Chapter 754 Broken Tactics

It is said that when the Soviets returned to Stalingrad, they were stunned by the ruins that had been completely cleared and even the roads and railways were completely destroyed.

Let alone the pursuit of the Soviet army, the destruction alone was enough to keep the Soviet army busy for several months... There were mines everywhere that needed to be removed. There were mines in the fields, on the roads, and even in the brick toilets.

The trouble was that these mines could not be removed by bombing them with shells as in wartime, so they had to be removed manually, which was not only dangerous but also a lot of work.

Even more serious were the roads and railways.

For the roads, it was okay. If the roadbed was damaged, it would be repaired. If the road bridge was broken, another one would be built. If the road was bumpy, the potholes on the road would be filled. These were not difficult.

The problem was the railway... The sleepers were broken, the rails were dismantled, and the tunnels and railway bridges were all blown down, which made the Soviet army want to cry without tears.

You have to know that railways are important logistics transportation tools during wartime. Trains can transport equipment and supplies to the front in batches.

But now... if we need to rebuild these railways, we basically have to start from scratch, which is even more troublesome than starting from scratch, because the tunnels must be relocated, and because all the metallurgical plants and other equipment in Stalingrad were blown up, the Soviet side even needs to produce the rails in other places and then transport them.

The difficulties are not only these.

The cold winter is coming soon, and then the Soviet military and civilians will have to restore these facilities in temperatures of dozens of degrees below zero. If they can't do it, don't even think about pushing the front line forward... Because even if the front line is pushed forward, but the logistics and transportation cannot keep up, the troops sent up are almost going to die.

This is actually the benefit of fighting on someone else's land.

There is a saying that "destruction is easy and construction is difficult". Destroying the rails is just hanging a hook behind the locomotive, and blowing up a tunnel is just loading a few bags of explosives.

And the Soviets have to pay dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of times the price to rebuild them.

What's worse is that this is Soviet land, and the Soviets have to rebuild it.

From this perspective, destruction is actually the best tactic... In history, Mongolia used this tactic to drag down the economically powerful Song Dynasty. They entered, burned, killed, and looted, and then ran away. After a while, when the Song people had almost rebuilt, they entered again, burned, killed, looted, and withdrew. It didn't take long for the area to become an undefended area for the Mongolian cavalry to gallop.

But the Germans were not good at this tactic.

This may be because the Germans still have a bit of medieval chivalry, or because Hitler always stared at the land he occupied... As he said, he needed to fight for more living space for the Germanic people, so the occupied land was his own, and he would not deliberately destroy it if it was his own, but often did the work of reconstruction.

Qin Chuan didn't need to care about these. As an elite force, the 21st Armored Division would certainly not be used for retreat. They took the train to the Transcaucasus region to build a defense line early.

Qin Chuan's battalion was special. They had helicopters, so of course they didn't need to take the train.

So, this can be regarded as the easiest march.

Everyone got on the helicopter, and then the helicopter flew towards the Caucasus Mountains.

Conrad and Alexander also followed the First Infantry Regiment to the Transcaucasus.

Conrad went with the First Infantry Regiment because there were still many areas that needed to be improved in the helicopter... Equipment is always finding problems and solving them during use.

The First Infantry Regiment is the one who uses these equipment and finds equipment problems, while Conrad is the one who solves these problems.

The reason why Alexander moved with the First Infantry Regiment was that Paulus transferred Alexander to the First Infantry Regiment for experience.

In fact, this was more of Alexander's own idea... Paulus always wanted to keep Alexander by his side to take care of and protect him, but Alexander was unwilling to continue like this.

For this reason, Paulus and Alexander had a fierce quarrel, but in the end Alexander persuaded his father.

Alexander was still quite useful to the First Infantry Regiment, because according to Conrad... Hitler approved the production of helicopters, which made the modification and production speed of helicopters soar, and soon another batch of 20 transport aircraft and 10 armed helicopters would be off the production line and sent to the Transcaucasus.

Needless to say, which unit will use these helicopters is the First Infantry Regiment.

In other words, the First Infantry Regiment will be built into a special unit maneuvered by helicopters.

As for Alexander, because he had cooperated with Qin Chuan several times before, he needed someone like him to be the logistics commander of the helicopter unit in the rear. Alexander was also very satisfied with this assignment.

When he officially joined the First Infantry Regiment, he joked: "Major, I originally wanted to recruit you to the Sixth Army, but I didn't expect that you would recruit me to the First Infantry Regiment!"

The helicopter was flying, and suddenly the soldiers cheered loudly out of the window.

Qin Chuan looked out the window and saw a snow-white mountain peak, which stretched to the distance... The Caucasus Mountains had entered winter at this time. It was covered with a layer of snow, and it was a different flavor to look down from the helicopter.

"The highest peak is 5642 meters!" Conrad said, "and our helicopter ceiling is 7000 meters, which means we can reach any place in the Caucasus Mountains. There is no need to travel through mountains and rivers like mountain troops, just designate a location, go there, and then rappel..."

"It's not as simple as you think, Colonel!" Qin Chuan replied, "We are not mountain troops. We even have altitude sickness at more than 5,000 meters. If we are thrown there, we will freeze to death in a few days!"

"Oh, yes!" Conrad replied, "That is to say, it's time for you to conduct mountain combat training!"

Qin Chuan rolled his eyes. The First Infantry Regiment really conducted all-around training like modern special forces.

But this seems to be necessary, because it can be imagined that the biggest use of helicopters is that they can take troops to fight in the mountains as if they were walking on flat ground. Just like Conrad said, they can go wherever they want. It may take several days, more than ten days or even longer for ordinary mountain troops to climb to an altitude of more than 5,000 meters. Some people may never reach the designated location.

But for helicopters, it only takes a dozen minutes.

So, if you don't know how to fight in the mountains, it seems that you are not qualified to use helicopters... They can just assign helicopters to mountain troops. After all, it is much easier for them to practice rappelling.