Chapter 865: The Battle of Stalingrad

“Yes, Comrade Stalin, I can hear the artillery fire outside. The German attack is ferocious. They seem to be in a great hurry,” Rokossovsky said into the phone. The German army had arrived at the gates of Stalingrad the day before and had immediately launched a fierce offensive.

This was originally the situation the Soviets had most hoped for: the German armored forces, disregarding losses, would engage in a fierce battle with the Soviet army within Stalingrad, losing a large number of their main force units…

But now things had become complicated. The combat effectiveness of the attacking German forces was, to be honest, not strong, and many new, unfamiliar unit designations had appeared. This was not good news for the Soviet troops in the city. At the very least, it indicated that the Germans had likely replaced the elite G Army Group with a new, unknown unit for the attack.

And it was clear that this unit was specially designed for this kind of brutal warfare. They were mostly infantry, equipped with a large number of old-style submachine guns and Mauser rifles. Although the submachine gun had been proven to be inferior to the assault rifle in open-field combat, in street fighting, where the engagement distance was often only a few dozen meters, the submachine gun became a very useful weapon.

Both sides had meticulously prepared their various stratagems. The Soviet army, relying on their anti-aircraft gun positions, had hidden over a thousand artillery pieces in the ruins of Stalingrad. They used these big guns to engage in an artillery duel with the Germans, willing to trade casualties for casualties in an attempt to wear down the German artillery strength.

The German army, for their part, did not shy away from the artillery duel as they usually did. Instead, they brought their own cannons to bear and went toe-to-toe with the Soviets. In this comparison, the Soviets learned a very uncomfortable fact: Germany’s last remaining weakness, the qualitative inferiority of its artillery, was no more.

In terms of small-caliber artillery, after integrating France’s industrial capacity, the performance of the German 75mm field gun had completely surpassed the Soviet 76.2mm. The 105mm field gun was now on par with the Soviets’ prized 122mm howitzer.

The war had forced the Soviet army to desperately chase the footsteps of German tank development, narrowing the gap in main performance between the tanks of both sides. It had made the Americans learn from the German Air Force, producing advanced fighter planes that were not inferior to Germany’s. War is the best teacher, using the lessons of blood to make people progress at the fastest speed.

Of course, the students under this teacher, “war,” were not just the Allies like the Soviet Union and the United States, but also the Axis power, Germany. And in terms of studiousness and the ability to grasp new things, it was precisely the student Germany that was more outstanding, learning at a faster pace.

Therefore, the artillery advantage that the Soviet army had prided itself on had, in fact, been completely lost in the face of the main German forces. The German army’s slow-moving but numerous infantry were equipped with high-performance heavy artillery. These cannons were already superior to the equipment in the hands of the Soviet army in terms of range, accuracy, and power.

Krupp was the world’s king of artillery. To live up to this name, the Krupp company had put in dozens, even hundreds, of times the effort. They strove for perfection in every link, using the new “automatic” assembly line to produce the latest products. Finally, through a long period of accumulation, they had completed the transformation from quantitative to qualitative change.

The transformed German 150mm heavy howitzer was now roaring at the Soviet artillery positions and the buildings within Stalingrad. The gunners mechanically pushed the shells into the chamber, then inserted the propellant charge, secured the breech, and pulled the lanyard, unleashing a deafening roar.

The Germans were not losing the artillery duel; at times, they could even suppress the Soviet artillery. And while the two sides were fiercely exchanging fire, the German Air Force’s strategic bombers were also bringing a catastrophe to the whole of Stalingrad. The dense bombing from an altitude of over 8,000 meters rendered the Soviet small-caliber anti-aircraft guns useless. The German carpet bombing inflicted incalculable losses on the Soviet army.

Unlike what was expected, the Germans did not politely probe the Soviet forces but directly threw their troops into the brutal urban assault. Within a day, the figures compiled by various Soviet departments showed that they had killed over 3,000 German soldiers—a number that could be described as terrifying.

“In eight hours, we have already killed more than 3,000 Germans. The enemy’s attack is very fierce. We have lost two-thirds of our outer positions. The battle is still ongoing… I will hold my position until the moment of victory!” Rokossovsky’s underground command post was shaken by a shell, and a large amount of dust fell. He squinted his eyes and assured the person on the other end of the phone.

“You promised me that you would share the fate of Stalingrad! Now, the situation in the Caucasus is very unfavorable for our army. I need you to hold the Caucasus for six months. Only then can Zhukov and I prepare 3 million new troops to be thrown into the counter-offensive,” Stalin said on the other end of the line. “Tell me now, are you confident you can hold Stalingrad for more than six months!”

In one day, Stalingrad had already been surrounded on two sides. The speed of the German offensive had exceeded Rokossovsky’s expectations. The Germans’ relentless attacks, regardless of losses, had also caught the Soviet army off guard. Now, even Rokossovsky didn’t know what the war would turn into, so he held the receiver in silence.

After a long while, he finally spoke and assured Stalin, “Great leader, Comrade Stalin, the only thing I can promise you is that I will defend Stalingrad to the death. As for how long I can hold out, that will depend on how many troops the German army is willing to sacrifice.”

This was his promise. Stalin did not say much more. He just hung up the phone, seeming unwilling to waste any more words with Rokossovsky. With the war having reached this point, conspiracies, tricks, and brilliant strategies could no longer change anything. What was being competed for now was which of the two nations was more resilient, which could hold on to the very end.

With no other tricks up their sleeves, to win the war, they could only feed their soldiers into this giant meat grinder, constantly consuming them. Whichever side ran out of blood first would be brutally eliminated. That was all.

Putting down the phone, Rokossovsky sighed and ordered his adjutant, “Give the order for the armored units to attack. The full-scale counter-attack begins now! We cannot let the Germans continue to fight like this. We have to at least try to fight back.”

As he gave these orders, a new round of German shelling began. A dense barrage of rockets from a Friedrich rocket launcher instantly covered an exposed Soviet position, turning it into a sea of fire.

The huge launch smoke also enveloped the German rocket launcher position in a cloud of white smoke. The dust kicked up by the rocket’s tail flame blotted out the sun, as if a smoke screen had been released. In just a few dozen seconds, the Germans had fired over 200 rockets, making the Soviets truly realize what a disparity in firepower meant.

“This dense fire, it must be the Friedrich, right?” Rokossovsky asked a subordinate with a bitter smile, looking at the swaying lights overhead. The man had participated in the fighting at the front and had once been ambushed by a German Friedrich rocket launcher, so he remembered this weapon that was capable of reaping countless lives. To this day, he still had a few pieces of shrapnel in his body, fragments from the explosion of this weapon.

“Yes, Comrade General!” the subordinate nodded and replied. “The power of this weapon is astonishing. I hear our people are also trying to imitate it, but they’ve been struggling without a reference model. They’ve only just made some new progress recently.”

“The industrial base of the Germans is stronger than ours. They are constantly developing new weapons. There’s nothing we can do about it,” Rokossovsky said helplessly to his subordinate. “The Germans have probably lost about 4,000 men by now, but we have already lost nearly 10,000. This is the result of being inferior in weapons and tactics.”

The German losses were indeed huge. While Rokossovsky was gritting his teeth and enduring the terrifying casualty figures of his frontline troops, General Küchler, in his own operational command post, was also helplessly listening to his subordinates report the death toll of N Army Group. The German army had never experienced such huge losses in a single battle. His three attacking divisions had almost all lost their offensive capability and had been forced to be replaced by new units from the battlefield.

“The Soviet counter-attack is very sharp. These are not the new recruits from before; they are the elite of the Soviets,” a subordinate said, handing Küchler a list of the identified Soviet unit designations. He then continued, “Our army has already lost 4,000 soldiers. The commanders of the two frontline corps have called, asking whether they should continue the attack.”

“Of course, continue the attack! Of those 4,000, 2,000 are from the penal battalions. In reality, our losses are not that great, are they?” Küchler said rather smugly. “Tell the two corps commanders at the front to commit the Ukrainian replacement troops to the battle. Within two days, my forces must press into the city of Stalingrad to fight!”

“Yes, General! I will go and give your operational order now,” the chief of staff said, turning and walking out. With one operational order after another being issued, the German offensive not only did not slow down, but became even more frantic. In many areas, the figures of the German vassal army, the Ukrainians, appeared, and the losses on both sides continued to expand rapidly.

At sunset, Rokossovsky had no choice but to have a portion of the reserves on the east bank of the Volga cross the river to join the main front, in order to stabilize his already crumbling defense line.

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