Chapter 736: Bossing Around

“Cough, cough!” Bruce had just walked over when he heard this explosive conversation. It startled him so much that his throat felt uncomfortable, and he coughed several times, waking Baumann, who was staring blankly at Rein. He quickly fled, walked over to Bruce, and pulled him away, wanting to escape this terrible place of gossip.

“Bruce! You big bear! If your throat feels uncomfortable again, I’ll help you cut it open and see what’s growing inside!” Alice, being a bit thin-skinned, flew into a rage and unleashed her inner she-dragon. She shouted angrily at Bruce, who was being pulled away by Baumann.

Rein didn’t say anything, but as Bruce passed by, he gave him a kick in the backside. It wasn’t a hard kick, but it clearly showed the commander’s attitude at that moment. Andre, on the side, laughed heartily, then walked over to Rein, looked at the blushing Alice, and said with a grin, “If by some lucky chance we’re not dead when the war is over, I’ll officiate your wedding! Hahaha.”

Rein stared at the rolling hills in the distance and sighed without speaking. But in his heart, he thought dejectedly: The end of the war? Can I really live that long? After all, between now and the end of the war, there’s still the troublesome Wolf.

Seeing Rein staring off into the distance, lost in thought, Alice calmed her racing heart, looked at Andre, who was like a big brother to her, and said shyly, “I haven’t agreed to marry him. If he wants to marry me, he’ll have to wait.”

Andre looked at these two, who were clearly interested in each other but were both too shy to make the first move, and found it very amusing. He wanted to laugh heartily again. But he pointed into the distance, in the direction where Baumann and Bruce had gone. “The biggest mouth in our crew, Mr. Bruce, has gone in that direction. Tank No. 112 is parked over there.”

After speaking, he gave a look that said, “That’s all I can tell you,” and didn’t say another word. Alice was taken aback for a moment, then quickly rushed off in the direction the two had left. Bruce, the one in the crew who was most willing to talk about other people’s private affairs, and Markus, who could be said to be the biggest gossip in the entire 502nd Heavy Panzerjäger Battalion—in a matter of minutes, the conversation just now would definitely spread throughout the entire 502nd. And then, perhaps after a morning, a rumor that Rein was going to marry her—or an even more exaggerated version—would surely reach the ears of every soldier in the German 3rd Panzer Division.

“Bruce! If you dare to say one more word! I’ll kill you!” Alice shouted, causing a group of Soviet prisoners nearby to turn their heads. More German soldiers also looked on with a smile as a female soldier charged furiously towards the other side of the road. A dozen or so grenadiers, hooting and hollering, lit the cigarettes they were holding.

Who knew, maybe in two hours, maybe in an even shorter time, the troops would have to advance again, to try their best to cross another enemy defense line. Some would die in battle there, some would lose close friends. So, for now, enjoying every single minute and second was the most important thing.

The soldiers who survived the battlefield all cherished life, because only in an environment where every breath was a luxury and death was a release could one understand just how extravagant a moment it was to be able to pour a cup of coffee on a sunny afternoon and enjoy the tranquility while humming a little tune.

Guderian’s offensive had not stopped. The 1st Panzer Corps under his command was attacking south with great ferocity, taking one city after another. Almost all of the Soviet Red Army’s efforts to block the advance of the German armored forces in the open field were thwarted by the elite 1st Panzer Corps. Seven defense lines in a row were broken through, and more than 90,000 Soviet Red Army soldiers were captured.

And in the entire Donetsk direction, almost all the defenders were in retreat. The roads were crowded with fleeing civilians and panicked soldiers huddled together. The appearance of German soldiers behind the original defense line had caused panic among everyone. The troops had begun to rout on a large scale, to the point that many units had lost effective control over their grassroots soldiers.

Rumors were flying everywhere, all sorts of them. Some said that the main Soviet force had been defeated by the German army at Kharkov, which was why so many German troops had appeared in the Donetsk direction. The south had already been encircled by the Germans, and everyone was doomed.

Others said that the Germans had airdropped paratroopers, disrupting the deployment in the rear. These paratroopers had cut off the bridges and roads in the rear, helping the elite German forces on the main front to encircle the Soviet Red Army in the Donetsk direction.

No matter what the rumors were, the core of them was that these pitiful Soviet soldiers had already been encircled by the Germans. So now they had to find a better way out for their own lives. Most of the soldiers left their defense lines and began to retreat involuntarily. As a result, a huge gap appeared in the front of the entire defense line.

The infantry of Model’s rearguard and a portion of Manstein’s Army Group M filled this gap, widening the distance between the Soviet soldiers in the Crimean Peninsula and the Soviet soldiers in the direction of Donetsk.

The entire command system of the Soviet southern theater was in chaos, because Timoshenko’s deployment in the Donetsk direction was the weakest. The soldiers there were also mostly new recruits, new recruits who had had almost no proper training. When faced with a situation of imminent encirclement, these soldiers of such quality had almost no other choice but to rout.

The Soviet Union had a very unique system for forming reserve forces. In peacetime, a Soviet combat unit would generally have two deputy division commanders, two deputy regimental commanders, and so on, down to two deputy platoon leaders. Once a state of war was entered, before this unit was sent to the front, it would leave behind an entire framework of deputy positions to form a new unit.

Although the newly formed unit only had a set of deputy positions from the original unit, the system itself had already been in place for many years. Coupled with the temporary replenishment of reservists, it could immediately go into combat. This shadow system had supported the Soviet Union in defeating Germany in another timeline, and in this timeline, it still existed.

The advantage of this system was that it could quickly turn one division into two. The disadvantage was even more obvious: the combat effectiveness of the second, newly formed division was significantly weaker. And this time, for the northern offensive, the Soviet Union had drawn too many main force units, leaving the south with basically this kind of temporarily formed reserve unit.

Now the after-effects had finally erupted. The independent combat capability of this kind of temporarily formed unit was very limited. There was no problem when fighting with the wind at their backs, but once they faced a headwind, it was very easy for them to collapse. This was also the difference between professional soldiers and temporarily replenished new recruits. When things are going smoothly, everyone knows to shout slogans and charge forward. The real test of a unit is often in those truly difficult and arduous defensive situations.

So, Army Group E on the northern front had not just lost 100,000 soldiers. In fact, through the hard-fought battle, Army Group E had also tempered at least 200,000 elite infantrymen. These soldiers had experienced the most severe defensive battle and, with the support of another 100,000 veterans, had endured their greatest test.

In this way, Germany had relatively smoothly passed through the period of weakened combat effectiveness caused by the expansion of its forces. Apart from Army Group A, almost all the German frontline clusters had participated in the battle in this Eastern Front campaign. The cruel battle had also tempered almost a million new recruits into elite soldiers.

Akado’s calculations were very clear. He was preparing to fight a brilliant battle of annihilation at Donetsk, to eliminate the effective strength of the Soviet southern region and achieve the goal of liberating the main German forces.

Then, he would have Model and Manstein command Army Groups D and E, plus the Romanian vassal army, to attack the Caucasus to the south and seize control of the Soviet oil field resources. The liberated Guderian would launch a fierce attack from south to north, in coordination with the Italian expeditionary force and Army Group F, to launch a pincer attack on Kursk and Smolensk.

At the same time, Army Group A would attack Moscow, covering the independently operating Army Group E in the north, to capture the important Soviet cities of Leningrad and Murmansk. The three prongs would advance simultaneously, rushing towards Moscow to end this war. The outcome awaiting the Soviet Union would be to cede territory and pay reparations. This was the script that Akado had written. Of course, in fact, just how the war would develop was not something he alone could control. In fact, from the current overall situation, the Soviets were much more tenacious than the Germans had estimated.

For example, according to the original plan, the German Army Group A was supposed to cooperate with the German forces in other directions to encircle Rokossovsky’s offensive group and completely annihilate this main Soviet force. But from the results, the Soviets had jumped out of the German encirclement. With a keen sense of smell, they had discovered this crisis and had set up a defense line to hold off the probing attacks of Army Group A.

But on the southern front, the performance of the Soviets was rather poor. The Soviet units, having lost their middle-level command, put up a chaotic resistance. Although some units fought very stubbornly, unfortunately, more units routed. The defeat was like a landslide. The routed troops dragged down more of the Soviet Red Army, who had originally wanted to hold the defense line and stabilize the defensive system. As a result, even 11 days after the German armored forces had begun their southward advance, a large number of units had not yet received a general directional order to either hold the line or retreat.

The reason was actually very simple. Stalin, who was in command in Moscow, had fallen into his old habit and had begun to boss around the troops on all fronts because of the unfavorable situation at the front. He did not vent his anger on Zhukov but had vented this anger on Timoshenko. He ordered Timoshenko not to retreat and that the southern defenders must hold their positions until the last second.

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