Eight Hundred and Eighty Five in the Making

Based on his experience, the Soviet army would lose over 10,000 troops in the Battle of Stalingrad, which is undoubtedly a huge loss for the entire Soviet Union. ￠￡, even if Stalingrad is defended with such a loss, how many young and strong Soviet Union will be left?

This is not a good ending, at least for the Soviet Union, not a good ending. At that time, the Soviet Union will have ten rooms and nine empty rooms. Even if it wins the war, if it wants to recover its vitality, it will take decades of accumulation anyway. In the future of decades of rapid changes, will the Soviet Union still be the first in the world? Hegemony?

Of course, these are not issues that Rokossovsky needs to consider. The issue before him is simpler now, whether Stalingrad can be kept in the end. It's a very simple question, but it's really hard to answer. Everything has to wait until this counterattack, and what kind of effect can be achieved before we can see the outcome.

So Rokossovsky looked at the large urban combat map in front of him through the gaps between his fingers covering his face, thinking that his troops could regain the lost defensive positions, and they could hold those places to give Own transportation and supply shipping to gain enough breathing space.

...

On the German position, the sound of gunfire broke the due tranquility. A German rifle shooter hiding behind the window fired the first bullet to stop the advance of the Soviet army. After the sound of the gunshot, a young soldier of the Soviet army responded Falling to the ground, the bloody battle kicked off.

The machine guns started to roar, and one after another the Soviet soldiers were knocked down by the bullets, but the attack continued. Among the ruins, blood spattered everywhere, covering everything around them in a red atmosphere. Brutal killings and an atmosphere of determination spread everywhere until the German defenses were breached.

On the German position that had already been turned into ruins, a Soviet soldier was checking his wounds. A bullet hit the outside of his ribs, making a hole in his clothes, but only scratched his body. body, so he gritted his teeth and wiped off the blood that hadn't dried up with his hands, then pressed the wound with a clean handkerchief.

At his feet lay the bodies of two German soldiers who had been shot and died, but judging by their attire, they should be some Ukrainian soldiers. Because these people are wearing SS uniforms, and there are no formal epaulets and unit number identification. It was a practice of the Soviet troops to catch and execute soldiers in SS uniforms because they didn't like anyone in black uniforms.

In the German army, people wearing black SS uniforms are either executioners, elite armored troops who have killed countless people, or Ukrainian servants who defected to the Soviet Union. These three types of people were dealt with by the Soviet side based on the principle of killing them and never letting them go. They were cruel and bloody, but also very reasonable.

The battle had just ended, and many bullet holes on the walls were still emitting light smoke. The Soviet soldiers were cleaning the battlefield hard. Seeing that the temperature was getting higher and higher, the corpses would rot and deteriorate faster and faster.

If the corpses of these fallen soldiers are not disposed of as soon as possible, then there will be no need for the two sides to fight, and this place will soon become a giant bacterial petri dish raging with the plague.

In such a short assault just now, almost all Soviet soldiers were killed. And look at the position, the Ukrainians left only a corpse. This ratio annoyed the attacking Soviet troops-the Ukrainian defensive positions were so perfectly arranged, there must have been Germans on the sidelines. The cross-fire alternately entered the battle, which caught the Soviet army by surprise. If the Soviet tanks hadn't been killed in the end, it is possible that the attack would have been so fruitless.

The battle will continue. After all, the purpose of the Soviet army this time is to counterattack as much as possible to gain strategic space. With this goal, the Soviet army will try to keep attacking.

A Soviet t-34 tank started slowly. Its armor plates were not even painted. This kind of tank was mass-produced in Stalingrad without an official number. It was directly incorporated into the front-line combat troops. Use it for as long as you want. Even under such harsh war conditions, Stalingrad's tank factories still did not stop production. They repaired damaged weapons and equipment for the troops, and took time to assemble half-produced tanks and hand them over to the defenders for use.

"Go ahead. We must regain as many defensive positions as possible and let the German army get out of our city!" A Soviet commander loudly encouraged his men, and these Soviet soldiers stood up mechanically, Carry your own weapons and move on.

...

"General! The Soviet counterattack has begun. As you expected, they are expanding the length of the connection with the Volga River to cover their ships to replenish the losses of the troops at night." A staff officer passed the news from the front to the Kuechler, who was looking at the map, then spoke.

Küchler pointed to his ear, and then made a joke very indifferently: "Yes, I heard it. The problem is the direction of their counterattack and the strength of the counterattack."

A staff officer began to mark on the map which places had been lost based on the reports of some troops. It was obvious that the attack direction of the Soviet army had roughly spread to the entire map. He said that this counterattack was the biggest test the German army had faced since the attack on Stalingrad. Not too much.

"Oh, attacking to the north and south... That's easy to explain, but what's the point of counterattacking to the west?" Küchler asked with his hand on his chin, staring at the map and talking to himself: "Is it because you want to use this counterattack to test how tough I am?"

He said while thinking about the next solution, and finally he pressed his hand on the map, and then made up his mind: "Rokossovsky, since you want to know the attitude of my Kuchler How tough it is, then I will let you see why I was approved by Yuan to be the commander-in-chief of this n group army!"

"Order all the frontline troops to stick to the line of defense and not back down." Now that Küchler had figured out what measures he was going to take, he didn't hesitate any longer. He immediately ordered his subordinates to pass on the adjustments made by the general headquarters to this Soviet counterattack: "Mobilize the 9th SS Armored Division and counterattack from the north to the south. I want to take the Soviet Union before sunset." Army occupation along the Volga, shortened by at least a kilometer!"

"Long live Yuan!" A division commander of the SS stood at attention and saluted, then turned and walked out of Küchler's headquarters. Under Küchler's Army Group n, the most elite is the 14th Panzer Corps of the Wehrmacht, and the most elite armored unit of this army is the 9th Panzer Division of the SS.

"The rest of the 14th Panzer Army participated in the counterattack from the front and repelled the Soviet attack." Küchler sneered, and then continued to issue combat orders. This time, he not only wanted to repel the Soviet attack, but After defeating the counterattack of the Soviet army, the troops were directly transferred to the situation of counterattack across the board.

So this time he wasn't stingy in the slightest, but threw out all the most elite combat troops in his hand, preparing to use the genuine German troops to give Rokossovsky a ruthless blow.

In the southernmost direction of Stalingrad, the German army also invested two infantry divisions, together with the Ukrainian troops, to attack the Soviet army across the board. Not only Rokossovsky was waiting for an opportunity to counterattack, but Küchler was waiting, waiting for the moment when the Soviet army couldn't sit still and it was beneficial to the German army.

"It's easy to thwart your attack! General Rokossovsky. I'm just waiting, waiting to see when you lose your patience. Now it seems that your patience is a little less than I estimated, probably because you Why can’t you afford to lose?” Küchler asked the map in front of him talking to himself, but of course the map couldn’t answer any of his questions. But he continued to ask there: "Now I'm playing my card, let's see if you are bigger than mine."

...

"Bell! Bell!" The phone on the desk of the German frontline headquarters rang. A division commander walked to the phone, grabbed the receiver, and then stood at attention and replied: "Your Excellency, General! Yes! We are ready to fight Ready! Attack at any time! Yes! Yes! Long live Yuan Acador Rudolph! The Empire will win!"

After hanging up the phone, the division commander looked back at the Ukrainian general who was wearing an SS uniform but only had a Ukrainian Freedom Medal on his chest, and laughed openly: "This time we will attack together. , your people can take a good look at how the grenadiers of the Third Reich fought."

On one side of the street, the German machine gun positions are being suppressed by Soviet tanks, and many Ukrainian soldiers have been driven out of the trenches by the Soviet attacking infantry; on the other side of the street, a German Leopard tank is Slowly advancing, behind this Leopard tank, there is actually a No. 3 short-barreled assault gun of the Ukrainian army.

A German commander is checking the table with the Ukrainian frontline commander. The entire attack plan will be launched at the same time. The well-planned and coordinated actions of the German army demonstrate their formidable power here.

"At 12:00 noon, the counterattack will kick off on time." The German officer put down his arm with the watch and said to his Ukrainian colleague with a smile. The Ukrainian officer gave a military salute and nodded with a serious expression.

While the German frontline troops were busy, German fighter jets were taking off one after another in the field airport behind, and in the sky not far away, a bomber unit of three planes in a formation was gathering. A counterattack is brewing.