Chapter 425: landing ship
What is surprising is that it was not the German army that fired first but the Soviet army, the Soviet army on the amphibious landing ship.
In fact, they didn't see the target at all, and they didn't even know where the German defense line was.
Shulka told them during pre-war training: "Don't save ammunition, especially heavy machine gun ammunition, because it is basically useless after the amphibious landing vehicle lands, and the saved ammunition can only be thrown on the beach to feed the fish !"
The soldiers laughed.
They did not notice this before, but now they are reminded by Shulka, thinking about it, it is indeed the case... When the amphibious landing ship is driving on the sea, the machine gun on the bow may be able to maintain balance and barely aim at the target.
The use of "barely" here is because the bow of the amphibious landing ship will shake violently when driving, so the machine gun bullets actually fly around without much accuracy.
This situation will get worse when the amphibious landing ship rushes ashore, because the amphibious landing vehicle can't control the direction, so it can't even guarantee that the gun is facing the enemy.
"So!" Shulka said: "This machine gun is only for suppressing firepower. You should shoot out its bullets before landing!"
Soldiers of the Naval Infantry Brigade did just that, and they started shooting at the beach from a kilometer away, even though it was pitch black and nothing could be seen.
The dense bullets "swish" over the heads of the German soldiers. At that moment, it can be said that the German soldiers were almost frightened... This is also due to the psychological shock caused by the previous naval bombardment.
So the Germans retracted their heads into the trenches one after another, not daring to probe.
Major Webb knew what was going on, and he ordered loudly: "Raise your weapons, bastard, they are just bluffing!"
After the German soldiers got ready, Major Weber shouted: "Listen to my order and fire!"
In an instant, shells and bullets poured towards the Russian landing ship on the sea.
The bullets made a series of sprays on the sea surface, and made a series of crisp sounds after hitting the hull, but because the bow was equipped with shields and additional armor, they failed to cause much damage to them.
This even gave the Soviet machine gunners a target, because the muzzle spark was clearly visible in the dark, so they immediately adjusted to fire back with bullets.
The explosion of a mortar shell on the sea set off a column of water, but because the amphibious landing ship is fast and low, it is difficult for the shells to hit them.
Occasionally, one or two shells directly hit the amphibious landing ship, and a burst of flames would erupt, and more than a dozen soldiers in the ship would immediately be thrown into the air and then fall back into the water... There is almost no possibility of them surviving in this temperature.
However, most of the amphibious landing ships escaped the artillery fire. After all, the defending German army only had one reinforced battalion. They were only assigned to a mortar company and the few coastal defense guns left after being bombed by the Soviet Air Force. These firepower were not enough to stop them. Soviet troops landed.
Major Webb certainly didn't hope to destroy the opponent at sea.
In fact, for the offensive side, the most dangerous part of the beach landing battle is the moment of transition from the sea to the shore, especially in the Soviet winter.
Major Weber knew this, so he held up the binoculars and quietly observed the enemies charging under the flares, waiting for this moment.
Major Webb believes that he can stop these enemies, at least this wave of attacks can be blocked.
Because he knows the beach in front of him, there is at least a hundred meters of shoal from the sea to the coast, and the depth of this shoal is only more than one meter...It actually gradually gets deeper from the coast to the deep sea.
Major Webb believes that this section of the shoal will become the most difficult obstacle for the Russian army to cross, because the ship will soon run aground, and the Russian soldiers will have to jump into the icy water and charge to the shore by stepping on the sea water that does not reach their thighs.
This is not only a problem of low temperature and cold, but also a problem of slow movement when wading forward.
So, the German army could take advantage of this time to shoot at them. With the firepower and marksmanship of the German army, Major Weber believed that the soldiers charging by the Russian army would be killed before they were frozen to death.
Even if some of them can wash up on the beach, what awaits them is land mines and barbed wire.
But soon Major Weber discovered that the facts were not as he imagined.
Because the speed of the enemy landing craft has not slowed down at all, not only has it not slowed down, but it has accelerated and rushed forward.
Then something even more unexpected happened to Major Weber. He found that several landing craft that had entered the shoal and were supposed to run aground were still advancing under the light of flares.
"What's going on?" Major Webb put away his binoculars and looked at all this in disbelief.
At first, he thought it was just an accidental phenomenon. It might be that there was a special place with deep water so that the landing craft could continue to move forward, but the landing craft that kept entering the shoal and all of them were moving forward quickly made him realize that this was not the case.
Then, the landing craft got closer and closer under the astonished gazes of Major Webb and the German army... The shoal seemed to them as if it didn't exist.
Then, the German army knew what was going on, because at this time several amphibious landing ships had "jumped" out of the water, and the wheels under the hulls were clearly visible under the light of the flares.
"God!" Major Webb couldn't help exclaiming: "Wheels, they actually installed wheels for the landing craft!"
The next second, Major Webb ordered: "Block them, don't let them come up!"
But it's too late...
The deployment of the German army on the beach could not effectively stop the Soviet army's charge.
If, as Weber imagined, Soviet soldiers had to wade through water to attack, then mines and barbed wire would of course play a very good role.
Now the Soviet army is driving an amphibious landing vehicle directly ashore, and it is still rushing ashore quite quickly.
Although there are a lot of car rollover tragedies... there are many reasons for the car rollover, such as running over a mine, getting caught by barbed wire, or driving into a bomb crater and losing balance, etc.
But even so, a considerable number of Soviet soldiers were quickly transported ashore.
At this time, they were only more than two hundred meters away from the German army... There is nothing to say, of course they launched a charge.
The combat quality of the naval infantry brigade is indeed not comparable to that of the Soviet Army. Instead of blindly charging towards the enemy's position, they use grenades to open the way, use mortars and machine guns to suppress the enemy's firepower, and there are even snipers lying in the dark to aim enemy.
Among them is the SVT semi-automatic rifle commonly used by the naval infantry brigade. It made the Soviet army much more powerful than ordinary troops. Coupled with the superiority of the Soviet army in strength, it easily suppressed the German army.
Then, charging became easy.
(end of this chapter)