Chapter 423 Extreme Cold

If it was half a month ago, Colonel Horning would have definitely given a stern reprimand to his personal adjutant for his self-deprecating words without thinking. Colonel Horning, who is strict with himself, has always tried his best not to let his subordinates talk about their superiors casually.

But now, at this moment.

Colonel Horning, who is also full of complaints about the extremely bad situation in front of him, has no time to care about those details. Various bad situations have already followed one after another since the first heavy snow fell in winter.

The lack of winter clothes and supplies has even made the front-line troops unable to eat enough. The morale is low.

Whenever Colonel Horning emphasized that the Great German Infantry Regiment was an elite force of the National Defense Force and should have the right to priority in equipment selection and material supply, the upper-level logistics supervisor who corresponds to the Great German Infantry Regiment always gave a stereotyped and helpless answer.

"Colonel, I understand that the problem you mentioned does exist and has caused great trouble to you and your troops, but please also understand that I have really done everything I can for you and your troops!"

"Look at these, such a thick stack of emergency telegrams just sent today, all the troops on the front line have them, and some divisions can send me more than a dozen a day!"

"This one is asking for supplies and ammunition, and this one is asking me for winter clothes like you, and this one, look at this one, now even tanks are asking me, where can I find tanks for a division? God, I am in charge of logistics supplies, not to distribute tanks, and these things are now on my head!"

The logistics supervisor, who was full of complaints, put his hands on his waist and told the truth to Colonel Horning.

"Let me tell you the truth, Colonel. The Russian guerrillas in the areas we occupied before have not stopped fighting since the beginning of winter and the snow. Even the weapons in their hands have changed a lot compared to before. Some larger guerrillas even have small-caliber anti-tank guns, the kind that two people can push up and go."

"It is obvious that the Russian regular army has supported their guerrillas, or the Russian regular army that was scattered and left behind has now emerged from the cracks in the ground to continue fighting. Regardless of the real reason, Colonel Horning, the problem we are facing now is that the Russian guerrillas are far more difficult to deal with than before."

"In the summer, I can guarantee you 100% of the material I can guarantee you 70% of the supply and logistics support during the rainy season in autumn, and I can only guarantee you 40% after the first snow in winter. Now, because of the sabotage of the Russian guerrillas, I can't even guarantee you 20% of the supply on time. Even so, please believe that I have done my best. I have really reached the last moment of helplessness. "

After recalling the answer I heard from the logistics director before, I couldn't help but sigh. Now it seems that the original Barbarossa action plan formulated by the Führer before the war, which would eventually lead to the demise of the Soviet Union by capturing Moscow within six weeks to two months, has been completely aborted.

Not only that, the atmosphere at the Second Armored Group Operations Meeting held some time ago was even more gloomy.

Guderian, who presided over the meeting, even bluntly said at the meeting that it would be impossible to solve the problem of all winter clothes for all troops in a short period of time. He hoped that the chief officers of the various organized troops under the Second Armored Group would try their best to find ways to overcome the problem. This was the Berlin order conveyed to the Second Armored Group by the Central Army Group Headquarters.

Whenever Colonel Horning thought of this, he felt angry instantly. In the freezing cold city of Moscow, apart from stripping the clothes of the dead Soviet soldiers and comrades, what other ways could be used to achieve the so-called "overcoming the problem"?

As one of the most elite divisions of the Wehrmacht, the Great German Infantry Regiment now has nearly half of the combat troops wearing winter clothes wearing dead cotton clothes stripped from Soviet soldiers.

The extremely bloody thing that the Germans wore Soviet uniforms to fight the Soviets was simply speechless, but compared to this, Colonel Horning, who did not want to see his soldiers frozen to death in the snow, finally pinched his nose and preset this situation.

Colonel Horning, who was upset by the terrible logistics supply line of his side and seemed to feel no warmth in his leather windbreaker, immediately issued a formal order.

"Notify the vanguard attack force to speed up the attack. Tula City is the Russian arsenal, and there should be all kinds of logistics supplies. When capturing Tula City, we must pay special attention to prevent those Russians from setting fire to warehouses and factories. The things in them are our captured spoils of war. Even if we have to destroy them, we have to destroy them ourselves!"

Although they were freezing in the ice and snow, they still forced themselves to fight hard. The German soldiers who were struggling to move forward in the snow followed the tanks beside them and advanced steadily step by step. With the cooperation of air fighters, the Soviet garrison troops originally stationed outside Tula City were compressed to the brink of collapse.

So despite the difficult situation, the Grossdeutschland Infantry Regiment with a total strength of 14 combat battalions is still confident that it can resolve the siege of Tula City in the encirclement with the cooperation of the 3rd Armored Division before the arrival of the Soviet counterattack forces, provided that the 4th Armored Division responsible for resisting the Soviet counterattack forces can complete the tasks assigned by Guderian.

In this regard, Colonel Honing, who had experience in joint combat with the 4th Armored Division of the Wehrmacht, is still relatively confident about this. After all, the 4th Armored Division can indeed be regarded as a sharp main force in the 2nd Armored Group, and even Guderian himself has praised and acknowledged this many times in public.

At this moment, the 4th Armored Division of the Wehrmacht, which was being thought about by Colonel Honing in his heart, was not in a very good situation.

Since the 4th Armored Division occupied the Tula-Serpukhov highway according to Guderian's order, cutting off the land transportation connection between Moscow and Tula City between the north and the south.

The Soviet counterattack forces that gathered from all directions and tried to reconnect the north-south land connection launched wave after wave of counterattacks against the 4th Armored Division like a tide, regardless of the huge casualties.

Although Guderian had anticipated this situation and specially used the few supplies he had applied for to restore the 4th Armored Division to full strength before launching the operation against Tula, this was still a drop in the bucket compared to the Soviet counterattack.