Thor's Anvil

Chapter 22

In spite of his reservations, Hörnlein was quick to mount a vigorous attack into the wide gap between Novo Kirovka and the main city. On his right, stretching along the northern suburbs of Novo Kirovka was the main cemetery of the city, stretching some three kilometers east, where it approached a sturdy building that was a Brick Factory near the balka. That feature ran another four kilometers east before several branches joined it from the north, where there was yet another burial ground near the main city hospital. The main road from Kalach ran in towards central Volgograd, past a radio station, yet another cemetery, and then running by that hospital.

As Grossdeutschland Division pushed into that open ground, Hörnlein was haunted by the thought that his men were advancing into a position bounded by the resting places of the dead, and he worried that too many of his fine young soldiers might soon join them. It was a sallow grey morning, with light snow falling, and his first order of business would be to capture and silence that Radio Station. It had been broadcasting ceaselessly, taunting the Germans, the announcer saying there was plenty of room in the cemeteries for newcomers, and plenty of stone in the dry balkas for new headstones.

“If that man is captured alive,” said Hörnlein, “then I will personally see that he gets a nice plot in that cemetery.”

That morning, 1st Company of his Fusilier Regiment, with 1 Panzer Company made a direct attack on the station, the tanks blasting away at the walls, doors, and windows, the infantry making well-coordinated rushes to break in to the lower floor. It was half an hour’s work, and Hörnlein had the satisfaction of having the announcer dragged back alive through German lines and presented to him, whereupon he took out his pistol and aimed it directly at the man’s head.

“Plenty of room in the cemeteries?” he said. “Then there will certainly be room for you!” He had no scruples when he pulled the trigger, and his men smirked as they dragged the man’s limp body off, though he was not given the dignity of a burial. They left him for the bands of roving dogs. It was just the opening line of the litany of terror and cruelty that this battle would become.

2nd Fusilier Company was already in the center of the Radio Station Cemetery, and now it was supported with a major attack involving two more companies of Panzergrenadiers and a lot of armor. That attack cleared the ground there by mid-day, the defending 204th Rifle Division out-fought among the tombstones. After they had fallen back into the suburbs further east, the Russian division artillery put in a barrage with all three battalions.

It was a macabre site to see the artillery churning up the cemetery, the headstones shattering, sodden earth cratered deep enough in places to expose the bleached white skeletons of the buried. To one German Grenadier, it seemed as if the dead were rising up from their graves to join the battle. Sergeant Muller dove for cover into a smoking shell crater, thinking it unlikely that a second shell would land at just that spot. There he found a horror of another kind as he crouched low, the moldered remnants of a newly buried corpse, the skin of its face rotted away, the pallid skull exposed, and those empty eye sockets staring at him. It was an experience that would haunt him ever after.

The Germans took the smaller cemetery that day, but did not go into the much larger burial ground on the northern fringes of Novo Kirovka. First they focused on the small Brick Factory, jutting like Hougoumont from the edge of the balka that bordered the city. Two companies of the tough Grenadiers drove out 1st Battalion, 38th Rifle Division, and the Russians retreated into the balka. Behind them came the growl of tanks, and the men of the motorized machinegun company attached to that battalion radioed back to say they had what looked to be two battalions of enemy tanks in the balka. Hörnlein’s men were in the thick of that no-man’s land, surrounded by the dead on three sides, and now confronting a most unexpected attack by this armor.

When Chuikov had learned that the Germans were moving aggressively into that gap, he had quickly ordered the 56th Tank Brigade to counterattack. The armor poured over the balka, grinding towards that MG Company, which found itself ill prepared to contest that ground. A radio call went out, sounding the alarm, which was heard by 7th and 8th Panzer Companies west of the Brick Factory. They had been preparing to go into the big cemetery, but now they pulled out of that sector, moving over the balka to support the threatened area. They would bring over 30 tanks, and about half were the newer PzKfw Vs, with two Lions and also a pair of the new Tigers. These were beasts that had never prowled the broken landscape of this city, all appearing in the war six months early.

The Russians had learned to fear and respect the Tiger when it appeared. It outgunned their own tanks, with far more hitting power at range, and during the war in Fedorov’s history, it achieved a kill ratio of 8 to 1 over all Russian adversaries it faced. It was to be an equally lopsided duel here, with the more experienced German tank crews halting their advance just outside 700 meters, and then letting the long barreled Panthers and Tigers cherry pick the onrushing enemy tanks. One of the Tigers scored a particularly spectacular hit, blowing the turret right off a T-34, the tank crews hooting when they saw it spin madly up from the hull on a column of black smoke and fire.

Hörnlein had taken all his key objectives by the end of the following day. He had men in the main cemetery, where fighting still continued at the extreme east, and on the opposite western neck of the graveyard, where a cluster of larger mausoleums stood like ghostly pill boxes manned by both the living and the dead. As squads of German infantry pushed forward, if any fell dead from enemy fire, they would soon be attended by a small penal squad.

These unlucky soldiers, having run afoul of regulations or fallen out of favor with their Sergeants for one reason or another, would be assigned to crawl forward over the cold snowy graves, and literally dig into the frozen earth then and there, all under enemy fire. Their mission was to bury the dead where they fell, and they were to bring back all the personal effects of the fallen, their helmet, belt, sidearm and any medals or other documents.

Heintz Romer was one such private, finding himself in the penal squad that day for pilfering an officer’s personal stash of tobacco. He had dragged himself over the deadly ground, through a ghastly scene where tracer rounds zipped past his exposed head. No helmets were issued to the men on that squad, so as to motivate them to get out to their fallen grenadiers, where it was permitted that they could then wear the helmet of the stricken soldier.

Fighting for a damn graveyard, he thought, bemoaning his fate. Damn bullets snapping off the tombstones, the ground frozen over and cold as hell on my belly, and another twenty yards to that Grenadier out there.

Then came the reassuring drone of an MG-42, and he saw the enemy line ahead enveloped in that hail of bullets. Covering fire! On an impulse, he reasoned that ten seconds on his booted feet would get him much farther than ten minutes on his belly, so he grunted up into a low crouch, running from one headstone to the next. Behind him, he heard the cheering of the other members of the penal squad, but they all had ulterior motives. If Heintz were to be gunned down, then it would be one of the remaining five men out there on his belly in the middle of that boneyard.

Private Romer made it to the fallen man, hugging the ground behind his body, the cold reaching right through his trenchcoat. First things first. He began to search through the man’s pockets, pulling out anything he could find. At one point, a rifle bullet nearly struck his hand, thudding into the fallen soldier instead.

“Nice of you to take a bullet for me,” he said aloud, “seeing all the trouble I’ve been put to here.” He looked at the man’s personal billfold, seeing his name on an identity card—Klingmann, Private First Class—and behind the card he found a photograph, presumably of the man’s wife, and two small children. He passed a moment of sadness, thinking of them being out there, far away, at that very moment, and not knowing that Private Klingmann had already joined the dark, silent battalion of the dead buried beneath that ghastly ground. They were to be his family now, and the only embrace he would ever have again would be the mingling of his corpse, his bones, with those of the enemy he had come here to conquer. He was joining them soon, as Heintz stuffed the billfold away in a pocket and closed his frigid fingers on the haft of his shovel. His back protected by a thick headstone, he began to scrape at the cold earth, his breath frosty white, deathly white with the exertion of his labor.

The Germans were going to take that burial ground that day, but they were going to have to pay for it with the lives of men like Private Klingmann, and the madness that would soon fall on men like Private Heintz Romer, digging as he stared at the frozen blood of his fellow soldier, a macabre sheen of red ice darkening the area around the man’s body.

Yet if the camera pulled back from this silent little drama in the cemetery, it would have seen that Steiner’s plan was working as he supposed it might. The considerable weight of the Grossdeutschland Division was now firmly within the gap between Novo Kirovka and the town of Maxim Gorki, north beyond the captured Radio Station. The stalwart Grenadiers and Fusiliers were in all three cemeteries, and had the small Brick Factory set up as an observation post for their mortars. The wedge they had secured was very dangerous to the defense, for the easternmost cemetery by the hospital was no more than six kilometers from the river.

The Brandenburgers to their north had also hit hard, enfilading Maxim Gorki from that side, where an entire regiment of the 204th Rifle Division was now cut off. That division had also stormed the Kirov Airfield, and taken the steelworks beyond the barracks, but the Soviet 196th Rifle Division was still firmly entrenched in that old military base, fighting from behind the stockade wall, and low wood barracks buildings that made up the place. The loss of the airfield, however, forced the Russian Guardsmen on the Rampart to abandon that position as Steiner predicted. They fell back into the slowly thickening trees that crept up the western slope of Hill 115.

To make matters worse for the Russians, the Leibstandarte Division was pushing hard near the Airfield Settlement at the northern end of that rampart. The division had been pushing up the rail line that crossed the Don near Golubinskaya and ran down through Gorodische and Aleksandrovka, eventually running on to the Flight School near Mamayev Kurgan. Chuikov could see what was happening, a classic pincer attack by two of the steely German divisions against his center. The question was whether or not he should attempt to hold, or fall back. There was so little ground to give, and the 12 kilometers from the big mass of Mamayev to the rampart seemed like an endless luxury of space which he did not wish to relinquish unfought.

Yet the fighting had already pulled in a good number of reserve units, and now he had only a single Machinegun Regiment and the 189th Tank Battalion parked along the rail line by the Flying School. The 124th Special Brigade was in the Red October Worker’s Settlement, but they had limited offensive value, being lightly armed civilian recruits. He also had the entire 13th Guards Rifle Division back in the factories, but he would not touch it, not now, not on the first days of what might be many weeks of hard fighting here. So he sent one battalion from the MG Regiment north to shore up the Airfield Settlement, and a second battalion to the airfield itself, which was now being overrun by German infantry from the Brandenburg Division.

The Rampart, as perfect an anti-tank ditch as anywhere else on the battlefield, had fallen with scarcely a shot being fired. The telephone rang in his underground HQ bunker, the quavering of the sound jarring his nerves. He reached for it, expecting nothing but bad news, and Shumilov did not disappoint.

It’s that damn SS division I told you about—the one that has come up from Nizhne Chirskaya. How did Rokossovsky’s boys ever compel them to withdraw? They hit the Minina Mining Workers Settlement hard today, and have nearly overrun the entire sector.”

“What about Beketova?” said Chuikov. “What about the Siberian Division?”

“I pulled it out safely, but just barely. Volkov has that city now, all but the ferry bunker, where I left a single battalion to hold out for a while. We’re placing charges on all the quays and boat docks. No sense making things easy for Volkov’s brats when they smell the river.”

“Then where is the rest of the 1st Siberian?”

“All the heavy weapons went by the coast road through Kupersnoye as we planned. There was a traffic snarl over the railway bridge at the Leopard Gorge. The damn Germans are no more than two kilometers west of that bridge! That said, I got it sorted out, and most of the infantry came up on the river barges to the Lumber Trust Ferry, and we’re damn lucky they are there. If that SS division keeps on coming like they have these last two days, they’ll be in Yelshanka tomorrow.”

“What about your 185th Division? It was holding west of Yelshanka, yes?”

“Not for very much longer. Those SS troopers fight like demons. They busted up that division very badly. My men are still fighting—we hold the Yelshanka Quarry, a small section of the Menina Settlement, the local hospital. But they’ve already taken Verknaya Yelshanka, and soon they’ll push right on through Kupersnoye to the river. Thankfully, the evacuation of Sarpinskiy Island is coming off smoothly. Volkov hasn’t lifted a finger east of the Volga. They’re just sitting over there gloating and listening to the artillery fire.”

“It’s a lot of ground to give, more than all we still hold.” Chuikov was still worried about the decision.

“True Vasyli, but we pulled three more divisions into the fight for Volgograd. Sergei Kirov won’t want to know what happened on Sarpinskiy Island. It’s this city he’s concerned about.”

“They made a big push into the gap between Novo Kirovka and Maxim Gorki,” said Chuikov. “It looks like they are trying to carve up the city like a steak—create smaller enclaves that they can invest and reduce one by one. It’s what I would do.”

“Is it?” said Shumilov. “Then start thinking of how we can stop them.”

“Stop them? General Shumilov, that won’t take much thinking, but it will take a good deal of muscle, bone, and blood. Their offensive push is slowing a bit tonight, but they’ll be back at it again tomorrow. The only place that held firm today is the northern segment. They sent the Das Reich Division near the aqueduct east towards Rynok. Rokossovsky was kind enough to return our 2nd Volga Rifles, and he even fleshed it out with a good many new squads. They are holding the line beyond the Mushrooms.”

“Good,” said Shumilov, then he was silent for a moment. “To think that division was once a corps, and it stood watch here for ten years. Volkov could never move them, and now the wolves are at the gates. God be with them.”

“With us all,” said Chuikov. “The death toll from the enemy bombing is fierce. Thousands died again today, and we have no way to evacuate the civilians.”

“Then let them stay and fight,” said Shumilov. “We’re going to need every man, woman and child that can lift a finger.”

Chapter 23

Volgograd was, after all, a city where people lived. Though the advancing German troops had seen tens of thousands evacuate before the battle, there were still too many to be consumed by Richthoven’s rain of bombs. But the bombing wasn’t as severe here as it had been in Fedorov’s history. The German 8th Air Corps was matched by a growing Soviet presence in the sky, a fact that darkened Steiner’s thinking like a shadow over his right shoulder when he would stare down at the city map.

In spite of the initial breakthrough, particularly in the south where his old Wiking Division proved to be a whirlwind of fighting, Das Reich had not yet reached Rynok, so the Russians were still getting in much needed supplies along that road, and over the river at night. Now, on the third day of his opening offensive, Steiner was already beginning to receive reports from artillery battalions attached to his five elite divisions, all requesting more ammunition.

Ammunition… That was his real problem. The loss of Surovinko was beginning to matter now, for no trucks had reached him since his hasty retreat to this place. He had only those supplies he had trucked in from the forward depots at Oblivskaya and Surovinko, and no way of knowing how long that supply route would be closed. Volkov used guns of a completely different caliber, 76 and 100, 152 and 203mm shells. The Germans used 75, 105, 150 and 210mm. Volkov made no bullets that would fit into the new German MG-42 machinegun. He had no Panzerfausts to send, and no replacement ammo for any of the panzers.

All that had to come by air now. The route that was open through Tormosin provided a small bridge near the confluence of the Askay River with the Don, and some supplies were getting in that way from the depot at Chern, a roundabout journey of over 200 kilometers one way. Steiner was gambling now, thinking that if he threw the full wrath and ire of his crack SS Panzer Korps at the city, he could storm it before the defense there could calcify. For any long battle here, he needed that supply route through Kalach open again, and then he needed that rail line restored to the bridge at Nizhne Chirskaya. So every moment now was like a candle burning for him. Each day of fighting was going to bring him that much closer to a point of depletion, and the flights of bothersome Shturmovik overhead weighed heavily on him. If the Luftwaffe could not make regular deliveries….

So much depended on events west of the Don, where Manstein had officially christened his offensive counterattack towards Kalach as Operation Wintergewitter—Winter Storm. It came as the first snows of an early winter had fallen, freezing the shallow streams that laced through the rolling landscape. His attack had been led by Hermann Balck’s 11th Panzer Division, which had swept around the right, falling on State Farm 79 like that winter storm, and driving back the ill-prepared 5th Guards Rifle Division. On his left, 9th Panzer had broken through the lines of 7th Guards, and the full weight of the division was pouring through. Now the Soviet defense astride the road to Surovinko was completely flanked, and by mid-day on October 23rd, elements of both German Panzer Divisions were within three to five kilometers of Surovinko.

Yet there sat a great spider, the 1st Guards Tank Corps that had been refueling and rearming all this time. It had responded sluggishly to the crisis, not realizing the gravity of the situation. Then, one by one, it began dispatching units to shore up threatened sectors. The Motor Rifle Brigade deployed astride the main road, and several tank brigades crossed the Chir only to run directly into that winter storm.

9th and 11th Panzer Divisions had effectively pinched off and encircled the Guards Rifle Corps, catching many of the Soviet brigades out in the open, advancing, and not in any prepared defensive positions. Units that might have been very difficult to move if properly deployed were instead steam rolled by the fast moving German panzer units, the infantry following in halftracks right on their heels. It was a lightning swift blitzkrieg attack by two full panzer divisions, and it broke through all the way to the banks of the Chir a kilometer south of Surovinko.

At the same time, the Totenkopf Division was grinding up the main road on a concentrated front, and it had both the Schwerepanzer Battalions in the attack. It had smashed the 81st Motor Rifle Division, and now it was systematically destroying 25th Tank Corps. Just as it seemed the newly designated 5th Tank Army was about to deliver the coup de grace by enveloping Oblivskaya, Manstein and his able Lieutenants had delivered yet another stunning counterblow, like a fighter leaning on the ropes suddenly landing a flurry of punches. Hermann Balck was the stinging jab, 9th Panzer the right cross, and Totenkopf the thundering uppercut. 5th Tank Army was staggered, driven back, and now on very unsteady legs.

The bewildered commander of that army, General Romanenko, had but one last reserve intact, the 24th Tank Corps. It had been positioned along the main rail line, which ran north of the Chir into Surovinko. While his 2nd Guard Rifle Corps had been shattered by this sudden unexpected attack, he still had the three divisions of the 3rd Guard Rifle Corps to the right of 24th Tank Corps, facing off against the newly arrived German 3rd Motorized Division that had relieved 3rd SS to enable their participation in the German offensive. He considered launching 24th Tank Corps in an attack right over the Chir, aimed at cutting the main road and stopping 3rd SS, but that would only put his last mobile reserve in the bag. The Germans were already fighting at the southern fringes of Surovinko!

Romanenko passed his problem up the line to Rokossovsky, who had now been given overall local command of Soviet forces west of the Don. He looked at the map and selected the simplest solution—do nothing. Leave the 24th Tank Corps right where it was, but deploy it north of the Chir on defense, and send anything left over to help defend Surovinko. The offensive in that area was involuntarily suspended, and the Chir River itself would now become the new defensive front line. The 9th Rifle Corps that had been deploying towards Nizhne Chirskaya was to pull back so as to establish contact with Surovinko.

The decision boldly highlighted the differing capabilities of each side at that time. Rokossovsky knew that if assembled in mass as they had been at the outset, well supplied and fueled, Zhukov’s Shock Armies could bull their way through the German defense to deliver this first stunning victory and cut the main supply line Steiner needed. The question now was whether they could keep that line shut tight.

While the German reaction had been to circle and dance with those hard hitting Panzer Divisions, Rokossovsky knew that Romanenko’s tankers could not fight a battle of maneuver now, not at the end of their long offensive drive, even while the Tank Corps had been trying to get fuel and ammunition. The best they could do would be to try and hold the line of the Chir. His real response to Winter Storm would have to be Operation Saturn, which was only now beginning to move into the early stages as the 1st Tank Army and 5th Shock Group began to move forward to their assigned jumping off points.

The offensive began by first taking all the units on the line and easing them forward into closer contact with the German front. Desultory mortar and artillery fire began to come in, aimed at pinning down the German infantry divisions, sending their riflemen into their trenches and revetments. The Germans responded by forming up the newly arrived 23rd Panzer Division, and repositioning a few battalions to shore up their line. 24th Panzer Division had already been placed on the line at the seam between the 2nd and 3rd Shock Armies, and this deployment allowed the 336th Infantry to be pulled off that line into reserve. It was already in road march column, approaching Chern on the main road where it had been ordered to begin moving towards Surovinko to bolster the push there. The division was eventually slated to cross the Don to support Steiner, but now that was by no means a certain prospect.

The front dipped closest to Morozovsk in the 3rd Shock Army sector, and that force put in a strong attack, committing all its mobile reserves in fast moving cavalry units. The ski brigades would also get their first chance to wax the boards and speed off over the light snowpack from the recent storm. 60th Light Tank Brigade found a hole open in the lines of the German 305th Infantry Division and raced on through, gaining ten kilometers and reaching the main road from Morozovsk to Chern.

That got Manstein’s attention immediately. He had already thinned out his cupboard, sending the three Reserve Don Group infantry battalions up to the front to facilitate the withdrawal of 336th Infantry. Now, with an enemy tank unit just six kilometers from his desk in Morozovsk, the 336th was immediately ordered to halt its eastward march, turn about, and come west along the main road.

Its 686th Regiment had been at the tail of the column, and now it quickly became the vanguard, the trucks racing west on the road to the crisis point. The division would assemble at a road mark known as Kilometer 161 on their maps, and deploy to push back the penetration the enemy had achieved here. Better motorized, the swift moving Motorcycle Recon Battalion raced ahead, following the rail line south of the main road to reach Morozovsk late on the 25th of October. They soon ran into Soviet cavalry and armored cars, but this had been designed as no more than a spoiling attack, meant to draw in any mobile reserves the Germans might have waiting behind the front. The real offensive was much farther west, but it was taking time to get underway.

The sometimes ponderous nature of Soviet operations at this stage was slowing Saturn down, but it eventually built up like too much snow on the roof of the German line. Now that roof began to collapse. The weight of the entire 5th Shock Army was soon falling on the 24th Panzer Division. II Battalion of 21st Panzergrenadier Regiment was simply overrun and destroyed, with III Battalion surrounded. Volsky’s big 4th Mech Corps had joined this attack, like a bear coming out of hibernation. And now the 1st Tank Army was reaching the scene in force, the landscape suddenly alive with the grind and growl of tanks again on every quarter. They were through the gap in the German ranks, trundling south.

The German 23rd Panzer had jogged right to come up on the flank of the beleaguered 24th, and its lines were reasonably secure and well organized. It was holding on the left, but the weight of 5th Shock Army, Volsky’s Mech Corps and all the tanks of 7th and 10th Tank Corps were simply too much on the right. 24th Panzer Division was being overrun. The Recon Battalion and four of the six Panzergrenadier Battalions were all but destroyed, the artillery park fleeing south in a mad chaotic rush. Lengsfeld’s 23rd tried to counterattack on the shoulder of the enemy penetration, but it felt like they were trying to force a hatch shut against a flood of onrushing seawater on a sinking ship.

Meanwhile, off to the east, Winter Storm continued to rage against 5th Tank Army. The 3rd SS had swung north off the main road and pushed right over the Chir against 24th Tank Corps, and now, relieved by elements of 3rd Motorized, the Reichsführer Brigade that had been defending near Oblivskaya swung right up the road to the east, and plowed into Surovinko. That was just the added wind in the storm that was needed, allowing Scheller’s 9th Panzer Division to drive the remnants of 1st Tank Corps out of the town. Meanwhile, Balck found Hauser by the river, still screening that site he had chosen for a good crossing point.

“The tanks have pulled out,” said Hauser. “Now the far bank is only screened by infantry.”

“Then it looks like we should try them here,” Balck decided. There was no other flanking move possible for his division. His right flank was just the increasingly marshy banks of the Chir as it wound down towards the Don. Now it was time to take 11th Panzer over that river, but half his division was very low on supplies. So he attacked with the other half.

Two hours later, Manstein got the report that Balck was over the Chir with a strong Kampfgruppe, ready to join the units of 9th Panzer. Thus far, Winter Storm had met his every expectation, a complete success in smashing 5th Tank Army and throwing its shattered tank corps back in considerable disarray. Yet it was still well over 40 kilometers to Kalach. The fight there had worn down his divisions, supply was needed, and he knew that the storm must soon abate.

Beyond that, the reports coming in from 14th Panzer Korps were most disturbing. The Russians had produced yet another fresh reserve army to throw at him, and Manstein could not understand how they were doing it. The 336th had stopped the penetration north of Morozovsk, but now, with the collapse of 24th Panzer, a new and more serious threat was developing from the northwest. He was going to have to pull his entire left wing back, trading space for time. Orders were sent that hour for the two Luftwaffe Field Divisions to withdraw with the 294th Infantry. Manstein wanted infantry to reform a defensive front so he could pull 23rd Panzer out of the storm and get some mobile reserve in hand again.

In a strange flip on either side of the map, the Germans had finished off the Soviet 24th Tank Corps, and they now had Surovinko back in the east. Yet the Soviets had nearly destroyed 24th Panzer Division, and they were coming for Morozovsk in the west. Manstein had laid down a nice flush, in spades, but Rokossovsky had a full house, Jacks and Queens high.

Chapter 24

Steiner had been pacing in his headquarters, eager to get on with the demolition of this city. It would complete his mission for the whole of Operation Blue, match Rundstedt’s accomplishment in investing Voronezh, justify his decision to pull 54th Korps east of the Don. After all, that was the direction they had been pushing. It wasn’t a retreat, he kept telling himself, but an advance on the primary objective with as much strength as he could get his hands on. He overlooked the fact that he was handing all the ground between Surovinko and Kalach to the Russians. Manstein was still out there, with his miracle workers like Hermann Balck and the others. They would get through in short order.

His old Wiking Division had broken through in the south, and this after fighting at Golubinskaya, then force marching to Surovinko and holding there. Now he was glad he gave the order for his Norsemen to pull back to Nizhne Chirskaya. They are truly Thor’s Hammer, he thought, and he was using them to pound away at the anvil of this city, crumbling its stone buildings further with every blow.

We’ve run them out of Beketova and Kupersnoye; pushed them back to Yelshanka. All in a day’s work for my iron men of the north. But I think the troops they had in Beketova went somewhere, did they not? The south may get more difficult, but if it comes to a race between the Wikings and Das Reich to see who can get to the Volga first, my money if on the fighting 5th. I have had to add the Korps Stug Battalions and Sturmpioneers to the attack in the north. There are some very tough Russian divisions up there, and Das Reich is fighting with only one good arm.

Infantry… I grabbed all I could get my hands on, but it is never enough. If I had another regiment or two, then Das Reich could pull its Grenadiers off the aqueduct line. Should I send for that reserve regiment at Kalach? That would be a very long march. The fighting is already five or six kilometers from Rynok. It would most likely be over before those troops even arrived.

In the center, both Hörnlein and Beckermann are sitting on most of their initial objectives. Only the old military base near the airfield remains in enemy hands. I’m counting on those two divisions to push right on through to Central Volgograd.

That same day Steiner’s bet paid off when the Wikings seized the railroad bridge over the gorge at Kupersnoye, then the Motorcycle Recon Company of the Nordland Regiment pushed on east, reaching the Volga at 11:00 hours on the 24th of October, just a day before the traditional celebration of the October Revolution. Steiner was very gratified by the news, telling the quartermaster that he was to fish out some special rations from the Korps stockpiles and have them trucked to that recon battalion, along with a commendation and his own personal thanks.

Yet the north remained stubbornly impervious, until the Sturmpioneers he had attached to beef up Das Reich launched a concerted attack on the morning of the 25th. Heavily supported by the two Korps Stug battalions, and 6th Company from the Das Reich Panzer Regiment, their assault carried the into the first of the heavy concrete Mushrooms east of Rynok. Yet the Russians counterattacked immediately, their officers screaming “Red October!” As they led their men in, retaking that bunker on its northern segment. Enemy artillery fire rained down as the Russians sent in their own engineer battalion from 2nd Volga Rifles to shore up that segment of the line. On this day, the anniversary of the Revolution put additional steel into the backbones of every Soviet soldier who was engaged.

But every day ends….

On the morning of the 26th Steiner got a most encouraging report. Manstein had dispatched two long truck columns with ammunition and spare parts from the depot at Chern two days ago. They had gone down through Tormosin, over the bridge there, and the leading column was now arriving at Martinovka.

“Excellent,” he said. “Then I can be a bit less stingy with what we now have on hand. Order the quartermasters to distribute what remains in the depots here. When the divisions top off, then we’ll renew this offensive.”

He wanted to time everything to jump off the morning of the 27th, and so all that day and night, the trucks would be moving. “Division commanders should begin positioning their shock groups at once,” he ordered. “Get hold of General Gille with the Wiking Division. I want him to make his main thrust here, up the dry riverbed of the Yelshanka river. He should position accordingly.”

That was the sector occupied by the Germania Regiment, and that night, the Wiking division shifted all the recon battalion, armored cars, the mobile Panzerjager companies, and the pioneers to that Regiment. In addition, Volkov’s troops came up along the line of the Leopard Gorge, just north of Kupersnoye. They would now man that position, relieving the Nordland regiment so it could begin organizing a second strong kampfgruppe behind Germania.

Hörnlein got the next call, for he had only just cleared the last and easternmost cemetery on yet another winding balka that ran right down through central Volgograd.

“I want you to organize a strong group to push down that balka,” said Steiner.

“But we haven’t taken the Hospital yet,” said Hörnlein. “It’s a sturdy concrete building, and they are fighting us from one ward to another. Then, just when we think we have a section cleared, they come up from the cellar beneath and reoccupy rooms behind our assault teams! I warned you the fighting would get complicated like this.”

“Just break through,” said Steiner. “I’ll get you all the ammunition you need. Drive for the Gorki Theater.”

“Still contemplating a show with the Russian Generals?” said Hörnlein with just an edge of sarcasm. “Very well, but you haven’t seen the ground here. It’s a web of many balkas, with three branches all running north from that channel. We should attack to one side or another—not down the main balka. It still has water in it, and the ice is very thin. If I attack on the north side, I’ll have the damn hospital at my back. Better on the south side.”

“North, south, east or west,” said Steiner. “I want you in that theater as soon as you can get there. We’ll pocket the entire southern half of the city—all of Novo Kirovka.”

“With respect, Herr General, the entire city is already one big pocket. That won’t matter. They will still fight. There’s at least four full Rifle Divisions in that sector, and three or four brigades. That’s the entire 64th Army. Do you think we can reduce such a pocket with two divisions? My attack will also just dig a deeper hole into the city, and I’ll have to defend both flanks as I advance. I tell you we need infantry! You are in too big a hurry here. What is happening west of the Don?”

“Manstein has retaken Surovinko.” There was a brief silence on the telephone.

“Well that is good news,” said Hörnlein at last. “How soon before he reaches Kalach? We’ll need supplies soon.”

“A truck column arrived this morning. That’s what this push is all about.”

“I see… Well general, I would advise you to leave some bread in the pantry, but I will do what I can here to see you don’t waste your ticket to the theater.”

Just before dusk on the 26th, Steiner got yet another unexpected surprise. The Luftwaffe made a big delivery to Gumrak airfield, not with crates of ammunition this time, but with the transports crammed with fresh replacements. He rubbed his hands together, both to chase the cold and express his delight. Then ordered the men onto trucks and began sending them off to the selected points where his division commanders were now concentrating for the attack the following morning.

That night the Brandenburgers sent their entire assault pioneer battalion to Hörnlein, and said they had orders from Steiner to take the hospital the general had complained about. Hörnlein kicked in two companies of Grenadiers and another Panzerpioneer company. The battle there was furious, with demolition squads blowing holes in the walls, the engineers slithering through them like black lizards, the flame thrower teams blasting into a room, literally consuming the oxygen inside before the attack.

Eighty percent of the defenders were slain, but as dawn came, 3rd Machinegun company of the 204th Rifle Division was still in the hospital on the upper floors, down to the last few belts of ammunition, and taking to relying on a handful of grenades to stop the pioneer assault teams. When the Germans would hear the grenades rattling down from above, they would all dive for cover. So the Russians simply started throwing chunks of stone down, or even their empty canteens filled with sand, to achieve a similar effect, until the Germans caught on. The only hitch was that they would never know whether the next clattering sound would be a grenade, a canteen, or merely a rock. Guessing wrong could quickly be fatal.

Sensing something was up near that hospital, the Russians shelled the cemetery again that night, but most of the German squads had already moved forward and down into the last balka which was their jumping off point. The late barrage arced over their heads to fall among the dead. For many, and certainly for unlucky men like Private Heintz Romer, they were grateful to be out of the graveyards, but now they looked ahead to the city, and the battle, that would become a cauldron of misery for all involved.

The following morning the Germans put in one of the strongest and most coordinated attacks of the battle. Their Kampfgruppes were all assembled, tank heavy, with recon elements poised just behind the expected breakthrough point to exploit any successes. A thunderous artillery barrage shook the cold morning air all along the 60 kilometer length of the city, from Rynok in the north to Yelshanka in the south.

The Wikings were the first to jump off, Germania Regiment eager to gain its share of the division laurels. Yet, as if sensing trouble with his very experienced nose, Shumilov had ordered up the 1st Siberian Division from the ferries after they arrived from Beketova, and he sent them to the exact spot the Germans had selected, deploying them along the knotted balka from Maksimovskiy Rail Station to the suburbs of Yelshanka east of the Minina Worker’s Settlement. The pioneers stormed the rail station to eliminate that as an enemy barb behind the attack, and in spite of stubborn resistance, the weight of the full Germania Regiment slowly drove the Siberians back.

Hörnlein’s attack was even more successful. His assault pioneers finished off the last resistance in the Hospital, and then he threw the main weight of his storm groups north of the balka where a main road wound its way east towards the city center. While the ground remained open, he led with armor, a full battalion committed to the assault. They met and shattered the enemy 56th Tank Brigade, and the Grenadiers followed them, leaping up out of the balka start line. The panzers were able to penetrate the Russian line, advancing 1500 meters by mid-day, with the infantry fighting their way after them. At one point, 2nd Company of the Panzer Battalion nearly overran the headquarters of the 204th Rifle Division, driving it east into the residential sector. They had broken all the way through to the enemy artillery positions, and the tankers could see the Russian guns lined up at the edge of the urban sector, still firing.

Not to be outdone, Beckermann’s Brandenburg Division decided to mount a pincer operation to surround and isolate the stubborn enemy defense of the old Army Barracks near the Kirov Airfield. The ground was very open east of that position, a perfect attack corridor that led strait to the Mamayev settlement, bounded by two arms of the extensive Tsarista River and Balka system. If the settlement were reached and taken, it would become the perfect staging point for an attack on the big hill itself. But first that Barracks position had to be reduced, which would be no small order, and it was now defended by no fewer than six battalions of the 196th Rifle division.

The pincer operation was successful, breaking through to either side of the enemy position, but now the Brandenburgers had a big lump of stone in their throat, they had bagged the bulk of that enemy division with that masterful stroke, but now they would have to find a way to kill it.

In the north, the attack put in by Das Reich was the most successful. Rather than continuing their push towards the Volga north of Rynok as originally planned, they shifted their weight south towards the seam between the two defending Russian divisions. The Samara Rifles were now on their right, their line anchored at the Little Mushroom and extending in a wide arc through the wooded country. On their left was the tough 2nd Volga Rifles. The SS had two initial goals—clear that Mushroom, then punch through the seam between the two divisions. Their intention now was to move just south of the Surchaya Balka, and Rynok itself, following the secondary road that eventually met the main coast road along the river. There a great anomaly now stood as their principal objective, a massive road and rail bridge over the Volga that had not really been built at that site into the 1950s. Yet in this world it had stood as a stubborn bone of contention between Volkov’s forces and the Red Army for over ten years. Neither side ever attempted to destroy it, as they both believed it would one day see their victorious troops marching into the enemy’s territory.

There it stood, a massive historical anomaly, the vast and rusting hulk of the trans Volga bridge, positioned where the river narrowed a bit, right between Rynok and Spartanovka. Just south of that point the river split around the long almond shaped Denezhny Island, a buffer zone seized by the Soviets long ago to screen both the Barrikady Factory and Dzerzhinsky Tractor Plant. East of that bridge, across the wide Volga, a city had been built up where modern day Volzhskiy now resides, except in this world it was called Volkovskiy. It was guarded against Soviet incursion by two divisions of Volkov’s best troops, the 11th and 12th Guards Divisions. If the western end of that bridge could be taken by the Germans, they would establish a very valuable link to the Orenburg 5th Army on the other side of the river. It was something that had dawned on Steiner the previous evening, in spite of his distaste for Volkov and his entire federation.

There is the infantry I need, he thought grimly. If I get that bridge, then all Volkov’s troops on the other side will be fodder for the battle on this side. I can use them to hold and cover portions of the front so I can further concentrate my shock divisions. I will have staffers put out feelers to Gerasimov on the other side of the river. I’m told they actually have a couple divisions over there worth the name, and I can use those troops. Why wait for Manstein when all the infantry I need is right there on the other side of that river!

It was a plan that was bound to emerge from the rubble of that city at one time or another. After his earlier cross Volga offensive ended so disastrously when the Soviets counterattacked and drove his men into the river. Volkov had given orders that there would be no further operations west of the Volga, but now Steiner thought he could persuade the man to coordinate with his troops for an attack on that bridge.

To further his chances for success, he had moved all his Korps assets to support Das Reich, and was now planning to halt the Leibstandarte’s offensive operation and order them to cover sectors of the front now held by the 2nd SS Division. That was his plan, the principal operation he had devised for this offensive. All the other attacks put in by Grossdeutschland Division and the Wikings were merely meant to tax the enemy’s resources, and pull in his reserves. There was only one question in his mind now: would his enemy see the danger in time to take countermeasures?