Chapter 86:

Chapter 86:

Chapter 86

“Really... a great general for a season. Isn’t that right?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

The generals froze at my sudden comment. I enjoyed seeing them tense up and react quickly.

“No, I mean what Dongjanggun said. Honestly, isn’t he the one who has defeated more enemies than anyone else here?”

“Ah! Hahaha, Comrade Secretary General has a great sense of humor.”

“Hahaha! My belly!”

The unusually harsh winter of 1941 was finally coming to an end.

Russia’s winter was famous for being cold and brutal, but the winter of 1941 was several degrees lower than normal.

According to later observations, it was the coldest in the 20th century.

The German army, intoxicated by crushing the French and British armies in just six weeks, thought that the Soviet Union would also collapse easily.

<In ten weeks, the weak Soviet army will tremble and surrender!>

That’s what Walter von Brauchitsch, the former commander-in-chief of the German army, said.

Based on this groundless confidence, they did not produce enough winter equipment.

When the war dragged on, they had trouble supplying other essential materials and hundreds of thousands of German soldiers froze to death.

On the other hand, the Soviet Union had produced some winter equipment after being beaten by Finland in the Winter War of 1939-40.

They did not suffer from the cold as much as Germany.

In addition to what we produced ourselves, the huge supplier America sent us millions of pairs of thick gloves and socks, warm boots with fur, cozy military coats, and so on.

The soldiers endured the cold winter with the goods brought by ‘the good friends Americans’.

“That’s true, Comrade Secretary General. According to the intelligence department’s investigation, the estimated losses of the enemy army are almost one million.”

“That much? Hahahahaha!”

Beria, who had a rival relationship with the military leaders, fiddled with his glasses and revealed the information he had brought.

I could feel his sinister emotion that he wanted to belittle the military’s achievements. But what could I do?

The truth was the truth.

“Now it’s time for Rasputitsa again and the front line will enter a stalemate, but after that point their counterattack will begin. According to weather analysis, around April? By mid-May, the ground will be completely hardened.”

“Yes! Comrade Secretary General! We will keep that in mind!”

***

The snowstorm from the Arctic subsiding might seem good for the soldiers who needed a nap.

But it wasn’t always like that.The initial posting of this chapter occurred via Ñøv€l-B!n.

“Air raid! Air raid!”

“Damn it! Anti-aircraft guns! Anti-aircraft gunners to your positions!”

The activity of the German air force, which could not fly properly due to the harsh weather conditions, became more active as the weather cleared up.

The Soviet air force was still overwhelmingly inferior in both skill and performance.

The Luftwaffe enjoyed their last season in the sky of Russia.

Tutatata! Bang!

A German Bf109 scraped off the canopy of a Soviet MiG-1 that was desperately turning with its machine gun.

The pilot could not survive in a situation where his cockpit was baptized by lead bullets.

The MiG eventually crashed into the ground and exploded.

“Shit... Stukas!”

Whiiiiik! Peeeek!

As soon as the sky was empty, steel birds dived down and attacked the soldiers who were scrambling to escape.

The soldiers fired their machine guns or rifles at them, but small-caliber bullets did not inflict effective damage on the planes.

‘Small-caliber bullets’ did not.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The anti-aircraft gunners who quickly entered a counterattack mode began to spit fire.

Now it was time for the German aircrafts to panic. The new 100mm anti-aircraft gun was powerful enough.

[Chichichik... ]

“Hans? Hans! Damn it! ‘That anti-aircraft gun’!”

They took advantage of the night when the German air defense network was bound to be weak and hit targets in the rear.

The secretary-general called this tactic ‘deep air support’.

“We don’t order our pilots to fight blindly with the Germans and die. There’s no need to kill them directly. Isn’t it the same whether you shoot down one plane or make one plane unusable by destroying their support system?”

War is a fight of supply.

They had to deliver supplies from the rear to the front in order to maintain their strength on the front line.

If they had no fuel, no ammunition, they could not fight. Isn’t it better to starve them to death with minimal damage than to fight and kill each other with great damage?

“2nd Battalion will bomb bridges 1 through 4 as designated. 3rd Battalion will bomb railway lines, and 1st Battalion under my direct command will bomb transport columns.”

[Yes!!!]

Motherland was too vast to lay dense railways.

Many stations were connected by single-track railways, and if they accurately identified and blew up parts with high traffic volume, they could cause severe supply shortages for the front-line units.

Similarly, they could not afford to build bridges every few kilometers along the many river streams.

There were bridges that they had to pass through.

Spetsnaz special forces or partisans who infiltrated behind enemy lines ambushed and identified key bridges and railway points for supply and reported them to the high command.

If they could accurately poke at their weaknesses, they could make the Germans scream.

“Night witches, take off!”

Regimental commander Marina Raskova ordered her subordinates.

The pilots who were going on a mission that might kill them laughed like girls for once.

The 46th Guards Night Bomber Regiment, composed entirely of women, was called ‘night witches’ by the Germans.

On Raskova’s plane, Rodina (Motherland), there was a picture of Baba Yaga (a witch in Russian folklore) with a wicked face in honor of that nickname.

Like a witch who flew around on a broomstick and ate children, the ‘night witches’ flew on Sturmoviks and ate German supplies.

Towards the darkening twilight, dozens of planes rose in unison.

***

“There, there it is!”

[Ah... confirmed!]

The agents who had infiltrated behind enemy lines reported through radio where and where the Germans were passing by.

The night bombers mostly identified and attacked their targets through their guidance.

Of course, the Germans were not fools. They also deployed anti-aircraft guns to defend their important points and transport columns.

But the ‘night witches’ had developed their own defensive tactics.

The Il-2 Sturmoviks they flew were sturdy and had high defense power, but they could only be torn apart by anti-aircraft fire in no time.

Then they just had to avoid being detected by the anti-aircraft guns, right?

“Everyone, turn off the engine! Glide in!”

[Yep!]

In the dark night, flying on a plane painted black, and approaching the target by gliding without the engine? It was hard to notice them easily.

The anti-aircraft gunners who were exhausted from not knowing when the enemy planes would appear were unable to function properly when they needed to.

The bombers who spotted the two protruding anti-aircraft guns with their sharp night eyes aligned the gunsights with the battery and waited for the shooting to start.

Tatatatatatatatang!

Raskova’s plane, Rodina, was the first to spit fire, and the other witches also took it as a signal of attack and fired at their targets.

The battered anti-aircraft battery began to fall silent without even firing.

Even in the darkness, they could see the transport truck columns below panicking and swerving.

“Attack from the prepared planes!”

[Yeap!]

The members were all enjoying this situation.

Punishing those ruthless humans who dared to trample on Motherland.

The gasoline engines were torn by incendiary bullets and burned up, swallowing up the supplies.

On the road that was no different from an ice rink, the trucks crashed into the roadside, and the bombers did not miss such targets.

After tearing up dozens of valuable trucks, the witches disappeared gracefully.

Looking forward to tomorrow night again.

“Soviet Ura!”