In the headquarters of the 30th Division of Army Group South, their anxious division commander Hans had already sent a telegram to the headquarters of Army Group for the third time requesting support.

The city of Lodz, where the 30th Division was located, was originally obtained without a fight by garrisoning the Polish army. But now, in the face of the frantic counterattack of the Polish army, the 30th Division is about to face a loss even more tragic than the capture of Lodz.

Hans had already ordered to gather the two regiments that had been scattered before in Lodz, which were both well-trained main regiments and were the first-class combat units in the German ** team. However, calls for help from the front line continued one after another.

The infantry regiment, which was originally responsible for the frontal defense, has now been completely crippled and temporarily withdrawn to the area around the headquarters for repairs. According to statistics, they had a full regiment of the original, but now they only have about 500 troops left, and most of them are wounded!

And the two main regiments that were newly transferred up have already lost more than a thousand people!

This is simply the hardest and most tiring fight of the German army since the beginning of the war against Poland! There is no air support, no artillery support, and even now there has been no sign of reinforcements.

The Polish army seemed to have gathered all the artillery they could find, and poured countless artillery fire on the area of Lodz, which was no more than a hundred miles away, and even the bunkers at the front of the 30th Division were about to be leveled!

Hans in the headquarters was sweating profusely, urging reinforcements one by one. But the reply from the army group headquarters is always one sentence: order your troops to hold their positions on the spot.

Couldn't the General Rundstead of the Army Group Command see the current crisis?! Hans looked back on the battle of the day in confusion.

It has been 12 hours since the 30th Army sent a telegram for help in the morning. During this period, Army Group Command not only rejected the 30th Division's proposal to transfer an armored division from the reserves to prevent the Polish breakthrough to Lodz, but also did not even arrange air support for the crumbling 30th Division's defensive line. As a result, the 30th Division had actually relied on itself to engage several times the enemy for a whole day.

What worries Hans even more is that an artillery regiment under the 30th Division has now been completely suppressed by the artillery of the Polish army! On the one hand, this is because Reinhardt deliberately suppressed the caliber and weight of the towed gun in order to pursue mobility, so that the power was not much stronger than that of Poland. On the other hand, the 30th Division also had a strong numerical advantage in the face of Polish artillery, bringing together at least 9 artillery regiments to participate in the artillery battle between the 30th Division.

Although the artillery regiment of the Polish Army was slightly smaller than the German army in terms of formation. But after all, this is a 9-to-1 contest, and the firepower of one German artillery regiment cannot exceed that of nine Polish artillery regiments in any case.

"This is no longer a confrontation between levels!" Hans knocked on the edge of the sand table in the headquarters and said in a serious voice: "Judging from the number of artillery pieces of the Polish army on the opposite side, this should also be an artillery configuration at the level of a group army." The command of the army group must be informed of the current situation, and a serious crisis may occur in the area where we are located! ”

In the eyes of the staff officers in the headquarters, Hans's concerns were very likely. The losses on the front had long exceeded the psychological bottom line of the division commander Hans, and this was perhaps the largest loss the German army had faced since the beginning of the war. Just now, Hans had ordered the motorized infantry battalion to be transferred to the front of Lodz, ready to replenish the area in danger at any time. Using the motorized infantry battalion to fill the defensive line was obviously a loss-making deal, but Hans did it anyway, for the simple reason that the 30th Division had no reserves to send!

If this continues to fight, Hans may have to go up with the baby's reconnaissance battalion, or in a day, maybe even the health battalion, the logistics battalion, and the command company will have to rush up with guns! Otherwise, where else could the 30th Division come up with troops to fill the defensive line?

The Eighth Army, to which the 30th Division belonged, had already transferred the rest of its troops to a further front a hundred miles away, and pursued and routed the fleeing Polish army all the way. The only division-level unit within a radius of 100 miles is the 30th Division. It will take 2 hours at the fastest to wait for other units in the group army to return to reinforcements, from the mobilization and assembly, transportation, and finally into battle, and it will be too late.

The only thing that could be counted on was the 16th Panzer Division, which was held as a reserve in the hands of Army Group. As long as the command of the army group gives the order, within 24 hours at the earliest, the 30th Division will be able to get this powerful reinforcement. You must know that the German Panzer Division has won all battles against the Polish army so far. As soon as an armored division arrived, Hans even had the courage to accompany it in a high-scale counterattack.

However, the chief of the general staff of the army group, called Manstein, not only explicitly rejected Hans's request for reinforcements, but also left Hans with a rigid order not to allow the 30th Army to "turn in" in any form.

Isn't this going to wipe out the 30th Division!?

With a division against an army group, Hans racked his brains and could not think of the possibility of victory. Even if the German army was well-trained and well-equipped, what were the chances of winning against a Polish army that was more than ten times larger? Moreover, their 30th Division is an infantry division, not an armored division, a super unit that has frequently won victories since the beginning of the war. Against the enemy, their only tactic is to use flesh and blood to resist, fight, and block!

"Divisional commander! The front line is urgent, and it is requested that additional reinforcements be sent immediately. A hurried liaison soldier rushed into the command and reported.

"What's the urgency again? Didn't I already put the motorized infantry battalion behind their defense line as a firefighting team, which was less than 2 hours after I sent the motorized infantry battalion. Hans said with a frown.

It seemed that the motorized infantry battalion had been engaged in battle, but it still failed to stabilize the defensive line for long. The Polish offensive should have caused another round of large-scale losses on the forward defense line, resulting in the forward officers knowing that the division headquarters had exhausted their forces but still had to call for reinforcements again.

Thinking of this, Hans gritted his teeth and ordered in a deep voice: "Don't keep the reconnaissance battalion at this time, all of them will be rushed to the forward position for me to block!" ”

Seeing that the division commander, who had always regarded the reconnaissance battalion as a treasure and had never allowed the reconnaissance battalion to participate in a frontal offensive and defensive battle, reluctantly threw out the reconnaissance battalion, and all the staff officers who were familiar with Hans bowed their heads. The battle situation ahead has developed to the last step, and even the most elite troops such as the reconnaissance battalion can now only be thrown away as cannon fodder in trench warfare. Why, the army group command just refused to send reserves to defuse the crisis? Could it be that Commander Rundstead could not see that a battle of this magnitude was by no means something that a single division of the 30th Division could handle?

"The elite of the reconnaissance battalion should be thrown away, and they should be split and organized into the logistics battalion and the health battalion, and then placed together in the defense line." Division Commander Hans hung his head and added in a low voice.