The only 76mm cannon on the position fired.
Sparks flew when the armor-piercing shell hit the enemy tank, followed by the tank turret blasting into the sky.
The commanders of the other tanks all turned their periscopes around, trying to locate the 76mm cannon position amidst a pile of camouflage.
But to protect the only 76mm cannon, the camouflage in front of the position was meticulously arranged; even if the smoke from the cannon’s muzzle was significant, it was still rather difficult to spot.
The only issue was that during the recent firing preparation, the camouflage had been affected, so there were some flaws.
Yet the Prussians, who had been suddenly attacked, still couldn’t locate the cannon position.
And that’s when the 45mm cannon fired.
Compared to the immediate effect of the 76mm cannon, the performance of the 45mm cannon was quite embarrassing.
One armor-piercing shell struck the front armor of a Panzer IV, another simply missed entirely, bouncing off the external armor like a ping-pong ball, flying far away before finally landing again on the now-bare field.
The Prosen tanks began random machine-gun fire in an attempt to flush out the hidden anti-tank guns.
At that moment, the Panzer IV, with tactical number 251, suddenly stopped and fired.
It took a wooden fake anti-tank gun as real.
The fake gun was blasted into the sky by a 75mm high-explosive shell, along with a scarecrow dressed as a gunner, which even had a smiley face pinned to its head made of paper!
————
Watching all this from a bird’s-eye view, Wang Zhong recalled the praise for the Soviet anti-tank gun’s exceptional camouflage techniques in the autobiography of “Tiger King” Carius.
Despite the smoke and flash from cannon fire, Yegorov’s guided camouflage of the gun position had not yet been revealed!
Yegorov, observing next to Wang Zhong, remarked, “This is what we learned from the Mannheimers during the Winter War.”
Mannheim is a region, and its residents are called Mannheimers.
Upon hearing Yegorov’s words, Wang Zhong felt it made sense that the camouflage was so effective; he wouldn’t be surprised if Yegorov camouflaged an anti-tank gun to look like a talking tree in the future.
The 76mm cannon fired again.
The struck Panzer IV continued to move forward at its original speed, but its crew members started jumping out one after another, followed by flames bursting from the base of the turret, turning it into a “Fiery Chariot” that continued to rumble forward.
It wasn’t until the ammunition inside the tank detonated that the vehicle finally came to a slow stop.
Then, the commander of the enemy vehicle number 231 finally spotted the 76mm gun position, and the tank stopped and began to rotate its turret.
But in the nick of time, a 45mm anti-tank shell hit the space between 231’s turret and the turret ring, jamming the turret.
The enemy didn’t give up and started to turn the whole vehicle to aim, and, shockingly, the gunner fired directly.
The inaccurately aimed shell hit the open ground in front of the 76mm cannon, blasting all the camouflage into the sky.
This explosion also signaled the other tanks, and at the same time, eight tanks came to a stop!
The Prussians’ dense attack formation had this advantage: although they’d suffer terrible losses under barrage from the heavy 203mm artillery, with one shell taking out dozens or even hundreds, against direct anti-tank gunfire, the benefits of this formation were immense.
In the blink of an eye, eight high-explosive shells landed around the 76mm cannon.
Wang Zhong frowned, initially thinking that the enemy had good eyesight to spot the 76 hidden behind a wall, but then realized that at least six of the eight vehicles had fired at the spot where the shells from vehicle 231 hit.
Only two of this round’s shots were relatively accurate, landing in front of the 76mm gun, sending the protective sandbags flying into the sky.
Three members of the crew operating the 76mm gun were suddenly killed.
The gun commander shouted, “We’ve been spotted, retreat quickly!”
Then, the remaining men desperately dragged the opened supports of the 76mm gun, pulling the cannon back.
Upon seeing this, those guarding the mules and horses immediately led two mules over, hoping to use them to drag the gun away.
At this time, machine-gun fire swept over them, clattering against the cannon’s mantlet.
The two 45mm guns fired with all their might, trying to cover the 76mm gun’s retreat.
The 45mm gun commanded by Aleksei Balfyonovich hit a Panzer IV three times in a row, finally forcing the crew of that Panzer IV to abandon the vehicle.
As he was directing the cannon to aim at a second target, he suddenly saw the target stop and turn its gun barrel toward them.
“Retreat quickly!”
Aleksei shouted while personally dragging the gun, and the crew forcibly pulled the cannon from its position.
Enemy high-explosive shells landed immediately after, with fragments from the blast hitting the small mantlet of the 45mm gun.
Aleksei’s shoulder twitched, exposed beyond the mantlet, but he bit down hard and didn’t speak, continuing to push the gun while shouting, “Fast! To the backup position!”
The mules originally assigned to this gun crew had all been killed by enemy preparatory fire, so they could only move the gun by man-power.
Wang Zhong was observing when Yegorov put down his binoculars and said, “Three gun crews have been driven away, leaving one to keep firing would be dangerous.”
Saying this, he leaned out of the window and made a gesture below.
The veteran stationed below saw Yegorov’s gesture, nodded, and ran off.
Curious, Wang Zhong asked, “What did you say?”
“I told the last gun crew to withdraw to the second preset sniping position,” he replied.
Wang Zhong: “We have a second sniping position?”
Since Wang Zhong had entrusted the task of arranging the defense entirely to Yegorov and had gone out to scout the villages outside, he had little concept of the main position’s layout back at the fertilizer factory.