Chapter 553: Comparison

“Confirmed? The Soviets are experimenting with sniper teams on a large scale? Are you sure it’s teams? Not single individuals?” the statistics officer at the divisional headquarters asked, having carefully reviewed the notebook sent from the front. He had even brought in a Russian translator to meticulously translate its contents.

The small notebook recorded the content of the enemy sniper’s lessons, including how to clean and maintain their rifles, how to adjust their sights, and at what ranges to open fire. It also included information on where to easily find German snipers. It was all-encompassing and quite comprehensive, leaving the German who read it somewhat incredulous.

“This can be printed and distributed as reference material,” the division commander said after reading the translated version. “Send it to the corps headquarters in the name of our division. Let’s see how they make use of it.”

And so, the two men were once again put on a car heading to the corps headquarters. They were to personally report the problems they had encountered at the front to the corps commander and his chief of staff. It seemed that the German army, from top to bottom, was taking the Soviet’s initiation of sniper training very seriously.

Just as the two were leaving the division headquarters, a fierce firefight was breaking out between the Germans and the Soviets dozens of kilometers away. Ever since the two sides had tacitly agreed to a ceasefire and had begun negotiations in Berlin, they had not engaged in such a large-scale military operation.

The Soviet Union had committed four artillery regiments and five infantry divisions to launch a frenzied attack on the German positions. It seemed the Soviets felt that the progress at the negotiating table was too slow, and they needed to speed things up a bit on the German-Soviet front.

“The Soviet troops are attacking! Yes! The artillery fire is quite heavy! They are trying to approach the east bank of the Dnieper River!” a commander in the frontline German command post said anxiously into the phone. He was under orders to hold the east bank of the Dnieper to cover the troops who were fortifying the defensive system on the west bank.

The sound of the Soviet artillery, which covered the mountains and plains, could be heard over the phone, landing on the German positions as densely as rain. Since the failed Soviet invasion of Germany, there had not been a Soviet offensive of this scale. The German positions were crumbling and seemed as if they could be breached at any moment.

The troops who had been ordered to defend were fighting a very hard battle. After Zhukov’s arrival at the front, the Red Army had launched a full-scale “probing attack.” This famous Soviet general from the Far East had guessed the German strategic intentions upon his arrival at the front and wanted to disrupt the opponent’s operational deployment as much as possible.

He had keenly discovered that the Germans were preparing to withdraw to the Dnieper River to set up a defense. If he did not take countermeasures as soon as possible, then the German forces, which had suffered almost no losses, would complete their defensive deployment in Ukraine. At that time, the Red Army would not necessarily be able to break through the Dnieper line, even if they were to throw a million men at it. Once Ukraine was out of Soviet control for too long, then everyone knew that this place would never be Soviet territory again.

So Zhukov immediately changed his operational plan, moving the offensive, which had been postponed to the autumn, up to the present. He ordered his troops to immediately retake the east bank of the Dnieper and then use their artillery to interfere with the progress of the German construction of fortifications along the river.

The facts proved his judgment. The German forces left on the east bank were not numerous, and they had almost no decent armored strength. In most areas, the German forces had only put up a symbolic resistance before giving up their defensive positions. Seeing the Soviet troops winning victory after victory, even the Soviet negotiators in Berlin were standing taller and straighter.

The Soviet soldiers swarmed towards the German defensive positions like a tide. Sometimes, a German machine-gun nest would fight until all its spare barrels were worn out, yet it still could not stop the opponent’s desperate charge, which disregarded casualties.

Zhukov had never been a general who cared much about the casualties of his troops. When he was facing the Japanese on the Eastern Front, even with a large advantage in the early and middle stages, he had still managed to achieve a shameful one-for-one exchange rate in the later stages. This was because he had disregarded the losses of his troops in order to achieve a quick victory.

In the frontline command post of the Soviet Red Army, an operations staff officer and several political officers were reporting the progress of the offensive to Zhukov. One person was responsible for pointing to the map with a pointer and explaining the specific operational area, another was reporting the remaining number of ammunition, and another was tallying the troop losses.

“We are now only 17 kilometers from the Dnieper River at the closest point. Here and here, we are organizing a larger-scale attack, but the casualties of our troops are very serious. The opponent’s defense is simply too efficient,” a staff officer said in a low voice.

“The German air force has bombed our supply depots. The troops at the front are very short of supplies,” an officer from the logistics department said with some helplessness, looking at a report. “The opponent has a very firm grip on air superiority at the front. Our air force has lost 310 fighters and still has not been able to stop the opponent from using their Stukas to attack our ground forces.”

“The American P-40 fighters have had no effect?” Zhukov asked with a frown, a topic he was quite interested in.

“The performance of the P-40 is not as good as the German Fw-190D. The only effect it can have is to alleviate the pressure on our air force. Besides… besides, the news from the air force is that the German air force has deployed an even newer type of fighter, and the performance gap between the two sides’ weapons has widened once again.”

“…” Zhukov fell silent upon hearing this. This was a new development. He had originally thought that the entry of the P-40 could help to offset some of the German air force’s air superiority. Now it seemed that this hope was a bit too naive. The technological advantage that the Germans had painstakingly accumulated was indeed not something that could be easily surpassed.

Now, it seemed that the effect of committing the new tanks would not be too great either. At most, it would only be a cherry on top, slightly reducing a portion of the losses. Speaking of losses, Zhukov frowned again. He did not care about the losses of the infantry. A loss of 10,000 men a day was not unacceptable to him.

“Order the troops to continue the attack! Use the reserve divisions to replace the mainline divisions that have been in continuous combat, but the offensive must absolutely not stop! Understood?” Zhukov gave the order to continue the battle. In his mind, the German army must need a rest even more than his own.

“General, can the order for the political officers to lead the charge be changed?” a political officer complained to Zhukov with a mournful face. “It’s not that we can’t set an example, and our loyalty to Comrade Stalin is beyond doubt, but… the enemy’s snipers are too good. Our losses are simply unbearable.”

The moment Zhukov had arrived at the German-Soviet front, he had issued an order that the political officers must lead the attacks. He hated these people pointing fingers from the rear and believed that rather than letting them be idle and have wild thoughts, it was better to have them set an example and participate in the battle with the others.

These people usually had a high and mighty attitude and prided themselves on their unwavering loyalty to the Soviet motherland and to Comrade Stalin. So Zhukov had also used this as a pretext to have them lead by example and “sacrifice for the motherland along with the others.” Although this order had had some effect over the past few days, the losses among the political officers were also very desperate.

The snipers deployed by the German army on their positions were like omnipresent devils. Their marksmanship was precise, and their concealment was clever. Often, the moment a commander or a political officer stood up to shout slogans and mobilize the soldiers to attack, they would be shot and killed by these leading officers. And the offensive that had just been organized would quickly collapse with the death of the commander. At such times, these German snipers were often more effective than a machine gun.

To lose 4,100 grassroots and mid-level political cadres in one day was a previously unimaginable situation. Now, many of the political leaders were preparing to jointly petition Stalin, accusing Zhukov of deliberately marginalizing the Bolsheviks in the army. This was a crime Zhukov could not afford to bear. He had to come up with a countermeasure to appease these political officers, who were useless at accomplishing things but masters at ruining them.

“I have no intention of marginalizing you in the army,” Zhukov explained, proposing a compromise. “You can choose your own subordinates to replace the losses, so that the basic structure will not be changed. But the battle must continue, it cannot stop.”

The two commissars looked at each other. They knew that Zhukov was using personnel authority to buy them off, but they both saw a hint of joy in each other’s eyes. After all, to be able to legitimately place their own people in the army was a good thing they couldn’t ask for more. Once they held the power of life and death and had built up their own team, taking a step further would be a matter of course. So they almost simultaneously agreed to Zhukov’s exchange and, patting their chests, guaranteed that the battle could continue.

Some losses can be compensated for. For example, the losses of the political officers were relatively easy to replace. But some losses were clearly not easy to replace. For example, snipers were very difficult to train. The number of Soviet sniper losses had skyrocketed in the battle, which also made Zhukov clearly see the huge gap in ability between the snipers of the two countries.

Within seven days, 98 of the 300 newly trained Soviet sniper teams had been wiped out by the Germans. And each of these Soviet snipers was a precious asset to the Soviet Union.

They were equipped with 3x magnification scopes custom-made in the United States. The Soviet Union simply could not produce this kind of precision sniper-specific equipment. For this equipment, the Soviet Union had shipped hundreds of thousands of tons of timber to the United States. And now, about a third of this expensive equipment had become a trophy for the Germans.

Published: 2025-09-05T01:13:01.000+00:00
Last Edited: 2025-12-25T13:51:57.000+00:00
URL: https://www.patreon.com/caleredhair/posts/mtr-c553-138142490

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