The inventor of the first machine gun Richard Gatling hoped that this terrible weapon to end the war. As you know, he was wrong. However, the use of the machine gun could only mentally stable people. During the great Patriotic war, the German machine-gunners, turn-by-turn mowing down red Army soldiers, and sometimes went mad from such a spectacle. Rzhevskaya battle Famous battle of Rzhev in the Tver region, stretching from January 1942 to March 1943, remained in the memory of the fighters as “Rzhevskaya meat grinder.” Deadweight loss on both sides was enormous. For example, according to the German General Horst Grossman, in the battles of Rzhev Russians lost in killed 2.5 million people. To attack the red army was literally at the decaying corpses that were not able to bury due to the ongoing shooting. Occurring in these places the river, ironically called Slaughter, sometimes becoming red with blood. Describing intense fighting in the area of Polunino village, a modern author Sergey Stukalo notes that the cases where the German gunners were going crazy, were not uncommon. Too many soldiers were killed under their bullets. In the Wehrmacht for the resolution of such situations there was a psychological service. However, using it could be called not always. Nazi doctors were held specific views on mental disorders associated with stressful situations in combat. They denied the objective causes hysteria and believed that the soldiers are cowards or just don’t want to fight. For return of troops in operation used such methods as electric shock and introduction into a hypnotic trance.
The battle for Sinyavino heights of the Lyuban offensive operation began in January 1942, the Soviet tried to break the blockade of Leningrad, but once again was defeated. However, the red Army managed to prevent the closure of the second German-Finnish ring around the city. Machine guns MG-42 standing in the Wehrmacht, had a rate of fire of 1.5-2 thousand rounds per minute. When the arrows were hiding in the bunkers, the weapon became almost invincible. However, the red army was rarely considered with heavy losses. If there was an order to attack, it was carried out, even at the cost of senseless sacrifices. Running back – meant for the red to fall under the fire of their own detachments. Seeing all the new Russians, hundreds of bullets coming towards you in deep snow, the Germans could not withstand. The gunners began to seem that the dead are raised up, and again stormed fortified positions. About it, he recalled how the veteran Nikolay Nikulin, he told a German veteran who fought on the Sinyavino heights in the area of the Graveyard. – Not so easy to kill people, row after row – and they all come and go, and there is no end to them – describes Nikulin as the German machine gunners. Battles near Sevastopol one who lost control of a German heavy anti-tank officer describes the calculation of Gottlieb Biedermann, who fought in the Crimea in November 1941. One early morning in the vicinity of Sevastopol, the Russian made a powerful counterattack on Mackenziei mountains. The fight went to the workers of the Sevastopol factories and docks. They ran from the thick undergrowth, shouting “Hurrah!” and immediately came under fire from the Germans. After a while the roar of shells Biderman heard the cry of the gunner: “I just can’t kill!” In addition to mental impact and physical stress – the fingers of the arrow, firmly clutching the gun, literally stopped to stretch. It is noteworthy that in the German estimation in that day, no one was killed. The expense of Russian dead was in the hundreds. The last attack of the red army ended just 50 metres from the German guns. However, it is worth noting that such cases still could not be much as the Marines, of course, more often than not went in droves to the German bunkers, and tried to outflank them and threw grenades. The main way of destroying the machine-gun points of the enemy were shelling.
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