Chapter 881: No Other Choice

Küchler looked at his chief of staff and laughed. He walked to his desk, picked up a document, and handed it to his old partner. “I also know that relying on the air force pilots to deal with surface targets is a bit of a stretch. I never sit and wait for death, so I wrote a letter to Grand Admiral Raeder, asking for his help.”

“Oh?” The chief of staff was clearly very surprised by this matter. He took the report and, while reading it, asked, “I heard that at the joint meeting of the three services half a month ago, a few of the old guys from the navy’s logistics department were still complaining to the Führer that our army’s orders were delaying their navy’s expansion plan.”

“It would be strange if they didn’t mention it,” Küchler said with a smile. At his level, he could already understand what the so-called inter-service rivalry meant, or what it looked like. It was clearly impossible for the army, navy, and air force not to compete, but they couldn’t compete too fiercely—they had to compete within the framework of cooperation, to build up a theoretical reserve for winning future wars.

If the navy and air force didn’t compete, then the naval air arm would never have appeared. If the air force and the army didn’t compete, how could there be the 21st-century theory of air power supremacy? But to compete too much, like the Japanese army and navy, would become a laughingstock for the whole world, with no positive significance to be seen apart from amusement.

“At a time like this, a couple of complaints are just a formality. Field Marshal von Brauchitsch won’t take it seriously, and Grand Admiral Raeder won’t care either. They’re just pushing a few small fry to argue back and forth, to show the Fücher their attitude,” Küchler said to his old partner after he had finished laughing. “Take a look at Grand Admiral Raeder’s reply, and you’ll know.”

Sure enough, the content of the letter was about cooperation between the army and the navy. The army had officially invited the naval air arm to enter the Caucasus region for combat training, and the naval air arm would use the environment that was closer to actual combat to train its new recruits. It was a win-win for everyone, and it also showed a harmonious attitude of cooperation.

“This is great. Since the navy is willing to practice in a real combat environment, then the task of blockading the Volga River can be left to the naval air arm,” the chief of staff said after reading the letter. He placed it back on General Küchler’s desk. “The air force can provide cover and ensure the safety of the naval aircraft.”

His old partner was really quick on the uptake. Before he had even said it, he had already thought of the good idea of bringing the air force in. To share the good things was the good foundation for continued cooperation.

While the two of them in the headquarters were fantasizing about the air force covering the naval planes in combat, the naval-type Stuka attack planes of the naval air arm had already taken off under the cover of the air force fighters. Under Akado’s urging, the efficiency within the German military had reached a terrifying level.

On the southern front of the Eastern Front now, it was very difficult to see the old-style Stuka dive bombers. Most of the ground-attack units had already re-equipped with the cheaper and easier-to-fly Stuka II attack aircraft. The remaining Stukas were only used by the navy, the vassal states, and in North Africa.

So when these strangely howling Stuka dive bombers, diving down from a high altitude, appeared, only some of the Soviet veterans recognized these former nightmares. They knew just how close to the ground these planes could dive, and then accurately drop their bombs on a target the size of a matchbox. This might be an exaggeration, but all the Soviet veterans said so in private.

The Soviet ships ferrying back and forth did not yet know that their disaster had arrived. In the past, when an air raid came, under the interference of the air defense fire from both banks, the bombs dropped by the German Air Force bomber units often could not hit their targets. These pilots had not been trained to attack surface targets, so they rarely hit the small boats that were flying back and forth.

It was precisely for this reason that when the German planes arrived, many of the ships, especially the small ones, did not choose to dodge, but continued to transport personnel and supplies under the hail of bullets. They had seen the German air raids too many times, and there were very few records of ships being hit.

“What is this? Are they fake targets waiting for us to attack?” a Stuka pilot asked with a laugh to the navigator behind him who was in charge of the rear machine gun, after making a circle. This was, compared to the Atlantic bombing training they had just experienced at the French base, simple to describe. Compared to the raging waves of the open sea off the coast of France, the ships on the surface of the Volga River were no different from fixed targets at sea for the naval pilots.

“Alright! Our bomb load is limited! Let’s begin our dive attack! And then go back and rearm,” the navigator, with one hand on his machine gun, shouted to the pilot behind him in the bumping plane. “I’ll cover you when you pull up. Try to keep the flight as stable as possible! If we encounter enemy anti-aircraft fire, record the position of the attacking position. We have to report it to those guys in the air force after we return.”

“Alright!” With this reply, the Stuka dive bomber cut through the air, emitting that long-missed, sharp wail, and dived towards its target. This long whistle had not been heard over the battlefield for a long time, so long that people had forgotten that there was such a terrifying weapon in the German army’s arsenal.

A dive of nearly 50 degrees, the plane entered a high-speed and stable airflow. The German pilot easily centered a medium-sized Soviet ship in his bombsight, waiting for the red line on the bomb release indicator to reach the predetermined value.

In the terrified eyes of the Soviet soldiers on the ships on the surface of the Volga River, like a goshawk diving down from the clouds, the German dive bomber only pulled up sharply at the last moment before it was about to hit the river surface, dropping its deadly bomb onto the deck of the Soviet ship—a direct hit, which filled all the people on the Soviet ferry with a sense of despair.

The second Stuka did not make the Soviets wait long. The Soviet soldiers on the river surface were still watching a ship in the distance erupt in a huge flame, break in two, and sink to the bottom of the river, their hearts filled with fear, when a second Soviet ship had already exploded as well, rapidly taking on water and sinking.

“Quick! Quick, contact the comrades in the air defense units! The German planes are not right! These planes are not the same as before!” a Soviet commander on the riverbank shouted to his men, pointing at the German planes that were constantly circling and descending, then dive-bombing. “Stop them! Otherwise, all our comrades in the river will be finished!”

Behind him, the Soviet soldiers were in a complete mess, not knowing what to do. The German planes they remembered, although they flew very fast, their bombing was not accurate. This was also the reason why they had dared to stand here, preparing to cross the river, even after the air-raid siren had sounded.

But now, they saw the change in the German planes. The struggling comrades in the river, and the constantly sinking ships, proved a terrifying fact to them—this batch of German planes was not the same as before. Their attack threat was at least several times greater.

After pulling up, in the Stuka dive bomber, the pilot flew his beloved plane in a circle. During training, he had to dodge the simulated defensive fire from a friendly anti-aircraft destroyer. The dense, interwoven web of fire, like hell, had terrified him. This was his first time in actual combat. He felt that at least in this battle, the enemy’s air defense was no different from a child’s game.

He continued to fly his plane and began a second dive. This time, his target was a small, open-topped boat, crowded with Soviet soldiers who were preparing to cross the river to join the battle.

Without any superfluous movements, he aimed the nose of his plane at his target. The crosshairs in his sight were firmly on top of the target. He slightly adjusted his flight path and then moved his sight to give a leading allowance for his strafing run.

He then pulled his trigger. A volley of cannon shells struck the river, kicking up a tall column of water. Then this column of water began to extend towards the small boat, quickly sweeping into the crowd of people on board. Blood splattered like a mist, and tracer rounds passed through flesh and bone, finally hitting the bottom of the boat and leaving a hole bigger than a bowl.

As the Stuka pulled up, the navigator in the rear, who was responsible for covering, operated his machine gun, firing at the sound of the second wave of attacks. Before they could even react, the Soviet soldiers who had just been trying to crawl out of the corpses had not expected the second wave of attacks to come so quickly. Many were hit and fell, lying with the other shredded meat.

Blood spread from the hole in the boat, staining the nearby waters of the Volga red. The boat, which had been packed with soldiers, now had only a dozen or so people left, crying out. They were scared out of their wits by the bloody scene before them and also had a very direct impression of the war they were about to experience.

“A whole infantry regiment is crossing the river. I think this infantry regiment is almost finished,” a Soviet commander on the bank said helplessly about what was happening on the river. He could neither order the men who were halfway across to retreat, nor could he dare to order the remaining troops of this division to continue to cross. He just stood on the riverbank, muttering, as if he had gone mad.

“It seems the Germans have finally realized the importance of cutting the Volga shipping route for the siege of Stalingrad,” Rokossovsky said in the evening when he received the report from his troops. An infantry regiment of his had been reduced to less than a battalion after crossing the river to Stalingrad. Dozens of boats had been destroyed, and the losses were astonishingly large.

“Let’s just arrange the transport for after dark. After all, to fight for air superiority and air defense is not very realistic anymore,” he said with a sigh. “We’ll reduce the shipping as soon as it gets light. That’s all we can do.”

Advance chapters at Nightjar Reads · nightjarreads.com