USSR 1941

Everyone makes mistakes, so Zhukov also made mistakes.

In fact, it cannot be said that Zhukov made a mistake, but that he, the supreme deputy commander, was ordered by Stalin.

Stalin changed his strategic goal to get in touch with Stalingrad, which was the biggest mistake.

This mistake determined that the Stalingrad Front had to launch a storm against the Germans.

Under this strategic error, Zhukov had very little room to operate. He could only order the troops to attack, and he did so without adequate preparation.

On the other hand, the German army adopted a relatively clever defense-in-depth tactic.

The German line of defense in the area of ​​Kotluban did not have an obvious line of defense, or their line of defense was flexible and mobile, and scattered guerrilla groups were arranged in front of the line of defense.

This was set up by Paulus, the commander of the German Sixth Army, based on the general lack of communication equipment, communication and coordination confusion of the Soviet army.

This approach is very clever, because quite a few Soviet troops didn't even know where the German defense line was, and suddenly found that they had entered the enemy's encirclement while marching, or thought that the front was the enemy's defense line and launched an attack, but there were no enemies at all.

Therefore, in this 12-day battle, the Stalingrad Front invested a total of 250,000 soldiers and suffered as many as 80,000 casualties.

In addition, the four armies had a total of 400 tanks and lost 00 tanks.

In addition, there were countless losses in artillery, vehicles, etc., and many of the Soviet troops were destroyed without even seeing the enemy.

All these casualties only advanced the defense line by 11 kilometers, and they may be beaten back by the German army soon.

Major Mikhailvich looked at Shulka and asked, "If the Stalingrad Front cannot maintain its offensive, does that mean that we..."

Shulka nodded silently.

This is for sure, the loss of the threat from the north meant that the Germans could concentrate all their forces on Stalingrad.

Just then the phone at the headquarters rang, and Akimovich answered the call.

Then he came back and said to everyone in frustration: "The phone number of the Stalingrad Front Army,

They have stopped attacking! "

As if in response to these words, the sound of the cannon outside weakened a lot.

"The Germans seem to have slowed down their offensive?" Major Mikhailvich looked at everyone in surprise.

"They did slow down their offensive!" Akimovich replied, "Every direction!"

"But... shouldn't their attack be more violent?" Major Mikhailvich asked suspiciously.

"This is the calm before the storm!" Golikov replied: "The enemy is planning a new offensive, and when that moment comes... the offensive will be much more violent than it is now!"

The headquarters fell into silence for a moment.

"What should we do?" asked Major Mikhailevich. "I mean, what can we do to prepare?"

"We don't know how the enemy will attack!" Akimovich replied: "So of course we can't prepare!"

"If there is anything we can prepare for, it is supplies!" Golikov continued.

This is obvious.

Because from the very beginning, the battle of Stalingrad revolved around supplies. The German army did everything possible to block the supplies of the Soviet army, while the Soviet army tried their best to lift the blockade.

Even the battle on Mamayev Kurgan was no exception.

"We have stored some supplies at the tractor factory!" said Major Mikhailevich.

"I know!" Golikov smiled wryly: "They are all used up!"

Shulka had expected this a long time ago. An army of hundreds of thousands of people needed ammunition.

In addition, there are people trapped in Stalingrad who need food, medicine and so on.

These figures can almost be said to be astronomical, and the materials Shulka stored in the tractor factory can only be said to be a drop in the bucket.

"We estimate!" Golikov said: "At dawn tomorrow, the Germans will concentrate their air power to block the Volga River with all their strength, and at the same time will accelerate the pace of attack to consume our army's supplies. When Stalingrad falls!"

Soon, Golikov's worries were fulfilled.

In fact, Golikov did not guess correctly, because the German army blocked the Volga River that night.

"It's a German plane!" Akimovich widened his eyes when he received the call: "They blew up our three transport ships!"

"But it's night!" Golikov asked. "How could their planes destroy our transport ship?"

"I... I don't know, Comrade Golikov!" Akimovich was a little panicked: "But they just did it!"

This even caused quite a panic in Stalingrad.

Because the vast majority of Stalingrad's supplies come from nighttime shipments, and now the Germans are able to blow up their transport ships at night... It's pretty much telling everyone in Stalingrad, "You're screwed!"

At this time, the 82nd regiment was still resting in the metallurgical plant.

The metallurgical plant is not far from the transportation channel of the Volga River, so the roar of aircraft, explosions, and the roar of anti-aircraft machine guns and anti-aircraft guns can be heard all night.

However, anti-aircraft machine guns and anti-aircraft guns are useless at night, because they usually fight without seeing the target... Especially anti-aircraft guns, it needs to know the approximate height of the enemy plane, and then attack the shells The time-delay fuze is adjusted, and then when the shell hits the air, it will explode at a similar height and damage the enemy aircraft with shrapnel.

Therefore, it is almost impossible to hit the target without seeing the enemy plane.

At this time, the anti-aircraft machine gun is more reliable, because it can roughly judge the position of the enemy plane by the whistling sound, the black shadow in the air, and the feeling when the searchlight swayed over the fuselage, and then shoot a bunch of bullets regardless of the randomness. .

However, it was clear that the German fighters had the upper hand.

Because soon, there was another "boom", a burst of flames erupted on the river, and another transport ship was blown up.

"How did they see the transport?" asked Major Mikhailevich.

Shulka didn't answer.

He knows what's going on... It should be bf110g4, a night fighter developed by the Germans, which locks on the target through the airborne radar.

However, this kind of night fighter is generally used for night air combat, because air combat has a certain height and is not easy to fall to the ground.

Unexpectedly, in order to blockade Stalingrad, the Germans put it into the night blockade of the Volga River at the risk of crashing.

Later, Shulka learned that the reason why the German army dared to do this was because they set up ground radar base stations in the upper and lower reaches of the Volga River. These ground radar base stations were used in conjunction with airborne radar, which greatly improved the night combat capability of bf110g4 .