Chapter 670 The Burning Factory

The guard company sent up certainly can't play any role, there are only more than 100 people, and the combat effectiveness of the guard company is not very good.

This is related to the nature of the work of the guard company.

As mentioned before, the combat troops focus on coordination, cover and then kill the enemy, while the task of the guard company is to protect the leader regardless of the overall battlefield situation.

Therefore, the troops who have been on guard duty for a long time have basically forgotten all the tactical actions and essentials.

The workers in the factory are really effective... At this time, they are all equipped with rifles, which are usually placed in the gun room. Instructors will explain to them how to maintain, use and shoot guns during work breaks.

In fact, not only the workers, but almost all the people in Stalingrad are undergoing such training.

These workers cannot be compared with the German army in terms of combat effectiveness. Their advantage is that they are familiar with the terrain and have a large number of people.

This was realized after Qin Chuan and others attacked the "Red Barricade" artillery factory.

The initial attack was quite smooth. The wall outside the factory was useless to the German army. The tank rumbled up and knocked it to the ground. After entering the factory area, it adjusted the muzzle and fired a shell at the factory building with a "bang". A fire immediately broke out in the factory building.

The German soldiers rushed in from the gap in the wall, crouching and rushing forward with the help of the fire.

The sound of gunfire soon came from the darkness. Qin Chuan couldn't help but frowned. He originally thought that he would not encounter any resistance in the factory, but now it seems that this is not the case.

Qin Chuan soon understood what was going on, because several German soldiers had brought several prisoners. These prisoners were not soldiers. They were wearing factory work clothes, but they had bullet bags on their bodies.

"Major!" The German soldier reported: "The workers have guns in their hands. We have encountered armed resistance from the workers!"

If this was a daytime battle, the armed workers might not cause such a big trouble to the German army. After all, there is a considerable gap in the quality of both sides.

But it was at night, and the Soviet workers' familiarity with the terrain gave them a great advantage. They came out from here and there, and fired a few shots at the Germans without warning.

But this certainly could not stop the German attack on the factory... The Germans came to blow up the factory rather than occupy it.

The latter had to fight with the enemy room by room, while the former only needed to find a way to destroy it, which was obviously much easier.

A team of German soldiers forced the workers to tell them about the fuel warehouse... Most machines in this era used fuel instead of electricity, which was determined by the fact that most power plants still relied on hydropower.

(Note: There were no nuclear power plants at that time, and the Soviet Union's hydropower generation was very seasonal. It could not generate electricity when it froze in winter)

Then, the German soldiers pushed the barrels of fuel out of the warehouse, opened the lid and dumped them outside the factory building, and did not let go of the underground factory building either, filling them with fuel barrels at the entrance, and even pushing whole barrels of fuel in.

At the last moment, a German soldier from the Brandenburg detachment shouted into the factory with a small trumpet: "Comrade workers, as long as you put down your guns and surrender, we will not embarrass you, you can even walk out and escape from our sight!"

The German soldier did not lie. In fact, they had no interest in these workers with rifles. To a certain extent, they did not regard these workers as enemies, even though in principle they were no longer workers but soldiers when they took up their weapons.

But no one came out.

Perhaps they did not dare, perhaps they were worried about their families, or perhaps they did not trust the Germans... They would rather stay in the factory.

After waiting for a while, the German soldier lit a match and threw it on the ground. The blue-red flames rushed to the factory along the path where the fuel was poured out like a rising tide, and then a raging fire ignited around the factory with a "bang", and soon spread to other factory buildings. There were even explosions in the underground factory, shaking the ground.

The fire quickly spread to the upper floors, and there were bursts of miserable screams from inside. From time to time, people covered in flames fell from the roof. It was unknown whether they were running around and falling or whether they consciously hoped to end this pain as soon as possible.

Qin Chuan couldn't bear to watch any longer, and waved his hand and ordered: "Retreat!"

The troops withdrew from the factory in an orderly manner, leaving behind a raging fire that was burning more and more vigorously.

On the other side, the tractor factory was doing the same thing, because when Qin Chuan and others walked out, they saw flames rising from another direction.

There were even Soviet fire trucks rushing to put out the fire... The fire brigade obviously had not received any relevant enemy information and didn't know the situation. They just saw the flames and rushed out urgently.

At the same time, they saw the tank parked in the middle of the road and took it for granted that it was their own tank, so they didn't care at all, but they didn't expect that the tank barrel suddenly "boomed" and the leading fire truck was blown up to the sky in a flame.

The fire trucks behind them braked one after another, but because they were going too fast and didn't react quickly, they crashed into each other violently, almost blocking the entire street.

The tanks didn't give up, and their machine guns fired rows of bullets, and then fired a few shells into the pile of cars, turning them into a pile of ruins, and then turned around and left with satisfaction.

When Lieutenant General Lopatin heard the news of the factory fire in the headquarters, beads of sweat broke out on his forehead.

He knew what this meant. The Germans tried to capture Stalingrad at least in part because of the industries left here, the most important of which were the artillery and tractor factories... Stalingrad could be regarded as the second line for the entire Soviet Union. The Soviet Union needed to leave some industries in the second line to support the war on the front lines such as Moscow and Leningrad, which was somewhat similar to the Soviet Union's light industry in the Caucasus.

In this respect, Stalingrad is more important than the Caucasus, because it produces tanks and artillery, and it is also a transportation center that can be easily transported to the entire front.

But now, they have been burned into a sea of ​​flames by the Germans.

Whether the Germans can capture Stalingrad is one thing, at least, they have now achieved part of their strategic goals.

Even Stalingrad's defense will be made worse by this.

"These bastards!" When Lopatin came to his senses, he slammed his fist on the table and shouted, "Surround these Germans and annihilate them resolutely!"