pontoons and screaming Soviet soldiers were blown into the sky.

But before the German soldiers could breathe a sigh of relief, artillery fire also rang out from the direction of the Soviet army, and the shells roared over the sandbar and headed straight for Stalingrad.

Qinchuan secretly screamed... It seemed that the Soviet army had been prepared for this. They had deployed artillery on the east coast with a range comparable to that of the Germans. The German artillery would have suffered heavy losses without defense.

Qinchuan's guess was correct. Yereomenko deployed two more elite artillery regiments to the direction of the sandbank... These two artillery regiments are all equipped with more advanced M1938 howitzers with a longer range. Its longest range is 11.8 kilometers, which is farther than the 10 kilometers range of the German le. FH 18.

In other words, if the Soviet army deployed the M1938 howitzer within 1.8 kilometers of the sandbar, then the German artillery fire could hit the sandbar, then the Soviet M1978 would definitely be able to hit the German artillery position.

Sure enough, after a while, the correspondent reported to Qinchuan: "Our artillery has been suppressed and suffered heavy losses, and it is temporarily unable to provide artillery reinforcements!"

Looking at the direction of the Soviet pontoon bridge, its engineers have already begun to rush to repair the pontoon bridge... The emergency repair of the pontoon bridge is not difficult. It only needs to row a few iron boats to the gap, tie it with steel wire ropes, and then lay it with wooden boards or iron plates. That's it.

Therefore, even if the German Air Force fighters and bombers dived down, strafed and bombed again and again, and occasionally blew up the pontoon bridge, they could not stop the Soviet troops from rising up the sandbank like a tide.

The battle soon became intense, and every German soldier fired their weapons with a bang. Although rows of Soviet soldiers fell on the charging road, they were as dense as ants, regardless of casualties. Ignoring the landmines, they charged forward over the bodies of their comrades.

After thinking about it, Qin Chuan ordered: "Leave two people behind, and the others will come out of the fort to defend!"

The soldiers responded, carrying their rifles, and entered the trenches on both sides of the bunker from the rear exit along the communication trench.

Although the bunker is safe, its shortcomings are also very obvious, that is, like a tank, it has low external perception and has blind spots. What is more serious is that its firepower is too concentrated and it cannot hit mortars.

This will undoubtedly limit the firepower of the MP43 in the hands of soldiers to a considerable extent.

Therefore, if you want to block a human sea charge like the Soviet army, you must fight out of the fort.

Sure enough, when the German soldiers entered the position and fired the MP43, they quickly suppressed the intensive charging Soviet soldiers, knocking down a group of them as they rushed forward, and soon rows of corpses were piled up in front of the barbed wire fence.

Then came the Soviet tanks... The bazooka shooter approached the target under the cover of the German soldiers. After firing three rockets, he finally hit the target and turned the T34 into a ball of fire.

However, the Soviet charge did not stop because of this. On the other side of the Volga River, there were still countless Soviet soldiers charging towards this side. They were so dense that one could not see the end. Some of them did not even wait for the pontoon bridge to be repaired and jumped into the river. Swim for a while and then board the pontoon to head towards the sandbank.

Until a whistling sound of artillery shells came from the rear... The long-lost artillery fire cover finally came again. This time the artillery fire came more fiercely. A round of artillery shells accurately hit the pontoon area, blowing them into several pieces and then flowed along the river. Floated down.