"Yes, Comrade Stalin, I can hear the artillery fire outside, the German attacking troops are attacking fiercely, they seem to be in a hurry. Rokossovsky said into the phone. The Germans had arrived at Stalingrad a day earlier, and immediately launched a fierce attack.

This was the most desirable scenario for the Soviets, as the German armored forces engaged the Soviets in a heavy exchange of fire in Stalingrad despite their losses, losing a large number of ...... of the main forces.

But now things are getting complicated, the German troops involved in the attack are honestly not very strong, and there are many new names that no one has ever seen, which is not good news for the Soviet troops in the city. At least it shows that eighty percent of the German army has replaced the elite Army Group G, and is attacking with a new unit that does not know where it came from.

And obviously this unit is specially used to fight this kind of tragic war, most of them are infantry, and a large number of old submachine guns and Mauser rifles are issued with these weapons and equipment, although in the field submachine guns have been proven to be inferior to assault rifles, but in street battles, the combat distance is often only a few tens of meters away, and the submachine gun has become a very useful weapon.

Both sides carefully prepared their own means, and the Soviets, relying on anti-aircraft artillery positions, hid thousands of artillery pieces in the ruins of Stalingrad. They used these cannons to engage in artillery battles with the German artillery, regardless of losses, in order to exchange wounds for wounds and consume the strength of the German artillery.

And the Germans did not avoid the artillery battle with the Soviets as usual, but used their artillery and fought with the Soviets with bayonets. After such a comparison, the Soviet army learned a very uncomfortable fact, that is, the last shortcoming of the German army, the quality inferiority of artillery, no longer exists.

In terms of small-caliber artillery, after integrating the industrial production capacity of France, the performance of the German army's 75 mm caliber field guns has comprehensively surpassed the 76 of the Soviet army. 2 mm caliber artillery, and 105 mm caliber field guns, are already on par with the 122 mm caliber howitzers that the Soviet army is proud of.

The war allowed the Soviet army to closely catch up with the footsteps of German tanks and shorten the gap between the two tanks in terms of main performance; the United States learned from the Luftwaffe and produced advanced fighters that were not inferior to the Luftwaffe; so war is the best teacher, using the lessons of blood to make people progress at the fastest speed.

Of course, the students under the war teacher were not only the allies such as the Soviet Union and the United States, but also the Axis power Germany. In terms of eagerness to learn and the ability to understand new things, it is precisely the German students who are better and learn faster.

Therefore, the artillery superiority that the Soviet army was proud of had in fact disappeared in front of the main German forces, and a large number of slow-moving infantry of the German army were equipped with heavy artillery with excellent performance, and these guns were already better than the equipment in the hands of the Soviet army in terms of range accuracy and power.

Krupp is the king of the world's artillery, so in order to bear this name, Krupp company has also paid dozens of times hundreds of times for it, they strive for excellence in every link, using the new "automatic" assembly line to produce the latest technology products, and finally through a long period of accumulation, completed the transformation from quantitative change to qualitative change.

The transformed German 150 mm heavy howitzer was roaring at the Soviet artillery positions and buildings in the city of Stalingrad, the artillerymen mechanically pushed the shells into the barrel, and then pushed into the firing charge, fixed the bolts, and pulled the cannon's fuse, triggering the cannon to let out a deafening roar.

The Germans did not suffer in artillery battles, and sometimes they were even able to suppress the Soviet artillery, and when the two sides fired fiercely at each other, the Luftwaffe's strategic bombers also brought a catastrophe to the whole of Stalingrad. The dense bombing at an altitude of more than 8,000 meters made the Soviet army's small-caliber anti-aircraft guns ineffective, and the German army's covering bombing caused incalculable losses to the Soviet army.

Contrary to expectations, the Germans did not politely test the Soviets, but directly threw their troops into the brutal siege of the city. In one day, the Soviet army counted more than 3,000 German soldiers killed - a terrible figure.

"We have killed more than 3,000 German troops in eight hours, and the attack is so fierce that we have lost two-thirds of our outlying positions, and the battle is still going on...... I will hold my ground until the moment of victory!" Rokossovsky's underground command headquarters, knocked down a lot of dust by a shell, squinted into the microphone of the phone.

"You and I promised to live and die with Stalingrad! Now, the situation in the Caucasus is very unfavorable for our army, and I need you to hold out in the Caucasus for six months, so that Zhukov and I can prepare 3 million new troops and devote them to counterattacks. Stalin said on the other end of the phone: "Tell me now whether you are sure that you will hold on to Stalingrad for more than six months!"

In one day, Stalingrad was already surrounded on both sides, and the German attack was faster than Rokossovsky expected, and the German army launched a non-stop attack despite the losses, which also caught the Soviet army off guard. Now even Rokossovsky didn't know what the war would look like, so he was silent with the microphone.

After a long time, he assured Stalin: "Comrade Stalin, great leader, all I can assure you is that I will hold Stalingrad to the death, and as for how long I can hold it, it depends on how many troops the German army is willing to take." ”

This was his promise, and Stalin didn't say anything more, he just hung up the phone, appearing reluctant to talk other nonsense with Rokossovsky. The war has been fought to the present level, and the intrigues and strategies have not changed much, and now the competition is which of the two nations is more tenacious and which can hold out more to the end.

Without other tricks, if you want to win the war, you can only fill the soldiers into this huge meat grinder, and keep consuming. Whichever side's blood drains first, which side is brutally out, that's all.

Putting down the phone in his hand, Rokossovsky sighed and instructed his deputy: "Give the armored forces an offensive order, and the counterattack on all fronts will begin now! We can't let the Germans fight like this, we must always try to counterattack." ”

As he gave these orders, a new round of German artillery bombardment began, and the Germans used Frederick rocket artillery against an exposed Soviet position, and the dense rocket shells instantly covered the area full of Soviet soldiers, turning it into a sea of fire.

The huge launch smoke shrouded the German rocket artillery firing positions in a cloud of white smoke, and the dust rolled up by the tail flames of the rockets obscured the sky as if a smoke bomb had been released. The Germans shot up 200 rockets in just a few tens of seconds, which made the Soviets truly realize what the difference in firepower is.

"This dense artillery fire, it's Frederick, right?" Rokossovsky looked at the flickering lights overhead, and asked one of his subordinates with a wry smile, that person had participated in front-line battles, and had been suddenly attacked by German Frederick rocket artillery, so he remembered this weapon that was enough to harvest countless lives. There are still several shrapnel in his body, which are fragments from the explosion of this weapon.

"Yes, Comrade General!" the subordinate nodded, and replied to him, "The power of this weapon is very amazing, and I heard that our people are also trying to imitate it, but it is only because there is no reference material, and new progress has been made recently. ”

"The Germans have a stronger industrial base than ours, and they have developed new weapons one after another, which is also something that cannot be helped. Rokossovsky looked at his men helplessly and said: "The German army is now estimated to have about 4,000 casualties, but we have lost almost 10,000 people, which is the result of inferior weapons and tactics." ”

The German losses were indeed huge, and while Rokossovsky gritted his teeth and endured the terrible casualty figures of the front-line troops, General Quchler also listened helplessly to his subordinates in his operational command to report the death figures of Army Group N. The Germans had never suffered such huge losses in a single battle, and most of their three attacking divisions had lost the ability to attack and were forced to be replaced by new troops.

"The Soviet counterattack was very sharp, these infantry were not the previous recruits, they were the elite of the Soviets. The subordinate handed the Soviet number list that he had learned to Qu Hillel, and then continued: "Our army has lost 4,000 soldiers, and the two army commanders on the front line have called to ask whether they should continue the offensive. ”

"Of course keep attacking! 2,000 of these 4,000 people are death squads composed of prisoners, and in fact we have not lost many troops, aren't we?" Qu Hilel said proudly: "Tell the two army commanders on the front line to put the Ukrainian reinforcements into battle, and within two days, my troops will press into the city of Stalingrad to fight!"

"Yes, General, I'm going to give your battle order. The chief of staff turned around and walked out, and as one battle order after another was issued, the German offensive did not slow down, but became more frenzied, and the German servant army Ukrainians appeared in many areas, and the losses on both sides were still expanding rapidly.

At sunset, Rokossovsky had to send part of the reserves on the east bank of the Volga to join the frontal battle in order to stabilize his already crumbling defensive line.