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Praetorium Honoris

Saturday, February 12, 2022

Motti - The Push to Save the 163rd Rifles

(Source)
Krasnoarmeyets Sergey Yegorovich Puzanov and his two man section of Aleksandr Tikhonovich Kharzin and Boleslaw Stepanovich Strelnikov were walking behind a T-26 tank, perhaps ten meters behind as the smell of the tank's exhaust, while warm, was making them sick.

"Tovarishch Puzanov, how far are we to advance today? My feet hurt." Kharzin was always complaining, today was no different.

"Sasha, you complain more than the old women in my village." Strelnikov muttered.

Puzanov turned and was walking backwards, looking at the two men as he did so, "I could send you boys back to the politruk¹, you could complain to him. I'm sure he would explain to you the duties and responsibilities of the New Soviet Man. None of which, I assure you, involves complaining. It reflects badly on the Red Army and Comrade Stalin!"

At the mention of Stalin's name, Kharzin stopped talking. His grandmother had used that name to frighten the children into behaving.


"You have to understand them Lera, most of them are from small villages, far from the cities. Many of them didn't even wear shoes in the summer before they were conscripted. These are not educated city folk, nor your vaunted vanguard, the Soviet worker." Starshy Leytenant Pashin lit his pipe as he walked beside the battalion's political officer, Valerian Vitalievich Konnikov.

"But Lubomir, it is our task to educate them, to make them understand the necessity of this struggle." Konnikov was passionate about his work, Pashin had to give him that.

As Pashin exhaled the smoke from his pipe, it was so cold it was hard to tell his breath from the tobacco smoke, he heard a familiar sound from further up the column. The chattering of machine guns and the bark of cannon fire.

"The Finns!" Pashin drew his pistol as he beckoned to his small command group to follow him. Looking at Konnikov he yelled, "Come on Lera, there is fighting to be done to spread the joys of socialism to our neighbors the Finns!"

Konnikov drew his side arm and reluctantly followed Pashin forward. He wished his colleague would be a bit less sarcastic, he also wished he would stay further away from the fighting. Konnikov knew he was a coward and it bothered him, though he couldn't, for the life of him, explain why.


Puzanov was confused when Strelnikov had asked, "Why are they throwing bottles, Seryozha?"

Looking forward he caught a glimpse of a bottle just before it smashed apart on the back deck of the tank they were following. Immediately the deck burst into flames and then the tank jerked to a stop as the burning liquid dripped into the engine compartment.

The turret on the T-26 began to rotate to the left, even as Puzanov got his little command into the ditch beside the road. He yelled at his boys to search for targets as he tried to figure out just what the Hell was going on. There was lots of shouting, machine gun fire, and the hissing of fire as another bottle smashed against the top of the T-26's turret.

It happened so fast, too fast for Puzanov to make sense of any of it. The flaming liquid flowed into the crew compartment. As he watched, the hatch slammed open and the tank commander began to climb out, beating at the sleeves of his jacket, which were on fire.

Puzanov heard the screams of the other two crewmen as the flames filled the interior of the vehicle. Another bottle hit the tank, this one broke and completely engulfed the commander who screamed in anguish before collapsing back into the tank.

Puzanov turned his attention back to his duties, his two men were firing into the woods near the track. "What are you shooting at!"

Strelnikov said, as he reloaded his Mosin-Nagant², "I don't know Seryozha, but everyone else is shooting!"

"Hold your fire you two, don't shoot unless you see something to shoot at! We're wasting ammunition!"


Pashin commandeered a machine gun team as he headed up towards the front of the column, the men had been content to sit and do nothing as no one had given them any orders. As their leader had said, "What if we are needed elsewhere? The lieutenant expects us to be here, so we wait here."

It had take Pashin waving his Tokarev³ in the man's face to get him to follow. In addition, the man had recognized the insignia of the politruk Konnikov standing next to Pashin. His fear of the Party overwhelmed his idea of duty. Initiative was not a trait to be encouraged in the Red Army.

"Set your Maxim up here, Comrade, cover that tree line to the left. There! Do you see the muzzle flashes?" Pashin felt as if he were driving mules into position, not soldiers.

After the gun was in position, the men manning it began to fire at the Finns, serving the gun was something they knew how to do. "Just give us a target, Gospodin⁴! We'll do the rest!"

"The man is a Tsarist!" Konnikov protested as he followed Pashin further up the stalled column.

"No Lera, just a simple peasant. When will you understand?"


The firing died down as the sun began to set. Puzanov was worried, he wasn't sure if they were expected to spend the night in the open, many of the men would die if that was the case. But they needed to break through to the 163rd Rifle Division, trapped in Suomussalmi. If they fell back now they would only have to fight for this ground again. There was no time.

Puzanov heard someone come up the road, just as he heard outgoing fire from what had to be a Maxim, perhaps they were being reinforced, his lieutenant, Pashin, joined him in the ditch. Also, much to Puzanov's surprise, the commissar, Konnikov.

"Situation Seryozha?" Pashin managed to gasp out, it was obvious he had been running hard.

"Comrade Lieutenant, I think the Finns pulled back, they hit us, draw blood, make us deploy, then they move off to do it again. But we can't stop Comrade, it will be bitter cold tonight."

Konnikov grimaced and said, "How could it possibly get any colder?"

Puzanov sighed and said, "It just does Comrade Commissar, I don't know why, it just does."

In the dying flames of the burnt out T-26, Lieutenant Pashin gathered his men and they began to push ahead. Other Russians were also pushing forward. Somewhere, up ahead, their comrades in the 163rd were waiting.

But in the darkness and the deepening cold, so were the Finns.



¹ A portmanteau of the Russian words "politicheskiy rukovoditel'" (политический руководитель) - political officer.
² Standard Soviet infantry rifle.
³ Standard Soviet issue side arm.
⁴ Lord, an old term for a man of the nobility

30 comments:

  1. I have only fired M1 Garands of the WWII rifles. I am told Moisons have a pretty decent kick.

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    1. That 7.62X54R is equivalent to the 30-06

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    2. Yup. If/when you shoot an 03, you'll have an idea of the Nagant.
      That said, gimme the 03 any day.
      Boat Guy

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    3. The K98k packs a punch as well. That being said, I've fired the M-16, didn't seem to kick at all, bruised the Hell out of my shoulder, no doubt I was holding it wrong. The German Heckler & Koch G3 (which I fired in NATO, yearly) kicked like an angry mule, didn't leave a mark on my shoulder. Perhaps the USAF instructors made too much of the -16 not kicking so I didn't cinch it in real tight like I do with normal rifles. Go figure.

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    4. Try the M44, Mosin carbine. The fireball at the muzzle can be seen in daylight. If fire the same 7.62x54R as the full size mosin. Good recoil too!

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    5. Some years ago, I took two shirttail nephews to the rifle range. One was graduating high school, the other was a couple years behind. I brought a Savage so they could both become familiar with the operation of a bolt-action rifle. I also brought M-1, a M1903, a M1898 and a Mosin M91/30 that had a PU scope.

      The Mosin is an interesting rifle. This one was one of the many that had scopes mounted in the `00s, but a close inspection showed that it had been one once before. The difference in the trigger between it and a stock M91/30 was amazing.

      I only let them each fire three rounds through the Krag, as ammo was expensive for it. But I had a lot of surplus ammo for the others, so it was whatever they wanted to shoot. Which turned out to be the Mosin, they fired enough rounds through it to bubble the shellac on the handguard.

      It was a fun day. I later shot the Krag and the Mosin in different 3-gun matches.

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    6. Ah, the Mosin, otherwise known as the Garbage Rod. And I can kick myself for missing out on buying any war surplus at a cheap price. Stupid me.

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    7. CM - That's quite a rifle collection!

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    8. Well…. I added a No.4,Mk.I Enfield to it (and a bunch of Greek milsurp ammo). But that was a long while ago.

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    9. I like the look of, and the history, behind the Enfield. It's been a very long time since I've done any shooting.

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  2. Thanks! wanted to see him get into the thick of it.

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  3. Ah, the political enlightened among us. It matters not that a man dies, only that he is right thinking as he does.

    In my temperate little world, I cannot fathom that sort of cold.

    As always Sarge, great writing!

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    1. It's scary, innit? (Both the politics and the cold!)

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    2. Both are deeply threatening. As much as I hate the cold, I prefer it to the party. The party is always scheming, the just is.

      Not a request for I not wish to burdem you. But how I wish these snippets were longer.

      (Well, there's the proof of how received is your writing. The reader thirsty for more.)

      In ways, it seems these snippets are only the first layer of many layers. Character development has been fine. It is the deeper look into action of each contact which I miss.

      Again, this is not a suggestion. Its only me speaking outloud.

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    3. Correction to my comment: '... the cold just is ....'

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    4. Rick #1 - I know they have seemed short lately, real life has been keeping me busier than normal. I'll work on it.

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    5. Rick #2 - I figured that's what you meant. Context is all.

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  4. I'm convinced that it is the straight stock that is responsible for most of the kick differences. An '03 with a straight stock kicks harder than a sporting rifle with a pistol grip stock, using the same ammo. That, and the semi-auto action. That M1 op rod and bolt moving rearward sucks up a lot of that recoil momentum.

    A day at the range shooting 88 rounds of M2 Ball through an '03 is a hard day's shooting. Fully as hard as shooting the same number of rounds of .50 BMG (with a good muzzle brake). The only thing I've done worse at the range is to shoot a match left-handed with an '03. Had to do that once due to cataract in R. eye.

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    1. Most sporterized stocks also replace the metal butt-plate with either a hard rubber or a shock-absorbing butt-pad. That and having everything lowered into the stock so the recoil is far more direct into the shoulder than a battle stock and thus felt recoil is less.

      Physics at work. Properly shouldered and stocked rifle will feel less recoilish than improper shoulder fit and poorly bedded rifle.

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    2. I've never fired a "sporterized" rifle. Only military issue.

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  5. Ah, the Finns at night. Nothing says Olympic Skiing Event like skiing at 3am to the vicinity of a wooden building full of Russians, tossing Molotovs, and then watching the Soviets either burn or freeze or combo to death.

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    1. If the Russians could find an intact building ...

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    2. (Don McCollor)...[not original]...and it was the Molotov Cocktail hour...

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    3. Or the "Mazel Tov" cocktail as some goofball TV reporter called them not too long ago. Sigh, "journalism."

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  6. I think it's that the "sporting rifle" stock is heavier -- not much, a couple of ounces -- and thus absorbs just a little of the "sharpness" of the recoil. (This thought was inspired years ago by an ultra-light straight stock BLR that was a joy to shoot if I locked it into my shoulder and kicked like an angry horse if I didn't.)

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    1. Never fired a "sporting rifle," only military issue.

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Just be polite... that's all I ask. (For Buck)
Can't be nice, go somewhere else...

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