Chapter 861: The Showdown

“What did you say?” Rokossovsky grabbed the collar of the messenger who had brought the news and demanded loudly. He had thought his deception tactics in the Don River basin would, at the very least, fool the German army for three days. But he had never imagined that the Germans would break through this defense line in just two hours.

“Are you saying the German army didn’t even make a probing attack on the Don defense line? And then they just started the river crossing operation all at once?” Rokossovsky snatched the telegram from the Don direction with a frown. From the words, he could see the desperation of the defenders in the face of imminent disaster.

The defense line did exist, it was just that the number of troops was not that large. And the German army had just crashed into it, without any regard for losses. This left Rokossovsky, who had studied German tactics for a long time, somewhat baffled. He couldn’t believe that the Germans could so easily see through his deception.

Had someone leaked his plan? For a moment, Rokossovsky considered this possibility, but he quickly dismissed it. After all, to see through his entire plan in such a short time and then to send the key intelligence to the Germans was simply an impossible task.

Since it wasn’t that the Germans had obtained the intelligence in advance through spies, then it must be that the German commander possessed astonishing wisdom. This point Rokossovsky found more likely—the opposing commander was one of the German “twin jewels” that even Zhukov was wary of, the famous tank genius Guderian. It was not surprising that he could see through this deception.

But Rokossovsky still couldn’t figure out how the other had seen through his carefully laid trap. He had thought that every part of his plan was very cleverly designed, that every part of the original plan should have been invulnerable.

“How on earth did he see through my plan?” Rokossovsky let go of his subordinate’s collar, walked to the map, and, looking at the massive German army group that was constantly approaching, murmured.

“Do I even need to see through this as a deception?” Guderian said with a smile to his aide. “My troops have been fighting for almost two years. As soon as the enemy opens fire and reveals their firepower disposition, any reconnaissance company commander under my command can tell if it’s a battalion or a regiment!”

Rokossovsky had indeed used a lot of smoke and mirrors for his deception. First, his troops had been retreating for several days, and the German army had been unable to find the exact movements of the main Soviet force. All of this had increased the possibility that the main Soviet force would appear on the Don defense line, and it would indeed make one suspicious and hesitant to launch an attack on the Don.

But there is an exception to every rule. Guderian proudly pointed to his troops who were crossing the river and then said with full confidence, “And I had no intention of preparing anything in front of the Don defense line. These troops have been preparing for a full month, just for today, to cross the Don quickly and press on to Stalingrad!”

“If the Soviet Don defense line is fake, then we just have to attack. To break a deception, you only need one punch, don’t you?” he said, speaking his mind. “And if the Soviet Don defense line is real, then we just have to attack as well. Aren’t we always thinking about how to wipe out the main Soviet force in the open field?”

His aide looked at Guderian, at the German armored cars and trucks constantly passing by him, and at the Panther tanks, one after another. He suddenly understood this simple truth: the main reason any deception can succeed is that the opponent lacks sufficient strength! When the attacking side has enough determination to fight, and also has an absolute superiority in combat capability over the opponent, then in the face of any deception, they will only use an attack to smash everything. “One force can overcome ten skills”—that’s the simple truth.

The main reason Guderian had ordered his troops to attack immediately was that he did not believe the Soviet army would engage the German army in the open field. Based on this assumption, if one were to extend their thinking, they would find that the existence of a Don defense line was very favorable to Germany, and the non-existence of a Don defense line also did not require wasting time to confirm—there was simply no need to hesitate. Therefore, Rokossovsky’s deception was doomed to be a futile trick from the very beginning.

“Send a telegram to General Küchler behind us. Tell him we have successfully broken through the Don defense line and are attacking the flanks of Stalingrad,” Guderian instructed his aide to quickly contact the commander of N Army Group behind them and have his troops catch up to take over the front of G Army Group.

He then thought for a moment and gave a second order. “Oh, and send a telegram to the Führer’s High Command. Tell them we have successfully broken through the Don defense line.”

“Führer! Our army has successfully broken through the Don defense line, annihilating more than 20,000 defenders and capturing over 40,000. General Guderian’s forward reconnaissance units are now less than ten kilometers from Stalingrad,” Cindra quickly relayed the latest developments from the front to Akado. At this time, Akado was analyzing the battle situation at the front with Field Marshal von Brauchitsch.

“We still haven’t been able to annihilate the main force of the Soviet army… These Soviets are determined to turn all their cities into a pile of rubble,” Akado said with a helpless sigh.

Unlike the Western understanding of war, the Russians liked to use their cities to defend against their enemies. Western countries generally did not like to defend cities to the death, because that would turn their homes into a pile of rubble. In contrast, the Soviets loved to defend cities to the death, preferring mutual destruction to handing them over. A clear example was Paris surrendering without a fight, while Leningrad and Stalingrad were destined to be fought to a ruin.

“Even if the Soviet army turtles up in Stalingrad, we are confident we can annihilate them!” Field Marshal von Brauchitsch said to Akado. “My Führer, what we need to worry about now is the ever-lengthening supply lines. They are making me more and more worried. These supply lines are very unstable, and many parts of them pass through areas with frequent Soviet partisan activity. This is not a good sign.”

Akado nodded. This was also a problem that worried him. In fact, the German army’s strength at the front was not insufficient, but because of the different order of attack, it had caused the main battlefield to expand and the defense line to be stretched. As long as they could capture the Caucasus, all the unfavorable factors would be solved.

But on the contrary, in the vast occupied territories, there were enemy partisans and saboteurs everywhere. These enemies tied down a large number of German troops and also had a very unfavorable impact on transport and the restoration of production. O Army Group had already been transferred to Belarus during its formation, to both form up and train, and also to be responsible for mopping up the Soviet partisans in Belarus.

“Another piece of news forces us to be cautious,” Akado said after nodding. He handed a report to Brauchitsch with some concern. “My Field Marshal, a message from the ‘Beehive.’ Officers from some of the Soviet Far East units have appeared in Chelyabinsk and have also received some new model tanks and other equipment.”

“The Soviets are transferring troops from the Far East?” Brauchitsch took the report and began to read it carefully. This news was not good for the German army, because if more troops appeared on their front, it would also mean that the Soviet army would be even more difficult to deal with.

“Our opponents are not just taking a beating passively,” Akado lamented. “They are trying every means to deal with us. Chelyabinsk has recently received a large number of precision machine tools from the United States, has expanded its production scale, and the strength of the Soviet armored forces is being strengthened. The various weapon advantages we now possess are being offset by our opponents.”

This was not a new development. During the Polish campaign, the German army had lost almost no tank units. On the entire Polish front, it seemed only a few dozen tanks had been destroyed. This result had become somewhat terrifying by the time of the French campaign. The German army had lost several hundred tanks. Although these losses were still insignificant compared to their opponents’, victory had become not so easy.

Since the opening of the German-Soviet front, the number of German tank losses had risen sharply and was now approaching the 1,000 mark. These losses seemed insignificant in the face of Germany’s vast tank production capacity, but for the German armored forces, it could already be said to be a heavy loss.

If one were to compare it to when Germany had just begun to build its armored forces, these 1,000 tanks were already the total equipment of three German panzer divisions. In other words, this also meant that about three German panzer divisions had been completely wiped out. Unknowingly, the German army had lost almost a whole main panzer corps.

However, it was worth noting that most of these lost tanks were from newly commissioned crews. Because of the rapid expansion of the German armored forces, their training was severely insufficient, and the tanks they were equipped with were relatively old. That was why they had been annihilated by the Soviet army in the cruel battle. Although the losses were quite large, they had almost no impact on the speed of the German army’s expansion, nor did they affect the quality of the German armored forces.

It should be noted that the improvement in the firepower and armor of the Soviet tanks was also one of the reasons for the increase in German tank losses. At a time when the electronification of tanks had not yet brought a qualitative improvement in tank performance, firepower and armor protection could often quickly close the gap in the quality of the tanks of both sides.

“In any case, everything will have to wait until after the battle for Stalingrad to see the final outcome!” Akado said, staring at the map with his hands behind his back. It was hard to tell if he was speaking to himself or to Field Marshal von Brauchitsch.

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