Chapter 786: Assault

“Charge! For Ukraine!” a hundred young soldiers of Ukrainian descent shouted, holding their Mauser 98k rifles and launching a charge down the crowded street. They rushed towards their enemies without a second thought, letting the bullets fly past their ears.

Behind these Ukrainian soldiers, a German MG42 light machine gun was roaring continuously, pouring bullets into the enemy positions opposite them. And on those positions, Soviet soldiers were frantically working the bolts of their Mosin-Nagant rifles and firing at the charging Ukrainians.

Bullets flew everywhere. A Ukrainian soldier was hit in the throat by a bullet. It severed his artery, and blood sprayed everywhere, staining his gray-green German military uniform red. He clutched his neck and struggled as he fell, closing his eyes on the cold, snowy ground.

More Ukrainian soldiers stepped over his body and continued their charge towards the Red Army’s positions. Under the cover of machine guns, they poured into the trenches and clashed with the dodging Soviet troops. Bullets flew everywhere, and the sound of screams echoed. The entire battlefield was a scene of bloodshed, and the pile of bodies grew higher and higher as the two sides fought fiercely.

A German officer observing the battle lowered his binoculars, looked at the Ukrainian officer beside him, and gave a warm smile. “Your troops are very brave. These soldiers are well-trained and have a tenacious fighting will. I am very satisfied.”

“Thank you for your praise. My unit will take this city block this afternoon and then continue to attack the city center. To liberate this city ruled by Stalin, to liberate all of Ukraine, is our bounden duty!” the Ukrainian officer said solemnly. “You came to liberate us… Now, we should fight side by side!”

As these words were spoken, in the trench that was being contested on the battlefield, a group of Ukrainian and Soviet soldiers, locked in a melee, were cut down by a light machine gun from the Soviet side. Because it was so chaotic, this burst of fire was completely indiscriminate. In an instant, a dozen or so soldiers from both sides fell screaming into pools of blood.

A hand grenade, thrown from somewhere, exploded in the trench, sending two grappling soldiers flying. One of the soldier’s arms flew a long way, a bloody mess landing on a pile of corpses.

The Ukrainian soldiers who charged into the trench behind them all had bayonets fixed to their rifles. They jumped into the trench, immediately giving the attacking friendly forces an overwhelming numerical advantage. These soldiers quickly cleared the entire trench and, braving the hail of bullets, continued to attack the next line of trenches.

It could be said that even compared to the fanatical SS, these soldiers of Ukrainian descent were models of bravery in combat. It was clear how much oppression these Ukrainians had suffered under Soviet rule. They hated the Soviet Union and therefore regarded the German army that had driven the Soviets away as their saviors.

These Ukrainian soldiers had all participated in the hunt and encirclement of Polish partisans in Poland and had also undergone strict anti-Soviet ideological training. Most of them had grievances from the period of Soviet rule, and they had also dealt with a large number of uncooperative ethnic Russian prisoners in the concentration camps in Poland and Ukraine. So these men were now fighting for Ukraine, for the Third Reich, and for their own miserable lives. They had naturally become incomparably brave and fearless.

On the positions of the outer encirclement of Kharkov, the German vassal army, the 1st Ukrainian Army, was engaged in a life-or-death struggle with the Soviet soldiers. Former comrades were repeatedly slaughtering each other on the same piece of ground, and in the end, it was a river of blood. And the result of the battle was that the flag of the Third Reich was flying in the wind on the positions, getting closer and closer to the city center of Kharkov.

A Ukrainian soldier lay on the rubble of a collapsed building, holding his gun and watching the direction of the street intersection. Not far below him, in a huge crater, two machine gunners were leaning against the corner of the crater, shivering from the cold wind.

The supplies for these vassal troops were generally less than that of the regular German army, and their materials were also scarcer. More than seventy percent of the regular German army was equipped with winter combat cotton uniforms and snow camouflage. But only eight percent of the 1st Ukrainian Army had this treatment.

Therefore, most of the Ukrainian soldiers were still wearing the gray-green uniform of the Wehrmacht, carrying the Mauser 98k rifle that the main German forces were unwilling to be equipped with. A large half of them didn’t even have a gas mask canister, which also became one of the important signs for the Soviet army to distinguish between the Ukrainian troops and the regular German army.

A shell landed in the center of a distant building. The huge explosion caused the already crumbling building to finally collapse. The brick and tile structure began to fall, and the force of the collapse spread out in all directions, kicking up a sky-blotting cloud of dust.

Kharkov, as a huge trap, had not been waiting for Guderian, but for Vlasov. The layers of defense that had originally been intended to bog down the German armored forces had now become a battlefield for the infantry of both sides to slaughter each other back and forth. Both sides were losing more soldiers every minute. The only difference was that few of the lost soldiers were German.

As the entire Eastern Front battlefield continued to develop, the fresh forces of the Germans finally joined the battle. 100,000 elite Italian troops and 150,000 Romanian main force troops filled the gaps in some of the German defense lines. And these vassal troops, combined with a full 200,000 Ukrainian troops, formed an Axis cluster, which took over from Model’s D Army Group, encircled Kharkov, and launched a fierce attack.

For the Soviet side, this was undoubtedly another heavy blow. Because after suffering a series of heavy losses, the number of enemies the Soviet Union had to face was increasing. At least 300,000 German troops had been freed from the complex guard duties in the rear. Those places were now filled by Italian and Romanian troops. And these troops, plus the troops of several countries that were already participating in the battle at the front, the strength of the Axis allied forces had suddenly increased by as much as 750,000. These additional troops were putting pressure on the Soviet defenders from all directions.

On a building in the distance, a Soviet soldier poked his head out. He glanced around furtively, then quickly pulled his head back. The Ukrainian soldier on this side remained motionless, aiming his gun at the window where the enemy had shown his head. A little while later, perhaps having found that there was no danger, this Soviet soldier poked his head out again. But this time he was not so lucky. A bullet accurately hit him in the head.

A concealed Soviet heavy machine gun in a corner suddenly opened fire. The bullets swept towards the ruins like rain, hitting the ground around the Ukrainian soldier and kicking up a cloud of white smoke. This one shot immediately triggered a fierce battle, and soon Soviet soldiers were firing their bullets from all directions.

The Ukrainian soldiers on this side did not sit and wait to be killed either. The MG42 machine gun next to them immediately returned fire. Tracer rounds flew towards the enemy’s position, also kicking up a cloud of white smoke there. Further away, several Ukrainian soldiers, holding their Mauser 98k rifles, were firing desperately, one shot after another.

After all, they were not the elite grenadiers of the German army. The firepower of the Ukrainian troops was actually about the same as that of the Soviet Red Army opposite them. The two sides were in a stalemate for a time, and casualties soon appeared.

At this moment, a Soviet T-26 tank, painted in gray and with a white-bordered black Iron Cross on its turret, drove over from the end of the street. Behind it followed more T-26 tanks with the same paint scheme. These were all the armored units of the 1st Ukrainian Army, and also the elite of this army group.

One of these T-26s had even been modified. The turret was not a closed one, but an open-topped gun shield, on which were mounted two 20mm cannons. This anti-aircraft weapon had originally been modified to equip the German army, but was later phased out due to a shortage of spare parts and inconvenient maintenance, and was just right to be given to the Ukrainian vassal army, which used the T-26 tank.

The appearance of the Ukrainian army’s tanks caused the situation on the battlefield to tilt. Some rifle bullets hit the sandbags hanging on the front of the T-26 tanks but did not penetrate these temporarily added “armor.” The machine guns on the T-26 tanks began to fire fiercely, suppressing some of the Soviet fire points.

The outdated T-26 tank was no different from a kill in front of the German armored forces, but in this situation, it could still produce a certain deterrent effect. The Soviet Red Army’s defense line began to waver, and the battlefield situation tilted in favor of the Ukrainian side.

Since it was a pit dug for the German armored forces, this pit was naturally not a “pillow embroidered with flowers.” There were many anti-tank guns inside the entire city of Kharkov. These things were easy to hide in street fighting and were very powerful. They could often get a closer firing distance and were simply the tank killers of urban street fighting.

Now, on the Soviet Red Army’s position, an anti-tank gun opened fire. The shell easily penetrated the Ukrainian army’s T-26 tank, destroying this fellow who had been slaughtering Soviet soldiers just a moment ago.

The remaining Ukrainian tanks opened fire in the direction from which the shell had come. The small-caliber cannons on their turrets fired desperately, because the drivers inside these tanks knew in their hearts that if another shell were to fly over, it was not unlikely that their own tank would be the one destroyed.

At this time, the twin-barreled 20mm anti-aircraft gun, which was for air defense, drove up. The two cannons quickly aimed at the Soviet position, which was already a cloud of white smoke. With a fierce command, this originally anti-aircraft weapon began to provide suppressive fire in a direct-fire role—this was also learned from the German army. In actual combat, it was said that the effect was very good.

Unsurprisingly, the anti-tank gun that had opened fire had already been destroyed. The commander and soldiers next to it had also been killed by the shells. Subsequently, the entire Soviet defensive position in the city block collapsed. Another swastika flag was draped over the roof of the tallest building in a city block.

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