I Became Stalin?!

Chapter 102

The minefields densely laid by the German army effectively blocked the advance of the infantry.

Bang! Boom! 

Amidst the screams, the sound of mines exploding could be heard occasionally.

“Damn it… fuck…”

Please, let there be no mines in front of my next step. 

Nikolai prayed fervently in his heart.

Perhaps the Soviet riflemen who stepped on mines and blew up did not think so, but the Soviet artillery fire that hit from all directions had somewhat cleared the mines in the German minefield.

The mines of this era were things that exploded when shocked, and the shelling was enough to cause that shock.

However, the craters made by the shells were deep and hindered the march, so the Soviet riflemen mostly chose to bypass them.

And unfortunately, they stepped on mines that had not yet exploded and blew up, or even more unfortunately, they did not explode quickly and slowly died on the battlefield.

The recruits who were not yet accustomed to the battlefield did not want to walk into the red remains that had been their comrades, and as a result, they stepped on mines that had not yet exploded.

“Engineers! Where are the engineers!”

The infantry who did not step on mines were not safe either.

The barbed wire, trenches, and machine gun defenses built under the instructions of skilled German officers awaited them. 

In front of the barriers optimized for slaughtering humans, the riflemen added blood to Mother Earth.

A defensive position guarded by a single platoon and a few machine guns seemed simple to hear, but it required a tremendous loss of riflemen to eliminate them.

There were plenty of mortars and 76mm field guns for the Soviet army. But it was not enough to allocate them to every German platoon that built and defended their positions.

Boom! Boom boom boom!

The riflemen of Nikolai’s platoon waited while watching the 76mm direct fire gun spew flames.

It did not have the dignity of a 203mm howitzer with overwhelming caliber, but it was a weapon that was enough to help the riflemen who saw it up close.

“The barbed wire zone has been cleared! Riflemen forward! Ura! Ura!”

As soon as six direct fire guns fired a few shots, the barbed wire became rags, and the machine guns in the German position also began to be silent.

The combat engineers who had to take the lead in breaking through that defense line with their bare bodies exchanged a few words quietly.

“God, please protect us in the next assault…”

Seeing their allies who had stepped on mines and lost their arms and legs or were torn by barbed wire and became rags, the engineers sighed.

Even if they crossed that defense line, another defense line and minefield appeared.

Until they removed the anti-tank mines buried in the trenches, heavy weapons such as field guns could not approach there.

“Die! You fascist bastards! Die!”

The Soviet riflemen stormed into the silent position and eliminated the survivors, and also removed the anti-tank mines, and also received shelling from 10.5cm howitzers set up for supporting the battalion defense line.

“Gun battery 1, fire three rounds at coordinates three-three-two-one. Then fire six rounds at coordinates four-one-three-one. Execute!”

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The Soviet artillerymen also fired fierce cannon fire to destroy the German howitzers, but the Germans cunningly poured concentrated shelling for a while and then silenced to hide their coordinates.

And where they poured concentrated shelling was mostly where they clearly knew there were enemies, in other words, German positions that had been occupied.

It was such a defense line that had to be broken through by tanks.

Of course, infantry fighting vehicles and trucks carrying field guns, mortars, and grenade launchers followed behind the infantry units, but as always, no matter how many allies there were, they were not enough.

Machines were expensive and humans were cheap. 

At least that’s how it looked to those above. 

The generals threw soldiers like cannon fodder.

***

Screeeeech Craaaack!

“Ha, damn it…”

Nikolai cursed.

He was still alive. 

Except for some of his platoon members who had blown up after stepping on mines earlier, his unit was almost intact as he led them as a senior platoon leader.

Shasha’s right ear was torn and bleeding, but it was too cruel to call him a wounded soldier with one ear on this battlefield.

Shasha knew that too, so he kept his mouth shut and wrapped his ear with a bandage while walking shakily.

The Germans finally began to deploy Stukas. 

The Stukas flew in formation and sprayed machine gun fire at ground targets.

“Take cover! Take cover!”

Like a bird of prey catching mice on the ground with its sharp claws. But what made this bird of prey different from eagles or hawks was that it was made of steel, and its claws, the machine guns, could tear and explode steel vehicles.

Neither was good news for Nikolai and his men. 

The anti-aircraft tanks that had been supporting the ground fire now pointed their machine guns at the sky and fired, and the large-caliber anti-aircraft guns also shot beams of light into the dark sky.

Tatatatatata! Bang! Boom!

Sometimes, when a Stuka was shot down, Nikolai and the soldiers cheered softly. 

There were more allied vehicles destroyed, but there were too many vehicles to sigh every time.

Shasha seemed to have lost a lot of blood and looked dizzy. 

A recruit from the next platoon supported him.

“Hey, Shasha, hang in there. After the joint infantry offensive, you know, the one we riflemen and others are doing, the tanks will be deployed.”

“No, when did you start writing like that?”

Ivan, the trickster, joked as if trying to lighten the mood.

Nikolai also tried to give hope by using the difficult word ‘joint infantry’ in his own way, but it seemed better to do so.

He missed the laughter of his friends who had left in what seemed like a few hours. 

It was hard to bring good friends to a battlefield where gunpowder, steel, and blood splashed. 

Some of the veterans chuckled or just lifted their lips and scratched their necks.

But it was good news that the tanks were coming.

He didn’t know when they would come, or if they would come this way. ‘Operation Zitadelle’ was like that. 

The riflemen had to continue the offensive.

While the tanks were breaking through, they had to make it difficult for the enemy to choose where to deploy their reserves, and to do that, the riflemen had to maintain their engagement with the enemy while the tanks carried out an aggressive annihilation of the enemy’s reserve forces after breaking through the center.

Nikolai had seen the captain saying this with a blank stare.

The captain wondered if he had used too difficult and grandiose words, and decided to choose simpler and grander words this time.

“The riflemen’s offensive never ends! Soviet hurrah!”

Nikolai thought he could translate that into simple and reactionary words.

“Go die until you die, forward.”

Of course, it didn’t make much difference whether you died going forward or backward.

You would either be branded as a coward and a defeatist and be sent to die in the gulags of Siberia, or be drafted into a penal battalion and die with a gun pointed at the back of your head, or be executed by a political officer as an example.

The political officers did not seem to enjoy summary executions, but they did not hesitate to execute those who clearly incited defeatism and reactionism.

There were some good people among the political officers. Like Semel, whose fate was unknown.

They listened well to the soldiers’ grievances, and sometimes succeeded in solving them. 

The soldiers were always grateful to the political officers who read and wrote letters for them.

Of course, there were assholes everywhere.

“Forward! Advance! Assault for the party and Comrade Stalin!”

The most cowardly political officers also became brave like lions on the battlefield when they hid safely behind the soldiers and pointed their guns at their own comrades instead of the enemy.

Even now, a political officer was shouting “Assault! Assault!” and giving orders to the soldiers from behind.

And Nikolai’s squad advanced.

Into the shitty battlefield.

***

“We have to keep up the offensive!”

The staff members all nodded their heads.

On the blackboard, there was a huge map of the front line and statistics of casualties.

[170 : 310]

One death is a tragedy, but a million deaths is a statistic.

From the veterans who had experienced the civil war to the new generals who came from the ranks of soldiers. 

They seemed to not feel real that so many people could die.

But still, I ordered them to continue the offensive firmly.

“We can always recover our non-combat losses. But to force them to lose, we have to keep up the offensive. That’s how we can exhaust them!”

The wounded could be returned to the ‘front’ after being treated. 

Whether it was the front line where bullets flew, or the labor front where steel and gunpowder were produced.

But the prisoners who occurred while retreating could never return to the front line. Until the war was over.

“But… Comrade Secretary. We are hitting the enemy’s defense line and our casualties are increasing.”

“But how long are we going to defend and retreat? Someday we have to reclaim our motherland that was occupied by them, don’t we? Aren’t they weakest right now?”

The sophisticated defense system of the German army, consisting of machine guns, mines, barbed wire and trenches, was the biggest factor that caused enormous losses to the Soviet army.

Most of them were counted as deaths in combat, but if one person died, there were as many people who were seriously injured, and there were also some people who were treated as non-combat losses while transporting or recovering them. 

Germany was imposing such huge losses on the Soviet army.

Nevertheless, the Soviet army had to continue its offensive.

“Later on, you will think that if you had those equipment that you lost while retreating, breaking through that defense line would have been much easier. How much more blood of our people are you going to spill? The war has to end sooner by one day, by one week!”

Most of the casualties occurred when retreating. 

In ancient times, in the cold weapon era, they were massacred while fleeing after their formation was broken.

When their formation was dense, they were strong, but when their formation was scattered, their combat power plummeted and they ended up being killed one by one and dragged away.

But in modern warfare, there was a different meaning for casualties occurring while retreating.

No matter how good a cannon or tank it was, they couldn’t take everything with them when they retreated hastily. 

They would just die if they tried to take those things with them while dying.

So they had to destroy even those weapons that could be repaired and used again by their own hands before leaving.

Or they would be captured by the enemy and used against their own comrades again. 

So they had to abandon what was broken and destroy what was abandoned. 

They had to turn into scrap metal what their people had made with blood and sweat.

That’s why taking an offensive could force bleeding on defenders.

“I will follow your order! Long live the Soviet Union!”

“Long live the Red Army!”

In the end, the generals decided to follow the order.

Many of our soldiers were dying, but in the end we were forcing them to lose more. That would be a ‘hopeful’ news.

The generals and political bureau members who nodded their heads seemed to be becoming numb to the statistics of death.

I was too.

I woke up from nightmares for days and nights, sweating profusely, and looked at my gray hair. It seemed like I still had some feeling, but how long would I react like this?

If I kept suffering like this, I felt like I would die of dehydration first.

But if I stopped suffering, what would I become?