After the battle, Sokov planned to go to the command post in Beigang and call the commanders to hold a post-war summary meeting. Who knew that as soon as he walked into the command post, Vitkov said to him: "Comrade Brigade Commander, you are here just now. The commander just called and asked you to go to his command center immediately."
"The commander was so anxious to let me go," Sokov asked Vitkov curiously, thinking that he could get some useful information from the deputy chief of staff of the army: "Comrade Deputy Brigade Commander, do you know what's going on?"
Unexpectedly, Witkov shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, spread his hands, and said with a wry smile: "I don't know either. I just ordered me to go to the Army Command with you."
Seeing that Vitkov was going to the headquarters with him, Sokov guessed that it might be a big deal and did not dare to stay here for a long time. He quickly called Goria and told him: "Comrade Captain, order your soldiers to collect useful weapons and ammunition as soon as they face the next enemy attack, they have to fight with them."
Hearing Goriya agree, Sokov called Vitkov to walk outside. As soon as he reached the door, he suddenly remembered another thing: "By the way, Comrade Captain, how many prisoners have you captured?"
"There are about two hundred prisoners, half of whom are wounded." Goriya knew that Sokov would not ask about this for no reason, and hurriedly asked, "How should we deal with them?"
"Now we are short of supplies, and there are not so many medicines to treat the enemy's wounded." Sokov said without hesitation: "Let them all go."
"What, let them all go?" Goriya was startled by Sokov's words. He asked carefully: "Comrade Brigade Commander, what are we finally caught? Let's just let the prisoners we have finally caught?"
If the German prisoners were captured, Sokov definitely did not want to let go of them easily, but just now he witnessed the tenacious fighting spirit of the Romanian army with his own eyes, and he still admired these enemies. Mamayevgang does not have the conditions to contain prisoners now, and he does not want to shoot them or send them to Siberia, so he decided to let them go.
Of course, he did not let these enemies go unconditionally, but ordered Goria: "Let these prisoners go back and tell their commanders, and immediately send someone to take away all the bodies in front of the position. I promise them that our soldiers will never shoot at the soldiers who collected the bodies."
On the way to the headquarters, Vitkov praised Sokov: "Comrade Brigade Commander, you did the right thing. You should let the Romanians take away all their bodies. Although the weather is getting colder now, thousands of bodies piled on the hillside are still prone to causing epidemics."
"Col. Sokov, have you heard that your troops and the enemy were fighting bayonets?" As soon as he walked into the army headquarters, Cuikov put down his work and asked with concern.
"Yes, Comrade Commander." Sokov quickly replied respectfully: "It is the commanders and fighters of the 192nd Battalion and the sailors of the Marine Battalion, fighting against the attacking enemies."
"Col. Sokov, why do you ask the soldiers to fight for bayonets?" A political worker sitting in the corner couldn't help but interrupt when he heard Sokov say this, "Why don't you use bullets and shells to destroy them? Isn't that easier?"
Sokov looked at the political worker who was talking and found that he was a strange face. He stared at the other party intently, trying to control his emotions, and asked with steady luck: "I wonder what this commander should call him?"
"This is the deputy director of the Political Department of the 57th Army." When Cuikov introduced the other party's identity to Sokov, he didn't know whether it was negligent or intentional, but only mentioned the other party's identity, but did not mention the other party's name: "He was ordered to bring the 138th Infantry Division to supplement us."
"138th Infantry Division?" When he heard this number, Sokov hesitated for a moment, and then asked back: "Is it the troops commanded by Colonel Lyudnikov?"
"Yes, it's his troops." Krelov came over and added: "They will strengthen the defense of the barricade factory. The troops that were originally holding there have been completely lost in the battle a few days ago."
"Col. Sokov," saw that Sokov and his friends seemed to have forgotten themselves, the deputy director of the Political Department from the 57th Army was a little anxious: "You have not answered my question yet, why do you want the soldiers to fight bayonets with the enemy instead of destroying the enemy with shells and bullets?"
"Comrade Deputy Director of the Political Department!" Sokov turned to face the other party and said word by word: "If possible, I would rather have one hundred shells and ten thousand bullets in exchange for the life of a soldier. However, due to the long-term battle, our brigade's ammunition was exhausted, so that in the face of the enemy rushing towards us like a tide, our soldiers could only bravely rush up, fight hand-to-hand combat with them, and fight bayonets." He said this with anger. If he hadn't seen the other party as a political cadre from a friendly army, his fists would have fallen on the other party's face long ago.
Sokov's attitude frightened the deputy director of the political department. He couldn't help but retreated back until his back hit the wall, and stopped and said in a panic: "I'm sorry, comrade Colonel, I don't know that your ammunition has been consumed. I thought you were..."
"I thought it was?" This time the spoke was Gurov, a military committee member of the army. He looked at the political worker with a hint of contempt on his face: "Do you think Colonel Sokov let the soldiers fight bayonets with the enemy to show his personal heroism? Let me tell you, let alone in our 62nd Army, even in the entire Stalingrad Front, there is no second commander who can fight more than him. He is always good at achieving the greatest results at the lowest price, which is also the main reason why he was promoted from a corporal to a colonel in less than a year."
Although the rude words of this political worker made Sokov very angry, he also reminded himself. After Gurov finished speaking, he quickly asked Cui Kov: "Comrade Commander, in order to repel the enemy's attack, we have almost consumed all the ammunition of the troops. Do you see if we can add some to us? Otherwise, today's hand-to-hand combat will happen again. By then, I will not have so many troops to fight with the enemy to fight bayonets."
Cuikov thought Sokov would want to ask for reinforcements from him, but he was worried about insufficient troops and there was no extra force to replenish. At this moment, when he heard Sokov only asked for ammunition to be replenished, he suddenly breathed a sigh of relief, and then said, "Don't worry, Colonel Sokov, other troops seized a large amount of weapons and ammunition in the battle. Since these ammunitions are all German weapons, unless our troops change their gear, they will not be used at all. I will ask the Minister of Logistics Major General Lobov to arrange for people to send them to Mamayev's hill later."
"Great, Comrade Commander, this is really great." Seeing Cui Kefu agreeing to replenish himself with ammunition so readily, Sokov was overjoyed. He thanked him repeatedly and said, "It is still acceptable to be hungry, but if there are no bullets in the gun, we will not be able to hit the enemy hard."
Krelov took out the paper and pen, looked at Sokov and asked, "Col. Sokov, how many enemies have you wiped out and how many weapons and ammunition have you seized in the battle that just ended?"
Sokov was asked by Krelov's question. He hesitated for a moment before answering awkwardly: "I'm sorry, Comrade Chief of Staff, I really can't answer your question. Because I came here with Colonel Vitkov before I could count the results."
"What about you, comrade Chief of Staff." Krelov saw that Sokov could not answer his question, so he turned his head to Vetkov who was standing beside him: "I know that when the battle happened, you stayed in the command post of Beigang. You can always answer questions that Colonel Sokov could not answer, right?"
When Vitkov heard the question of his boss, he quickly replied: "Comrade Chief of Staff, the specific results of the battle have not been counted yet, but according to my estimate, the Romanian officers and soldiers who were wiped out by our army should be between 1,500 and 1,800; as for the capture, there were two German tanks No. 3, which were basically complete, and could be used as long as there were tank soldiers; in terms of guns, there were five heavy machine guns, more than twenty light machine guns, and thousands of rifles..."
If anyone had reported to Krelov with such vague numbers in the past, he would have been scolded. Then today when he heard the report of Vetkov, his subordinate, Krelov always had a smile on his face. After recording what the other party said, he said rationally: "Comrade Deputy Chief of Staff, remember to report the detailed results after he returns later."
After reporting on the situation in Mamayevgang, Sokov asked Cuikov about the reason for recruiting him here: "Comrade Commander, you said there is an urgent matter, so I asked me to rush to the headquarters immediately. I wonder if the superiors are planning to hand over the difficult and glorious tasks to our brigade to complete?"
"That's right. I just received a report from the Front Command that two to three divisions will enter the city one after another." Since there are no outsiders in the headquarters, Cuikov said straight to the point: "After the troops arrive, we will carry out a new round of counterattack against the enemy from the direction of Mamayevgang. Call you here, first, to hear what you think about this counterattack, and second, to hope you can assist us in formulating a detailed counterattack plan."
As soon as he heard that Cuikov asked him to assist in formulating a combat plan, Sokov couldn't help but feel a headache. You must know that now the sky above Stalingrad is controlled by German aircraft, and the troops will not receive air support at all when attacking; even if they can get artillery fire support from the east coast, the range of the artillery fire is limited, and after the troops advance to a certain position, the artillery fire support will automatically terminate.
Seeing Sokov not speaking for a long time, Cuikov asked again: "Col. Sokov, I know you have known about this counterattack. Tell me, what do you think?"
What can I think? This kind of counterattack with insufficient preparation is not only difficult to achieve ideal results, but also cannot last long. It can only continuously lose precious back strength. Sokov can only think about these facts in his heart, but he dare not say them casually, otherwise he may cause himself to be killed.
However, seeing Cuikov repeatedly ask himself, Sokov knew that it would be impossible not to express his opinion, so he could only cough gently, clear his throat, and say, "Comrade Commander, I think that in order to launch a counterattack in the direction of Mamayev, we must first obtain the cover of the air force and the long-term support of artillery fire from the ground, so that we can break through the enemy's position. Otherwise, once our attack is frustrated, the counterattack troops will be blocked in front of the enemy's position, and the enemy from both sides of the north and south will turn around. This counterattack will end in failure."
"Sorry, Colonel Sokov, the air cover you mentioned cannot be provided." Cuikov said bitterly after Sokov finished speaking: "Even the artillery we deployed on the East Coast can only provide you with limited artillery support in the early stages of your attack. Once you go beyond the range of artillery fire, the artillery support will also stop."
Without strong support from the air force and artillery, Sokov could only place his hope on the tank troops. He asked tentatively: "Comrade Commander, what about the tanks? Can our offensive troops get the support of tanks?"
"Tank, I can find a way to get some of it for you." Cuikov this time, but he raised a new problem for him: "But the tank player needs to solve it yourself."
Solving the tank player problem by yourself is not a difficult problem for Sokov. After all, Colonel Bere is still at Mamayev. Although many of his tank players were sacrificed in the battle some time ago, there is still no big problem for the remaining people to form a powerful tank assault team.
Thinking of this, he asked Cui Kefu again: "Comrade Commander, I want to ask, how many tanks can you provide us?"
"I can't answer this question now." Cui Kev shrugged and said, "But Director Peter of the Red October Factory will also come later. You can ask him personally how many tanks he can provide you."
When Sokov learned that Peter was coming here too, he felt relieved. Some time ago, he had been persuaded and got more than forty tanks from Peter. In less than a month, these tanks were killed or injured. If Peter asked later, he would not know how to answer him.
Chapter completed!