After the hospital and school were occupied by the German army, Golidov suddenly woke up.
"The focus of their attack is Mamayev Hill!" Golidov said to Krylov in a panic: "If Mamayev Hill is captured, Stalingrad will collapse faster than we imagined.
So much, we don’t even have time to evacuate!”
Krylov did not dare to neglect, he immediately replied: "I will organize reinforcements immediately!"
But it was too late to send reinforcements.
The terrain of the Mamayev Hills is quite special. It is bounded by the Banne Gorge to the north, the Dolgi Gorge to the south, and the Volga River to the west. There are only a few roads and paths leading to the Mamayev Hills.
The German army was well prepared for this. They used fighter planes and artillery fire to coordinate. Any troops that tried to reinforce Mamayev Heights were hit back by a burst of shells and bullets. Not only did the Soviet army fail to reinforce, they suffered heavy casualties.
Then the German motorized infantry division quickly launched an attack towards Mamayev Hill.
Upon hearing this, Golikov could not help but turn pale.
He hurriedly reported the situation to the headquarters and hoped to receive air reinforcements, but he was disappointed.
"No, we don't have excess air power!" Yeremenko replied without thinking: "Even if we did, we couldn't use the air force in this situation!"
In fact, it was not that there was no air power, but that the Soviet army transferred most of its air power to the Caucasus to fight the Germans.
The advantage of the Luftwaffe is that their aircraft are faster and more agile, which is very important in air combat, because it means who can bite whose tail, and then press a button to shoot bullets.
Except for a limited number of fighter aircraft, most of the Soviet Air Force are low-speed fighters, and there are even many backward bi-wing fighters. This puts the Soviet Army in a passive state of being beaten most of the time in air battles.
But there is one exception, and that is the air combat in the Caucasus.
The reason why it is an exception is that the Caucasus is full of majestic peaks. When fighter planes fly through these peaks, especially when covering infantry fighting on the mountains, high speed will not be an advantage but a disadvantage, because it means the pilot's reaction
The time is shorter, otherwise you will hit the mountain accidentally.
At the same time, under such circumstances, it would be very dangerous if you want to bite the enemy plane's tail again, or reduce the speed to the same as the enemy plane, but this also means that the German fighter planes have lost their advantage.
Therefore, the Soviet army transferred its main force to fight in the Caucasus region.
This strategy is of course correct, because they almost always kill people over Stalingrad. In this case, putting them into the Caucasus is still a good use.
As a result, the air supremacy over Stalingrad was undoubtedly in the hands of the German army.
"You must defend Mamayev Heights!" Yeremenko ordered: "At any cost!"
"Yes, Comrade Yereomenko!" Golikov stepped forward and answered.
But this is a helpless answer. Other troops cannot reinforce. There is only one battalion on Mamayev Hill, and there is a serious lack of anti-tank equipment. However, the enemy is constantly pouring into Mamayev Hill from the gap, and there is a large amount of equipment.
Tanks and assault guns... It is almost impossible to hold Mamayev Heights in this situation.
After a moment of silence, Golikov ordered: "Send another regiment up!"
"Yes!" Krylov answered.
After conveying the order, Krylov said: "I hope they can last until dark!"
Golikov knew what this meant. At least enemy aircraft would be unable to move after dark, and reinforcements would be easier then.
However, Golikov has no hope in this, because the power disparity between the enemy and ourselves is too great.
In fact, Captain Oleg stationed at Mamayev Heights has requested to retreat several times...
"The enemy has more than a hundred assault guns, and our firepower is vulnerable to them!" Captain Oleg said: "But we are powerless against them. I request to retreat, Comrade Golikov, otherwise we will all
Die here!"
Golikov's answer was simple: "You cannot retreat, and you are not allowed to retreat until the last person is beaten... What's more, I think you have seen the troops heading for reinforcements. Can you withdraw?"
With that, Golikov hung up the phone.
In fact, people on high ground can indeed retreat.
Because the German army is good at using a kind of psychological warfare, although they will attack the enemy's reinforcements, they will let them escape if their target is a certain important place, such as Mamayev Hill.
The purpose of this is to disintegrate the morale of the Russian army and make them and those who come after them know that they can survive as long as they give up here, so not many people are willing to stick to it.
But of course Golikov would not tell Oleg this. He just said to Oleg over and over again: "If you give up your position, you will be punished!", "Reinforcements will arrive soon, hold on.
position!"……
But as time went by, the number of troops stationed at Mamayev Heights became smaller and smaller, and Golikov and Krylov had to face the reality that they would lose this important place.
At this time, Shulka and the others were negotiating with the director of the "Red October Metallurgical Factory".
"Turn off all the machines!" Major Mikhailovich ordered.
"Whose order?" the factory director asked, "Or show me the documents!"
"My order!" Major Mikhailovich was furious: "This is an emergency!"
The factory director glanced at Major Mikhailovich and replied: "Sorry, Comrade Major, production is also an emergency. As you know, we are producing bullets, shells and even raw materials for tanks. If we stop production,
Do you know what this means?"
It seems understandable that the entire armament production will form an interdependent production chain, and problems in one link will cause the entire production chain to break and production to stagnate.
So this is not something that a major has the authority to stop production just by saying.
This was an issue that Shulka had not considered before. He thought it was simple.
"Comrade Factory Director!" Shulka handed the factory director a cigarette and invited him aside, saying: "I hope you understand that if I want my subordinates to trade one life for another, they will be happy to do so.
Do you want me to do this?"
The factory director couldn't help but change his face when he heard this, and then replied: "No, you won't do that!"
"You can try it!" Shulka said: "Now, this is the last time I ask you to do this, stop production immediately and close the drainage system!"
The factory director hesitated, but finally did not dare to try.
"Okay, Comrade Captain!" said the factory director: "But I will report this matter to my superiors truthfully, especially what you said to me! You must know that this is not what a soldier should do. We are
What it does is..."
"I know, Comrade Factory Director!" Shulka interrupted him, then raised his head backwards to signal him to move faster.