Eight Hundred and Thirty-Nine Where Is the End

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The air is still so dry. When winter is about to go away, there seems to be no rain in the whole of Russia, but the roads here have become muddy due to the melting of snow, and there seems to be one more factor affecting the speed of the German army. Just annoying mud and potholes. ..

The current state of the German army on the front line is not bad. At least the two main German troops in the south and the center have now entered a state of stagnation. The troops of Rundstedt and Kluge stopped advancing after besieging Smolensk, and the German army in the south did not move forward after advancing to the Volga River Basin and threatening Stalingrad. .

But this does not mean that the muddy road did not cause trouble to the German army. The long supply line made the German logistics troops very depressed. to the hands of combat troops.

This is a war where the smoke of gunpowder cannot be seen, and it is a complex and complicated project that is even more devastating than front-line operations. The German logistics troops even had more troops than the front-line combat troops. They fought desperately against all kinds of unfavorable factors, and they had no other advantages over the front-line combat troops except for safety.

"Slow! Slow down! Do you know how expensive these equipment are!" A German railway soldier was directing a locomotive to push a carriage full of rails along the railway that was being repaired bit by bit. On both sides of him are a group of German engineers and some recruited Ukrainian civilians. These people are unloading a section of rail from the carriage and fixing these rails to the sleepers in the prescribed position.

Further forward, there are more than a dozen large trucks piled up with new sleepers. Some soldiers and civilians are busy mixing these sleepers with the old existing sleepers on this railway, and then mixing them one by one. Together, it becomes a railway with a density that meets European requirements.

Due to historical reasons, in fact, in Ukraine and Belarus, the railway tracks are divided into three different standards, namely the European standard railway track implemented in Germany, the backward and ancient narrow gauge, and some of the Soviet standard wide gauge—although Germany The aided railway tracks are all European standards, but in Ukraine and Belarus, the number is barely about half.

The remaining rails need to be rebuilt, but building railroads is not an easy job. At least building railroad tracks in wartime is a resource-intensive task. Hundreds of tons of steel have to be turned into rails instead of tanks. For the German army, which has insufficient production capacity and resources, this is extremely painful.

"Bang!" One rail was accurately placed on the sleepers by dozens of civilians and soldiers, and soldiers and civilians on the other side were slowly placing another rail. Some German technicians with instruments and equipment are discussing how to improve some uneven areas and erect more parallel railway lines.

The German engineers fixed the positions of the rails and sleepers, and then began to embed railroad nails on them. According to the usual concept, the construction speed is already very fast, but this kind of crazy railway transformation progress is still not there. method to meet the needs of the German advance.

"I heard that the repair work over there is going very fast, and the transportation can basically be kept smooth." An officer of the engineering department stood on a hillside not far away with his hands behind his back, and beside him was the troop in charge of laying the railway. SS officers on security alert, as well as officials from the local pro-German government in Belarus.

"After all, there are not many railways that meet the standards of the Third Reich in the Soviet Union. These railways were also the main targets for destruction when the Soviet Red Army retreated." The officer of the SS guard looked at the railway track construction that was advancing at a speed visible to the naked eye in the distance, He said: "Under the protection of the SS soldiers, the work of repairing these railways has gone smoothly, but it is not enough to meet the needs of the front-line troops."

The commander of the engineering unit sneered. After all, he had the rank of colonel on his shoulders, and he was considered a genuine senior official among the frontline commanders in the logistics force: "The frontline, the frontline officers and soldiers, never They were not satisfied. They were short of food when they were sent oil, and short of ammunition when they were sent food, and they burned all the oil after the ammunition was sent.”

The officer of the SS Army nodded and agreed with his temporary superior: "Yes, but they did attack quickly. Now the farthest army is only less than 30 kilometers away from Stalingrad. And I heard that , because the special forces and helicopters are used to advance at a faster speed, and the railway line there is still intact, which is even more difficult."

In fact, because of the relationship between the Soviet Union and Germany during the previous cooperation period, the railway construction of the southern line is the best in the Soviet Union. There are several railways built entirely by the Germans, and there are also more complete supporting facilities. Except for some that were destroyed by the Soviets when they retreated, most of the railways became resources that the German army took and used.

But the story is divided into two parts. On the one hand, because there are oil fields in the Caucasus in the south, it is best to build them during the Sude honeymoon period. On the other hand, because the oil fields in the Caucasus are too important to the German army, Germany invested a whole 4 The strength of the army group is intended to open up the situation in the Caucasus.

However, the German troops of the four armies have put more pressure on the logistics than originally estimated. At least for now, the rails that have been built with great difficulty are only enough to keep about half of the supplies for these armies.

In the central region, Rundstedt's Army Group A and Klug's Army Group F had fewer troops, but after they crossed Minsk, there were no more usable rail tracks, although several were seized in the area near Orsha. A Soviet train was used to transfer supplies, but it was still a bit of an embarrassment.

The German army lacked oil tank trucks for transporting oil. These equipment are advanced equipment that is not available in China, and it is difficult to replenish production in a short period of time. However, similar equipment in the Soviet Union is in Forte. Since the Soviet-German war, only a small amount has been captured by the German army. Wide-gauge oil tank cars are even rarer. The German army has only managed to make up one special wide-gauge oil tank train to support the operations of Army Group A.

"Let the soldiers work harder! Complaints are complaints, at least we don't have to die." The engineering colonel said to his adjutant behind him: "Lay this railroad track to Orsha as soon as possible. , we can save a lot of capacity.”

"Report!" Before the colonel's ambitions had begun, someone came to pour cold water on her. A signal soldier walked up the slope, panting and reported him some bad news: "Colonel, the news just came that a group of Soviet guerrillas attacked a section of our railway in Belarus, and a military column was captured. We lost more than 40 people and lost about 4 tons of food."

"Where are the nearby SS patrols? What do they eat?" The SS officer in charge of guarding the railway frowned and asked.

"The SS arrived later and rescued the remaining supplies. They extinguished the fire set by the Soviets and wiped out the Soviets who attacked the train. But the two carriages have been burned, and they can't do anything." The signal soldier looked After reading the contents of the telegram, he answered another officer's question.

Everyone felt the pressure brought by the war. Man-made destruction complicated many problems. The precise scheduling that the Germans were best at turned into a disaster in train transportation. They rely on dense and well-calculated train transportation timetables to maximize the efficiency of the main railway lines in their hands, but once a problem occurs at a certain node, it will often lead to large-scale railway transportation paralysis.

In the German mainland, materials transferred from the western line to the eastern line can be transported at an almost astonishing speed, and the effectiveness of the main railway line is brought into full play. But after the train enters Poland and then arrives at Minsk, the speed will drop twice; going east, from Minsk to near Smolensk, the speed will drop three times.

Maybe the German army can bear it just by slowing down, but the increase in transportation costs really broke the German army. Often when a barrel of oil is transported to the front line in the east, it means that another barrel of oil is consumed on the road. This is what makes the German army short of supplies most dissatisfied.

"The head of state has decided to set up material storage locations in Poland and some places in Belarus. At least in the next few months, we will work to improve the material transportation conditions in the rear and combat the increasingly rampant Soviet guerrillas." SS The officer of the army looked in the direction of the west, and seemed to be saying to himself, and also seemed to be saying to the engineer colonel beside him: "The rest depends on where our railway can be laid. "

"Bang!" Another section of the rail fell heavily on a neat row of sleepers, making a muffled sound. The German engineers beat the railroad nails with hammers, one after another, sweating profusely, desperately building the endless railway, and desperately repairing the railway that seemed to never be repaired.

"We will do our best to pave, desperately." The engineer colonel stared at the railway that extended a little far away, narrowed his eyes and said: "However, the enemy is trying to destroy these railways. The generals want us to lay more railroads, I really don't know when it will end..."