The Difference Between Eight Hundred Meters and Five Hundred Meters was something Lynn hadn't had a clear concept of before. He only knew that the effective range of the Mauser 98k was 800 meters. This "effective range" actually referred to the bullet's killing range. Due to factors like wind speed and bullet weight, it was difficult for even a sniper to accurately hit a target beyond 500 meters. Moreover, the "people" seen with the naked eye were just blurry silhouettes, nothing like what you'd see in a movie where you could discern height, build, skin color, or even faces.
Over the course of forty-something hours and three daytime battles and one nighttime battle, Lynn gained a new understanding of these two distances. When enemy targets were just within 800 meters, the defending forces still relied on artillery, mortars, and heavy machine guns for interception. It was only at 500 meters that light machine guns and rifles started to become effective—a closer distance might yield better results, Lynn thought. However, facing the overwhelming onslaught of enemy forces, the commanding officers on their side didn't have the audacity for such tactics. They would rather expend more ammunition and try to repel the enemy as much as possible before they reached the defensive line.
Flares rose into the air one after another, illuminating the night sky, the earth, the advancing Soviets, and the German defenses. The cannons continued to roar, with the defending anti-tank guns, attacking tanks, and self-propelled artillery all fiercely engaging each other. Dark red shells shuttled back and forth across the battlefield, accompanied by explosions of various tones filling the air.
The sight of dozens of tanks launching a collective assault deeply shocked Lynn. He realized that even Hollywood's multi-million-dollar war epics couldn't depict the true scenes of war. What's worse, back in the day, he and his classmates who also loved military matters had revered those movies' filming techniques.
This time, the Soviets once again deployed large numbers of tanks. In addition to the iconic T-34 tanks of the Soviet Union, there were many other behemoths in the attacking formation, particularly eye-catching were the IS series tanks, named after Comrade Joseph Stalin himself. In each battle, the defending forces relied on the concerted efforts of anti-tank guns, minefields, and infantry to barely repel the enemy's attacks. The enormous casualties meant that frontline troops were constantly being replenished...
Lynn didn't want to die. In fact, there were deserters in the midst of the battle, but they either died under enemy fire or were executed by their own commanding officers. Lynn had seen several such precedents, so he dismissed any thoughts of desertion. Besides, even if he managed to escape the battlefield by some stroke of luck, how would he conceal his status as a deserter and live on?
Staying in this hellish battlefield seemed to be his best option for now.
As he watched the Soviet tanks and soldiers steadily advancing, Lynn felt suppressed and nervous. So much so that when a dirty hand suddenly appeared on his left side, he startled and almost accidentally pulled the trigger. Turning to look, he saw several rows of bullets placed next to him, and the owner of the "dirty hand"—a thin, boyish figure—was distributing ammunition to each soldier waiting in the trench. Looking at the ill-fitting uniform and cloth cap on him, Lynn felt a strange bitterness in his heart: now, it was the twilight of the empire!
As a World War II enthusiast, Lynn was very familiar with that period of history. He didn't have a personal inclination towards any side, merely admiring the abundance and composure of the American military, the precision and sophistication of the German military, the tenacity and valor of the Soviet military, and harboring disdain for the arrogance of Japan, the incompetence of Italy, the conservatism of Britain, and the weakness of France. If forced to choose a side to experience war, he would pick the German army before 1943 or the American army after that. However, the powers that be hadn't given him the power to choose freely.
The prolonged fighting consumed a lot of ammunition, yet Lynn quietly stuffed two rows of bullets into his pockets. On one hand, it was to deal with the possibility of the situation deteriorating further, and on the other hand, he felt that with his current shooting skills, the more bullets he fired, the more wasteful it was. Instead of exerting all his efforts in combat, it was better to calmly await the outcome.
Perhaps war, much like life, was also like this!
As time passed, the number of Soviet tanks hit by anti-tank fire during the advance continued to increase. Yet, the human tide surged forward like a black wave, the fervent "Ura!" cries faintly drowning out the gunfire. For every German soldier in the later stages of the war, such scenes were the last thing they wanted to see.
"Feuer frei!" ("Fire at will!")
Almost at the moment when the shouts erupted, the long-suppressed gunfire finally erupted in the trenches. The scorching bullets rained down like drops, causing the advancing tide to slow down instantly, and in some areas, even retreat. However, this situation only lasted for a short time. The heavily armored Soviet tanks opened fire fiercely under the artillery fire of the defenders, and the self-propelled guns that followed also stopped to bombard. Fireballs rose one after another in the German trench zone, bullets and shrapnel swept through like a storm, many people died before they could even cry out, and most people, including Lynn, retreated to the trenches to save their lives when the enemy's firepower was most intense. As a result, the firepower on the position naturally weakened considerably.
Lynn finally breathed a sigh of relief, but heard a rough voice suddenly ringing in his ears, and felt the merciless kick of boots.
"Feuer! Frei! Feuer! Frei! Verdammt! Covatz!"
Unable to retort to the scolding, unable to fight back against the beating, in this life-and-death situation, Lynn had no time to taste the bitterness and resentment. With one hand grabbing the rifle and the other holding onto the helmet, he crawled back to the shooting position at the edge of the trench. However, as soon as he poked his head out of the trench, the strong feeling that a bullet would hit him the next second began to torment his senses and challenge his endurance, especially when the bullets whistled past from close by. His heart was completely suspended, and there was even a kind of instinctual urge to urinate...
Gritting his teeth, mustering his courage, Lynn fired almost without aiming, and his ears rang slightly from the shot.
The intimidation of the "Butcher" was ultimately more than the Soviets, and several soldiers beside him also returned to their respective positions obediently. In the light of the machine gun's bursts, the sound of rifles seemed sparse. In fact, in the environment of night combat, no one knew whether their bullets killed the enemy. Perhaps they disappeared without a trace, or perhaps they just added an irrelevant shot to a dying body. Nevertheless, soldiers with knitted, fabric, or leather gloves worked hard to pull the bolt, aim, and shoot, mechanically repeating these actions until all the bullets in the magazine were exhausted, allowing them to crouch down and reload without being reprimanded.
After firing three shots in a row, Lynn retreated back into the trench, breathing heavily. The temperature at night had dropped to minus ten degrees Celsius, his nose felt sour unnaturally, and his fingers in the fleece gloves were numb with cold. What made it even more uncomfortable was the strange smell of gunpowder mixed with mud, which oppressed his nose and lungs far more than the crowded smoking room. Lynn deliberately slowed down the action of reloading the bullets, deliberately ignored the increasingly clear Ura calls, but the slogans of the officers became more and more urgent, the sounds of gunfire and explosions passed in succession, and grenades seemed to have come into play, and there would probably be brutal hand-to-hand combat on the front line. All of this was completely beyond Lynn's grasp. Last night, in a daze, he dreamed that he was confronting a tall Soviet soldier, and the other party's bayonet startled him awake...
After loading the bullets, taking a deep breath, Lynn was about to get up when the bearded young soldier beside him suddenly fell to the ground. Lynn wanted to give him a sympathetic bitter smile, but when the firelight illuminated the missing corner of his head, Lynn froze.
Before coming to this mud pit ravaged by countless shells, he had never felt life and death so close.
Taking a deep breath, taking another deep breath, grabbing the gun and getting up. There were times when Lynn felt in his bones that he was not afraid of the battle, that he could become an excellent soldier, and even, as in the plots of the suspended novels, change history with his own strength and eventually stand at the pinnacle of the world! However, the pressure of reality always made Lynn unconsciously choose to retreat, return to the ground, and the world in front of him was repeating the bright, dim, bright process in the gunfire. The Soviets seemed to want to erase this position from the earth, and countless shells and bullets kept coming. Rocks and broken limbs flew in the air, and the blast wave mixed with mud and sand revealed its violent nature. The highly praised T-34s rushed to the first trench, leaving behind the minefields swept by artillery fire.
In the firelight, Lynn witnessed a brave German soldier firing at close range "with an iron fist" at the side of a Soviet tank. The rocket blew up the tank, but the soldier was then shot by the machine gun of another Soviet tank. The 7.62mm bullets pierced the chest of the brave soldier at close range, and the blood spattered from his back was so shocking that Lynn froze again...