Chapter 730: The Battle of Crimea
There was no roar of tanks, only muddy, cold trenches and the terrifying howl of Stuka bombers. Here, if one didn’t look up at the sky to see the advanced fighters and bombers, it was no different from the First World War.
The soldiers used the same bolt-action rifles from 30 years ago, having to laboriously work the bolt to chamber a round after every shot. The only automatic weapon on the battlefield was the machine gun, which cut down swarms of soldiers with every burst.
Cannons aimed at places over ten kilometers away, accurately dropping large-caliber shells onto designated positions, leaving one huge crater after another on the ground, emitting a faint heat. The warfare here was more backward and rigid than in other places, but it was also more cruel. Yes, cruel, so cruel it was despairing.
A young German soldier, with his Mauser 98k rifle on his back, was slowly crawling through the mud. Although the cold feeling from his wet clothes made him uncomfortable, he still kept his head as low as possible to avoid having a fist-sized hole blown in it by a flying bullet.
He moved cautiously, crawling past the already cold corpse of a Soviet Red Army soldier. Not far from this body lay two German soldiers and a dozen Soviet soldiers. These poor souls had been lying here for half a day, and it was estimated that they would have to lie here obediently until the end of the war.
A bullet struck the mud next to the German soldier, splashing up dirt and gravel that clattered against his steel helmet. The young German soldier adjusted his helmet with his hand, frowned, and continued to crawl forward. His mission was not yet complete, so he needed to stay here and risk his life.
Behind him, a German sapper was also crawling forward. He too was extremely cautious, afraid of being hit by anything flying. On his back, he carried a number of explosive charges, weapons prepared for clearing an attack route later on.
The German soldier at the head of the group finally stopped crawling. He took a large pair of wire cutters from his tool bag and clamped the head of the cutters onto the thin barbed wire. The Soviet Red Army soldiers opposite seemed to have discovered that someone here was attempting to destroy their defensive system and began to fire frantically in this direction.
Bullets struck the surroundings, making a clanging sound. Some bullets also hit the corpses nearby, the sound much duller. No one cared about the sound of the bullets. On the battlefield, people only cared whether a bullet would ultimately hit them, or rather, how far away the target of those bullets was.
“Cover!” a German soldier behind him shouted. With this shout, behind these attacking German soldiers, in a foxhole, an MG42 general-purpose machine gun that was covering them began to roar. The ammunition belt on the side of the gun jumped up and down with the gun’s own vibrations, looking very cool.
With its high rate of fire, this MG42 directly sprayed a hail of bullets, silencing the Soviet machine gun opposite with a dense barrage. A cloud of white smoke rose from the Soviet machine gun position that had been so arrogant just a moment ago, and it was impossible to see how many living soldiers were left inside.
A German 150mm heavy artillery shell landed not far away, blowing a huge crater in the trench not far ahead. The huge explosion drowned out all other sounds. The ears of the nearby soldiers were filled with an endless buzzing, with no other noise.
Taking advantage of this great opportunity, the young German soldier raised his head slightly, adjusted the position of his hands, and pressed down hard on the long support arms of the wire cutters. With a barely audible click, a section of barbed wire was cut in two.
“Obstacle cleared! Demolition team! Your turn!” The German soldier dropped the cutters in his hand, rolled to one side, and pressed his entire body low, hiding behind the corpse of a Soviet Red Army soldier. A bullet grazed his backside, punching a small, round hole in the gas mask canister he was carrying.
The German sapper, carrying many Bangalore torpedoes, was like a mobile powder keg. He crawled to the edge of the barbed wire, took the other half of his tools from the soldier behind him, and then curled up his body, screwing two sections of the Bangalore torpedo together to form a longer, pipe-like device.
Bullets flew past him, sometimes landing only a dozen centimeters away. But this sapper paid no attention to them and instead focused on assembling the Bangalore torpedo in his hands. One section was screwed on, then another, making this pipe-like explosive charge longer and longer.
Finally, this long Bangalore torpedo had penetrated deep behind the Soviet barbed wire. That area was a minefield that had been scouted out by the German infantry during their attack and needed to be cleared. That was why this sapper had been ordered to come here and had so frantically completed the assembly of the explosive charges.
The last few sections of this connected charge actually had no explosives in them; they were just a device for pushing the charge to the designated position. But the first five or six sections were the real deal, with an explosive power almost no different from an aerial bomb.
Taking a detonator from his mouth, he inserted it into the detonation device. The sapper shouted a warning to his comrades to get ready, “Attention! Demolition!” With a hysterical shout, he forcefully pressed the electric detonator in his arms, and the explosive charges that had been pushed into the minefield began to explode.
The huge explosion created a massive shockwave. The dust and dirt kicked up blotted out the sun, and the flying debris clattered against steel helmets. The entire position shook with the huge explosion. Several of the wooden stakes for the barbed wire, which had been buried deep in the mud, were lifted out of the ground by the terrifying vibration and scattered around.
“Attack! Attack! The way is clear!” While their ears were still ringing, soldiers were already shouting. Some of the German soldiers who had been in the rear got up from the ground, grabbed their rifles, and ran, crouched low, towards the cleared gap. The air there was still filled with smoke and heat, and visibility was not very clear.
The huge explosion had cleared a pit about a meter deep in the ground, like a half-dug trench. This provided good protection for the attacking German soldiers. A large number of German soldiers took advantage of this moment of silence to advance rapidly and soon broke into the Soviet defenders’ trench.
The first German soldier to charge into the trench was shot in the shoulder by a Soviet soldier from the side. He cried out and fell sideways to the ground. The second German soldier to charge into the trench threw a hand grenade, followed by another earth-shaking bang. With the flying shrapnel, three or four Soviet Red Army soldiers fell in the trench, motionless.
Two German soldiers scrambled to drag their wounded comrade back to a safe position. More German soldiers charged into the Soviet defenders’ trench, and the sound of gunfire, sometimes dense, sometimes sparse, rang out from all over. And above this trench, at the very top of a high ground, in a huge concrete-built shelter, a cannon with a caliber of at least 210mm was firing, the flames and the huge sound making one’s chest feel tight.
In a semi-underground shelter three kilometers away, three battery commander’s scopes were placed side by side. Several senior German staff officers were marking the newly captured areas on a map. Manstein was not using a battery commander’s scope but was standing by an embrasure, studying the position his troops were attacking with his naked eye. Behind him, Marshal von Brauchitsch’s son stood respectfully with his hands behind his back, not saying a word.
“The speed is still a bit too slow. At this rate, we might let some of the Soviet Red Army in the Donetsk area escape…” Manstein said, watching as several huge flames erupted on the steep slope of the Soviet position. He was clearly not satisfied with the attack speed of his Army Group M. After muttering this, he turned back to the map, made a few gestures on it with his hand, and then shook his head.
On his front, the Soviet Crimean defense group, commanded by Marshal Voroshilov, was not small. And with a naval base located here, the Russian Black Sea Fleet was always a threat to some of the Turkish ports. Therefore, both strategically and tactically, the German army had to first capture Sevastopol and Kerch and other naval ports before they could use the Black Sea as a transport shortcut to meddle in the North Caucasus.
“There are no shortcuts to choose from. The natural geographical conditions here have determined that we can only fight with these Soviets for control of this place, one brick at a time,” Manstein said, walking back behind the embrasure and studying the fortress in the distance, which had been bombed into a pile of rubble by the large-caliber German artillery. He spoke to Marshal von Brauchitsch’s son, “The Führer has led us down too many shortcuts, making us almost forget the courage a soldier should have. Now, the time to test our courage has come. Here, we and the Soviets are face to face, gun to gun, bayonet to bayonet, to see who is the strongest in the world!”
He paused, then the corners of his mouth turned up, as if he had thought of something interesting. And indeed he had. “Since he’s up against me, Manstein, then this Voroshilov can only consider himself unlucky. He’s probably going to be the first marshal in this war to be captured or killed. After we’ve dealt with him, we’ll go and find trouble with Timoshenko!”
Published: 2025-09-22T03:39:56.000+00:00
Last Edited: 2026-03-16T18:18:47.000+00:00
URL: https://www.patreon.com/caleredhair/posts/mtr-c730-battle-139444036
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