Zhukov naturally carried out the task of deploying troops and punishing generals.

The commander of the Southwest Front is Lieutenant General Vatutin, who was temporarily transferred from the Voronezh Front.

The Stalingrad Front was commanded by Yelymenko, while the Don Front was transferred to General Rokossovsky...

These transfers were all carried out secretly, and even only a few people in the headquarters knew about it, and orders were issued in the name of the original commander.

The reason for doing this was because they were worried that the Germans would notice something due to the transfer of commanders: Rokossovsky, Vatutin, and Yelymenko, these are all experienced generals who grew up in the war.

Including Zhukov... If the Germans knew that these people were all concentrated in the Stalingrad area, then no need to think about it, these Russians must have made some big move in the direction of Stalingrad.

In addition, there is the mobilization of troops.

The troops and equipment of the Don Front were transferred to the South-Western Front. In the end, the South-Western Front had five armies, including two Guards Infantry Groups, a Tank Army and two Air Force Groups, while the Don Front had only four miscellaneous armies that were seriously understaffed.

.

Giving this unit to Rokossovsky was not a sign of contempt for him. On the contrary, Zhukov trusted Rokossovsky.

Because as Shulka said, although the Don River Front is the weakest of the three armies and its tasks are secondary, they only appear to be secondary. Each of them is crucial.

For example, covering the flanks of the Southwest Front, or delaying the German 6th Army...

You must know that the German 6th Army is completely a German army, and the Soviet army always has a sense of fear and greater psychological pressure when facing the German army.

This is actually a bit like horse racing, that is, using bad horses against good horses, so the probability of winning is greater.

The problem is that the "bad horse" of the Don Front cannot be outgrown, so it needs an excellent commander.

Shulka didn't need to worry about this. He originally wanted to meet with Rokossovsky, his old superior, but soon he learned that he and the 8th Infantry Regiment would be transferred to the Stalingrad Front.

"You are already the commander of the 8th Infantry Regiment!" Zhukov said.

"What?"

"Major Mikhailovich is injured!" Zhukov explained: "Although his life is not in danger, he no longer has enough energy to command the battle. I think you are fully capable of commanding a regiment! In addition, the 8th Infantry Regiment includes several

The student company will be incorporated into the main attack force, do you have any objection?"

"Yes, Comrade Zhukov!" Shulka replied: "I have no objection!"

This is actually what it should be. Although Stalingrad also needs elites at this time, the interspersed troops need elites even more, especially elites like the 8th Infantry Regiment who have grown up on the battlefield and can deal with various difficulties (Note: Step 8

There is even a naval infantry battalion in the Corps, and it has previous experience in using amphibious landing craft to cross rivers, which is very important for interspersed troops in cross-river operations).

The early battle started two days later.

The so-called early battle refers to what Shulka calls "feint attack".

In fact, the fighting between the enemy and ourselves on the Soviet-German contact line has never stopped, but before that the scale was relatively small and most of the Soviet troops were in a defensive state.

Now, in order to consume the German troops and attract reinforcements, the Soviet army launched a medium-scale counterattack almost across the board.

At the same time, the Soviet troops in Mamayev Ridge pretended to be defeated and withdrew from the war zone.

In fact, this cannot even be regarded as "pretending", because in order to pretend to be more like it, Khrushchev really sacrificed the strength of two battalions...Khrushchev ordered to reduce the supplies to the troops stationed at Mamayev Heights, and another

On the one hand, they were strictly ordered to stick to Mamayev Heights and not take a step back.

This is why I don’t need to say more. It’s a complete show. If you directly order a retreat, you will give up a strategic location to the German army for no reason. It will be difficult for the German army not to doubt it.

However, if it was defeated by the Germans forcefully and at the cost of considerable casualties, it would undoubtedly enhance its credibility.

I just pity the two battalions stationed on Mamayev Hill... They are destined to be destroyed if they hold on because of a serious lack of supplies. What their superiors told them is that the east coast communication line was completely blocked by the enemy and an ammunition depot was bombed by the enemy.

destroyed, so ammunition was in short supply.

In fact, the bombing of the ammunition depot by the Germans was also a part of the acting. It was too easy to do this. Pile gasoline and explosives at a train station to prepare, and the German pilots artificially detonated the gasoline when they bombed the train station... only

Hearing the sound of "boom", a fiery red mushroom cloud rose from the train station.

Even the German pilots were startled by this scene, and then they shouted excitedly: "We blew up the enemy's ammunition depot! Repeat, we blew up the enemy's ammunition depot!"

"How do you know this?" the superior asked.

"The explosion of the ammunition depot can be seen more than ten kilometers away!" The pilot replied: "I'm pretty sure that the ammunition depot was destroyed!"

Although these pilots didn't even know which lucky guy dropped the bomb that luckily hit the ammunition depot, the good news was verified by the reconnaissance aircraft and passed on level by level.

Therefore, this perfectly echoes the dilemma of insufficient supplies at Mamayev Heights. Even if the Soviet army was captured and interrogated by the Germans, the news the Germans received was still this.

However, under this situation, it was almost impossible for Mamayev Gang to win the battle, and at the same time, they could not retreat because the command headquarters issued death orders one after another:

"We must hold on and fight to the last man. You know, Mamayev Heights is very important to us!"

"We're still in position, don't take a step back! We'll send you supplies right away!"

…

This was even strongly opposed by Golikov.

"We can't do this!" Golikov called Khrushchev: "First of all, Mamayev Heights is very important to Stalingrad, which will cause panic in Stalingrad. Secondly, Stalingrad has insufficient troops.

There is especially a lack of experienced veterans, and these two battalions are troops with rich combat experience! We can't just abandon them on the battlefield and sacrifice them!"

"We have to do this, Comrade Golikov!" Khrushchev replied without hesitation: "You have to know, this is for the sake of the overall situation! If you can't do it, then I will ask someone else to give the order.

!”
Chapter completed!