The decisive battle against the Third Reich

Then the 21st Armored Division tried several times to open the passage from the airport to Mamayev Kurgan again, but failed... At this time, the Soviet army already knew the importance of Mamayev Kurgan, and they also knew that if the German army attacked Mamayev Kurgan, it would inevitably be the same situation as before, that is, the central ferry was blocked by the German artillery fire. So the Soviet army built several lines of defense at the airport and organized a large amount of artillery fire to implement the blockade.

This made the German army helpless.

The German army could easily attack the airport before because the Soviet army did not prepare for the artillery fire and did not concentrate here. At this time, the Soviet army built a line of defense connected to the buildings at the airport, and concentrated the artillery fire in the direction of the airport... Then the open terrain of the airport became an obstacle for the German tanks.

Because the Soviet artillery observers could see the German tanks from a long distance on the high building, the German tanks would be covered by the Soviet artillery fire before they even entered the airport.

At the same time, the Soviet army used the buildings and ruins of several streets between the school and the airport to launch a set of "close tactics" and "guerrilla tactics" against the 21st Armored Division.

This approach should be said to be correct. Chuikov accurately judged that although an army like the 21st Armored Division was difficult to match in conventional warfare, it was not the case in unconventional warfare. Although the German army still had an advantage in terms of casualties, it was much better than the previous situation of almost 10 to 1. Moreover, the two divisions Chuikov deployed to the airport area were mostly new recruits armed by civilians.

Qin Chuan did not have a good solution to this situation.

Sometimes Qin Chuan wondered if this battle in history was too cruel and too difficult, so fate did not want Qin Chuan to win this battle so easily.

However, compared to this, Qin Chuan believed that the commander of the Soviet Army, Chuikov, was a terrible opponent. Because apart from other things, "close tactics" and "urban guerrilla warfare" are two very good tactics, which are even much stronger than the Battle of Moscow commanded by Zhukov... The reason why the Battle of Moscow was so famous was more because of the strategic significance of this victory, and the victory of the Battle of Stalingrad was the embodiment of Chuikov's command art.

Of course, Zhukov also contributed to this.

Qin Chuan was sitting in a corner smoking and thinking about these issues. He believed that if the war continued as it was, the German army would still be likely to win.

The reason is as mentioned before. Everything Qin Chuan did for the German army, such as buying time, taking Baku so that the German army would not have to fight on two fronts, and burning the artillery factory and tractor factory, etc., should affect the final outcome of this battle.

After all, in history, the German army even captured the main city area and only a few factories in the northern industrial zone were not captured.

The problem is how much the 21st Armored Division will pay if the war continues like this, and how many casualties will it suffer, and will there be themselves among these casualties? !

More importantly, even if the German army finally captured Stalingrad, can it guarantee that it will not be surrounded by the Soviet army? You must know that once the Don River and the Volga River freeze in winter, the fragile two wings of the German army defended by the vassal state will be exposed.

From this aspect, the German army needs to capture Stalingrad faster and then transfer troops back to the left and right to do a good job of defense in order to consolidate its victory.

Qin Chuan didn't dare to think too much, because no one could guarantee absolute safety or victory on the battlefield, not even himself.

"Very frustrated, huh?" Colonel Slaine stood in front of Qin Chuan.

"Colonel!" Qin Chuan wanted to stand up and salute but was stopped by Colonel Slaine.

He patted Qin Chuan's shoulder, sat down next to Qin Chuan and asked him for a cigarette, lit it and raised his head to exhale a puff of smoke.

"You should get used to this!" Colonel Slaine said.

"What?" Qin Chuan didn't quite understand what Colonel Slaine said.

"I mean failure!" Colonel Slain said, "The battlefield should be like this, this is normal! Although this failure is not your fault!"

"Yes, Colonel!" Qin Chuan replied, "I know!"

"Do you know?" Colonel Slain continued, "Although I know this, I am a little uncomfortable now!"

"Oh, why?"

"Because you have hardly failed before!" Colonel Slain said, "This makes me not know what failure feels like!"

Qin Chuan thought about it and found that it was really like what Colonel Slain said. After he made a suggestion, the 1st Infantry Regiment and even the 21st Armored Division always won.

But then again, I roughly know the development and focus of the battle, and it is normal to always win!

But this normal seems to be abnormal in the eyes of others, so this failure is also a good thing.

"Major!" At this time, the signalman stepped forward and saluted Qin Chuan: "The general asked you to come to the headquarters!"

Qin Chuan and Colonel Slain looked at each other, and both of them were a little surprised, because this time they directly called Qin Chuan instead of Colonel Slain.

But what surprised the two even more was yet to come. They thought the "general" the signalman was talking about was Major General Strike, but it turned out to be General Paulus.

Paulus's headquarters was on the west bank of the Don River, in a town opposite Karachi, more than 100 kilometers away from Stalingrad.

This is not to say that Paulus was timid, but that there were two fronts in the Battle of Stalingrad, one was the northern defense line and the other was the Stalingrad front. Paulus wanted to ensure that the command of these two fronts remained in Dunton. The west bank of the river is a wise choice.

However, it took some twists and turns for Qinchuan to meet Paulus: he first had to take a bus to the airport more than ten kilometers away, and then take a Junkers transport plane to the west bank of the Don River... This was still in Paulus for Qinchuan If a transport plane is specially arranged, if you follow the regular route, you have to take a bus to Karachi, then take a boat across the river from Karachi, and then take a bus from Karachi to the headquarters.

This round trip, although it is only more than 100 kilometers, but including the waiting time on the way, it is not impossible to do it for a few days.

From this, you can also imagine how bad the logistics situation of the German army from Berlin to Stalingrad was, especially since there were several large rivers in the Soviet Union, and the bridges either did not exist or were blown up by the Soviet Union, so the transportation of the German army had to be difficult. No repeated loading and unloading.

Of course, Qin Chuan doesn't need to care about these.

Qin Chuan looked from the window of the plane at the busy German transport lines below like ants moving, and what he was thinking about was why Paulus wanted to meet him alone at this time.