Chapter 788: As Calm as a Forest

Hearing too many jokes always changes people’s perception of some truths. The final facts are buried in the dust of history, and what’s left for everyone to talk about after dinner is mostly just nonsense.

During World War II, the Italian army was not as incompetent as rumors made it out to be, to the point of being described with the word “spaghetti.” At least when they had a numerical superiority, the Italian army still had a certain combat effectiveness. Even in real history, although Italy’s combat record could not be compared with Germany’s, it was worthy of its status as a world power.

Even if they couldn’t launch a desperate, all-out attack like the Ukrainian army against the ethnic Russians, the Italians could still manage to fire all the shells in their hands from a safe place. So on this difficult night, the Soviet defenders, in endless pain, had endured a full eight grueling hours.

In the early morning, another unit appeared on the flank of Kharkov, and this unit had an even deeper hatred for the Soviet Union. The Romanian troops had arrived and had sealed off Kharkov’s last escape route. They had established a defensive position there, and with the addition of two German divisions to reinforce them, it could be said that the flank of the entire Caucasus offensive group was truly impregnable.

At this moment, although the German army was still short of large-caliber artillery, they were no longer as lacking as at the beginning of the war. The production of large-caliber support artillery by the Krupp company had begun to fully reference the assembly line process of the King Tiger tank, using a mechanized, semi-automatic production process. The number of cannons produced per day had begun to surge. Although these cannons, when equipped by the troops, did not completely fill the gap in the army’s lack of artillery, they had temporarily alleviated the awkward situation of some units being in desperate need of them.

Compared to the German army, the Italian and Romanian armies did not have this problem. On the one hand, these countries had not undergone a large-scale military expansion in a few years like Germany. On the other hand, these countries were not sanctioned by the Treaty of Versailles and had sufficient stockpiles.

Now, all these cannons were on the German-Soviet front, and they were in the direction of Kharkov, fiercely bombarding the stubbornly resisting Soviet defenders in the city. The shells fired by these cannons made the sound of collapsing buildings echo continuously throughout the city. The apocalypse described in the Bible was nothing more than this. Every Soviet soldier clutched his weapon, watching the homeland he was defending being destroyed into piles of rubble.

A Soviet sniper lay motionless in the rubble of a building that had long been bombed into ruins. In his scope, several Romanian soldiers who had just arrived were examining the destroyed buildings. These Romanian soldiers lacked combat experience. To put it another way, they had not yet been taught by the cruel war the habit of walking quickly while crouched low.

If no one had fallen beside you, if no comrade had had his head blown to pieces, if you had not been splattered with someone’s blood, you would never know how important and irreplaceable it is to bend low on the battlefield, to move quickly as close to the walls as possible.

With a gunshot, with a bullet piercing the head of a Romanian soldier, the remaining few Romanian soldiers immediately learned the skill they should remember. They quickly grabbed their helmets and scrambled into an empty trench nearby. Their movements had the grace of a panicked retreat, which did not quite match their earlier image of pointing and giving directions. But at this juncture, no one would care about their image. After all, the one who had been pointing most stylishly just now was now lying on the ground, bleeding.

This Soviet soldier worked the bolt of his rifle, skillfully chambering a round. He then aimed his scope at the slowest of the fleeing enemy soldiers, led his target, and fired a second shot cleanly.

The bullet flew directly into the back of this Romanian soldier, creating an exit wound in his chest. The Romanian soldier let out a miserable scream and pitched forward into the trench, his head hitting the bottom of the pit. Two of his comrades who had jumped in first quickly came over, turned over their face-down comrade, and found that he was no longer breathing.

The Soviet soldier on the ruins had already begun to retreat from the small mound. Carrying his rifle and paying no attention to the dust on his body, he ran towards a small path behind him. He crossed a street, climbed over a broken wall in a corner, and came to the second floor of a ruined building. He stuck the muzzle of his gun out of a window.

He had once again transitioned from motion to stillness, trying his best to conceal his tracks, moving on the edge of the Soviet defensive positions. The dark muzzle of his gun was aimed at the distant street, waiting for the enemy to arrive. In this city that had already become ruins, he was a hunter, a terrifying hunter who preyed on the lives of his opponents.

In front of the Soviet sniper, about a hundred Romanian soldiers were slowly approaching from both ends of the street. These soldiers held their guns and cautiously took their steps forward. From time to time, they would look around, trying to discover the enemy’s situation in advance. It was clear that their efforts had not achieved their desired purpose, because in this corner, a sniper had already aimed at the young Romanian soldier at the head of the group.

During the Second World War, street fighting was a nightmare for any country. The task of invading a city could generally only be given to the infantry, to fill a bottomless pit with their lives until either the defender or the attacker had shed their last drop of blood. Only then would this slaughter truly end. Street fighting itself as a subject of study was a matter for after World War II. At this time, in the midst of the ruins and rubble, there were terrifying death traps everywhere.

Crack! A gunshot, in this city that was exploding and burning everywhere, or rather, in these ruins, did not sound very piercing. But the Romanian soldier at the very front fell with the sound of the shot, which immediately made the others understand what had just happened.

A chaotic firing immediately began. The inexperienced Romanian soldiers frequently opened fire on the buildings on both sides. The machine guns that were covering these soldiers also roared, but while on the one hand, they were firing densely to bolster their courage, on the other hand, they were slowly retreating. These Romanian troops slowly fell back, and only when they had retreated to the end of the street did they manage to stabilize their position.

This time, there was no need to even change positions. The Soviet sniper gave a cold laugh, felt his ammunition pouch, and found that he did not have many bullets left. He gave a bitter smile, then took out a clip and pressed it into his rifle.

His assistant had been killed by a stray bullet a few days ago, so he had been fighting alone all these days. The enemy soldiers who had appeared in Kharkov were not the experienced and highly combat-effective German soldiers. Those grenadiers, with their large number of snipers, were the real tough characters. So he felt that he was now at ease, almost like an arbiter in this city, deciding the life and death of anyone.

A few Romanian soldiers began to probe forward again. This time, most of the soldiers did not follow, but only these few unlucky souls, walking forward with trepidation. They held their guns and observed their surroundings more frequently. The Soviet sniper was very curious why these people, knowing it was death, still dared to come up so foolishly to be killed.

He squinted his eyes, pressed the crosshairs of his scope onto an enemy soldier, and then decisively pulled the trigger. With a crack! of the rifle, the bullet hit its target. The Romanian soldier fell with the sound of the shot, without even having time to struggle.

This time, the Soviet sniper’s luck was not very good. These Romanian soldiers were clearly a little more experienced than the ones who had been firing chaotically just now. They calmly searched and found the window from which the Soviet soldier had fired. They raised their rifles and opened fire on the Soviet sniper’s position.

“Damn it!” The Soviet sniper quickly pulled his rifle back, then retreated from the window of the ruins to the edge of a collapsed floor on the other side. He took a leap, jumped down from the ruins, and, ignoring the rising dust, ran in the opposite direction of the enemy, panting heavily.

He crossed the ruins and ran past the street on the other side. He suddenly found himself in a place he was not very familiar with. After all, this city was not his hometown, and he couldn’t distinguish any of the completely destroyed city blocks. A sense of danger welled up from his surroundings, surrounding the Soviet sniper and making it a little hard for him to breathe.

So he quickly hugged the edge of the street and ran quickly along it in the direction he thought was safe. He held his rifle, letting the wind whistle past his ears, and ran to the end of the street without a care in the world. The street opposite him was a familiar sight. He just had to cross the last crosswalk to reach the safe area over there.

When he charged out from the corner of the street, he couldn’t help but stop in his tracks. Because on the other side of the street corner, a full thirty or so Ukrainian soldiers were leaning against the wall. They had attacked to this point from the other side and were now cautiously feeling their way forward. At this moment, more than thirty rifles were pointing at this Soviet sniper. The situation seemed to be indescribably strange.

The Soviet sniper smiled, as if he found this to be a very amusing thing. Unfortunately, before he could finish smiling, his body was riddled with at least 20 holes. He did not feel the pain from his body. He just smiled and fell backward, wearily closing his eyes.

On the other side of the street, many houses away, row after row of Ukrainian soldiers, shouldering their rifles, entered this city. The dense mass of guns was like a forest, perfectly neat.

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