Chapter 1103: The Last Road

Suddenly, a massive, distinctive whistling sound grew from a distance, passed over the heads of the German frontline infantry, and finally slammed into a street somewhere in Moscow. A ground-shaking explosion followed, and the resulting debris and black smoke were far larger than those from other shells.

With the arrival of this massive boom, the scattered Soviet artillery fire fell completely silent. For the rest of the time, it seemed to be a one-man show for the German artillery.

The calibers of German railway guns were very diverse. There were 340mm guns captured from France, as well as 320mm guns produced by the French. Of course, the most numerous were the new 283mm railway guns produced by Germany itself. Among these many cannons, the best performing were, of course, the new ones made by the Germans. Every shot was enough to shake the earth and awe all in its vicinity.

When these railway guns began to roar, the towed artillery and old cannons in Soviet hands were simply not enough to compete. So, as a railway gun shell landed in Moscow, the Soviet artillery also had no choice but to shut its mouth.

In the world of artillery, might is right. Everything is decided by range, rate of fire, and shell power. My caliber is bigger than yours, my gun count is higher than yours, so I have more of a right to speak! Unfortunately, when the Soviet units had more guns than the Germans, they were forced to abandon them due to Stuka dive-bomber attacks.

A small-scale artillery exchange on one position had eventually escalated into an all-out artillery duel between F Army Group and the Moscow defenders. In the end, this massive bombardment concluded with a complete German victory. The Soviet artillery was suppressed into silence, leaving the German guns to destroy the Soviet outer positions at their leisure.

The distant sound of cannons still rumbled. In the headquarters of F Army Group, Field Marshal von Kluge and his operations staff were analyzing a map of Moscow. They were now perhaps only one kilometer away from the core of the Soviet defenses. Meanwhile, the German E Army Group, to the north of Moscow, had already begun to push toward the northeast, making a show of completely encirching the city.

“General List’s troops are crossing the river and will soon be able to threaten Yaroslavl from behind. As long as E Army Group cooperates with A Army Group’s armored forces and captures Vologda, then there will be no need for Moscow to struggle,” Kluge, his hands behind his back, listened as his staff analyzed the current war situation. His troops were the main force for the attack on Moscow. A Army Group, as the support force, would use its infantry in the north to support his offensive.

“General Guderian’s vanguard is changing its direction of attack. They are to strive to capture Ryazan within 30 days. After capturing it, his troops will be ordered to continue attacking to the east, threatening Gorky,” another staff officer said, pointing to the movement of the German troops in the southern region as he reported to the silent Kluge.

The situation for the German army could now be said to be excellent, and it was a stable, methodical kind of excellent. Most of the German units had undergone a period of rest and refit. G Army Group and E Army Group, which had suffered heavier losses, had both been replenished. And their starting positions were not far from the front, so the consumption of distance and logistics was also compressed to a completely acceptable range.

Compared to the other timeline, the German army this time was more fully prepared, had more troops, better logistics, and more powerful weapons… In short, the cards Akado now held were very good. At least he had some capital to squander.

In contrast, the Soviet forces in the Moscow theater were compressed into a narrow space, and most of their flank defenses did not have enough strength. Therefore, the German N Army Group, which had set out from Saint Rudolph, had crashed through all resistance. Their frontline units had even approached the Ural River.

If it weren’t for the fact that the infrastructure on this route was simply too poor, and the massive stockpiles of military supplies could not be transported to the front, General Küchler could probably have advanced even further. But because of the offensive on Moscow and the increase in air force and naval activity, Küchler’s fuel deliveries had been postponed, so his offensive had temporarily stalled.

Another German force, Guderian’s G Army Group, had not stopped its offensive pace since the start of the Second Battle of Kursk. After handing over its rear to Model’s D Army Group, Guderian’s troops had advanced as if through an undefended territory, attacking all the way to the northeast. The only things that could stop the German advance were their own fatigue and problems like waiting for supplies.

After passing Kursk, the Soviet infrastructure had instantly dropped a notch. The quality of the railway construction was worse, and it was not compatible with the European railway standard. Most of the roads were just dirt tracks, a world of difference from the German standard-issue highways.

These problems had hindered the German army’s advance, and their effect was far, far greater than that of the routed Soviet defensive units. These hastily scraped-together Soviet troops simply had no way to stop G Army Group. They could only watch as the German tanks drove past them, then surrounded them in the wilderness, tormented them, and then were captured by the German infantry who followed.

The streets and alleys were filled with captured Soviet troops. These poor, starving soldiers, with their hands on their heads, walked slowly and dejectedly on the roads. From time to time, they had to be driven to the sides of the road to make way for the whistling German trucks, armored personnel carriers, and tanks.

Compared to the “fight-for-every-inch” battle on the main Moscow front, the resistance in these areas was like child’s play. The German troops had, with great ease, occupied large swathes of land. The giant pincer movement to encircle Moscow had begun to slowly close in on Moscow’s flank and rear.

“The frontal attack must not stop. If necessary, send in 3 infantry divisions to relieve the exhausted troops!” Kluge, after hearing that his friendly forces on the other fronts were about to encircle Moscow, finally gave the order to continue the attack. “Have the frontline troops maintain the tempo of the attack.”

He then pointed to a thick stack of files on his desk and said to his men, “This is the tactical data used by N Army Group during the attack on Saint Rudolph. It includes troop losses and combat records… I want you to study this thoroughly. I had to swallow my pride to ask Küchler for this.”

“Yes, Marshal!” All the men quickly nodded. A few of the eager ones had already picked up a stack and had begun to read it carefully. A fine tradition of human civilization is to be good at summarizing. Since ignorance of the future was a given, people frantically summarized their experiences and lessons, in an attempt to reduce the cost of exploring the unknown future.

Sometimes, summarizing experience allows people to go further, and sometimes, to be bound by convention makes people complacent. The Song and Ming dynasties’ “summaries” of the Tang dynasty had ultimately led to their military power being suppressed, unable to resist foreign humiliation. And Japan’s “lessons learned” from naval warfare were still influencing their Combined Fleet to this day… But people were still summarizing the past, in order to better face the future.

And at this very moment, the German army was also summarizing. They were summarizing every detail of the urban warfare in Saint Rudolph, that is, Stalingrad, so that they could, in the Battle of Moscow, reduce their own various losses.

Do not underestimate these reports and documents. If possible, America would perhaps be willing to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to buy these things. Every sentence here could, at some moment, save hundreds or thousands of lives. Every lesson here had perhaps been bought at the price of the deaths of hundreds of soldiers.

The current German army could be said to be the most experienced army in the world in urban warfare. They had fought all the way to this point, had captured countless enemy cities, and had seen all kinds of urban warfare situations. Although this kind of battle still made them feel uncomfortable, it had to be admitted that they were now indeed the best urban fighters in the world.

In Vatutin’s command post, the Soviet Moscow City Defense Commander had just put down the phone. The Kremlin had just been hit again by German long-range artillery. This round of fire had dug several craters in Red Square, and a section of the Kremlin’s outer wall had collapsed from the violent explosion.

“Comrade Stalin is asking if the enemy’s attack has been stopped,” Vatutin said, putting down the phone and giving a bitter smile to his aide. “They’re not attacking at all… just a token bombardment.”

After speaking, his eyes moved to the map, looking at the vast territory behind Moscow, and he said with a mournful voice, “Do they even need to break in? If they just wait for another half a month, we will be completely surrounded… At that time, they won’t need to enter the city and fight us in the streets. They can just starve us to death here.”

“General! We can’t just wait here to die! The 720th and 655th Divisions…” his staff officer muttered in a low voice. He stopped halfway when he saw that Vatutin’s expression was not good, and he shut his mouth.

The 720th and 655th Divisions were both garrison units in the rear of Moscow. Originally, they were supposed to be the force defending the rear of Moscow. Even if they were surrounded by the German army, they should have held their positions. But these two divisions had, as the German encirclement had drawn near, continuously retreated, and had been the first to retreat outside the Moscow encirclement. According to military law, this was a blatant desertion.

“Stop talking. We only have one path left now, and that is to die here as the last remaining Soviet citizen!” Vatutin said through gritted teeth.

Advance chapters at Nightjar Reads · nightjarreads.com