Adjustments - Leningrad Front, December 1941

(Source)

Major Kurt Hassel stood in the trench watching his battalion moving forward supported by a platoon of PzKw IIIs. He rather hoped that the Russians didn't have any of their T-34s in the vicinity, the PzKw III wasn't really a match for Soviet armor like the T-34 and the big KVs.

But as he'd noticed with Soviet artillery fire, the Russians encircled in Leningrad seemed to be short of everything. Artillery ammunition, fuel for their Panzers, food, short of everything in fact other than raw courage. Your average Ivan had that in abundance.

Regiment had come up with a scheme to remove a small Russian salient which projected into their lines. It wasn't viewed so much as a threat but rather an annoyance. The Russians there seemed to come across every night, making life difficult for the Landsers in that section of the front. So the orders had come down, "Pinch off that salient, straighten the line."

Hassel realized that the fighting around Leningrad wasn't that much different from that he had experienced in the Great War. Extensive networks of trenches and field fortifications which the armies squabbled over day after day. Small gains measuring very little in the grand scheme of things, other than the toll in blood and suffering.

Sighing, Hassel turned to the commander of his 5th Company, Oberleutnant Ferdinand Busch, "Are your boys ready to go in? I gave the initial attack to 6th Company as your boys always seem to get the bulk of the dirty work. But I think Quandt's boys are ready, they've gained enough experience that they're not going to get themselves killed just by moving forward."

"I spoke with Adolf this morning, he was nervous, but his men are ready. So he assured me and I have no reason to doubt him." Busch wanted to be out there, leading the attack, but his men were tired, they'd been called out constantly as the battalion's "fire brigade." It was past time for another company to step up, he'd be content with a reserve role for now.

Hassel's eyes narrowed as he heard the chattering of Russian Maxim guns in the near distance. No doubt his men were even now fighting, killing, and dying as they approached the Russian forward positions.

(Source)

Kazankov shouted at his squad, "Aim low!"

Before he could say another word he heard one of his Ukrainians, Antonyuk he thought, shout out, "That's right lads, shoot the Fritzes in the balls, that'll make them think twice before coming to visit again!"

Kazankov shook his head, Antonyuk was irrepressible. Always ready with a quip, a story, or a clever remark. He liked the man, he was good for morale.

The Germans were getting closer, they were using cover well, moving from position to position. While one group moved, another provided covering fire, the fact that they had tanks made their task a little easier. Kazankov knew that the Russians had nothing to oppose the tanks with. Their own tanks had been pulled back and were being used as pillboxes along the main line of resistance. If they didn't receive resupply soon, he wondered how they could continue to resist.

Most of his men hadn't had a proper meal in days, he knew the civilians were suffering even worse. An old man had wandered into the lines the night before, begging for even the smallest crust of bread. They had found him this very morning, dead. Whether he had starved to death or simply collapsed and frozen to death, one couldn't say. Either way, he would suffer no more.

"All right boys, get ready to fall back, I don't want those tanks to get any closer to us than needs be." Kazankov thought that they had left it too late already. Majór Telitsyn had briefed him the night before that they were to resist for a while then give the Germans the salient. They had lost too many men already trying to hold it.

Busch was watching the progress of 6th Company's attack. He could tell that the attack seemed to be going fairly well. Quandt's men were advancing in short rushes, covered by the fire of their machine guns and by the cannon fire of the three Panzers supporting them. He had seen one or two men fall, his field glasses had lingered on those spots, almost willing those men to get back up. But they did not.

"Johannes!" he shouted to one of his runners, "take a message to 1st and 2nd Platoons, they are to advance in support of 6th Company when I fire a red flare. It seems that Quandt has driven the Russians back."

"Jawohl, Herr Oberleutnant!"

Turning to von Lüttwitz, Busch said, "I want your platoon to wait 30 minutes before moving up. I'm not sure if the Russian withdrawal is a feint, or if they are just shortening the line to free up men. It could be a trap, I don't think it is, but ..."

"Doppelt genäht hält besser.¹" von Lüttwitz checked his watch then nodded. "I'll have the boys ready."

Kazankov and his squad made it to the main line with no casualties, they had been lucky. Telitsyn's orderly Kolobkov had been hit, and the Major had had a number of men killed around him.

"Why must he always be in the thick of it?" Berezhnoy grumbled as he cleaned his rifle.

"It's the kind of leader he is, Valerian Dmitrievich. He leads from the front, that's his way." Kazankov explained.

"It's going to get him killed, then where will we be?" Berezhnoy refused to let it go.

"Why, we'll still be here, outside Leningrad. Still cold, still starving, and having to live off Party slogans and admonitions from the Leningrad Council of Deputies. That's where we'll be, Comrade Berezhnoy." Krasnoarmeyets Kyrylo Ihorovych Antonyuk pointed out the obvious, He understood what Berezhnoy was talking about. After all, Telitsyn was a very popular officer. But in the end, it was about survival, nothing more, nothing less.

¹ Literally "double stitched holds better," i.e. "better safe than sorry." (German)