บท 151: Chapter 150: Tacit Cooperation
"Hey, buddy, if you have regular shells and smoke rounds, fire a few shots into the building!"
Lin Lin's words to the gunner were based on his personal judgment of the battlefield situation and the movements of the Soviet forces. He considered it more of an encouragement rather than meddling across branches and ranks.
The young sergeant of the defense forces stared at Lin Lin for a few seconds, as if pondering the rightness or wrongness of his words. Then, he nodded slightly without saying a word, while lowering the cannon barrel and calling out to his gunner, "Load the high-explosive shells!"
The robust loader, who had already picked up an oddly-shaped AP shell, looked somewhat surprised at the sergeant's command. He glanced at Lin Lin with some confusion, then reluctantly set the shell down and turned to fetch a regular-looking pointed shell from another long wooden box nearby. With smooth and fluid motions, he loaded it into the breech, while another gunner immediately closed the breech and announced, "Loading complete!"
The gunner silently adjusted the cannon barrel to the appropriate position, then suddenly depressed the firing pedal. The heavy artillery let out a deafening roar, and under its powerful impact, the dust around the area was lifted slightly, emphasizing the anger of its force.
Lin Lin supported his gun with his left hand and reached into his bag with his right, pulling out an infrared flashlight and its power cable. He opened his mouth to reduce the impact of the cannon's roar on his eardrums. The army sergeant's artillery skills were indeed remarkable; the shell penetrated through the dilapidated doorway into the interior of the building. The smoke and dust lingering inside had not completely dissipated, and the remaining framework obstructed the external light, making it impossible to see any Soviet tanks moving inside yet. But once the smoke cleared, the situation would reverse instantly, with the advantage shifting from the Soviets in the dark to the German anti-tank gunners and infantry in the light. The reason for using regular shells and smoke rounds was to continue disrupting the visibility of the Soviet armored units while also putting psychological pressure on them.
After reinserting the infrared flashlight, Lin Lin tried to turn it on. In broad daylight, the reflection of infrared light was somewhat weakened, but fortunately, the position of the cannon wasn't far from the ruined building. Even within a hundred meters of effective observation range, it could still detect some activity inside. When the infrared scope showed human figures or bright colors distinct from human silhouettes, Lin Lin analyzed calmly and said to the young German gunner, "Hey, buddy, I see them. Fire another HE shell, and I'll guide you to adjust the parameters!"
The sergeant seemed surprised by Lin Lin's statement, considering the daytime use of the infrared device. Nevertheless, after a brief hesitation, he ordered his gunner, "Quickly load the HE shell!"
Exhausted from continuous work, the loader refused Noa's offer of help and still managed to load the shell quickly. When the gunner closed the breech and declared, "HE shell loaded!" the gunner immediately depressed the firing pedal, and the Flak 88 roared once again. Lin Lin concentrated intensely on observing through the sight, but the feedback from the infrared image was still insufficient for accurate judgment. He turned his head and asked, "Brule, how's it looking?"
Brule hesitated for a moment before confirming, "Hit, it hit! It stopped, didn't move anymore!"
Sitting at the gun position, the sergeant suddenly whistled loudly. Prompted by him, the two gunners let out a slight cheer, which also encouraged the weary soldiers around them, who were retreating from the ruined building.
"They seem to be retreating..." Brule shouted, which made Lin Lin curious. Did this guy's night vision equipment work better than his own?
When the third set of infrared night vision goggles carried by Bruel also joined the observation, the confirmation was finally made - the enemy was indeed retreating. But whether they completely withdrew from the ruined building was uncertain.
With the situation on the battlefield slightly relieved, the young soldiers gathered together were still busy. Loading ammunition, keeping watch, and the gunner tirelessly rotating the steel wheels, adjusting the cannon back to face the street barricade. Considering that the ruined building was blocked on this side, the Soviet tanks were likely to change their original route. They would either pass through the ruined building to enter the street directly or bypass the completely collapsed building from the other side, using the alley where Lin Lin emerged from the manhole earlier. However, the Germans had set up an alert position in that alley. Although ordinary machine guns were not enough to resist an attack by a group of Soviet tanks, they could at least provide an early warning to the German anti-tank gunners.
With the sudden change in the ruined building position, the side defenses of the barricade were at risk of being flanked by the Soviet forces. Now that the position had been barely defended, a group of about two hundred reinforcements rushed from the direction of the city center. However, when Lin Lin saw their faces, his hope vanished instantly and became even heavier. Because these were not spirited soldiers of the defense forces or the Waffen-SS, but a group of militia consisting of old people and children, known as the "People's Assault Battalion". They wore old, gray uniforms, and many of them didn't even have helmets. The weapons they carried were also a mishmash. Traditional bolt-action rifles were the majority, along with some rudimentary firearms of indistinct models. The few useful weapons were the rare "Panzerschreck" anti-tank rocket launchers, which were essentially a one-time use weapon and were now controlled by a group of fifteen or sixteen-year-old boys... Looking at these militia soldiers, Lin Lin felt somewhat relieved that his superiors hadn't assigned such low-quality personnel to him when forming the night combat team and special night reconnaissance team. If they had, even with his ability to turn decay into magic, he wouldn't be able to train them into a competent force.
A substantial reserve force had arrived, and the commander of the defense line immediately withdrew a batch of exhausted defense force soldiers from the barricade, many of whom had minor injuries but couldn't retreat to the rear. Instead, they were reinforced to the side defenses. The three defense force soldiers who had last retreated from the ruined building were also quickly summoned to other positions, but Lin Lin's squad of Waffen-SS soldiers seemed to have been deliberately forgotten. Just as Lin Lin began to feel a little frustrated, the young gunner extended his right hand for the second time, with a friendly and kind expression, and said:
"Hey, buddy, I'm Louis Hellwig. Thanks for your help!"
Lin Lin solemnly shook hands with him. "Lin Lin Gargo, Waffen-SS sergeant. Thank you for your help this morning, too!"
"Oh?" The sergeant's memory might have been filled with a whole day of battle scenes. For a moment, he didn't remember.
Lin Lin snapped his fingers, mimicking his actions from earlier in the morning.
"Oh..." The sergeant suddenly realized, "Aren't you the strong guy who captured the Soviet Colonel?"
"Strong guy?" Lin Lin heard someone describe him in German for the first time and laughed heartily.
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