Chapter 838

The air is still so dry. When winter is about to go away, there seems to be no rain in Russia. But the roads here are muddy because of the melting snow. There seems to be another factor that affects the German advance speed, which is the irritating mud and potholes.

The German troops on the front line are in good condition. At least there are two main German troops in the South and the middle. They have now entered a stagnant state. The troops of lundstedt and Kluger stopped advancing after besieging Smolensk, while the German troops in the South did not advance after advancing to the Volga River Valley and threatening Stalingrad.

But it doesn't mean that the muddy road didn't cause trouble for the German army. The long supply line depressed the German logistics troops. They had to fight against the muddy and broken road and send all kinds of supplies needed by the front line to the combat troops on time.

This is an invisible war. It is a huge and complicated project, even more devastating than the front-line operations. The German logistic forces were even more than the front-line combat forces. They fought desperately against all kinds of unfavorable factors, and they had no other advantages than security over the front-line combat forces.

"Slow! Slow down! Do you know how expensive these devices are! " A German Railway soldier is directing a locomotive to push a carriage full of tracks along the railway which is being repaired bit by bit. On both sides of him were a group of German engineers, as well as some Ukrainians who had been recruited. These people were unloading a rail from the carriage and fixing it on the sleeper according to the prescribed position.

Further on, there are more than a dozen large trucks, which are full of new sleepers. Some soldiers and civilians are enthusiastically mixing these sleepers with the old sleepers on this railway, and then mixing them one by one and arranging them together to form a railway whose density meets the European standard.

Because of historical reasons, in fact, there are three different standards for railway tracks in Ukraine and Belarus, namely, the European standard track implemented by Germany, the backward and ancient narrow track, and some soviet standard wide track. Although the German aided tracks are all European standards, they are only about half of the number in Ukraine and Belarus.

The rest of the tracks need to be transformed, but the construction of the railway is not an easy job. At least in wartime, the construction of the railway is a matter of great consumption of resources. Hundreds of tons of steel will be turned into tracks instead of tanks. For the German army, which is not abundant in production capacity and resources, this is a very painful thing.

"Bang!" One rail was accurately placed on the sleeper by dozens of civil servants and soldiers. On the other side, there were soldiers and civil servants slowly placing another rail. The construction site caused a lot of trouble. Further away, some German technicians with instruments and equipment were discussing how to improve some uneven sections and set up more parallel railway lines.

The German engineers fixed the position of the rails and sleepers, and then began to embed railway nails in them. The construction speed was very fast according to the usual concept, but this kind of crazy railway transformation progress still could not meet the needs of the German army.

"It's said that the repair work over there is going on very fast, and the transportation is basically smooth." An engineering officer stood on a hillside not far away with his hands behind his back. Beside him were SS officers in charge of the security of the railway laying troops, as well as officials of the local Pro German government in Belarus.

"After all, there were not many railways that met the standards of the Third Reich in the Soviet Union. These railways were also the key targets of destruction when the Soviet Red army retreated." The officer of the SS guard looked at the construction of the railway track in the distance at the speed visible to the naked eye, and said: "under the protection of the SS soldiers, the work of repairing these railways is smooth, but it is not enough to meet the needs of the front-line forces."

The engineer commander sneered. After all, with the rank of Colonel on his shoulder, he was already a real senior officer in the front-line commander of the logistics force: "the front-line officers and soldiers have never been satisfied. When we send them oil, they are short of grain. When we send them grain, they are short of ammunition. When we send them ammunition, they burn up the oil again. "

The SS officer nodded and agreed with his temporary boss: "yes, but they did attack quickly. Now the farthest army is less than 30 kilometers away from Stalingrad. And I heard that because of the use of special forces and helicopters for faster propulsion, the railway lines there are still in good condition, which is even more difficult. "

In fact, the railway construction of the southern line is the best in the Soviet Union because of the relationship between the Soviet Union and Germany during the cooperation period. There are several railways built entirely by the Germans, and there are also more complete supporting facilities. Except for some of them destroyed by the Soviets when they retreated, most of the railways have become resources used by the German army.

On the one hand, because there are oil fields in the Caucasus in the south, they were best built during the Soviet German honeymoon period. On the other hand, because the oil fields in the Caucasus are too important for the German army, Germany has invested a total of four army groups to open up a situation in the Caucasus.

However, the pressure on the logistics of the German troops of the four army groups exceeded the original estimate. At least for the moment, these hard built tracks are only enough to maintain about half of the supplies for these army groups. In the central region, the a group army of lundstedt and the F group army of Kluger were relatively small, but after they crossed Minsk, there was no usable railway track any more. Although several Soviet trains were seized near olsha to transfer materials, they were still in a dilemma. The German army was short of oil tank trucks to transport oil. These equipment were not many advanced equipment in China, and it was difficult to supplement production in a short period of time. Similar equipment of the Soviet Union was recovering. Since the war between the Soviet Union and Germany, only a small number of them were captured by the German army. So far, the German army has only collected enough wide gauge oil tank trains to support the operations of group A“ Let the soldiers work harder! Complaints belong to complaints. At least we don't have to die, do we The engineer Colonel spoke to his aide behind him and said, "lay this rail to Orsha as soon as possible. In this way, we can save a lot of transport capacity."“ Report Before the engineer's ambition had begun, someone came to pour cold water on her. A signalman went up the slope and breathlessly reported a piece of bad news: "Colonel, the news just came that a Soviet guerrilla attacked a section of our railway in Belarus. A military line was destroyed. We lost more than 40 people and about 4 tons of food."“ What about the SS patrol around here? What do they eat for? " The SS officer in charge of protecting the railway frowned and asked“ The SS then arrived and rescued the remaining supplies. They put out the fire set by the Soviets and wiped out the Soviets who attacked the train. But two carriages have been burned, and there is nothing they can do The signalman looked at the message and answered another officer's question. Everyone felt the pressure brought by the war, man-made destruction made many problems complicated, and the German's best precise scheduling turned into a disaster in railway transportation. They rely on the dense and well calculated train transportation schedule to maximize the efficiency of the railway trunk line in their hands, but once a node has problems, it will often lead to large-scale railway transportation paralysis. In Germany, materials transferred from the west line to the east line could be transported at a surprising speed, and the efficiency of the main railway line was fully displayed. But from the train into Poland, and then to Minsk, the speed will be doubled; Further eastward, from Minsk to Smolensk, the speed will drop three times. The German army may have been able to bear the slowdown, but the increase in transportation costs really made the German army collapse. When a barrel of oil is transported to the front line in the East, it means that another barrel of oil has been consumed on the road. This is what makes the German army in short supply most dissatisfied“ The head of state has decided to set up material hoarding sites in Poland and some places in Belarus. At least in the next few months, we will work hard to improve the rear transportation conditions and crack down on the more rampant Soviet guerrillas. " The SS officer looked to the West and seemed to say to himself and to the engineer Colonel nearby: "the rest depends on where our railway can be laid."“ Bang Another section of rail fell heavily on a row of neat sleepers, making a dull sound. German engineers beat the railway nails with hammers, one after another, they sweat like rain, desperately building the endless railway, desperately repairing the railway that seems never to be repaired“ We'll do our best. We'll do our best. " The engineer Colonel stared at the railway not far away, narrowed his eyes and said, "but the enemy is trying to destroy these railways. Our own generals want us to lay more railways. I really don't know when it will end..."