However, the artillery battle that Major General Witsheim mentioned was not just the "Dora" giant cannon, but also the Soviet artillery and shells transported from the Transcaucasus region.

These can be considered additional support from the German army.

Needless to say, the reason in history not only did not receive assistance from the Transcaucasus when attacking Stalingrad, but instead, while attacking Stalingrad, it also fell into a stalemate between the Caucasus Mountains.

So, the supplies from Berlin were divided into two parts, and partly shipped to Stalingrad and partly to the Caucasus.

But now, because of Qin Chuan's efforts, the German army won the Caucasus region at a very small price. Not only was the supply not divided into two, but the German army could also use the arsenal seized by the Caucasus and the agricultural support of the Transcaucasus to Stalingrad.

So, at least until now, there has not been any time for supply difficulties in Stalingrad.

In other words, Qinchuan had at least two aspects of the impact on the Battle of Stalingrad: one was to gain a month, and the other was to gain supplies.

Of course, if there is a third contribution, there is still military strength.

However, the contribution in this regard is basically negligible... The Caucasus region requires a large number of troops to defend, especially Baku.

Baku is located in the Caspian Sea, which is connected to the Volga River upstream. The entire Soviet army's southeastern front is on the east bank of the Volga River. Once the German army's defense in Baku and the Transcaucasus region is lax or weak in troops, the Soviet army's southeastern front will enter the Caspian Sea along the Volga River to attack the Caucasus region.

This led to Manstein's 11th Army being able to stay in Baku. Even because Baku is very important, the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea coastline are very long. Hitler also added several coastal defense troops and air defense divisions to the 11th Army... The air defense division was used to protect the Baku oil field from being bombed by the Soviet army.

On Stalingrad, Vettesheim collected 200 M1910 howitzers transported from the Transcaucasus, and collected the cannons seized from the Soviet army from various troops and collected 800 of them outside Stalingrad.

(Note: The German army seized a large number of M1910 howitzers from the Soviet army, and the German army assigned them as: LeFH 388)

In fact, what is important is not the number of artillery, but the shells.

The reason was that the German army seized almost countless Soviet artillery during the process of advancing along the Don River from Kharkov to Stalingrad, and a considerable number of them were randomly discarded by German soldiers as garbage on the roadside because they did not have enough shells.

But now it's different. The Arsenal of the Caucasus can produce shells, so these cannons were picked up again and handed over to the engineers for simple repairs... In fact, they can't say it's repairs, but disassemble those cannons that cannot be used normally, and use them as spare parts on another cannon, which is almost a kind of integration.

This took two weeks of preparation and a large number of shells were accumulated during this period.

Then, with a command, thousands of artillery fired at the Stalingrad Su-controlled area, including the howitzers in the German army.

The shells exploded on the front line like a sea of ​​rushing, blowing on the ruins, and on the floors, rocks and dust exploded with the "rumble" sound.

But this was just the beginning, and the Soviet army was not outdone. Their artillery immediately launched a retaliatory bombing on the German-controlled area.

Moreover, the Soviet artillery fire seemed to be more fierce, because as mentioned before, the Soviet artillery was stronger than the German army. They had an extremely terrible number of artillery...2,000, and there were more shells than the German army.

As soon as the artillery shells were fired, they slammed into the German-controlled area of ​​Stalingrad, and they were instantly shaken.

I don’t know who Stalingrad offended, either the Soviet army or the German army poured shells into the city.

Countless explosions surrounded the surroundings, as if they were to swallow up all the soldiers garrisoned on the front, whether they were the Soviet or Germans. Shields were flying all over the sky, hissing and sweeping overhead. The shells exploded nearby pushed the stones and soil into the air and then sprinkled on the soldiers.

The soldiers were helpless and could only curl up in the trenches and pray, waiting for the storm to end.

Qin Chuan leaned on the ground with his elbows, covered his ears with his hands, closed his eyes tightly, and let the soil and stones fall on the helmet like raindrops, trying to abandon the amazing horror in front of him in vain... This is not something that human forces can stop. Sometimes Qin Chuan feels that humans are very sad, let alone creating such a disaster to make things difficult for his kind.

The shelling took more than an hour, but later it was impossible to tell which ones were fired from the enemy and which ones were fired from their own direction, because the entire sky was blown up... In fact, it was smoke and dust that blocked the sunlight, making Stalingrad look like it was entering the night.

The 1st Infantry Regiment can be said to be a battle-hardened unit. Each soldier is well-trained and very brave, but a few soldiers collapsed in such a bombing.

At first no one knew, because the sound of cannons covered all the sounds, and the soldier was crowded in the corner of the trench.

It was not until the sound of the cannon gradually stopped that he heard his screams at the top of his lungs: "I can't stand it anymore, I want to leave this, and leave this forever..."

The soldiers thought he was injured, so they called the sanitation officer as soon as possible.

But after the health officer pressed him to the ground for examination, he found that he was not injured at all.

"Erics!" The soldier who knew him shook his name hard and shouted his name to no avail.

The sergeant named Erics was completely out of control, with foaming at the corners of his mouth, his eyes wide open in fear, and he cried and beat and screamed no matter who approached him.

"He's crazy!" the baker shouted.

Then everyone turned their attention to Qin Chuan, and they didn't know what to do with such soldiers.

Qin Chuan didn't know either. For safety reasons, Qin Chuan ordered: "Save down his gun and grenade!"

"yes!"

The baker responded several times, controlled Erics and forced the equipment off him.

"Let him go!" Qin Chuan ordered: "Let him go!"

The soldiers let go of their hands, and Erics jumped up like a possessive, shouting something in his mouth while stumbled backwards, and soon disappeared into the smoke and dust.

The soldiers looked at his back and felt a little uncomfortable, because one day they might suddenly collapse into this.
Chapter completed!