bullyxtreme Chapter 165: Taking Irku, Operation Begonia Leaf Completed Successfully
Chapter 165: Taking Irku, Operation Begonia Leaf Completed Successfully
"woo woo woo woo......"
The sky above the city of Irkutsk was filled with the shrill sound of air raid sirens. When everyone heard this sound, fear arose in their hearts involuntarily.
Because when this sound is heard, it means that disaster is about to befall them.
General Ivanovich's hair had turned completely white and his body was hunched.
If it weren't for the general's uniform he was wearing, he would be no different from an ordinary Slavic old man.
At this moment, he was standing by the window, looking at the dense black spots in the distant sky, with a bitter smile on his lips.
These black spots are exactly the bombers of the Restoration Army. Can the city of Irkut really hold on?
When he saw these densely packed bombers, he could actually give a definite answer in his heart: We can't hold it!
But it is absolutely impossible for him to give up or surrender.
The lower-level soldiers can do this, but he can't and shouldn't do it.
He wanted to live and die with this city. Even if he died, he would die gloriously, a martyr of the Slavs, rather than die in humiliation.
"General, the Restoration Army's bomber group, according to the air defense sentry report, the large-scale bombing this time exceeds 300. I will take you to the underground air-raid shelter immediately."
General Ivanovich nodded, then followed the officer and walked quickly towards the underground air-raid shelter not far away.
The bombers that arrived over the city of Irkutsk began to drop bombs.
In an instant, dense bombs roared down from the sky, making bursts of shrill sounds.
The lowest of these bombs are at the 250-pound level, and 1000-pound bombs are not uncommon.
The waves of explosions surged forward like sea waves as the fleet moved forward.
One sturdy building after another was destroyed and collapsed in the explosion.
Those Tsarist Russian soldiers hiding in the buildings were also buried by the buildings in large numbers, but more soldiers died before they felt the pain.
This carpet bombing was like autumn wind sweeping away fallen leaves, destroying the ground buildings in Irkutsk city in large numbers.
The flames of the explosion enveloped the entire city in a short time.
Unlike the cities bombed in Fuso, the buildings in Irkutsk were made of bricks and reinforced concrete, so they were much more difficult to destroy than Fuso's wooden buildings.
But as long as the quantity is large enough, nothing will be a problem.
In just two days, General Ivanovich felt what despair was.
Before the war, he reinforced and renovated almost every building and prepared a large number of machine guns, anti-tank guns, etc.
But his deployment seemed so ridiculous in front of the bombers of the Restoration Army.
Over the two days, more than 4000 bomber sorties were carried out.
If calculated based on the average bomb load of 5 tons per bomber.
These 4000 bombers dropped 2 tons of bombs in just two days.
Although Irkutsk is one of the largest industrial cities in the Far East, its scale cannot be compared with those big cities in Western Europe.
After all, the population of the entire city of Irkutsk is only more than 30, while each of the major cities of Tsarist Russia in Western Europe has a population of over one million.
So the air force successfully completed its mission in the past two days and destroyed all the buildings in the entire city of Irkut.
Looking from the sky, you can't see even a single building still standing among the ruins.
The entire city was littered with bomb craters, wrecked buildings, and bodies looming among the ruins.
If a large number of underground air-raid shelters had not been built before, I'm afraid that not even 10,000 people would be left out of the tens of thousands of troops in the entire Third Army.
But their situation is not much better now.
During these two days of bombing, more than 40,000 soldiers of the Tsarist Russian Third Army had become numb and saw no hope of victory in this war.
They crowded into the small air-raid shelter, waiting for death to come.
On the third day, the roar of bomber engines was no longer heard in the sky of Irkutsk.
General Ivanovich understood that this was a prelude to the Restoration Army's upcoming attack.
But this time he guessed wrong.
Zhao Qi had no plans to attack, at least not in the next two days.
"Deputy Commander, all artillery units are in position."
In the Siberian Column headquarters, a colonel officer came to Zhao Qi and reported.
"Then let them begin!"
Today is August 8th, and there is still half a month until September 15st as stipulated by the Military and Political Committee.
So Zhao Qi is not in a hurry yet.
But another deputy commander, Guo Mingxuan, was a little anxious.
"Deputy Commander Zhao, is this necessary? The Air Force's bombers have already destroyed all the buildings. Their plan to engage in street fighting with us has been completely shattered.
Now we just need to send our troops to attack, and we can take the city within three days."
After hearing what Guo Mingxuan said, Zhao Qi smiled, pressed his shoulders, sat on the stool, and then began to explain in an orderly manner.
"Old Guo, the reason I plan to bomb for two more days is not to kill as many enemies as possible or destroy as many of their buildings and fortifications as possible.
Instead, it continues to put more psychological pressure on them.
You have to know that after two days of such high-intensity bombing, the hearts of the Tsarist Russian soldiers in the city must still be tense, and many of them are even going crazy.
If we launch an attack at this time, they will come out screaming and fight us to the death.
So I plan to bombard them for two more days to completely destroy their morale. Perhaps we can win without fighting."
After hearing Zhao Qi's explanation, Guo Mingxuan suddenly realized, "You are planning to play psychological warfare with the Russian troops in the city."
On the outskirts of Irkut City, artillery positions began to roar.
The bombardment of the Irkutsk position mobilized an artillery division of more than 300 howitzers, cannons, and rocket launchers.
There is also a railway artillery regiment with 12 308mm railway guns and a heavy artillery regiment with 8 600mm Karl mortars.
In addition to these artillery pieces, 9 artillery regiments from 7 divisions also participated in the bombardment.
The total number of artillery pieces and rocket launchers exceeds one thousand.
These are a real thousand guns, and the smallest caliber is the 105mm M2A1 medium-caliber howitzer.
When thousands of artillery pieces indiscriminately bombarded the ruins of Irkutsk City, the noise caused was no less than that of a group of bombers.
Especially for the 600mm caliber Karl mortar, a concrete-piercing shell weighs as much as 1.7 tons and can penetrate concrete up to 2.5 meters.
The Tsarist Russian soldiers in the underground fortifications could feel the earth shaking.
The atmosphere in the entire underground air-raid shelter is now very depressing.
Faced with this situation, General Ivanovich had no better solution.
The only thing he could do was to let the officers under him appease these soldiers.
But the officers need to be appeased, so how can they have the energy to appease the soldiers at the lower levels?
Another two days passed.
Under the bombardment of more than a thousand artillery pieces, most areas of the city of Irkutsk were plowed, and the Tsarist Russia lost thousands of people again.
The shelling was not without any effect. At least it collapsed many shallow underground air-raid shelters.
Several small-scale mutinies also occurred within the Tsarist Russian Third Army.
Although these mutinies were suppressed, a strange atmosphere had already spread among the soldiers.
Many soldiers directed their grievances at General Ivanovich.
It was because he refused to retreat for the sake of his personal honor and disgrace, and he didn't care about the lives of these low-level soldiers.
Now they are asked to fight desperately with the tanks of the Renaissance Army, which is absolutely impossible.
The day after the shelling ended, the large-scale ground offensive finally began.
The 1st Marine Division, the 13th Mechanized Infantry Division, and the 22nd Mechanized Infantry Division entered the city from three directions.
At this moment, the South City has become a ruin. The soldiers advanced cautiously among the ruins, keeping their eyes and ears open.
As long as there is any unusual movement, they will rush over with a volley of bullets.
"We found an underground entrance. It should be the underground air-raid shelter they built."
On a street in the south city, a soldier in charge of reconnaissance and search reported to the company commander.
The company commander was immediately shocked when he heard this. He waved his hand and said, "Everyone, prepare to fight."
Soon a violent explosion was heard from the entrance gate.
In the explosion of high explosives, the heavy cast steel door collapsed, revealing a passage leading deep underground in the smoke.
Then the company commander led his men carefully into the passage, and the machine gunner directly set up the MG42 general-purpose machine gun.
The passage is not long, only about a hundred meters.
However, when he led his soldiers to the end of the passage, he saw Tsarist Russian soldiers sitting or sleeping in the cave like zombies.
When they saw the figures of the Renaissance Army, they did not make any movement and just looked at them with numb eyes.
The company commander was stunned when he saw this scene.
However, as the advance continued, some Tsarist Russian soldiers came out of the air-raid shelters and chose to resist.
But these soldiers are ultimately a minority.
The city of Irkutsk did not become an obstacle to the Restoration Army.
After three days of searching, most of the city of Irku had been cleared out by the Restoration Army.
They also found the body of General Ivanovich in one of the underground command posts.
The old man committed suicide in the room while wearing a brand new military uniform. A bullet passed through his temple, ending his life.
In this battle, the Renaissance Army annihilated more than 50,000 troops of the Tsarist Russian Third Army, with only more than 10,000 surrendering.
This also means that the Restoration Army has successfully occupied the entire Irkutsk Oblast.
At the same time, the front line was pushed to Taishet.
Further ahead is the Krasnoyarsk Territory.
This time, all objectives in the Begonia Leaf mission have been successfully completed.
Jiang Hua stopped his troops from advancing further.
There will be soldiers to settle accounts later, so there is no need to be so anxious.
When the city of Irku fell, the long-silent Red Alert base finally received an upgrade notification sound.
It’s still the same as before, he needs to wait for 7 days. After 7 days, he will become the intermediate commander of the Red Alert base and unlock the authority of the intermediate commander.
At this moment, Jiang Hua is very much looking forward to seeing how many surprises the base upgrade will bring him.