A German sergeant walked quickly to the position of a German 150 mm howitzer and shouted to the soldiers who were wiping the artillery: "The urgent order from above, immediately adjust the artillery, aim at the No. 22 area, shoot half a base to cover the fire, immediately." ”

"Half a base? Do you mean that our entire artillery regiment has 24 150 mm caliber howitzers, and a salvo of half a base?" An artillery officer stood up from the ammunition box, walked over to the sergeant, took the order and verified it, and immediately turned around and shouted: "The emergency order from the headquarters, the shooting of half the base, start working! ”

With his shouts, the German artillery unit seemed to be revived in an instant, and the originally quiet position was immediately lively. Some began to adjust the parameters of the guns against the firing table, while others used a crowbar to pry open the ammunition boxes and remove the shells inside.

The map in the artilleryman's hand was a redrawn accurate map, on which the coordinates of each block were marked with grids. As a result, the Germans' artillery coverage was quite accurate enough to inflict very much damage on the attacking Soviet troops.

The anti-aircraft camouflage net was carefully removed by the soldiers, and even now, when there were few Soviet planes left, the German soldiers were required to strictly enforce the air defense regulations so as not to suffer unnecessary losses at some special times. The barrels of the cannons were little too high as the soldiers kept shaking their handles, and finally pointed at where they should have been pointed.

"Reloaded!" next to the first gun, the loader reported loudly after reloading the firing charge. Not far from him, a few seconds later, the loader of the second cannon shouted the line. One cannon after another was ready for a salvo, and one flag after another was raised by the herald flag-bearers, and a full 24 150-mm howitzers, like silent killers, waited for the order to fire.

"The counterattack begins!" shouted an infantry commander on the front line, looking at his watch. Beside him, an ambushed MG42 machine gun began to roar.

"Counterattack begins!" The engine was already started, a thick puff of black smoke was spewed, and the German tank commander snapped the hatch above his head, and the Leopard tank started in the rubble.

"Lock onto the target! I'll start diving! Comet 4 will start diving!" the pilot of a Stuka 2 attack aircraft confirmed into the intercom several kilometers above the sky.

"Open the artillery!" On the artillery position, after hearing the order, one after another small red flags were waved and put down, and one after another the giant cannon let out its own roar.

"Boom, boom, boom!" The muzzle of the cannon erupted with dazzling flames, and then thick smoke poured out of the sky, like a violently churning dark cloud, extending above the muzzle of the cannon, as if to dominate the entire sky. With the violent shaking, the huge artillery barrel was pulled by the recoil and quickly retreated, and the entire position was dusty, and everyone couldn't help but squint their eyes.

After this noise, a 150 mm caliber shell spun at high speed, flew out of the rifled barrel of the gun, and flew in a graceful arc in the sky, towards the already calibrated 22 zone, the friction of the air made the surface of the shell hot.

As the air resistance continued to erode, and also with the gradual passage of the thrust formed by the explosion of gunpowder, the shell began to drop in height, began to fall, and finally crashed into the ground in the streets full of Soviet Red Army, the fuse was activated, the gunpowder inside was ignited and exploded, the shell completed its mission, ended its brilliant life.

Its life was very short, and the countless explosive fragments formed swept the entire explosion radius in less than a second, and the ground was easily cut out of huge craters, and the sand, gravel and soil mixed with dense fragments knocked dozens of surrounding Soviet soldiers to the ground, and for a while, the flesh and blood were blurred, and the flesh and blood did not know which part of the body was flying everywhere, and the living Soviet soldiers were subconsciously lying on the ground.

The second shell hit a corner of a building not far away, the explosion lifted bricks and tiles flying dozens of meters away, dust rose into the air, and the sound of the building collapsing made the living Soviet troops feel the horror of the end of the world - this was just the beginning, because the third and fourth shells fell one after another, and the whole area was covered with German artillery fire, and there were explosions everywhere, and the sky seemed to be gray.

......

"Hey, hey, what are you talking about? Tell me more details!" A Soviet front-line division commander held a telephone and angrily shouted at a regiment commander who was engaged with the Germans: "What do you mean that your troops have been scattered? I heard the German artillery...... I'm reporting to Comrade Army Commander, you can resist me! No matter what method you use! Resist me!"

He hung up the phone, and a shell smashed down a few dozen meters away from his headquarters, and the whole earth shook, and the dust from the ceiling fell sparsely, smashing on the drawings laid on the table, making a crackling sound. He fanned the dust off his front with his hand and grabbed the phone in his hand again.

If the German attack in front of us is like a warm 40-degree hot water, then the current German army is a bottle of 90 percent concentrated sulfuric acid, and the danger of the two is not at the same level at all.

"Comrade Army Commander! My troops are under heavy attack by the Germans! Their shells are raining down on my head!" The division commander called through the phone of the military headquarters and pleaded with his superiors with infinite grievances: "Request for support! Ask for artillery support and troop support. ”

"I heard the sound of artillery! Not only the sound of artillery from you, but also the sound of artillery from the 2nd Division. "The Commander's mood on the side doesn't sound very good—it seems to be a certainty, for whoever is in this situation is not going to be much better.

From a few minutes on, he received calls that were either asking for reinforcements or reporting how many casualties the troops had. The German artillery fire fell accurately on the heads of his attacking troops, and the entire counterattack plan was seriously blocked, and even part of the position was recaptured by the Germans.

Of course, this was not his most desperate moment, although the Soviet commander now felt that he was desperate at this moment - but the next moment, his despair turned into complete despair as more German troops entered the battle.

One after another, German Stuka 2 bombers began to dive and bomb, completely destroying the exposed Soviet troops. Some Soviet troops were attacked by these vulture-like German attack planes as soon as they assembled for the later offensive mission, and the entire unit was destroyed to the brink of collapse by machine gun fire and bombs before they had time to disperse.

Because the entire Stalingrad was divided into dozens of areas, the German commanders were able to accurately determine the approximate location of the Soviet troops in the process of determining the targets of the attack and calculating the assembly points of the Soviet troops. This allowed German aircraft and artillery to attack the coordinates that had been set up more accurately, achieving amazing attack accuracy and density.

When the Luftwaffe joined the battle to strangle the Soviet ground forces, the Soviets really felt their huge advantage over the Germans in terms of firepower: in the face of the integration of air and ground, with aircraft bombing on top and artillery covering the German three-dimensional firepower below, the Soviet counterattack became difficult.

The problem was that it was not just difficult to move forward, but to face a counterattack by the superior German forces - on the ground, when the Soviet army had begun to rout in confusion, the German armored units appeared for the first time in the street battles at Stalingrad, although these tanks did not advance rapidly, but destroyed all the Soviet tanks that appeared as an assault force.

The German tanks advanced for a short distance on the existing positions, and then the German grenadiers captured the nearby buildings and ruins, recapturing all the positions that the Soviets had managed to capture. One German flag after another was spread to the top of the building, while the German artillery shelling extended forward as the Germans advanced.

The Soviet rout became out of control, and in the three directions of attack, the troops attacking north were pushed back by the most elite SS Panzer Divisions of the German army, not to mention heavy losses, and also lost defensive positions about 400 meters deep, and the troops trying to seize the railway station to the west were forced to stop their advance after only 900 meters of attack, and then the German counterattack came as scheduled, and finally they retreated to their original starting point, but lost a full 3,000 soldiers and 16 tanks.

The two elite Soviet infantry divisions attacking north fared slightly better, withstanding the frenzied attacks of the German troops, eventually advancing 100 metres at the cost of 1,900 casualties – although the lengthwise width of the Volga that the Soviets were trying to increase was about 300 metres shorter than it was before the attack.

A counterattack, just three hours. From 11 a.m. to 12 noon the Germans counterattacking, until 2 p.m. calm was gradually restored on all fronts - the Soviets lost a full 7,000 men, but lost some blocks and positions.

The Germans lost almost 1,700 soldiers, including 300 Ukrainian soldiers. This loss caused Qu Hilel to abandon his plan to continue the assault, and once again replaced his three brand new Ukrainian infantry divisions with the front line, boredom but very effectively continuing to play his grid game.