Iron Cross

With a "boom", a 105mm howitzer shell exploded in the crowd. It sounded very powerful, and the range of shrapnel flying was not small. However, it had little effect when it landed in the sparse attacking crowd. It only knocked down Two people were killed. Judging from the cost-effectiveness ratio, this shell was completely suspected of being wasted, but in terms of momentum, it achieved its purpose perfectly. This section is the defensive position of the 57th Infantry Division of the German 6th Army. The Red Army's rapid advance in recent days has finally come to an end. Just like one wave after another always hits the breakwater in the end, the half-hearted attack of the 27th Army finally encounters the breakwater. When they reached the insurmountable natural chasm, the defensive position of the 57th Infantry Division became an obstacle that they could not overcome no matter what.

Although Karpov also tried to charge with the 10th Tank Brigade, the patchwork and intensive firepower made these tanks suffer. In less than half an hour, 17 tanks were destroyed by anti-tank fire, and The entire 10th Tank Brigade had only 41 tanks in total. Forced by desperation, he finally stopped this futile attack. The battlefield is littered with the remains of Red Army tanks, including T-26s, KV-1s, and of course the T-34s. Many tanks were simply destroyed by the 76.2mm Russian-made anti-tank guns captured by the Germans, which was a huge blow to the Red Army. To put it simply, there is no behavior that hurts morale more than this kind of result, and when the 88mm anti-aircraft gun also joined the anti-tank ranks, Karpov knew that he would not be able to defeat this position no matter what.

He had expected that he would not be able to capture the German position. He did not use all his strength in the previous rounds of attacks, and the attacking team did not use the Red Army's most famous "crowd offensive". Instead, it was more like a tentative move. If it were not for tanks, The brigade commander overestimated his own strength, and the losses from this exploratory attack would be smaller.

"It can't be fought..." He gasped and told his old partner Masnov, "There are solid fortifications on the ground, sufficient anti-tank firepower in the bunkers, and a considerable number of enemy aircraft in the sky. It is impossible for us to attack again..."

"One thing is strange. Why doesn't the enemy fight back?"

"Counterattack? Why counterattack?" Karpov asked strangely, "We have not invaded. All the enemy's positions are in our hands. In such a cold climate, there are warm and comfortable trenches, and we have to jump out of the defense. The system is fighting us on the outside, and only people with bad minds choose to do this. It doesn't do them any good."

"What to do now?"

"What else can we do? Withdraw! I hope some fool will chase us regardless of life or death." Karpov said word by word, "Report to the commander that our army encountered an enemy with tight fortifications and intensive fire support. The defense force has failed to attack 5 times. It is now retreating 5 kilometers to reorganize and request support from the main force of the group army. "

"The 27th Army's attack undoubtedly failed, but from another aspect it was also successful. At least they found out the enemy's reality and understood the enemy's bottom line - they are now unwilling to continue to act unprincipled. "Retreating backwards." Chistyakov, commander of the 21st Army, has been paying attention to the offensive of the 27th Army. He has already ordered the rest of the troops to be prepared. If the 27th Army's offensive is unfavorable and there is a risk of being counter-encircled by the enemy, the main force of the group army will be withdrawn. He jumped out to respond, and at the same time took a bite out of the German divisions who were blindly pursuing them. But now the Germans' reaction was a bit strange - resolutely defending but not counterattacking, which made his carefully prepared follow-up move fail. Empty. It feels like a fisherman has prepared a bait, but the fish turns out to be unmoved by the bait, which makes the fisher a little bit frustrated.

"I think the enemy may not have enough troops for frontal defense." Chistyakov told Buchin his judgment. "I understand Comrade Karpov's character. He certainly did not use all his strength, but even so the Germans were able to It is definitely not their style to swallow their anger. There is only one reasonable explanation - their defense strength is not very sufficient. "

"It's strange. Logically speaking, the 6th Group Army is a large group with more than 300,000 troops. It will not be short of troops." Buchin picked up the enemy situation report and said, "Judging from the radio signals we have intercepted, there are at least 17 How can a division-level call signal be short of troops?"

"This is very possible." Chistyakov glanced at the map. "In the lower reaches of the Don River, the 62nd and 57th Army Groups have discovered the numbers of 7 German divisions, and 2 divisions have already fought against the 27th Army. Perhaps We should take action elsewhere and try to see if we can find more German numbers..."

While talking, Buchin received the latest telegram: "News from the Southwest Front, Commander Vatutin ordered the leading troops of the 46th Group Army to cross the river from the upper reaches today. Not only did they successfully set up a pontoon bridge, but they also repelled at least 4 German troops. The division’s defensive strength.”

"Did they encounter enemy resistance?"

"Yes, but the resistance does not seem to be particularly fierce, otherwise it would be impossible to achieve such rapid results..."

"Four divisions..." Chistyakov pondered for a moment, "Then there are 13 divisions, and there are still 4 divisions left."

"Commander Vatutin plans to have the 46th Army cross the river first within two days, and then have the 12th, 6th, and 5th Tank Army cross the river in sequence."

Chistyakov was shocked: "He doesn't care about the Hot Cluster anymore?"

"This is the intention of the General Staff. The Hot Cluster is left to the Bryansk Front to deal with it - not to defeat the enemy, but to prevent them from reinforcing Manstein."

"The 46th, the 12th, the 6th, the 5th Tank..." Chistyakov glanced at the troop deployment of the Southwest Front on the map and muttered in a low voice, "Comrade Vatutin is still the same resolute character, but not as fast. Slow down, it’s a pity that our commander, Comrade Rokossovsky, doesn’t seem to be so courageous. I asked him to put the 24th Army across the river. It’s been two days since I sent the telegram, and he asked me to be cautious..."

"The commander may have his own considerations..." Buchin did not want to comment on the rights and wrongs of the front army commander behind his back, so he changed the subject and asked, "How to deal with Comrade Karpov's request for reinforcements?"

"Please be careful!" As soon as the words came out of his mouth, Chistyakov couldn't help but laugh - just a moment ago he was talking behind his back about his superior Rokossovsky's "not courageous enough", but in the blink of an eye he also said to his subordinates I used "caution", man...

He joked to himself: "I guess in Karpov's mind, I am also a commander who lacks courage."

While Chistyakov and Buchin were discussing how to reply to Karpov, Lieutenant General Rokossovsky, commander of the Don Front, was also having a heated discussion with a group of combat staff at the headquarters about the next move. Frowning, he asked: "Based on what we have learned, the Germans are planning to build a semicircular defense system with Rostov as the center?"

"I'm afraid so." Major General Malining, Chief of Staff of the Front Army, replied, "Judging from the strange situation that the enemy has been retreating without fighting in the early stage, they seem to have consciously retreated. This is an act of preparing to reduce the defense surface to increase defense density. ”

"The enemy does not have enough troops?"

"This is difficult to answer. Without more intelligence support, I don't think we can blindly draw conclusions. Let's leave this issue to Moscow and the General Staff for judgment."

Rokossovsky nodded: "Moscow has come again to ask about the status of the 24th Army. Go and make proper arrangements. You must set out to cross the river tonight, lest our front army be the first to cross the river and end up behind when entering Rostov. In the end, all the sacrifices and persistence paid off for others.”

"Comrade Vatutin successfully crossed the river. Comrade Chistyakov's leading troops ran into the enemy's solid defense line. At present, it is not strong enough to break through. The two armies of Comrade Chuikov and Tolbukhin continue to attack fiercely. But the results were very poor. The only good news was that at least 7 German divisions were attracted. "Zhukov was reporting the situation to Stalin," Comrade Yereomenko, commander of the Stalingrad Front, suggested that more group armies be deployed further downstream. He did not believe that the Germans could deploy defenses along the entire Don River..."

"He should have thought of this a long time ago." Stalin said dissatisfiedly, "Why didn't this suggestion come up until today?"

"He has been asking for air support. Without enough aircraft, he thinks it will be difficult to build a bridge over the Don River." Vasilevsky added, "But his request is too high. He requires continuous uninterrupted air protection 16 hours a day. It would be best to dispatch a large group of bombers to carry out targeted bombing of the enemy's airports or defensive forces - this is completely impossible for us. We neither have so many aircraft nor can we invest so many troops in one direction. It takes hours and countless materials to build a bridge, but only half a minute and a bomb to destroy it.”

"Your opinion is correct. Comrade Yereomenko always likes to carry out such threats." Stalin said bitterly, "With so many technical troops, I would have sent them out to deal with the Germans in the Black Sea. , why are you still troubled here?”

Of course, Yeremenko was not a fuel-efficient lamp. He even put forward some conditions that the General Staff could not meet to hinder and cover up his progress. However, Zhukov and Vasilevsky were not easy to mess with. Not only did they quickly His true colors were exposed and he made a fool of himself in front of Stalin for a while.

"How many troops did Manstein have?"

"25-30 divisions, at least 3 armored divisions."

"Half of the troops have been exposed now. Where is the other half?" Stalin asked puzzledly. "Assuming that he did not allocate mobile troops for landing, there are at least 10 divisions that can be used for mobile operations."