Krasnyy Rassvet looked up as a shell whistled over head. She relaxed by the fire once again when she realized that it wasn’t headed for her position. Explosions resounded in the distance, and brilliant flashes of light could be seen from the outer perimeter of the city. Hooviet positions had been under constant bombardment for weeks. It was never quiet as the screams of the dying mixed in with the cacophony of the shelling. One could never get used to it.

The attacks were worse. The noise would become unbearable as creeping barrages were fired at Hooviet strong points. The ground would shake under the weight of the barrage. Then, there would be silence. The silence would continue for some time, with the defenders fearfully awaiting the inevitable attack. Gunfire would start, the Germaneans hosing down streets with machine guns, and picking off targets with rifles. Germanean snipers would take targets of opportunity, bursting hearts and punching heads clean from shoulders. Tanks would close in, firing their dreadful cannons. The Hooviets would fire back with captured Germanean weapons, but it was rarely enough. The Hooviets would be pushed back, and the Germaneans would spend several days fortifying their positions.

A mortar screeched out of the air. Next to her, a red army soldier screamed as shrapnel punched clean through his chest. He sank to the ground, blood and pus oozing from the chest wound to stain the ground crimson. A sudden flurry of screeching noises pierced Krasnyy’s ears.

“INCOMING!” A soldier yelled.

Krasnyy threw herself to the ground, as artillery shells began to detonate all around. Above her, a building was shattered as a fifteen centimeter round impacted with it. She rolled out of the way of falling debris as the building began to crumble like a child’s toy. One of her comrades was not so lucky. A piece of rubble shattered his skull, causing grey brain matter to splatter all over the street. Krasnyy felt her gorge rise.

The shelling stopped. The silence was almost deafening after the near constant storm of artillery. There was only the moans and screams of the wounded to break the peace. She glanced around. One of her fellow soldiers had had his legs blown off, blood was pouring from his stumps. His legs lay roughly a meter away, where they had been thrown by the concussive blast of artillery. Another was missing an eye where shrapnel had punctured the eyeball. He rocked back and forth, cradling his head. His eye socket wept blood, the viscous fluid coating his coat and the ground around him. Yet another lay still, eyes closed. Krasnyy would have thought that he was sleeping if it weren’t for his opened jugular. There was blood all around, covering the walls, covering the ground, covering her. It was like hell itself.

The silence was tense. An attack was coming, they all knew it. They huddled and hid behind whatever cover they could, waiting for the bullets to fly. It was horrible, in many ways worse than shelling. They knew that there was something out there, but they didn’t know what it was. One of the soldiers stuck his head over the barricade.

“Maybe they aren’t coming?” He asked hopefully.

His head snapped back as a Kar53K round flew through the air. There was a loud crack half a second later. A sudden hail of bullets came from the distance, shredding the ground around the barricade in a merciless barrage of destructive potential. Several rounds punched through the hastily erected barricades, lacerated the defenders behind them. They screamed as the bullets punched through their skin, bursting blood vessels and stopping hearts.

“FOR THE FATHERLAND!”came the distant call.

“FOR THE FUHRER!” the other Germaneans replied.

“FOR THE MOTHERLAND!” Krasnyy screamed, aiming down the sights of her captured rifle.

The Hooviet line returned fire. They were much less experienced with firearms, but they did their best to match the brutal efficiency of the Germanean soldiers. A distant MG-56 opened up on the Hooviet line, its staccato bursts deafening. There was a rumble of engines. Krasnyys heart fluttered as she saw the unmistakable outline of a Panzer VIII.

“Look out, it’s a Maus!” she cried.

The turret rotated as the gunners aimed at the barricade. The fifteen centimeter cannon looked like the maw of some angry beast. Krasnyy paused for a moment, dumbfounded at this newest development. Her fellow soldiers opened fire at the mechanized beast. It was a pointless gesture as the bullets ricocheted off the extremely thick plate armor. Pintel and axle mounted machineguns began to spray fire from the tank’s hull. Several soldiers were bisected by the stream of ammunition, their blood spraying wildly across the street, soaking into the cobblestones.

The main gun fired. There was a massive expulsion of smoke and fire from the muzzle of the cannon. A large booming noise resonated around the street. The shell tore through the air at the speed of sound. It detonated against the street. Several of Krasnyy’s squad died as shrapnel killed them in a variety of agonizing ways. One had his head severed completely, while another had his carotid opened. The artery jutting blood at random angles. Yet another was disemboweled, his intestines looping around his legs like crimson streamers. One simply disappeared in a welter of blood, gore, and bone fragments. Krasnyy herself was buried under a pile of rubble.

Krasnyy crawled out to find the muzzles of dozens of guns pointed at her head. She sighed. There was no escaping it this time. She stood up slowly, resentfully. There was no point in resisting. Several of the Germanean soldiers advanced on her position, hooves on the triggers.

“Disarm yourself and put your hooves on the back of your head.” The commanding officer called.

Krasnyy angrily threw down her rifle. She then carefully and slowly drew her service pistol, pointing it at the ground to show non-aggression. She dropped that, too. She slowly placed her front hooves to the back of her head.

“I surrender.” She called derisively.

Germanean assaults continued on all fronts in the City of Horsescow. Day and night the artillery bombardments would further demoralize entrenched Hooviet forces. The rate of desertion and surrenders increased daily. It became especially bad when the Hooviet parliament was destroyed by heavy artillery. Although the building was not in use, the symbolism was not lost on any of the soldiers. Morale plummeted among Hooviet ranks.

The army was decapitated when the high command officers were killed in a meeting. It was yet another of the infamous Eindringlingesturmbrigaden raids. The generals, it was rumoured were rather messily decapitated by the Germanean infiltrators. Once again, the symbolism was obvious. The Germaneans certainly did have almost poetic way of carrying out warfare. The Hooviet army was thrown into discord and chaos in a way similar to the disaster at Stalliongrad. There was sporadic resistance to the Germanean advance, but nothing heavy. Within weeks, Horsescow had completely fallen under Germanean control. The hooviet Union was dissolved on March 4, 1258, only two years had passed since the beginning of the war. Over twenty-four million ponies had died on the Hooviet front, most of them had been with the Hooviet Red Army. These were figures on a scale previously unseen in world history.

At this point, only Equestria remained resistant. Canterlot was the endgame, and it was within sight.

Author's Note

Thanks to Nuggetmanu2 for proofreading and ideas. Thanks to the readers for support and ideas. Feel free to comment.
To those who are wondering, Krasnyy Rassvet means "Red Dawn" in Russian.