I Became Stalin?! - Chapter 146:

Chapter 146

While a bloody street battle between infantry and infantry was taking place in the city, the Soviet army launched a second offensive to bypass Minsk and strike the rear.

The basic doctrine of the Soviet army’s operation was the <Deep Battle>.

They launched a coordinated offensive across the entire front, and while the enemy’s reserves were in a dilemma, they mobilized powerful armored forces to break through the defense line and hit the enemy’s center of gravity.

The German medium tanks played the role of stopping the breakthrough led by the Soviet armored units.

The medium tank battalions using the Panzer V Panther eventually had difficulty performing their role as the Soviet introduced the new ‘Budenovka medium tank’, but the battalions equipped with the Tiger VI took over that role again.

The Tiger boasted a near-invincible performance in anti-tank warfare.

“Hahaha! T-34 or something… Fire as soon as it’s loaded!”

The 2nd company of the 601st medium tank battalion commanded by Lieutenant Bitman was blocking the Soviet army that was trying to advance to the rear by bypassing the Zaslavskoye reservoir north of Minsk.

They blocked the small bridge called Ulitsa Sovetskaya and deployed 13 Tigers, a force of one hundred. The Soviet army had no choice but to flounder.

“Damn it. Even with the Budenovka medium tank, I can’t guarantee it if I get hit from a thousand meters away…”

“Isn’t there a good way?”

The commander of the tank regiment who was assigned the mission of securing the bridge and the advance route scratched the back of his head. He was quite flustered when he saw the medium tanks of the armored reconnaissance unit that he had deployed as the vanguard explode one after another.

“Do I have to use that… method?”

***

“Huh?

Even amid the roaring engine sound of the tank, the German tankers could tell.

The Soviet army continuously deployed tank units as if they didn’t care about their lives or a few tanks. The 2nd company, which had just repelled the fourth battalion-level tank unit’s offensive, had just received ammunition from the battalion’s supply unit.

A sharp sound came from somewhere. A sound that tankers couldn’t help but know, and shouldn’t ignore.

“Shit! It’s an air raid!”

Screeeeech! Whooooosh!

The Soviet army’s new Bulgom fighters had horns that mimicked the Stuka and advertised their march around the neighborhood.

Although it was not very advantageous in terms of military aspects, it had a great effect on scaring the soldiers and giving trauma to the survivors.

Even the aces who had survived dozens of bloody battles began to zigzag their tanks as soon as they heard the word air raid.

“Damn it! Damn it! What are those bastards in the air force doing!”

Maybe the fighters, including the Bf109, were fighting to death in the sky over Minsk, but the tankers who had their heads blown off by the air force were not in a situation to understand and generously let go of their situation.

“Here, eat this! Hahaha!”

This time, it was the Soviet air force’s turn to hunt the German tanks.

No matter how heavily armed they were with ‘medium tanks’, the upper armor and engine room were not protected by thick armor.

The frontal armor could withstand the ordinary tank gun, but the bomb that fell from above hit the weak point of the tank directly.

Tatatatatatatak! Tatatatatatat! The sound of explosions like roasting beans swept over the tankers and passed by.

“Wow! Is that also included in the kill record?”

“Honestly, did the squadron leader shoot it down? The cluster bomb did it all.”

The attack squadron made a light joke and looked at the tank unit below.

The ‘anti-tank aerial bomb’, or PTAB for short, was a small bomb weighing about 2kg, but it was packed with explosives and could tear apart the upper armor of a decent tank.

“Let’s go one more round!”

The Bulgom bombers loaded eight cluster bombs, each packed with 50 PTABs, and dropped them one by one.

The Bulgom squadron led by the squadron leader made a dive to a low altitude of 100m and dropped two bombs each, then quickly climbed up to avoid any possible machine gun fire.

The cluster bomb exploded and sprinkled small bombs that were fatal with just one hit on the heads of the tankers, and the medium tanks had to drag their heavy and slow bodies and look for a place to hide.

[Damn it! The drive system is broken… Chijijik…]

“9th tank! 9th tank! Shit…”

Boom! The radio reception from the 9th tank was cut off with an explosion.

The Tiger tank was powerful, but it had a serious problem. It had a 70-ton body and a 700-horsepower engine, which made its off-road driving speed terrible.

On top of that, the degraded fuel, the depleted rare metals, and the poor metal quality caused the engine and drive system to malfunction.

The 9th tank also whined a while ago that the engine wouldn’t listen, but they had to go out with it after fixing the engine roughly because the Soviet air force bombed the railroad.

“Ha…”

After the air raid, four out of 13 tanks were destroyed. The 9th tank, whose engine room exploded with a cluster bomb after the drive system broke and couldn’t evade, the 2nd tank and the 14th tank of the deputy commander who got hit by an aerial bomb head-on, and the 11th tank that was caught by the Budenovka tank while retreating.

Bang! Bang! Bang! The heavy roar sounded again. Lieutenant Bitman clenched his teeth and tried to give an order.

Thud! Boom! Until he heard the explosion.

“What the hell! Damn it…”

He was stunned for a moment, unable to figure out what had happened, and opened the tank hatch to look around.

“Wow…”

There was what used to be a Tiger tank. The tank was crushed as if a giant invisible giant had smashed it with a hammer. The precious fuel was burning fiercely.

The heavy roar before was definitely the 203mm Br-4 howitzer. The stupid Soviet bastards loaded it on a self-propelled gun and shot it.

They nicknamed the self-propelled gun ‘Zveroboy’ (beast hunter) and shot it at the German tanks.

“It just collapsed…”

And the heavy shells of the howitzer literally ‘destroyed’ the tank. The armor plate was not penetrated to the end, but it just shattered.

The parts connected by welding or bolts popped out, the tracks peeled off, or the suspension just collapsed. That was the end of the tank hit by the howitzer.

What happened to the crew trapped inside? There was no need to ask.

Some possible ways to continue my response are:

“Captain, we have to retreat.”

“…All right. Retreat!”

The Soviet tanks that were crossing the bridge seemed to be already in sight. Leaving behind the bloodshed that was taking place in Minsk, the medium tanks began to retreat.

“And as our fate is sealed…”

The laughter of a while ago disappeared like a lie, and the tankers had nothing to say. Lieutenant Bitman also had no intention of giving orders, and just muttered the lyrics stuck in his mouth.

“If we never see our homeland again, and die by the enemy’s shells… our tanks will become coffins of steel…”

They buried their comrades in coffins of steel and the medium tanks began to retreat.

Tomorrow, another battle awaited them.

***

The Nazis had a few misconceptions. They were not the only ones who had them.

Madness and courage were not synonyms. The ones who gleefully massacred civilians with mad eyes and voices never showed a brave face on the battlefield.

SS Senior Group Leader Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, who boasted that his unit was the most courageous in the Third Reich, was flustered as he did not foresee this situation.

“Why did they break through there! What are the Einsatzgruppen doing!”

“That is…”

The idiots who tied up and killed civilians were no match for the Soviet soldiers who had trained in the hellish Leningrad.

With inferior weapons, training, and even mental armament, the SS division that thought they could reproduce the Soviet army’s defeat of Manstein’s army in Leningrad collapsed in an instant.

“Uh… uuuu…”

“Save… save me!”

The German soldiers who slaughtered in the rain of bullets were powerless. They crumbled one by one in front of the fear of the battlefield that was qualitatively different from what they had experienced.

“Ahh, aaaaaah! Aaah…”

One soldier who grabbed his helmet and screamed, throwing away his gun and running away, was sprayed with red blood from his forehead and fell flat.

The soldier who suffered from PTSD, or ‘shell shock’ as the German army knew it at the time, tried to run away in a fit, but the officer did not leave him alone.

He pulled out his pistol, which had killed more allies than enemies, and tens of times more civilians, and shouted with his eyes bulging.

“Retreat is summary execution! Fight for the Führer and the German people!”

“…Long live the Führer!”

Here and there, suicidal assaults were carried out ‘to raise morale’ or ‘to crush the inferior Slavs’ offensive’.

The lack of quality of the soldiers was as evident as the lack of quality of the officers.

The SS officers had the qualities of the ideal Aryans that the Führer had so contradicted. Strong physique, blond hair, and swollen liver.

But they lacked the competent brains of the ‘ideal Aryans’, so they forced their subordinates to the only tactic they knew for the sake of the state, the party, and the Führer.

“Charge! Chaaaarge!”

“Grind the Fascist pigs! Fire the machine gun!”

Tatatatatatatata! Tatatatatatata! Two machine guns poured crossfire from behind the collapsed wall.

The German squad caught in the machine gun fire was crushed in an instant. The squad leader who was trying to throw a grenade while listening to the Soviet soldiers’ gibberish fell in a spray of blood.

The rookie who was left behind in the rear followed his senior soldiers who were torn apart, and was also caught in the machine gun fire and fell.

Behind them, the officer threatened them with his pistol, and in front of them, the Soviet machine guns poured lead bullets like raindrops.

The soldiers made various choices.

Some silently charged into the bullets and died. Some went crazy and were killed. And some other soldiers tried to find the ‘best’ option.

“Don’t worry! The weapons made by the inferior Slavs can’t be superior to the weapons of our German people! The shooting will stop soon because of jamming, so take advantage of the gap and charge! Charge!”

“…You bastard!”

The captain who ordered the charge was shot in the back.

The one who pointed his finger at the Soviet direction and shouted charge! charge! spat blood from his mouth and fell forward.

The sergeant who shot him gritted his teeth and fired a few more bullets.

“What are you doing! Killing a superior is… Argh!”

“Son of a bitch! Do you think we’ll just die like this?”

The lieutenant who was startled and pulled out his pistol didn’t get to do anything before a bullet hit the back of his head.

Killing a superior was more frequent than expected.

The rough soldiers killed the incompetent officers who ordered hopeless charges and deserted, or shamelessly changed their appearance to the Soviet army.

The ones who killed the captain full of patriotism and the lieutenant who treated the soldiers with harsh violence stuck their corpses in the corner and smoked a cigarette to calm their still throbbing chests.

As they heard the sound of the Soviet army buzzing from the alley, they took a long drag of what might be their last cigarette and threw the burnt match on the ground.

“Spit, it’s better to die than Siberia. Surrender! Surrender!”