USSR 1941

Due to the military emergency, the soldiers only had two hours of sleep.

Yet this is extremely painful.

The soldiers were indeed very tired, and they had not been able to take a good rest from the moment the battle started.

But maybe it was because of the tension of crossing the German front, the joy of successfully joining forces, and the worry about the enemy's attack tomorrow morning... All these make people's adrenaline secretion strong, so they generally feel sleepy and can't open their eyes But can't sleep.

The actor was rolling his own horse box again, carefully, using half of the quantity as usual, after rolling it, he lit it and took a deep breath, then leaned against the concrete wall of the bunker contentedly, breathing in the smoke Zhong slightly squinted his eyes and listened leisurely to the cadenced voice from the radio outside.

"You look confident, Okunev!" the veteran asked as he wiped his gun.

"What?" the actor raised his eyes.

"You don't worry about the fight at all!" said the veteran.

"Do I need to worry?" The actor replied in the smoke: "Let's leave such things to our squad leader comrades!"

"What does that have to do with me?" Shulka asked.

"Of course it has something to do with it!" The actor raised his eyebrows above his head: "Look at this bunker, there are machine guns and ammunition, and there are quite a few of us... there should be hundreds of thousands of people!"

"No, at least hundreds of thousands!" The thief interjected, "Two fronts!"

Thieves can always have more accurate information, even now even the top Soviet army is not sure how many there are.

The veteran laughed: "You think we can hold off the Germans? That's just their way of saying!"

Speaking of which, the veteran raised his head in the direction of the broadcast, and the announcer was shouting in anger: "There is no doubt that any attack by the German invaders will be defeated by our heroic Soviet army, because the soldiers standing in front of them Not just the line of defense, but also our flesh and blood and unyielding spirit..."

The high-level Soviet army used propaganda tools to convince everyone, including the people in Kyiv, that this line of defense could stop the German attack.

Therefore, the life of the people of Kyiv is business as usual, even entertainment venues are operating as usual.

But soldiers with combat experience know that's not the case.

The reason is simple: there is also such a line of defense in front of Minsk. If that line of defense is vulnerable to the German attack, how can this line of defense be defended?

"No, Comrade Matvey!" replied the actor: "Of course I wouldn't believe them!"

Seeing the puzzled look from the veteran, the actor explained with a smile: "Think about it, Comrade Matvey. When we were in Brest, we had less than a thousand people, and we ran out of ammunition and food. The strength is dozens of times that of ours. Even so, Shulka can still bring us out, it is much better now than then, isn't it..."

"Shut up, Okunev!" Shulka interrupted the actor: "It's not as simple as you think!"

"Look!" The actor said with a smile: "Our squad leader is worried, that's right!"

The soldiers around were amused by the actor, or they more or less thought the same... Shulka would know how to do it.

"Comrade squad leader!" the thief even went so far as to say, "They should make you a bigger officer, I mean...command more troops!"

"I agree!" Someone quickly answered: "Especially when we swaggered past the German lines!"

"Yes, I thought Shulka must be crazy to come up with such a method. It can't be successful!"

"But it succeeded, and we made it here alive!"

...

The soldiers chatted with each other, and the atmosphere was so enthusiastic that Shulka couldn't even get in the conversation.

At this moment, a sharp whistle came from outside the bunker,

Then came Major Gavrilov's slightly hoarse voice: "It's time to get up, boys, pick up your weapons, let's practice how to deal with the enemy tomorrow!"

This statement is actually an irony: practice how to deal with the enemy tomorrow? This should have been done long ago.

But for the Soviet army, this is quite normal. Shulka even knows that there are volunteers in the army who have just been recruited from Kyiv and can't even shoot.

This is the characteristic of the Soviet army. Although in principle, what the Soviet army lacks at this time is not people, but quality, equipment and preparation, but they always feel that more people are better than fewer people, so they stuff some people who get in the way. came in.

Of course, Shulka couldn't complain, he could only order the soldiers to move. Okunev was not willing to part with his unfinished horse box. He extinguished the cigarette and took a while to take out the shredded tobacco and stuff it back In the box... the smoker, Shulka suspected, would one day use the muzzle of an enemy's gun as a cigarette holder.

The first thing to familiarize yourself with is the equipment. The Shulka squad is responsible for the three connected bunkers, which are divided into left, center and right layouts. There are three machine guns on the left and right sides, and two 37MM anti-tank guns in the middle.

Shulka thinks there is a problem with this layout. Putting the anti-tank gun in the middle makes it inevitable that there will be many shooting dead spots, and the machine guns on both sides can form crossfire to cover each other... This is obviously the configuration for dealing with enemy infantry.

If the enemy comes up with tanks, the situation is worrying.

A very useful piece of equipment is the periscope inside the bunker, which allows Shulka to observe the situation outside without having to go outside the bunker.

The second is to get familiar with the direction... This is actually very simple, that is, to carry ammunition back and forth to the ammunition depot at the rear.

In fact, there is a small ammunition depot inside the bunker, in which boxes of bullets and shells are piled up. Because of fear of being ignited and killed or collapsed, its walls are made of the thickest standard, which is 1.5 meters. And the opening is backward, and there is also an iron door.

Although the Soviets were sloppy in doing things, they were also cautious when it came to matters related to their lives.

Finally, use the small perforations on the bunker...that is for riflemen, mainly for blind spots that some machine guns cannot reach.

This is very important, because German infantry often come up from these blind spots, and then stuff explosives or Molotov cocktails into the perforations.

But Shulka said the perforations were difficult to use because they were too small for a soldier to slip a rifle into and aim through the front sight.

This was done because they feared that large perforations would become a deadly bunker danger through which the enemy could jam grenades.

However, with such a small observation range, if the Germans ran past the perforation, the shooter simply did not have enough time to react.