The decisive battle against the Third Reich

"Considering that you have used this tactic before!" Major General Wittelsheim asked: "So I want to know if you have any method to deal with this tactic?"

Colonel Slaine couldn't help but turn his attention to Qin Chuan, because Qin Chuan came up with this tactic.

Qin Chuan shook his head slightly and replied: "Sorry General, I don't think there is a good way to deal with this tactic!"

"Isn't there a good way?" Major General Wittelsheim heard the implication of this statement.

"If there is any way, it can only be said to be a stupid way!"

"Tell me about it!" Major General Wittelsheim said: "Whether it is a smart method or a stupid method, as long as it is useful, it is a good method!"

"We can divide it into small grids!" Qin Chuan pointed at the map and said, "Then designate a certain unit to be responsible for which small grid!"

"Xiaoge?"

"Yes!" Qin Chuan answered, casually picked up a pencil and drew a few lines horizontally and vertically on the map, and said, "Just like this, divide them into small pieces and weave them into small pieces. Serial number, arrange a platoon or a company to be responsible for the attack or defense of a certain small area! "

Major General Wittelsheim couldn't help but said "Oh", and then nodded and said: "It is indeed a useful method, Major. This will greatly reduce the difficulty of command and reduce confusion. We have indeed encountered many similar situations in the battle. With such a problem, soldiers and officers were rushing around the city, running wherever there were enemies, and the result was chaos as they were moved around by the enemy! "

"Yes!" Qin Chuan nodded: "The enemy took advantage of this to attack everywhere. He fired a few shots from the east to divert our attention and troops to the east. As a result, the Soviets emerged from the west again. !”

"Yes!" Major General Wittelsheim agreed: "If we use the 'grid tactics' you call, and each grid has troops stationed and cannot be mobilized by the enemy, then no matter where the Soviets come out, They will be discovered and blocked as soon as possible!”

"Especially..." Colonel Slain said: "If you do this, you can let the people in each grid carefully search the area where they are, or be alert to places where the Soviets may come out and prepare defenses. Then the Soviets can There’s no chance to take advantage of it!”

Of course Qinchuan knew this, because this was actually the "net and suppression" tactic used by China in the Vietnam War in history, and the tunnel warfare used by the Soviet army in Stalingrad was very similar to the tunnels used by the Vietnamese army.

"So..." Then Westerheim asked doubtfully: "Major, this is a good tactic, why do you say it is a stupid method?"

"First of all, it needs more troops!" Qin Chuan said.

Westerheim nodded. Each small grid requires troops to defend. Of course, this requires a lot of troops, and this is precisely the shortcoming of the German army.

"Secondly, the difficulties we face are far more than these!" Qin Chuan replied: "And it is foreseeable that we will encounter more and more difficulties in the future. It is likely that they cannot be solved by one or two tactics!"

Major General Westerheim sighed, he had already realized this.

Perhaps due to the lack of troops due to the adoption of this "lattice tactic", or perhaps the Sixth Army realized that it might be difficult for them to take Stalingrad alone, the 21st Armored Division was dispatched as a reserve the next day. the battlefield.

It was early in the morning when the 21st Armored Division entered the city. The 60th Motorized Rifle Division, located on the right wing of the 14th Armored Corps, suffered heavy casualties in the Soviet army's large-scale counterattack last night and needed to rest and recuperate. The 21st Armored Division went up to replace their defense area.

Although the sky looked clear from the outside that day, when I walked into the city of Stalingrad, I felt a dark chill... This was not a psychological effect, but the battle in Stalingrad day and night. The smoke and dust, coupled with the dense buildings blocking the sun, caused the temperature difference between the inside and outside to differ by several degrees.

Along the way, there were houses that had been blown to pieces or burned black. The ground was either dead bodies or ruins. From time to time, there were several explosions of artillery shells overhead, as if they were making a mockery of the soldiers. warn.

After walking only a few hundred meters, the tank was blocked by a pile of ruins. A group of engineers were trying to clear a path through it. One of the engineers, whose face was darkened by gunpowder smoke, shouted to Qin Chuan: "Major, if you If you don’t want to help, you’ll have to take another route two miles away!”

Eberhard was a little dissatisfied: "Why didn't you clean up this garbage earlier?!"

"Oh, sir!" the engineer captain replied: "Half an hour ago it was a house. Do you mean we demolished it beforehand?"

Before he finished speaking, an artillery shell exploded with a "boom" more than 200 meters away. A cloud of dust and building debris fell from the sky with a "whoosh" of wind, making Qinchuan's steel helmet "clang, clang, clang". .

"Sir!" the engineer captain coughed a few times in the dust and said, "If we continue to discuss this topic, the other section of the road may have the same fate!"

Qin Chuan understood what this meant, nodded and said to the soldiers behind him: "Go and help!"

The soldiers had no choice but to carry their weapons on their shoulders and rush forward to clear the rubble.

This is one of the difficulties in the Battle of Stalingrad... Stalingrad is an important industrial, commercial and trade center of the Soviet Union, and it is also conveniently located on the Volga and Don rivers for transportation. These superior conditions make the city very densely populated.

The result of dense population is that there are many buildings, which were bombarded over and over again by artillery fire from both the German and Soviet sides... The piles of ruins caused by collapsed houses seriously hindered the movement of tanks.

However, this is just the beginning. 80% of the buildings in Stalingrad in history were destroyed by bombing. It can be said that the entire city will become a pile of debris and ruins.

From this aspect, battlefields like Stalingrad are actually not suitable for tank operations, at least not for tank operations in this era. On the other hand, German operations are inseparable from tanks... Because German operations always require coordination, and tanks are also needed to attack buildings garrisoned by the Soviets.

In the end, it took half an hour for the soldiers to successfully clear a path, and then the tank rumbled forward again.

A group of wounded people were carried down by the stretcher team, with blood dripping all the way, and the screams one after another seemed to tell Qin Chuan not to go any further.

But Qinchuan and the soldiers had no choice but to follow the tank and move forward step by step.

There are more and more corpses on the roadside, both German and Soviet. They are piled up haphazardly on the roadside. Some have deteriorated and smelly, and flies are flying around on them.

Then Qin Chuan knew that the defense line was not far away.