I Became Stalin?!

Chapter 107

The ground was still soggy, but the Soviet army harassed the German army with sporadic attacks.

“Ura! Ura! Red Army Ura!”

“Smash the fascists!”

The Soviet cavalry units skillfully penetrated the area where the German army’s combat zone line was formed. 

The senior command, which was almost paralyzed, could not cope properly.

Thump, thump, thump. Grenades flew over the heads of the German soldiers who were hiding in the trenches and firing machine guns. 

The Soviet soldiers who came down from their horses and advanced from afar easily subdued the rear defense positions that were relatively weakly defended.

“The machine gun… Damn it!”

“Another jam?”

According to the regulations, one MG34 machine gun should be issued to each squad, but the regulations were meaningless now.

If they followed the regulations, they had to disband several divisions and distribute their personnel to the rest. 

If they followed the regulations, there should be no one who had been cut off somewhere and came to the front as an active soldier. If only they followed the regulations.

Anyway, the German squad whose mainstay of defense, the machine gun, broke down did not care about trivial regulations. 

The Soviet soldiers quickly subdued the trench positions and dug into the rear.

“The 2nd Battalion has succeeded in breaking through! The 1st Battalion is leading and advancing to the rear!”

[Got it. The 1st Battalion also reported that they had achieved their initial operational objectives a while ago. What is the damage situation?]

“The damage is… not big! The enemy’s counterattack is minimal.”

The headquarters was confused and the German army could not effectively coordinate a counterattack, but the frontline Soviet officers did not know that.

They just thought it was fortunate that the enemy’s artillery fire was only sporadic.

The way the headquarters commanded the artillery units as a whole was effective in crushing the enemy when the headquarters was competent. But when the headquarters became numb like now, it rather became a shackle.

The tactical unit commanders, that is, the frontline division commanders, were deprived of their most powerful firepower, the artillery regiment, and could hardly use tactics to break through and counterattack locally against the enemy’s ambush.

“No, why did the Soviet army push up to here! Guard! Guard!”

Not only were their own units uncooperative in dealing with the army. 

The air force, which had its own command system and ‘cooperated’ with the army’s operations, did not properly receive information that the Soviet army had advanced to the rear.

The air force’s ground divisions, which were established at the end of Goering’s insistence, namely ‘Air Force Field Divisions’, showed a clumsy attitude in front of a surprise attack due to their lack of combat experience with the Soviet army.

The Soviet cavalry division that bypassed the defense line and attacked the field airport set up for close air support targeted German aircraft that were wriggling on the ground.

“Destroy the runway! Aim for planes trying to take off!”

Tatatatatata! Tatatatatata! Machine guns spewed fire at airplanes. A Soviet soldier carrying a drum magazine on his back fired a machine gun at an airplane without caring about recoil.

A Stuka that ran to an airplane and ran on a runway spewed black smoke and stopped as soon as it heard news of a raid.

The pilot ran out of the cockpit in a hurry, but another plane that followed him failed to cope and crashed into Stuka head-on.

“Yeehaw! Hahahahaha!”

Bang! The two planes exploded with a loud noise.

The planes that followed each other on a limited runway to take off either crashed into a nearby grass field or quickly turned off their engines and stopped.

Either way, the Soviet army did not leave them alone. 

Planes whose fuselages were torn by machine guns exploded one by one without being able to fly back. 

A plane that can’t fly is just a big target.

“Destroy the runway too! The planes flying from here are killing our comrades!”

They didn’t have artillery to destroy the runway from beginning to end, but a few boxes of grenades were enough to make holes here and there and mess up the base.

The planes that exploded on the runway also contributed greatly. 

The highly volatile aviation fuel caught fire as soon as it touched hot lead bullets, exploding and blowing hot winds and debris around.

“Kill anyone who looks like an officer! Don’t think about taking prisoners! It’s revenge for our pilots!”

They didn’t bother to take prisoners in raid operations anyway.

In fact, it was Germany who first broke unwritten rules on battlefields. 

The Luftwaffe ordered pilots to confirm kills as much as possible in order to prevent growth of Soviet Air Force.

Many Soviet pilots were shot dead by machine guns on land, and soldiers who heard this news were angry. 

The cavalry unit shot at chest of pilots who came out of planes with their hands up without hesitation.

“Ugh!”

“Don’t hesitate! Have you forgotten what they do?”

The squad leader snapped at a young soldier who was shaking his hand, feeling guilty for shooting an unarmed enemy.

The invaders who trampled on our motherland, the fascist pigs who raped our wives and sisters, the criminal group that committed war crimes as if they were eating!

The headquarters did not openly encourage hatred for Germans, but that was only to the extent that they did not openly do so. 

Through posters, newspapers, and broadcasts, soldiers were able to grow their hostility towards Germans.

“Retreat if you’re done! Retreat!”

The gunfire subsided, and the base was littered with smoking or burning aircraft. 

The regiment commander saw this and raised his sword and shouted.

“We won! Long live the Red Army!”

“Long live the Red Cavalry!”

The cavalry commander, General Budenny, ordered.

Do not make the mistake of showing mercy to Germans when facing them. 

They are like hyenas that can hit back of our heads at any time.

As ordered, the cavalry did not bother to take prisoners in raid operations. 

The Soviet army was not a soft organization to be merciful to the bastards who flew in and poured bombs and machine guns.

The maintenance workers who had not been armed at all and surrendered as soon as they saw the Soviet army were no exception.

‘Destroying the elements that support German army is as important as destroying their army directly.’

Maintenance, supply, transportation. 

They usually focused on attacking these elements that were considered secondary.

Destroying skilled personnel is more damaging to the army than destroying a plane. 

A plane can be replaced, but the army collapses without experienced manpower. 

The Soviet army, which had almost lost all its skilled soldiers in the Barbarossa operation, was paying back what they had received.

Leaving only ruins behind, the cavalry unit retreated like the wind.

“Is the reinforcement slower than expected?”

“Maybe they attacked several places at the same time, not just here?”

It was not just this base. The Soviet cavalry unit attacked about eight field airports, three supply depots, and two railway junctions.

The German army’s mobile forces, which would have counterattacked immediately, would have had a hard time deciding where to go with reinforcement requests coming from everywhere.

On top of that, there was mud that prevented the movement of tank units.

Clank, clank, clank. 

The brown mare that the regiment commander rode kicked the dirt floor and ran forward following the order. 

The cavalry regiment commander stroked the horse’s mane as if proud.

“I like it anyway. I wish it was always like this…”

***

“Novikov, how do you compare our Soviet air force and the fascist air force?”

“Huh? Ah… Um… Please wait a moment, Comrade Secretary.”

There were still many elements where the German army was superior to the Soviet army in terms of major components of the army. 

Of course, the Soviet army had long surpassed the German army in terms of scale, and qualitatively, aspects such as tank forces or artillery forces had already overtaken them.

But the air force was still a clear inferiority.

They made up for some of the immediate inferiority by destroying field airports during Rastputitsa and when the German command system was messed up.

They inflicted hundreds of losses, which could be considered a tremendous achievement. But the gap was still far apart.

“At least… We are definitely several times inferior. But if you give us a little more time and budget…”

“Even if you deploy new bombers?”

“Ah, that… Yes. Of course, in terms of performance, there is no match for any of the aircraft currently possessed by the fascist army, but still in terms of pilot proficiency and maintenance personnel’s capabilities…”

Novikov rubbed his hands nervously and muttered various things. But to summarize, it means that they are inferior in human terms.

Immediately after the outbreak of war, just before I possessed him, Germany made a rapid advance and achieved tremendous results in a short period of time.

As soon as the surprise attack began, the air force bases that were deployed in advance were smashed with thousands of planes. 

The experienced pilots and maintenance personnel who were there all died or became prisoners.

On top of that, they kicked off the ladder by killing downed pilots mercilessly. 

They still had a long way to go. 

Even though they were training thousands of people in the rear, consumption was too severe.

“I see. Try to produce and deploy as many new fighters as possible.”

“Thank you, Comrade Secretary!”

The generals in the meeting room chuckled softly.

<We started making a lot and just made a lot.>

This joke somehow spread throughout the army.

T-34 tanks and IL-2 aircraft are like bread for our army, so make a lot! It was a word thrown out as a joke, but people liked it terribly.

“Are those fascist bastards still fighting each other?”

“Yes, that’s right Comrade Secretary. Most of the high-ranking targets of the operation were safely released, but Rommel and Model are still under investigation. Rommel is because of his power struggle during Liverpool massacre, Model is because he keeps clashing with SS uncooperatively… Of course there are also many middle-ranking officers and generals who have been messed up.”

Beria rubbed his hands as if sorry for failing the operation.

It’s a pity that we couldn’t pull down Speer and Manstein… But isn’t this enough for a good achievement? I felt like laughing somehow.

The Soviet army in ’42 will be completely different from the Soviet army in ’41.

There is no more Soviet army that lost hundreds of thousands of troops because they did not believe even after hearing proper information. 

They have spies infiltrated into German General Staff and Abwehr so they know their activities well.

They don’t need to buy time by throwing away simple tanks and recruits who haven’t even trained a few times. Our power is stronger than ever.

Now we have their operational plans as well as where they will advance.

“Let’s smash those fascist bastards!”