I Became Stalin?!

Chapter 153

“The generals must have a headache. Don’t you think so?”

“I… suppose so.”

What good is Model as a great general?

No, being a great general itself is an honor for a soldier, but a misfortune for a commander.

He fought bravely with inferior forces and resources, and achieved tactical victories, but he lacked the ability to turn the tide of the war.

He was pitiful, struggling to delay the inevitable doom in a hopeless situation.

Hitler had lost almost all his allies by making diplomatic blunders one after another.

“I don’t know if he’s sane… Well, there was no other way. It’s a shame about Italy, though.”

“Hahaha… Even without that, our Red Army will fly the red flag over Berlin by the end of this year!”

“Well, that’s possible.”

What would be the best way to break the alliance if the allies knew the situation was reversed?

Germany had shown its weakness since the Prussian era, winning in tactics but losing in strategy and diplomacy.

Hitler, or rather Bittler, where did he go wrong? It was good that he subdued Britain and France in a flash. But it was the worst mistake to start a two-front war with the Soviet Union without declaring war on the United States.

He didn’t try to appease the allies who were leaving, but instead set up puppet governments with execution operations. That was pathetic.

Of course, Germany did the same in real history.

“Then we’ll cross out Italy from our options… What’s left is ‘Operation Bagration’?”

“Yes! We will annihilate the fascists’ Central Army Group, and trap the Northern Army Group in Courland and the Baltic!”

We had planned to cross the Adriatic Sea and move our troops to France or southern Germany if Italy came over to our side.

But Hitler got angry and sent troops to Italy, occupying part of the north and building a defensive line, so we gave up the plan.

Well, that was a mistake too. Germany was forced to defend strategically, and had to block the many places where the Soviet Union could push in. Belarus, Ukraine, the Hungarian Plain, and now Italy.

He split and sent his troops to plug all those holes, and the rest became vulnerable.

Even now, Germany had withdrawn some troops from the Central Army Group and detached the Balkan Field Army to block Italy. He didn’t even know that an offensive was planned against the Central Army Group.

Vasilevsky was unusually confident.

“As soon as the spring rain stops… we’ll crush the fascists.”

“Yes! Comrade Chief of Staff!”

***

With the liberation of Minsk, the road ahead was wide open for the Soviet Army. There were tempting targets lined up in front of them.

Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, Königsberg, the central city of East Prussia, Warsaw, the capital of Poland, and Krakow and Katowice, major cities of Poland.

Operation Bagration was the name of the operation to liberate these cities from the fascists. 

The Soviet Army, which was constantly reinforced, trampled over the weakening German Army and advanced.

The destination was the Vistula River. A huge river that flows between Warsaw and Danzig.

“Attack! Attack!”

“Ura! Ura! Ura!”

A huge tank roared and sprinted through the gaps in the front line. In the sky, the Vultee fighters, which began to overwhelm the German Air Force in numbers, responded with a loud engine sound.

The elite of the Defense Army, the Panzerjäger Division Grossdeutschland, was deployed to stop the Soviet tanks that were pouring in over the horizon.

“The Grossdeutschland Division is… the last reserve of the Army Group.”

“…I understand. Your Excellency.”

Königsberg, the city they already called ‘Fortress Grad’, was being besieged by hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops who were coming to capture it.

While 2 million from the 1st to the 3rd Belarusian Fronts were coming this way, the Grossdeutschland Division, the strongest armored unit of the Army Group, was ordered to fight desperately to fill the gaps in the front line.

“You know well, if Königsberg is surrounded, the allies in the Baltic region will be isolated in the north.”

“…”

Königsberg, the capital of Prussia, which was the origin of the current German Third Reich, was a historic city. 

It also symbolized the German expansion and colonization in the east, which lasted for nearly a thousand years.

If this place was also taken by the inferior Slavs, the construction of the Lebensraum for the Germanic people would disappear like a midday dream.

Model, the commander, did not like Nazism, so he only talked about the mission of the Defense Army to protect Germany. But many soldiers, regardless of the Defense Army or the Armed SS, were intoxicated by Nazism and said they would defend this place with their lives.

But will alone was not enough.

***

“Bulge! Prepare for air raid!”

“Disperse the tank platoon! Zigzag maneuver!”

The Soviet Army had learned and used the tactics that Germany had used.

“Cluster bombs are falling!”

“Shit! 102nd tank! 102nd tank! Respond!”

The German Army’s armored unit, which was deployed to face the Soviet armored unit, was at a loss for what to do in the face of the Vultee fighters’ ground attack.

Just as the German Army had used the Stuka as a close air support and wrote the legend of ‘Blitzkrieg’, the Soviet Army also used the ground attack aircraft as a kind of aerial artillery.

When the spring rain stopped and the sky cleared up, dozens of Vultee fighters bent their noses and dropped anti-tank cluster bombs PTAB. The German tanks tried to avoid them by maneuvering here and there, but one hand could not beat ten.

“Company-level Fortress… and, ah…”

[The 601st Battalion encountered the enemy armored unit. T-34-85, the size of… a regiment!]

On one side, there were at least a battalion-sized group of Fortress tanks, and on the other, a regiment-sized group of T-34s.

The German tankers, who had trained hard and fought their way through the tank battles, were confident in their own skills, but there was not much they could do alone against the enemy’s air and artillery support.

“Wow, the fascist bastards’ fighters are coming!”

[I’m out of ammo!]

[Let’s just go back and let the second wave deal with them!]

The American-made engines provided more power than any of the fighters that the Soviet pilots had used before. The aces who had survived by adapting to low power and low speed were rather unable to cope.

The German interceptors were coming over the horizon, but the Soviet pilots just coolly turned their noses and fled to the east.

The Vultee, a multi-purpose fighter and attack aircraft, could be equipped with either ground attack or air combat weapons, but now it was deployed for ground attack. 

They had sent a radio message, so the waiting squadrons would take off with air combat weapons.

They didn’t need to desperately block the bullets that would fall on their allies’ heads like before.

“Hahahaha! Farewell, fascist bastards!”

As if to say goodbye, the anti-aircraft guns on the ground began to spit fire. To bury the fascist bastards who had crawled into the fire net to protect their allies, in the motherland’s soil.

“From the first to the sixth battery, fire all!”

“Fire!”

The anti-aircraft battery commander shouted “Fire!” repeatedly, as if he was in a good mood. 

The German fighters that were caught by the fireworks made by the anti-aircraft shells fell to the ground in a matter of seconds, spewing smoke.

Now the Soviet anti-aircraft guns had started to use proximity fuses, which were developed through technological cooperation with the United States, in large quantities. 

Of course, they were still expensive and limited to large-caliber anti-aircraft guns, but they were enough to be used by the front-line units.

The fragments scattered by the 15kg shells tore through the increasingly poor armor of the German aircraft.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! One shot every four seconds, dozens of batteries fired at the sky where the German aircraft had retreated. 

No matter how brave the German pilots were, they couldn’t stand it.

[Retreat! Damn it, retreat!]

The Soviet anti-aircraft gunners, who had been shooting at the tails of the German planes flying away, began to laugh.

“Get lost! You dog-like bastards!”

“Have some of this!”

The gunners, who had given the enemy a fistful of potatoes, now sneered with an evil grin.

Anti-aircraft guns didn’t have to be fired only at the sky. 

The Germans had used the 88mm gun to shoot down planes and tanks, why couldn’t the Soviets do the same?

“Well… let’s sprinkle some on their heads now.”

***

The medium tank battalions equipped with Tiger and Panther tanks boasted a power of a hundred to one.

It was an impossible feat for any other armored unit that had been equipped with Panzer IV or Panzer III, or various assault guns or half-tracks, to delay and stop the Soviet army’s corps-level offensive with just a battalion.

“Damn it…”

The Soviet armored units that had been pouring over the horizon were retreating again, preparing for the next attack.

The wide field was still filled with Soviet tanks that had been destroyed, spewing thick smoke. 

With just 16 tanks in one company, they had stopped a hundred-strong attack and destroyed dozens of them.

But the Tiger company was not without damage.

[Retreat, 1st company, retreat.]

The commander ordered them to continue retreating, ordering a delaying action. The Tiger tank, which boasted a magnificent weight of 70 tons, twice that of other tanks, was impossible to tow.

They had to abandon this powerful tank just because the tracks were broken, the drivetrain was torn, or the fuel was exhausted!

The company commander muttered a low curse. Damn Soviet bastards.

“It seems that these non-combat losses are bigger than the ones we lose in battle.”

“…It seems so.”

The company commander nodded bitterly as the platoon leader spoke his opinion.

Out of the 16 tanks, only three were destroyed by the enemy. But they had to leave four behind. The recovery tanks didn’t know where they were, and the soldiers were nervous about when the Soviet army would attack again.

“Blow them up. If we split the fuel, none of us will make it back.”

“Company commander!”

“There’s no choice.”

How many of our allies’ lives could we save if we took just one more of these?

How many Soviet tanks could we stop? We had to stop the vicious Soviet army, who would rape our wives and sisters and loot our cities, for at least one more day, one more step.

Bang! They put a few shells in and detonated them, and the Tiger tank shook once and bent its barrel down, spewing dark smoke.

The company members sobbed, and some stared blankly at the sky.

‘Why do we have to lose!’

The Germans screamed. 

Why, why do we have to lose!