artillery arc

Chapter 539 The Winter of My 17th Year (Update 27/81)

On October 915, 10, Plossen's 31th Infantry Corps attacked the vanguard.

The Bison self-propelled infantry gun roared, and the shell hit the building 800 meters ahead. The violent explosion caused the hit side to collapse, and the floors inside were exposed like the internal skeleton of a human body.

The smoke from the collapse immediately covered most of the street.

Infantry commander Paul Clay was observing the street ahead from the roof of a bungalow, muttering: "Even if a building was blown down, the enemy didn't open fire. Why? This building should be their support point, there would be machine guns, and there might be anti-tank guns hidden in the windows of the shops downstairs.

"That's how we'll defend. But there's nothing here now, it's eerily quiet. Are we here to capture an empty city?"

His deputy shook his head. "I don't know. I heard from the troops who have been in the battle for a while that the Ants are not defending the support points at all. Instead, they are attacking us in combat groups, engaging in a pure war of attrition with us."

Paul Klee frowned: "What's the point of that? A competition to see who bleeds out first?"

"I don't know." The deputy spread his hands.

Paul thought for a moment and gave the order: "Infantry, move forward, let's see if this is the case."

As the order was given, the infantrymen who were squatting in a row in front of the Bison Infantry Cannon stood up and strode forward.

Although the 30th Infantry Army is an infantry army, it has a high degree of mechanization and is equipped with a considerable number of half-track vehicles and assault guns.

These armored vehicles moved at walking pace alongside the infantry.

They crossed the last of the open ground and entered the city.

Suddenly, the machine gun fired.

Paul immediately raised his telescope, but could not see the location of the machine gun at all.

"Strange, the machine guns are not placed in an area with a wide firing range." Paul muttered softly.

The deputy said: "It seems that the enemy really intends to grind us into pieces, and there is no point in bloodshed. The machine gunner probably thinks that he will win if he can replace three of us."

The sound of countless PPSh guns firing rang out, as if echoing the sound of machine guns and grenade explosions.

Paul put down the telescope and fiddled with the focus knob with his fingers, his brows twisted into knots: "How could they do such a thing? Splitting into combat teams and fighting independently requires soldiers to have extremely high subjective initiative and a firm will to fight.

"Our troops can't do this! Or do the Ants have so many NCOs that only one out of every three people can do this? Is this still the Ants I'm familiar with?"

----

The young soldier Alexei hid alone behind the destroyed low wall, holding a PPSh and aiming at the alley outside the wall.

The alley was wide enough to accommodate at least three Plosson soldiers.

Alexei hoped that the enemies would not come one by one, and the denser the formation, the better.

He also had four grenades on hand - these old-fashioned grenades had to be installed with fuses first, and once the fuses were installed, there was a certain probability that they would explode on their own.

Yes, this kind of grenade is just that unreliable.

Alexei was a soldier in the militia battalion. He was only issued this unreliable grenade, and the PPSh in his hand was obtained from a killed regular army soldier.

He was not very good at operating this weapon, after all, the militia battalion only trained them to use Mosin-Nagant rifles.

Alexei is 17 years old and will be able to enlist in the army next year and become a glorious Ante warrior. But the war has already arrived in his hometown.

The girl he likes, Tatyana, attended a field nurse training course as early as June this year, and now no one knows where she is saving lives.

Alexey was not going to lose to a girl.

There were gunshots all around, as the militia and regular troops guarding the same area were fighting with the Prosen people.

But the area around Alexei was as quiet as the eye of a typhoon.

He even got a little bored and started watching the spider on the wall weaving its web.

The spider was not affected by the war at all and was still weaving leisurely.

After watching for a while, Alexey felt bored and took out a photo of Tatyana from his pocket. This was a photo of Tatyana taken when she left, as a souvenir for her family, but Alexey managed to persuade Uncle Eugene from the photo studio to develop a copy for him.

When Uncle Eugene handed the photo to Alexei, his expression was full of sorrow: "Take it, boy, take it. Remember what she looks like. Even if she can come back in the future, she may not look like this."

Alexey understood why Uncle Eugene was so sad.

Since the war began, many good people have never returned.

Uncle Stepan, who lived opposite Alexei, was the one who brought the two officers together that day and took out a letter from his briefcase.

When Stepan's wife saw the two men, her legs went weak and she sat down on the door frame, holding onto the door and began to cry.

When Alexei saw this, he ran back to his room and took out the wooden gun that Uncle Stepan made for him when he was a child.

This children's toy had been sleeping in the cupboard for a long time, but Alexey held it as if he had just received it from Uncle Stepan yesterday.

Thinking of this, Alexei clenched his Bobosha tightly.

At this time, he heard someone speaking in a strange language in the alley outside!

It's Plossom!
He checked the PPSh, making sure the safety was on and the gun was loaded.

His heart was beating so fast that it seemed as if it would burst out of his throat any moment. Alexei waited.

The Prosoms were getting closer.

Suddenly, gray military uniforms appeared!
Alexei suppressed the urge to open fire and waited for the lone scout to pass by - he remembered when he was a child, his grandfather upstairs told him stories about fighting the Petliura gang, and taught him that when ambushing, he must let the scout go in order to hit the enemy's main force.

Alexei took deep breaths repeatedly, and his chest felt like it was burning and hurt badly.

Finally, a Proson soldier with a submachine gun appeared, followed by two with rifles.

Alexei shouted and pulled the trigger, and the PPShA gun started firing.

Although he had not received any training, at this distance, even a monkey who could only pull the trigger could splash water and kill any Proson people who entered the shooting range.

The Proson man holding a submachine gun was shot first. He staggered forward and half-knelt on the ground. He was still struggling to pick up the submachine gun to fight back, but was hit by three consecutive bullets in the body and could only fall sideways.

Alexei held the magazine of the PPSh and turned the muzzle towards the two riflemen.

The Prosen man fired a shot first, but missed Alexei. The bullet hit the wall above his head with a biu sound.

Then the Plosson was shot as he was pulling the bolt.

The other rifleman didn't even have time to open fire; he just stared at Alexei with wide eyes.

For a moment, Alexei felt that this Prosen was a child like himself.

But he did not stop shooting.

The bullets of the PPSh hit the walls of the alley with a crackling sound, creating tiny clouds of smoke.

All three Prosens fell.

Alexei heard the Proson people in his blind spot shouting, "Alaoa Pain" and "Sani Tower", but he couldn't understand what they were saying at all.

He grabbed the grenade and, as the militia commander had taught him, pulled the string and threw it out immediately.

This old-fashioned grenade is too unreliable. Its explosion time ranges from 2 to 7 seconds, so it cannot be held in the hand to "warm" it before throwing like the new grenade.

The missile thrown by Alexei was quite considerate, as it exploded as soon as it flew out of his sight.

There were screams of the Prosen people outside.

The next moment, something flew in from outside and landed not far in front of Alexei with a snapping sound.

It was a wooden-handled grenade with white smoke coming out of it.

Alexei immediately fell to the side and the grenade exploded at the same time.

The impact made Alexei's head buzz. He got up, picked up a grenade, pulled the string and threw it out.

The explosion happened again.

Alexei was very excited. He pulled the string of the third grenade and threw it with all his strength. As a result, the grenade only flew a short distance and fell to the ground just after flying out of the alley.

Alexei felt very strange, his hands seemed to have no strength.

He looked down curiously, only to find a large pool of blood beneath him.

It turned out that the shrapnel from the grenade just now injured him, but the adrenaline made him feel no pain.

He didn't even know where he was injured and could only watch the pool of blood beneath him grow bigger and bigger.

He felt cold and his lips couldn't help trembling.

Another grenade was thrown in, this time right next to Alexei.

He was too lazy to care about the grenade or dodge it. Instead, he used his last bit of strength to pick up Tatyana's photo and wanted to kiss his beloved girl.

But as soon as he raised his hand, the photo slipped to the ground.

He stretched out his hand, trying to reach the photo, and at that moment the grenade exploded.

Alexei stopped all movements and leaned against the wall, his eyes still fixed on the photo on the ground.

Then Proson stuck his head out and fired several shots at Alexei's body. After he was sure that the 17-year-old soldier was dead, he boldly entered the room where he was lying in ambush and stepped on the photo with his military boots.

The Proson man spat, and as if he was not satisfied, he hit Alexei's face with the butt of his gun.

Then the Proson soldier suddenly discovered that Alexei seemed to have a gold necklace on him.

He reached out, grabbed the necklace, pulled hard, and then held the trophy high in the air - only then did he notice that there was a pull ring on the necklace.

Yes, the young soldier Alexei kept the only good grenade he got from the fallen soldier on himself and set it as a booby trap.

The Plosson cursed and turned, but the explosion caught up with him.

Several Proson Japanese soldiers who entered the room were all blown to the ground.

The only person who escaped the disaster, Prosen, seemed to hear a mocking voice. He looked in the direction of the voice and saw a flock of cranes in the sky that were accustomed to the artillery fire and were flying towards the south.

(End of this chapter)