The incessant bark of guns fills the air. *CRACK!* Your friend Anatoli peeks out from cover and fires his Mosin-Nagant rifle. *CRACK!* He slides back behind a large rock outcrop and struggles with the bolt action. An artillery shell explodes nearby. *BOOM!* Now it's your turn to peek out. You grip your PPSH-41 sub-machine gun and inch around the tree. You point it in the general diction of the enemy. You press the trigger, and send a burst towards the enemy. *CSHHHHHHHH!* As you step back behind the large tree stump, a burst of German machine-gun fire tears into the front of the stump, right where you were a few seconds prior. *ACK-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K!* Another artillery shell impacts nearby *BOOM!* And suddenly, silence. You and Anatoli exchange confused looks. The silence seems strange, almost alien. Your leading officer fires his pistol twice *PAK! PAK!* and yells "Обвинять!" "CHARGE!" You, Anatoli, and the rest of your platoon charge forwards, yelling your battle cry "URAAAAAAAAA!" as you charge forwards. A single German machine gun 100 meters ahead opens up *ACK-K-K-K-K-K-K-K-K!* A few men to your left fall. While still running forwards, you aim in the vague direction of the machine gun nest and fire off the entire 71 round drum of your trusty PPSH at the machine gun *CSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!* You quickly reload before you notice that the machine gun has fallen silent. Your commanding officer signals to stop the charge. You're in a meadow now, you take cover behind another rock outcropping. It's still eerily silent. As your ears start to adapt to the silence, you hear a low wailing noise, seemingly coming from everywhere at once. *awwwwwooooooooooooo...*The noise gets louder, and it's pitch starts to rise. *oooooooOOOOO...* You look up at the clear sky. There's nothing there, except for a dozen dots far above you. *OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...* Then someone in the next trench over yells the last thing you want to hear. *ooooooooOOOOOOO...* The one thing that strikes fear into the heart of every soldier on the Eastern Front. *OOOOOOOOO...* The one thing that you can do nothing against. "SHTUUUKKAAAAAAA!" You look up again, and see the last thing you want to see.
You see Anatoli dive for cover, and do the same. The noise is deafening. You swear you can feel the ground shaking. *OOOOVRRRRRROOOMMMMMMMmmmm* The first one passes over. The wait feels like forever. Then, *tiiuuuuuuuuuu-thud-BOOM!* the ground shakes and dirt rains from the sky as the first bomb detonates. The next aircraft zooms overhead (*tiuuuuuuuuuu...*), and you feel and hear a dull 'thud' as the 250 kilogram high-explosive bomb hits the ground next to you. Then, *BO-* everything goes black.
You slowly wake up, and shake the dirt off of yourself. Your left arm huts slightly, and you can see a bit of shrapnel sticking out of your arm. You yank it out of your arm and look around. There's a large crater 50 meters away. Your trusty PPSH-41 is on the ground, partly covered with dirt. You pick it up and cycle the action. A bit of dirt falls out of the end of the barrel sleeve. The action opens back up with a satisfying 'click.' The sound of a large diesel engine starting up causes you to turn around and look around the rock. You see nothing. Then, there's a crashing in the treeline, 100 meters ahead of you. Then, it breaks out of the forest.
Your heart sinks. It's a German tank. You don't remember seeing this one in basic tank-recognition training. It's big, much bigger than the Panzer I and II's you briefly studied.
It's short 75mm gun explodes with fire and smoke as it lobs a high-explosive shell over your head. *KA-BROOM!* You look at the target. A BT-7 fast tank is sitting on the other edge of the meadow, its right track completely blown off from the HE shell. The German tank gets closer. You can hear an armor-peircing round being loaded into th-*PAKttssssssssssssDINGGGGG!* The friendly BT-7's shell zips over your head, hitting the German tank. You barely sneak a look at the enemy tank. Other than a small dent in the upper front plate, it's completely unharmed. *ka-chunk* the breech-block closes and *KA-BROOM!* The Armour piercing shell tears through the air and finds its target. The BT-7 explodes, sending its flaming turret ten meters into the air.
As the German Panzer advances past your position, you take a small glass bottle full of petrol and rubber out of your belt. A Molotov cocktail. You light the rag around the neck of the bottle and throw it onto the engine deck of the tank. The bottle smashes and spreads burning petrol all over the deck of the tank, seeping into ventilation holes and gaps between panels. The enemy tank stops, and the crew make a hasty escape. All but one are mowed down by your fellow soldiers.
Such was the experience of a Soviet infantryman on the front lines of WWII.
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