Steel Soviet Union

"Forward troops, report! How is the situation on the German defense line!?"

Although Malashenko personally led the team and directly directed the first wave of attacks, he did not rush to the front and lead the troops to attack the position first.

Although he has become a major general and division commander, and the actual power in his hands is no less than that of a military commander, or even more than that, it is indeed necessary to restrain and change in some aspects. He can no longer do whatever he wants as in the past. Charge into battle recklessly.

However, the reply sent to Malashenko via the radio a moment later was not what Malashenko expected. In other words, the reply itself was describing another situation completely, and some of the answers were not what was asked.

"There are no Germans, everything here has been destroyed! There are only weapon fragments, flesh and blood remains, and big pits one after another! There is no other valuable thing at all, everything is completely destroyed!"

Holding the radio transmitter in his hand, savoring the word "destruction" that was still echoing in his ears and repeated twice in a row, Malashenko finally gave a quick answer after a brief thought.

"Understood, continue the search, remember to maintain formation, and report any situation immediately."

It's not that Malashenko didn't believe the reports from his soldiers, he just felt that the scenes in that description were a bit too difficult to imagine. It is impossible to imagine what kind of scene would be left after the troops deployed on such an important blocking defense line were completely cleared.

Everything can only be known after Malashenko goes up there and sees it with his own eyes.

Taking a deep breath, Malashenko firmly held the commander's periscope in front of him and was already prepared for this. It was not until a moment later that the No. 177 command heavy tank, surrounded by a large group of IS6 and a small number of IS7 guards, Surrounded by another group of infantrymen following closely behind them, they finally charged into the enemy position that had been trampled by their comrades in front.

It was only then that Malashenko realized what kind of scene the description of "everything was destroyed" was referring to, and that this description was indeed true.

"Damn it! Picasso couldn't even paint this kind of abstract painting, absolutely"

At this moment, Malashenko, who was sitting in the commander's command seat, still remembered a photo he had seen in the relevant intelligence on the Zero Highlands.

That photo was taken about a month ago. A Soviet agent lurking in the rear risked his life and copied it from the Germans' combat readiness report. The core content of the photo is only one: the defense line halfway up the slope of the Zero Highlands. Condition.

Several German generals are pointing and inspecting in the photo, while the surrounding German soldiers are busy reinforcing bunkers and building fortifications. It can be seen that the German defense line in the photo had basically taken shape at that time, and only later reinforcements were left. Several bunkers and half-buried fortifications were clearly visible in the photo, and even the surrounding trees and vegetation that had not been cleared out were also captured. photo.

The staff officers and intelligence analysts of the Red Army believed that the German resistance at the second line of defense halfway up the slope would be predictably tenacious. Otherwise, they would not have worked so hard to prepare defenses and build reinforcements in advance. , and in the compilation of the combat plan, it was emphasized that the attack on the second line of defense halfway up the slope especially required strengthening heavy firepower.

Facts have proved that the Red Army offensive troops carried out the previously compiled and prepared combat plan very well in the subsequent combat stages, and indeed strengthened the heavy firepower projection to a considerable extent. However, this enhanced strength seemed to be "a bit excessive."

Why did Malashenko remember that photo?

Because the scene recorded in that photo is basically two completely different worlds from the scene in front of you, and they are completely different from each other.

If Malashenko was not very sure that his current position was almost exactly where the photo was taken, Malashenko would almost have thought that he had gone the wrong way. Because all the iconic features in the photo in my memory have nothing to do with the corrupt scene in front of me!

There are no bunkers, no half-buried bunker fortifications, no German soldiers busy digging holes and trenches, and no pointing German generals. Even those innocent plants and trees have completely disappeared without a trace.

Desolation, the scene in front of Malashenko was only desolation.

There are countless huge craters, one after another, scattered all over the place. There are so many craters that they spread from the nearest point in front of your eyes to a position that can no longer be seen in the distance, turning into a dense mass of small dots and disappearing.

If you take a live photo of the completely identical scene connected into a large area, add some filters and don't use PS, it can be used as a textbook photo of the lunar surface.

There were no hidden and crawling German soldiers in those craters of various sizes, only the remains of their weapons and the remains of their flesh and blood. It was mixed together with the clods of soil that were raised high by the explosion and crashed down, mixed together in the crater and piled up randomly, so that no one could recognize what it was supposed to be like.

Sitting in the car, Malashenko could see the soldiers who followed him towards the enemy's position. One or two of them were watching the surroundings cautiously and advancing vigilantly, but it was very difficult.

Not only did the soldiers have to avoid craters of different sizes, but the thick floating soil under their feet that had been bombarded by shelling to the point where there was no intact piece of land was even more annoying.

As soon as you step on the military boots, the soil will instantly cover the entire foot. You have to use a little effort to pull the boots out of the soil pit and change the direction before you can continue forward.

Encountering the soil debris that had been dug up by the first bombardment, but was immediately thrown up by the second, third, and countless times of bombardment, the floating earth pit was refilled and buried but was not compacted. hour. A slightly careless soldier may even get half of his leg stuck in it, especially those combat engineers who carry a lot of equipment and are called "heavy infantry" by their comrades. Deeper, almost falling.

Fortunately, those tracked armored vehicles with strong off-road capabilities will not sink their legs. The wide tracks will compact and flatten the floating soil while running over the floating soil pit. This is equivalent to giving the infantry behind them who "don't know the depth of the floating soil" an early warning. The road is open.

The soldiers who quickly got used to this situation discovered the trick, and immediately began to flexibly follow the tracks that the tracks had run over, thus avoiding many situations where they would be trapped in the floating soil pit.

Holding the periscope in his hand, he said nothing and kept observing. As the car continued to move forward, Malashenko, who clearly saw everything he saw in the surrounding positions, quickly noticed a man sitting far away from him. The infantry soldier who was very close to the car bent down, reached out and grabbed a handful from the floating soil at his feet, and placed it in front of him, as if he was trying to see clearly what he was looking for.

I saw that after slightly exposing the cracks between my fingers and shaking them off, there was almost no dirt left on what was left in my hand.

Malashenko's eyesight has always been very good and he can see clearly through the commander's periscope.

The soldier who was crouching down not far from his car seemed to have more than one shell left in his hand. He estimated that there must be at least four or five, and even more fragments of the shells were exuding metal under the refraction of the sun. luster.

A handful of dirt and half a handful of cannonball skins. If you just walk around on the battlefield, you will kick someone who is not careful enough with a deep kick or a shallow kick.

The situation is obvious, and there is only one real answer.

This is the dotted crater in front of Malashenko, as dense as the surface of the moon. It is unknown how many craters were blasted out by one shot and then filled up with floating soil. The crater was finally filled up with floating soil.

In other words, all the seemingly exaggerated things you see in front of you are just the craters created when the last wave of shells fell.

Don't think that the hour-long Guards Army, coupled with an additional leader's division-level artillery preparation, only produced "this little" effect that you saw before you.

Those previous craters, which were severely saturated and far beyond the endurance limit of the land, have been filled in countless times.

But the real "after the destruction", this is only half of the show, or less than half of the appetizer.

What is truly terrifying and sensational are the super-large craters that Malashenko will soon encounter a little further on.