Red Moscow

  Chapter 637 Combat Conference

  After the battle, Sokov originally planned to go to the command post in Beigang and convene the commanders for a post-war summary meeting. Unexpectedly, as soon as he walked into the command post, Vitkov said to him: "Comrade brigade commander, you came just in time. The commander just called and asked you to go to his command post immediately."

"The commander is so eager to let me go," Sokov asked Vitkov curiously, thinking that he could get some useful information from the deputy chief of staff of the army group: "Comrade deputy brigade commander, do you know what it is?" ?"

  Unexpectedly, Vitkov shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, spread his hands, and said with a wry smile: "I don't know either. I just ordered me to go to the army headquarters with you."

Seeing that Vitkov was also going to the headquarters with him, Sokov guessed that it might be some serious matter, and he didn't dare to stay here any longer, so he quickly called Golia and told him: "Comrade Captain, order your soldiers to hurry up It’s time to collect usable weapons and ammunition, and when facing the next enemy attack, you will have to bayonet them.”

   Hearing Golia's promise, Sokov called Witkov to go outside. As soon as he walked to the door, he suddenly remembered something: "By the way, Comrade Captain, how many prisoners have you captured?"

   "There are about two hundred captives, and half of them are wounded." Knowing that Sokov would not ask about this for no reason, Golia asked quickly, "How should we deal with them?"

   "Now we are short of supplies, and we don't have so many medicines to treat the enemy's wounded." Sokov said without hesitation: "Let them all go."

   "What, let them go?" Goria was taken aback by Sokov's words, and he asked cautiously, "Comrade Brigadier, let us let go of the prisoners we managed to catch?"

If the captured German prisoners, Sokov definitely does not want to let them go easily, but just now he has witnessed the tenacious fighting spirit of the Romanian army, and he still admires these enemies. Mamayev Gang is not equipped to accommodate prisoners. He did not want to shoot them or send them to Siberia, so he decided to release them all.

Of course, he did not let go of these enemies unconditionally, but ordered Golia: "Let these prisoners go back and tell their commanders, and immediately send someone to take away all the corpses in front of the position. I assure them that our Soldiers will never shoot at soldiers collecting corpses."

On the way to the headquarters, Vitkov said to Sokov approvingly: "Comrade Brigadier, you are right, you should let the Romanians take away their bodies. Thousands of corpses piled on the hillside are still prone to disease."

   "Colonel Sokov, I heard that your troops fought the enemy with bayonets?" As soon as he walked into the army headquarters, Chuikov put down his work and came up to him and asked with concern.

   "Yes, Comrade Commander." Sokov quickly replied respectfully: "It is the commanders and fighters of the 192nd Battalion and the sailors and soldiers of the Marine Battalion battalion fighting the attacking enemy with bayonets."

"Colonel Sokov, why do you let the soldiers fight with bayonets?" A political worker sitting in the corner couldn't help but interjected when he heard Sokov say this: "Why don't you use bullets and shells to destroy them?" , wouldn't that be easier?"

  Sokov looked intently at the political worker who was speaking, and found that it was an unfamiliar face. He stared at the other party intently, trying to control his emotions, and asked with smooth luck: "I don't know what to call this commander?"

"This is the deputy director of the political department of the 57th Army." When Chuikov introduced the other party's identity to Sokov, he didn't know whether it was negligence or intentional. He only said the other party's identity, but did not mention the other party's name: "He was ordered to bring The 138th Infantry Division came to supplement ours."

   "The 138th Infantry Division?" When he heard the designation, Sokov hesitated for a moment, and then asked, "Is it the unit commanded by Colonel Lyudnikov?"

   "That's right, it's his troops." Krylov came over and added: "They will go to strengthen the defense of the barricade factory. The troops that stood there had been completely lost in the battles of the previous few days."

"Colonel Sokov," seeing that Sokov and the others seemed to have forgotten themselves, the deputy director of the political department from the 57th Army was a little anxious: "You haven't answered my question yet, why did you let the soldiers and the enemy To fight the bayonet instead of destroying the enemy with shells and bullets?"

"Comrade Deputy Director of the Political Department!" Sokov turned to face the other party, and said word by word: "If possible, I would rather exchange a hundred shells or ten thousand bullets for the life of a soldier. However, due to After a long period of fighting, our brigade has run out of ammunition, so that in the face of the tide of enemies, our soldiers can only bravely rush up and fight hand-to-hand and bayonet with them." He said with a burst of anger If the person who said this hadn't seen that the other party was a political cadre from a friendly army, his fist would have landed on the other party's face long ago.

Sokov's attitude frightened the deputy director of the Political Department. He backed involuntarily until his back touched the wall, then stopped, and said in a panic, "I'm sorry, Comrade Colonel, I don't know your situation. Out of ammo. Thought you were…"

"What do you think it is?" Gurov, the military commissar of the group army, who came out to speak this time, looked at the political worker with a trace of contempt on his face: "You think Colonel Sokov is trying to show his personal heroism, Did the soldiers go to fight the enemy with bayonets? Let me tell you, not to mention in our 62nd Army, even in the entire Stalingrad Front, there is no second commander who is better at fighting than him. He Always good at achieving the greatest results with the least cost, which is the main reason why he was able to rise from corporal to colonel in less than a year."

Although the political worker's impolite words made Sokov very angry, but at the same time he reminded himself. After Gurov finished speaking, he quickly asked Chuikov: "Comrade commander, in order to repel the enemy We have almost consumed all the ammunition in our troops, can you give us some more? Otherwise, hand-to-hand combat like today will happen again, and I will not have so many troops at that time, and I will fight the enemy with bayonets .”

  Chuikov originally thought that Sokov would want to ask him for reinforcements. Now he is also worried about the shortage of troops. Where can there be extra troops to replenish. At this moment, when I heard that Sokov only asked for additional ammunition, I breathed a sigh of relief, and then said: "Don't worry, Colonel Sokov, other troops seized a large number of weapons and ammunition during the battle. Since these ammunition are German Type weapons, unless our troops are refitted, they will not be of much use at all, I will ask the Minister of Logistics, Major General Lobov, to arrange for people to be sent to Mamayev Post later.”

"Great, Comrade Commander, this is really great." Seeing that Chuikov readily agreed to refill his ammunition, Sokov was overjoyed. With no bullets in it, we can't hit the enemy hard."

   After taking out a pen and paper, Krylov looked at Sokov and asked, "Colonel Sokov, in the battle that just ended, how many enemies have you eliminated and how many weapons and ammunition have you seized?"

Sokov was stopped by Krylov's question, he hesitated for a moment, and then replied with some embarrassment: "I'm sorry, Comrade Chief of Staff, I really can't answer your question. Because I haven't had time yet." I came here with Colonel Vitkov to count the results of the battle."

"What about you, Comrade Deputy Chief of Staff." Seeing that Sokov couldn't answer his own question, Krylov turned to Witkov who was standing aside: "I know that when the battle broke out, you stayed at the North Hill In the command post, you can always answer the questions that Colonel Sokov cannot answer, right?"

When Witkov heard the question from his immediate superior, he quickly replied: "Comrade Chief of Staff, the specific results of the battle have not yet been calculated, but according to my estimation, the number of Romanian officers and soldiers wiped out by our army should be between 1,500 and 1,000." As for the seizure, there are two German Panzer III tanks, which are basically complete and can be used as long as there are tank soldiers; as for guns, there are five heavy machine guns and more than 20 light machine guns, as well as thousands of tanks. a rifle..."

If anyone used such ambiguous numbers to report to Krylov in the past, he would definitely be scolded. However, when he heard the report from Vitkov's subordinate today, Krylov always had an expression on his face. smile. After recording what the other party said, he said reasonably: "Comrade Deputy Chief of Staff, remember to report the detailed results of the battle when you go back later."

After reporting on the situation at Mamayev Post, Sokov asked Chuikov why he had been recruited here: "Comrade Commander, you said that there was something urgent, so let me rush to the headquarters immediately. What arduous and glorious task, entrust our brigade to complete it?"

"It's like this. I just received a report from the headquarters of the Front Army that two to three divisions will enter the city one after another in the near future." Since there were no outsiders in the headquarters, Cuikov said straight to the point: "Wait until the troops arrive." Afterwards, we will carry out a new round of counterattack against the enemy from the direction of Mamayev Hill. I called you here to hear your thoughts on this counterattack, and secondly, I hope you can assist us in formulating a detailed plan. counterattack plan."

  As soon as he heard that Chuikov asked him to help formulate the battle plan, Sokov couldn't help but feel a headache. You must know that the skies over Stalingrad are now controlled by German aircraft, and the troops cannot get air support at all when they attack; even if they can get artillery support from the east coast, the range of the artillery fire is limited. , the artillery support is automatically terminated.

   Seeing Sokov's delay in speaking, Chuikov asked again: "Colonel Sokov, I know you already knew about this counterattack, tell me, what do you think?"

  What can I think, this kind of ill-prepared counterattack is not only difficult to achieve the desired effect, but also unable to last, it can only continuously lose the precious back strength. Sokov could only think about these truths in his heart, but he didn't dare to say them casually, otherwise he might bring himself a fatal disaster.

But seeing Chuikov asking himself again and again, Sokov knew that it would be impossible not to make a statement, so he could only cough lightly, cleared his throat, and said, "Comrade Commander, I think we should launch a counterattack in the direction of Mamayev Post. First of all, we must get the cover of the air force and the long-term support from the ground artillery, so that we can break through the enemy's position. Otherwise, once our attack is frustrated, the counterattack force will be blocked in front of the enemy's position, and the enemies on the north and south sides will turn around again. Come on, this counterattack will end in failure."

"Sorry, Colonel Sokov, the air cover you mentioned cannot be provided." Chuikov waited for Sokov to finish speaking, and said bitterly: "Even the artillery we deployed on the east bank can only It can provide you with limited artillery support in the early stages of your attack. Once you go out of the range of the artillery fire, the artillery support will also stop."

   Without the strong support of the air force and artillery, Sokov could only pin his hopes on the tank unit. He tentatively asked: "Comrade commander, what about the tanks? Can our offensive troops be supported by tanks?"

   "Tank, I can find a way to get some of it for you." Chuikov did not like Sokov this time, but he posed a new problem for him: "But the tanker needs you to solve it yourself."

   Solving the problem of tankers by himself is not a problem for Sokov. After all, Colonel Bely is still on Mamayev Gang. Although many of his tank crews had died in the previous battle, there was still no problem for the rest of them to form a powerful tank assault unit.

  Thinking of this, he asked Chuikov again: "Comrade Commander, I would like to ask, how many tanks can you provide us?"

"I can't answer this question right now." Chuikov shrugged his shoulders and said, "However, Peter, the director of the Red October factory, will come over later, and you can ask him personally how much he can provide you. tank."

  Knowing that Peter was also coming here, Sokov couldn't help feeling guilty. Some time ago, he managed to get more than 40 tanks from Peter, but in less than a month, all of these tanks were killed or injured. If Peter asked later, he still didn't know how to answer him.

  The more you worry about something, the more often something happens. Sokov was worried about seeing Factory Director Peter, and when he didn’t know how to explain the borrowed tanks to him, a staff officer walked in and reported to Chuikov: “Comrade Commander, Factory Director Peter from the Red October Factory is here. Right outside the door!"

  (end of this chapter)