In the headquarters of the 30th Division of Army Group South, their anxious Division Commander Hans has sent a message to the Army Group Headquarters for support for the third time.
The city of Lodz, where the 30th Division is located, was originally won without a fight because the Polish troops stationed there fled. But now, facing the crazy counterattack of the Polish army, the 30th Division is about to face a battle even worse than the capture of Lodz.
Tragic loss.
Hans had already ordered to gather the two previously dispersed regiments at Rhodes. They were both well-trained main regiments and were top-notch combat units in the German army. However, the calls for help from the front line were still coming one after another.
Call.
The infantry regiment that was originally responsible for frontal defense has been completely disabled and has been temporarily withdrawn to the area around the headquarters for repairs. According to statistics, their originally full regiment now only has about 500 troops left, and most of them are still there.
wounded!
And the losses of the two newly transferred main groups have already exceeded a thousand people!
This is simply the most painful and tiring battle that the German army has fought since the war against Poland! There is no air support, no artillery support, and no reinforcements have even been seen until now.
The Polish army seemed to have gathered all the artillery they could find, and directed countless artillery fire at the area of Lodz, which was less than a hundred miles in radius. Even the bunkers at the front of the 30th Division were about to be leveled!
Hans in the headquarters was sweating profusely and kept urging for reinforcements. But the reply from the Army Group headquarters was always: Order your troops to hold their positions on the spot.
Could it be that General Lundstedt of the Army Group Headquarters could not see the current crisis?! Hans reviewed the battle situation since the day with confusion.
Twelve hours have passed since the 30th Army sent out a request for help telegram in the morning. During this period, the Army Group Headquarters not only rejected the 30th Division's proposal to mobilize an armored division from the reserve to prevent the Polish army from breaking through Lodz, but
Moreover, even air support was not arranged for the shaky 30th Division's defense line. As a result, the 30th Division had actually been fighting several times the number of enemies on its own for a whole day.
What worries Hans even more is that an artillery regiment under the 30th Division has now been completely suppressed by the Polish artillery! This is partly because Reinhardt deliberately suppressed the towed artillery in order to pursue mobility.
The caliber and weight were so powerful that it was not much more powerful than Poland. On the other hand, the Polish artillery faced by the 30th Division also had a strong numerical advantage, gathering at least more than 9 artillery regiments to participate in the artillery battle with the 30th Division.
.
Although the Polish Army's artillery regiment is slightly smaller than the German army in terms of organization, this is a 9-on-1 contest after all. The firepower of one German artillery regiment cannot exceed the 9 Polish artillery regiments.
"This is no longer a confrontation between levels!" Hans knocked on the edge of the sand table in the headquarters and said loudly and seriously: "Judging from the number of artillery of the Polish army on the opposite side, this should also be an artillery configuration at the level of an army group.
.We must inform the Army Group Headquarters of the current situation. A serious crisis may be about to occur in the area we are in charge of!"
In the view of the staff in the headquarters, Hans's worries are very likely to arise. The losses at the front have already exceeded the psychological bottom line of Division Commander Hans. This is perhaps the biggest loss the German army has faced since the war began.
Just now, Hans had ordered the motorized infantry battalion to be moved to the front line of Lodz, ready to be replenished at any time in crisis areas. Using the motorized infantry battalion to fill the defense line was obviously a loss-making deal, but Hans did it anyway.
, the reason is very simple, the 30th Division has no reserves to send!
If the fight continues like this, Hans may have to transfer the reconnaissance battalion with Bao Bao to go up. In less than a day, maybe even the health battalion, logistics battalion, and command company will have to rush up with guns! Otherwise, the 30th Division will
What other troops can be used to fill the defense line?
The Eighth Group Army, to which the 30th Division belongs, had already moved the rest of its troops to the front a hundred miles away to pursue and defeat the fleeing Polish army. The only division-level unit within a hundred miles was the 30th Division. We had to wait.
The other troops in the group army need to return for reinforcements, from the time of mobilization, assembly, transportation, to finally entering the battle, it will take 2 hours at the fastest, and it is already too late.
The only thing that can be counted on is the 16th Armored Division held by the Army Group as a reserve. As long as the Army Group headquarters orders the order, the 30th Division will be able to receive this powerful reinforcement within 24 hours at the fastest. You know,
The German armored divisions have been victorious in battles against the Polish army so far. As long as an armored division arrives, Hans even has the courage to accompany it to launch a large-scale counterattack.
However, the Army Group's chief of staff named Manstein not only explicitly rejected Hans's request for reinforcements, but also gave Hans a strict order not to allow any form of "transfer" of the 30th Army.
Doesn’t this mean that the entire 30th Division will be wiped out!?
Using one division to fight a group army, Hans racked his brains but could not think of a possibility of victory. Even if the German army was well-trained and well-equipped, what chance would it have of winning against a Polish army that was more than ten times larger? And their 30th Division was infantry.
The division is not the armored division, the super force that has frequently won victories since the war began. Against the enemy, their only tactic is to fight, fight, and block with flesh and blood!
"Division Commander! There is an emergency at the front, please send reinforcements immediately." A hurried liaison soldier rushed into the headquarters to report.
"Why are they in a hurry again? Didn't I already put the motorized infantry battalion behind their defense line to act as a fire brigade? It was less than 2 hours after I dispatched the motorized infantry battalion." Hans frowned.
It seems that the motorized infantry battalion has been put into battle, but it still failed to stabilize the defense line for too long. The Polish offensive should have caused another round of large-scale troop losses to the forward defense line, causing the frontline officers to know that the division had been depleted.
Still had to ask for help again.
Thinking of this, Hans gritted his teeth and ordered in a deep voice: "Don't keep the reconnaissance battalion at this time, rush them all to the forward position to block it!"
Seeing that the division commander who had always regarded the reconnaissance battalion as a treasure and had never allowed the reconnaissance battalion to participate in frontal offensive and defensive battles reluctantly threw out the reconnaissance battalion, all the staff members who were familiar with Hans lowered their heads. The battle ahead had reached its final stage.
Even the most elite troops, such as the reconnaissance battalion, can only be used as cannon fodder in trench warfare. Why is the army group headquarters unwilling to send reserve teams to relieve the crisis? Does Commander Lundstedt see this?
No, is it true that a battle of this scale cannot be handled by one division of the 30th Division?
"Don't throw the elites of the reconnaissance battalion up all at once. Split them up and organize them into the logistics battalion and the health battalion, and then put them together in the defense line." Division Commander Hans lowered his head and added the order in a low voice.
