Chapter 1076: The Distance is in Meters

To throw stones at the thick armor of a German King Tiger tank would obviously not destroy it. Even now, when Soviet anti-tank weapons aimed and fired at a King Tiger, in most cases, they could no longer penetrate its armor.

On one hand, this was because when the Soviet Union had rushed the production of the 76mm anti-tank gun, in a one-sided pursuit of production capacity, the anti-tank performance of this gun had been compromised. On the other hand, this gun, when it was originally designed, had not been developed for the single purpose of anti-tank warfare.

To put it simply, this Soviet 76.2mm anti-tank gun had been designed as a comprehensive infantry support weapon. What is a multi-purpose platform? It means to, as much as possible, allow this gun to provide indirect fire support, while at the same time having a certain anti-tank capability.

The original design philosophy was to use one gun to do the work of two or even three, and thus to greatly simplify the equipment pressure on logistics and production. And in the era when this gun was born, the mainstream tanks of the world were still the small T-26s and Renaults. To use a 76mm caliber to also take on the anti-tank role was simply using a butcher’s knife to kill a chicken.

But as the war had progressed, the thickness of the world’s tank armor had made a qualitative leap. This was especially true for the Soviet Union’s opponent, the German Wehrmacht, whose Tiger and King Tiger tanks were at the forefront of the world in technology. In this situation, to use a gun that had been designed to be multi-functional to counter the advanced tank protection systems designed by the German professional design teams was, to put it mildly, an impossible task.

Moreover, German technology was developing rapidly. The Soviet Union had no time to spare to research the terrifying breakthroughs that Germany was making in high-strength materials. In 1935, German material technology experts had published papers on strengthening steel materials. In 1939, German military-industrial enterprises had begun to universally use armor steel, with its world-leading material technology, to produce their armored vehicles.

Subsequently, Germany had, through a series of R&D efforts, developed a cloth-like material to be draped over the outside of a tank’s armor, to enhance its ability to withstand anti-tank weapons. It was just that this material had not yet been widely adopted, and was temporarily only being tested by a portion of the units.

With this increase on one side and decrease on the other, the huge gap between their own tank guns and the enemy’s armor had become particularly obvious. In World War II, anti-tank combat was, in most cases, a face-to-face, bayonet-style fight. Once one side had lost faith in the weapon in its hands, the impact on the war situation was imaginable.

The Soviet soldiers truly did not have the courage to use stones as weapons to meet the German tanks. At least in this battle, they truly did not have this kind of courage. Before Zhukov and Vatutin could even reach an agreement on whether the front line should be retreated, the Soviet positions had already been mostly overrun by the German army.

The German soldiers had, with great ease, crossed the Soviet’s broken barbed-wire obstacles and had leaped into their trenches. They held their weapons and fired desperately at the already-collapsing Soviet troops, shooting the fleeing soldiers in the back as they ran to the end of the trench.

“The Soviets are running! Keep firing!” an officer, who had just jumped into the trench from behind a tank, shouted, waving his pistol and encouraging his men. Beside him, one after another of the German soldiers, holding their weapons, were rushing past him, charging at their fastest speed towards the other end of the trench.

Crack! A German soldier, leaning against the trench wall, aimed his Mauser 98K rifle in the direction of the Soviets. He pulled the trigger, then skillfully worked the bolt, preparing for his next shot. He himself didn’t even know if that last shot had hit his enemy, but his training had taught him how to survive in this battle. His training had made him numbly aim at the enemy and fire as quickly as possible.

Beside him, a second German soldier had also pressed himself against the trench wall. He, too, aimed his rifle in the direction of the Soviets, then aimed and fired. The two of them fired, shot after shot, ignoring the three or four Soviet corpses that were piled up right next to them. Those corpses, to them, seemed to be just dirt, things that were no different from stones and sandbags.

The tracks of a German Panther assault gun rolled slowly, churning up the mud and then letting it fall at some point. The huge road wheels made the heads of the German soldiers in the nearby trenches seem a little smaller. The metal tracks ground past their helmets, pressing the Soviet corpses that were in its path into the mud.

The hull machine gun at the front of the vehicle was spitting fire without stop. The tracer rounds wove a fiery net in front of the assault gun. Several Soviet soldiers were caught in this net and were then turned into a bloody mess, collapsing on their path of retreat.

For the Soviet defenders, who lacked anti-tank weapons, the infantry assault gun, which was not so thickly armored, was already an indestructible steel behemoth in front of them. On the main front, they had relied on countless desperate night-time counter-charges, and countless times of men holding explosive packs and charging at the German assault guns, to stop these monsters’ advance.

Sometimes, to destroy one German assault gun or tank, an entire company of Soviet soldiers would be killed in action on the line, and even more would be routed. The German army, after more than a year of coordination, had long since formed a practiced mode of infantry-tank coordinated operations. For the Soviet army to try and gain some advantage in the face of this system was, in itself, not an easy matter.

“For Stalin!” Suddenly, not far from the side of a German Panther assault gun, a young Soviet soldier leaped up from the ground. He was holding an explosive pack, and he shouted a slogan as he charged at the still-advancing German assault gun. This was a common tactic used by the Soviet infantry. To approach from the side was a relatively safe method.

Rat-tat-tat! A German grenadier, who was following not far behind the German assault gun, held his MP-44 assault rifle and greeted this Soviet soldier, who was trying to take the enemy with him, with a dense rain of bullets. The bullets pierced the other’s small body, turning him into a sieve.

Infantry-tank coordination, of course, was not just about the tank covering the infantry as they assaulted an enemy position. The tank also had to be protected by the infantry behind it to be able to survive and to carry out a breakthrough in a situation where they were surrounded by the enemy. This was a skill and tactic that was worth serious study and learning, not as simple as just a group of soldiers following behind a tank.

As the Soviet soldier with the explosive pack fell to the ground, unwilling to die, the explosives on his body detonated. The loud boom left nothing of him, and the German assault gun in the distance was still slowly pushing its low-profile but sturdy body forward.

Suddenly, this assault gun stopped its advance, adjusted its hull slightly to the left, and its 75mm long-barreled cannon, which was fixed to its front, aimed at a distant, frantically-firing Soviet bunker. This bunker was a permanent shelter, reinforced with concrete, and had even been camouflaged with some weeds.

With a boom, the muzzle of the German assault gun spewed a cloud of thick smoke, and the entire body of the tank shuddered with it. A shell, at a distance of a hundred or so meters, easily hit its target. The high-explosive shell exploded less than a meter from the machine gun bunker, kicking up a cloud of smoke, debris, and gravel. This bunker was also instantly suppressed, and it stopped firing.

More German soldiers scrambled up from the ground and launched a general offensive on the Soviet positions, which had lost their fire support. Hundreds of German soldiers, a black mass of them, charged into the Soviets’ meticulously arranged defensive positions, driving out the opponents who had little ability to resist. The Soviet army, having thrown down their helmets and armor, fled towards their second line of defense.

Several German soldiers, hiding in a trench, waved a swastika flag that was full of bullet holes. And that imposing Panther assault gun had, by this time, parked its low-profile body next to that destroyed Soviet bunker. Its shape was just right to be concealed, and it had found itself a relatively suitable shelter.

“Sir! We have already captured the enemy’s first line of defense and are now expanding our gains on both flanks. The enemy’s resistance is much weaker than it was the day before yesterday. I think they must be short of ammunition,” a German battalion commander said, standing in front of a table in the regimental command post. He pointed at a local map that was covered in contour lines and reported the results of this attack to his superior. “Because of the cover from the division’s assault guns, we have only lost 50 men.”

The regimental commander nodded, acknowledging his subordinate’s report. His infantry regiment had a total of three infantry battalions. In this attack, he had committed two of them, about 1,000 men. The result was that when they had captured the enemy’s position, he had only lost 50 men. He was very satisfied with this result.

What worried him was that the Soviet defenders had always been known for their fanaticism and bravery. These soldiers were good at launching an immediate counter-attack after losing a position, using the lives of countless soldiers to retake it. And so he quickly gave an order for his troops to be able to, in the face of a possible counter-attack, to reduce their own losses as much as possible. “Have the troops stop their advance and consolidate their defensive positions. The Soviets may counter-attack. We must hold our positions as long as possible.”

He looked at the map, then made a mark on the position they had just captured, and then he smiled happily. “Now we are the closest to Moscow, about 12,700 meters.”

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