Favinir's 503rd Battalion provided a strong logistical supply line on the outskirts of Stalingrad, and not only did it launch a surprise attack into the depths of the Soviet line, pushing the Russians back until one of Stalingrad's flanks was completely exposed.

Throughout the period from July to September, he took part in a number of assault and defensive operations, with few successes due to the retreat of the main Soviet forces and their concentration in the city of Stalingrad, but many Red Army soldiers fell under his tracks, and many artillery pieces and armored vehicles were crushed.

His comrade-in-arms, Karl of the 1st Company, also reaped a lot of success, and several Soviet counterattacks hit his defensive positions, resulting in enough bait for Karl's tiger to get the first class Iron Cross, and more than 15 tanks and self-propelled guns were destroyed by Karl's tiger.

Fafnier also began to paint his tiger with his personal logo, "This world is still quite emotional! I didn't expect that I could actually drive a tiger like in a dream, since it is a tiger, then I don't paint any birds, just paint a tiger logo." ”

He painted a tiger skull larger than a human head with paint on the front armor and side armor, thus earning himself the nickname "Skeleton Tiger"

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In September, extremely brutal street fighting began.

German troops broke into the city of Stalingrad and engaged in fierce street battles with the Soviet 62nd Army, in which the two sides repeatedly fought street by street, building by house.

Stalingrad was turned into a rubble field, and 80% of the city's residential areas were destroyed.

In the rubble and ruins of the city, the Soviet 62nd Army put up a stubborn resistance, and fierce gun battles took place in every street, every building, and every factory in the city.

The number of German casualties in the assault on the city continued to mount.

Despite the frequent bombardment of the eastern bank of the Volga by the Germans, the Soviets received constant supplies and support from there.

The average survival time of the Red Army soldiers who had just arrived in the city was no more than 24 hours, and the average survival time of the officers was only about three days.

The main tactics of the German army were joint operations of all arms, and great attention was paid to the coordination of ground bombardment by infantry, engineering troops, artillery, and air force.

In order to counter this tactic, the Soviet commanders adopted a close-quarters strategy, trying to keep their own front line as close as possible to the Germans.

As a result, the artillery units of the German army could not play to the advantages of long-range attacks.

On September 15, the Germans carried out a major assault on the Mamayev Heights.

This high ground is the commanding height of the city of Stalingrad, from which you can overlook and control the whole city, and the headquarters of the 62nd Army of Lieutenant General Chuikov is located here.

After a day of brutal fighting, the Germans occupied the Mamayev Heights.

But on the 16th, the 13th Soviet Guards Division crossed the Volga into Stalingrad and suddenly launched a counter-attack on the Germans and recaptured the heights.

Many important strongholds were repeatedly contested by both sides, and the battle for the first railway station lasted for a week.

The Germans, desperate, approached the city center step by step.

On 25 September, the Germans occupied the city center, stormed the northern factory area on the 27th, and recaptured the Mamayev Heights, only to be recaptured by the Soviets on the 29th.

Later battles intensified, with the two armies constantly alternating to occupy the heights.

The Stalingrad industrial zone was built in the hills, and the buildings were poured with reinforced concrete or made of stone.

The German advance was measured not in kilometers but in meters, and one of Fafnier's friends, Schuttchaunjan, who had the name of the Yinying legend, fought hard in such battles.

Born in southern Germany, Corporal Carl Gustav Schutkhajan was a cheerful man who fought ruthlessly and bravely.

In France, he burned the fortifications of the more resolute French with a flamethrower, and once worked with the grenadiers to destroy tanks and earn himself a second-class iron cross.

On the Russian front, he distinguished himself in the Battle of the Crimea, bravely breaking into the underground fortifications of Maxim Gorky I and fighting the Soviet guards with flamethrowers, explosives, submachine guns, and sapper shovels.

Today in Stalingrad, brutal street fighting is the only thing in the life of Shütkhaujan, and the street is measured by corpses.

Every house, every room had to be fought to the death in hand-to-hand combat—and often the Russians took advantage of the sewers at night to take it back!

He fought with flamethrowers and explosives, and he couldn't remember how many Russian soldiers he burned and blew up, and he couldn't remember how many times he had refilled, and the only thing that still had a reaction was - fighting!

Never-ending battles!

At this time, the German front in the southern part of the Soviet Union was more than 1,250 miles long from Kursk and Voronezh through Stalingrad to Mozdok.

Combined with the 800 miles between Kursk and Leningrad, the total length of the German front in the Soviet Union was more than 2,000 miles, and with German forces and resources, it was simply not enough to maintain such a long front.

Particularly dangerous was the fact that the 350-mile stretch from Stalingrad along the Don River to Voronezh was uncovered.

Unable to fill the gap on its own, Germany had to deploy three armies of the vassal states on this line: the Hungarian 2nd Army south of Voronezh, the Italian 8th Army farther to the southeast, and the Romanian 3rd Army directly west of Stalingrad and to the right of the Don Bend.

This made the front very narrow and long, and even in some sections there was only one field platoon to defend a full 1-2 km of defense.

And the Soviets retained several points of attack on the south bank of the Volga, which posed a potential threat to the Germans.

Fafnir They had retreated by this time, they had run out of ammunition and spare parts in three months of fighting, and the tankmen had run out of energy - the damn Tiger was not reliable today, there were frequent problems with the transmission mechanism, disassembly and repairs had exhausted the soldiers' energy, except for one Favnir who was still alive and kicking around, they now had to retreat for maintenance and reorganization, and the 503rd Separate Heavy Tank Battalion did their job brilliantly.

It was October, and for a month, there were fierce street battles in Stalingrad.

The Germans fought house by house, finding their way through the ruins on the ground and underground, so it was also called the "rat war"

, even joked that "even if we take the kitchen, there will still be a fight in the living room." After three months of bloody fighting until early November, the Germans finally advanced slowly to the banks of the Volga River and occupied 80% of the city, splitting the remaining Soviet troops into two narrow pockets, and the Germans were never able to fully capture Stalingrad. In addition, the Volga River began to freeze, making it impossible for the Soviets to ship supplies to the defenders of the city. Despite this, the fighting near the Mamayev Heights and in the factory strip in the northern city remained fierce. Among them, the battles of the Red October Factory, the Tractor Factory and the Barricade Factory are known to the whole world. While Soviet soldiers engaged in gunfights with German troops, factory workers were on the sidelines repairing damaged tanks and other weapons, sometimes even directly on the battlefield. The tank was driven by volunteer workers of the plant. These tanks were often driven directly from the production lines of the arsenal to the front lines of the battles, and there was no time to even paint and install shooting sights. On 11 November, the Germans launched a strong attack on a frontage 5 km wide with 5 infantry divisions, 2 panzer divisions and 2 engineer battalions. The battle formation is highly dense. Within a day, the Soviets and Germans fought an unusually fierce battle for every inch of land and every house, and both sides suffered heavy casualties. Although the Germans had reached the banks of the Volga south of the barricades, their troops were exhausted and their offensive was at the end of their strength, and Paulus was forced to halt the offensive the next day and reorganize his troops. The losses of the Soviet troops were no less serious, two divisions of the 62nd Army lost 75% of their troops. Corporal Schutkehaujian took part in the assault in November. He formed a combat group with other soldiers, assaulted and pursued the Soviet troops, fighting in every room. The Russians even had female warriors on the field, and they were held back by a shooter under a three-story ruined residential building for a day until a 600mm heavy mortar from behind them crushed the ruins. Shutek Haojan used explosives to blow up the cement wall in front of him, only to find out that the dead Soviet soldier was a woman, a beautiful woman, he took out her nameplate and found out that it was a female Soviet doctor named Catherine, a female doctor actually blocked them for a day. Corporal Shotekhaugjan led the combat sappers to continue the attack, and they succeeded in forcing a group of Soviet soldiers to death, and when Shotekhaugjan began to breathe fire, he found that a Soviet soldier calmly fired a flare, and the next moment, the roar of the Deshka machine gun in the hiding place rang out, sweeping down the Soviet and German soldiers together. The cylinder behind the back of the Schutekhao Jane was hit by a 12.7mm tracer bullet that ignited the viscous gasoline. Burn Schutkhaughan into a huge torch Corporal Carl Gustav Schutkhaugjan, winner of the Iron Cross of the First Class and a bronze melee medal, a young 22-year-old Wehrmacht corporal, a combat engineer, died in battle at Stalingrad on November 12, 1942, less than 30 meters from the Volga River. Fafnir felt something, and he looked up at the red sky of Stalingrad. At this time, 503 assembled again, preparing to go to the front again.