Chapter 867: Inaccurate

The sight of bullets hitting the ruined walls was, for a veteran who had seen it all, just a familiar scene. The closer you got to the city, the more buildings blocked your line of sight, so the fighting usually erupted at extremely close range, and the results were often brutal.

Even the most skilled veteran would inevitably pay a price when encountering an opponent at close range, to say nothing of the large number of new recruits the Germans had thrown into this unfamiliar environment to engage in a bloody battle with the elite Soviet infantry. Both sides wanted to occupy as many of these buildings as possible, and the dense structures had thrown the battlefield into chaos.

A German soldier kicked open a door. The Soviets inside fired frantically at the entrance. The German soldier was hit by several bullets and fell in the doorway, blood pouring from his body, staining the old and dusty floor red.

Before the Soviet soldiers inside could even celebrate their first shot and the killing of their opponent, two German hand grenades flew in through the doorway. The explosions kicked up a cloud of dust that spewed from the doorway and windows of the room, marking the complete end of a battle.

Two Soviet machine gunners slumped by the window. Until the moment of their death, they had been firing desperately, trying to stop the German advance. Several other Soviet soldiers also lay scattered on the floor. They had died at their posts, without retreating a single step.

The Germans had outflanked them, cutting off the retreat route of this Soviet unit. They then occupied this building and cleared out the Soviets inside. To capture this high ground in this city block, the Germans had lost more than 20 men, while the Soviets had paid the heavy price of 50 men annihilated.

Just across the street, in another building, German and Soviet soldiers controlled opposite ends of a corridor. They fired frantically at each other across the hallway. The bodies of soldiers from both sides littered every corner of the building. The German attack had been well-prepared. In the end, the Soviets ran out of ammunition, launched a desperate charge, and were all killed in the process.

Further in the distance, several German soldiers were counting the bodies of the fallen. Just now, a Soviet soldier, his eyes red with bloodlust, had charged into a German position with an explosive pack, killing at least 10 soldiers, one of whom was a real German.

To simply think that the German army was not good at street fighting at this time would be completely wrong. It could be said that under Akado’s guidance, the German army of this time was the most skilled in the world at urban warfare. Because the German army was strong in armored forces and was unwilling to waste its strength in street fighting, it had given people the false impression that they were not good at it.

In fact, strictly speaking, in 1939, no army in the world was good at street fighting. All armies, including the Soviet army, had no systematic urban warfare training. It was just that the Soviet army had a larger pool of manpower, and they used continuous sacrifice to cover up the fact that they did not know how to fight in a city.

When the German army had steeled its heart and had engaged the Soviet army in a tit-for-tat street battle in the city, both sides had finally realized that street fighting was not the strong suit of any particular country’s army, but just a mutual attrition that would bleed both sides dry.

The battle had not even been going on for 48 hours, and Rokossovsky already had two divisions that had to be withdrawn for rest and refit. His forces had lost over 10,000 men. Almost every minute, every second, soldiers were dying on their positions.

All the high-ranking Soviet generals had thought that the German army would not dare to fight a costly street battle. But now it had happened. The German army had entered Stalingrad and was frantically fighting a war of attrition with the Soviet army. This was not good news for Rokossovsky. At the very least, he had discovered that his own troops, just like the German army, were not very suitable for fighting in a city.

In one day, he had had three regimental commanders and four battalion commanders killed on their positions by German snipers. At least 130 of his cannons had been destroyed, including a good number of large-caliber 122mm howitzers. The German army was methodically closing in on the outskirts of Stalingrad. The outer defense line, which was expected to hold for at least a month, could be smashed to pieces by the Germans in at most three more days.

His elite, the two armored divisions of the 2nd Guards Front, whose main defensive area was the western railway station of Stalingrad, were now at least 3 kilometers from the German army. But in order to plug the holes in other sectors, 70 tanks had already been transferred from the western station’s defensive circle.

And of these tanks, only 8 were still capable of combat. The rest had already been destroyed by the German armored forces on the periphery. This rate of loss had once made Rokossovsky give up the idea of a counter-attack to retake the positions, because the price was too high. He could only watch helplessly as the positions were gradually eroded by the German army.

While attacking a row of civilian houses, the German army had once again brought out their great killer, the infantry multi-barreled rocket launcher, the thing the soldiers jokingly called the “building demolisher.” A dozen or so rockets had destroyed the already crumbling buildings and had sent the Soviet defenders inside to heaven as well.

A large number of German troops had entered the ruins and had set up defensive positions on them. The Soviet army had launched a probing counter-attack. After leaving behind a dozen or so bodies, the battle had briefly paused. Both sides were doing their best to organize their troops to deal with the even more brutal battle scenes to come.

“These city blocks have changed a lot. Our maps are a bit outdated,” an officer in a dust-covered raincoat and a steel helmet said, squinting at the map in his hand in the ruins. This map was from a spy’s hand-drawing from a year and a half ago, a German military map booklet that had been drawn up after being compared with a Stalingrad tourist guide published at the time. But now it seemed that Stalingrad had changed a lot in over a year.

“Yes! If we go by the map, we should still be on the outskirts of Stalingrad,” a company NCO beside him said, one hand on his helmet, the other on the map, comparing it with a compass to confirm his current position.

“Report this situation to the battalion! We must find a suitable map so that we can provide accurate coordinates, otherwise the artillery will hit our own men,” the officer said, folding the map in his hand. He then instructed the signals runner behind him, “Notify the 2nd Company, which is following behind, and ask them to search the nearby rooms to see if they can find anything useful. Focus on finding some maps! I can’t find a reference point for the attack.”

Another German unit had encountered a similar problem while advancing. At a street corner, they had encountered a carefully arranged Soviet barricade. The battle had been going on for almost half an hour, and these German troops had still not been able to advance a single step. They could not call for artillery support because they simply could not tell where they were.

“This entire map needs to be re-marked! It would be best to have a captured Soviet map for reference!” the leading German said to his men. He had just called for artillery support, but the shells had landed at least a city block away. At that moment, he knew that the map in his hand could not be used as a reference for fire support.

“Damn it! Aren’t we just to the left of the reference building? What’s so inaccurate about that? Is it a problem on the artillery’s end? Oh, my God!” a NCO who was huddled together shouted, as bullets struck the wall, kicking up a cloud of white smoke.

Every map is drawn by a person, especially a combat map, which is often secretly drawn by a spy with strong professional knowledge. This led to some maps being not very accurate. After all, spies could not set up professional drawing tools in the middle of a street.

This was also a secondary reason why the war became more and more difficult as it went on. The maps of the border areas were often more accurate due to thorough infiltration. The closer you got to the enemy’s heartland, the more difficult the map-drawing work became, to the point that the maps in the hands of the soldiers had already lost their proper function.

“We found a tourist brochure in a fruit shop next door. It has a simple map. See if we can use it!” a platoon leader rushed over with his great discovery. He leaned against the wall of the building where they were hiding, panting as he spoke.

Taking the map his subordinate handed him, the company commander frowned. His grimy finger traced a line on the equally dirty map booklet and pressed on their approximate location. “We are now on the outskirts of Stalingrad. Stalingrad is a whole circle larger than we expected.”

He looked up and shouted across the street, “Ruslan! Come over! We need you to look at this Russian map! Damn it! Covering fire for Ruslan to come over! Fire! Fire!”

Rat-tat! Rat-tat! At the command, the German troops at the corner of the street began to fire frantically. Some even stuck their muzzles out of the windows. For a moment, bullets flew everywhere, and the Soviet fire opposite them was clearly suppressed.

A soldier in a German uniform, but without a tactical vest, ran over from the other side of the road with his Mauser 98k rifle in hand. A straight line of white smoke from bullet impacts was kicked up behind him. The last few steps, this soldier, named Ruslan, completed with a direct dive. He fell to the ground, stunned, and was helped up by the German troops here in a flurry.

“Ruslan reporting, Second Lieutenant,” the young soldier said, saluting at attention, panting. Although his German was halting, overall it was quite good. He had clearly undergone some training.

“You’re Ukrainian. Take a look at this map,” the company commander said, handing him the tourist brochure. He cursed, “Damn it, we’re not here on vacation.”

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