Chapter 721: Obedience and transgression

Chapter 721 Yang Feng Yin Violation

The name "Ring Project" is very appropriate. It means small and strong, and it is a closed circle, which means the "small encirclement circle" facing Stalingrad.

Stalin's simple and brutal offensive tactics cannot be said to be completely unreasonable, because encirclement and anti-encirclement are often trying to hurt each other to the last drop of blood.

For example, the Don River Front Army and the German Sixth Army at this time.

If the Don River Front Army waits until everything is ready and supplies catch up before starting slowly, it means that the German 6th Army has also obtained more materials and it will be more difficult to destroy.

Even in this case, it makes sense for the Soviets to charge the Germans regardless of casualties... The enemy is surrounded, to be exact, and will be surrounded in a state of shortage of supplies. The continuous charge of the Soviets means that the Germans continue to have ammunition. When the consumption of ammunition reaches a certain level and the ammunition is almost exhausted, the German Sixth Army will collapse and die.

From this point of view, the casualties of the Soviet army are all worthwhile, and even the casualties between the enemy and the enemy may not be much greater. The difference is that the casualties of the Soviet army turned into corpses in the front, while the German troops were captured one by one and escorted. Go to Siberia to do hard labor.

So, the whole of Stalingrad was ignited like a gunpowder cartridge, and there were bombardment of artillery fire, roar of fighter planes, and the attack and defense of both the enemy and us.

The situation is obviously not good for the 6th Army.

Stalin's sudden change of strategy from a large deep encirclement to a close encirclement really caught Paulus by surprise. He could only order the troops to defend again and again to transport the last few batches of ammunition into the encirclement.

Meanwhile he makes one last effort on the phone.

"Your Excellency!" Paulus said, "We will soon be surrounded by the enemy. The enemy is only a dozen kilometers away from my headquarters. It will not even take an hour for their tanks to arrive here! I ask again, if now There is still time to break through! If we don’t retreat, we will be left in Stalingrad forever, and Stalingrad will never belong to us!”

Paulus is right.

What is more important to people and cities is obviously people.

Because there is no one in the city, it can be built again, and it can be fought back, but if there are no people... then not only will the city not be able to get it, but even the hope of a comeback will be lost.

But how could Hitler, who claimed to be a military genius, listen to Paulus's suggestion.

"Cheer up, my general!" Hitler said in his cadenced tone: "I know this is dangerous, but this is also our opportunity! We must dare to take risks. The Russians want to surround you, so let them surround you! I will tell them the truth, this is their biggest mistake! Believe me, you will be well supplied, and this encirclement will not last long, and you and your men will be free soon!"

Paulus wanted to say something, but the adjutant urged him from the side: "General, the enemy is only five kilometers away from us, we must retreat immediately!"

Five kilometers is not far, because there are German soldiers defending these five kilometers.

But it is not close. After all, Paulus represents the headquarters of the 6th Army. If there is any state in this headquarters, the morale of the German army in Stalingrad will be hit in an all-round way.

This forced Paulus to make a choice.

Because if you want to break out, you must organize a counterattack so that your logistics supplies will not be cut off, so that the breakout is more hopeful.

If you obey the order and continue to attack Stalingrad, you have to cross the Don River to organize a defense line on the east bank.

In the end, Paulus chose the latter...he could not disobey the orders of the Führer.

It’s not that Paulus didn’t think about disobeying orders and leading troops to break out of the siege, but he knew that this would not succeed, nor would it succeed.

If there is anyone who disobeyed the order of the head of state and survived, it was Rommel who fought in Africa.

But Paulus knew that he was different from Rommel.

This is not to say that Hitler regarded Rommel more highly... In fact, no matter who disobeys the order of the Fuhrer, it usually does not end well, even if he is deeply trusted by the Führer.

The reason why Rommel was able to become an exception is because he disobeyed the order of the head of state and won the battle, and achieved a record that was unexpected by the head of state.

Under such circumstances, the head of state would choose to pretend that he had never given any orders, and those who followed suit acquiesced to Rommel's approach.

But now, Paulus sees no chance of winning, even if he disobeys orders and chooses to break through... This will only make the German defeat less ugly.

So, if you disobey the order, the most likely result is that the head of state fired Paulus on the spot in a rage and let someone else replace him, and then sent Paulus to a military court.

Thinking of this, Paulus could only say into the microphone: "Yes, Your Excellency the Führer! I will carry out the order and hope that my supplies will be delivered on time and in sufficient quantity as the Air Marshal said!"

"Of course, my general!" Hitler breathed a sigh of relief: "This is my promise!"

But it turns out that Hitler's promise was worthless, because on the day the 6th Army was surrounded, the supplies sent to them did not meet the requirements... Several planes sent the supplies to the Germans. The supplies turned out to be inedible condiments .

This, on the other hand, illustrates the confusion in Goering's organization of the so-called "air transport" this time.

"Air transportation" is far from as simple as Goering said, and the German supply itself is not sufficient.

At the same time, in order to be able to make up enough planes to transport supplies, Goering also used bombers and attack planes to transport supplies, which weakened the power of the German Air Force.

This is also one of the reasons why the 51st Army can barely guarantee the safety of the airspace and move towards the target with only a few mixed aviation regiments.

Another reason is that the Don River Front has accelerated its encirclement of the Stalingrad German Army, forcing the German Air Force to use its main force to deal with the Don River Front.

But Shulka didn't know if this was a good thing or a bad thing.

Let’s say it’s a bad thing. It’s certainly not a bad thing when there are no enemy fighter planes circling overhead and swooping down from time to time to shoot a shuttle of bullets or drop a few bombs.

It’s a good thing to say, because the 51st Army has no reason to slow down.

Shulka believed that Trufanov felt the same way.

But they had no choice, because the next morning, the Supreme Command sent a political commissar to the 51st Army.

On the surface, this political commissar was sent to assist Trufanov in commanding operations, but everyone knew...he was actually here to monitor whether the 51st Army was doing anything wrong.

(end of this chapter)