![]() Everyone who gets out of this alive may thank God. The artillery is smashing into it, tanks and infantry comb the streets, and this is the toughest work. Every house must have been destroyed, and often battles are fought for mounds of rubble. Now the fighting is for the big factories. Many tanks shuddered or broke with the force of an exploding enemy mine. Tanks climbed hills of rubble and scrap, crawled screeching through the destroyed halls and fired at point-blank range into the ruined streets and narrow factory courts. In an assault they advanced through the vertical holes for molten metal that led down to the Volga (p.7) ![]() Screeching and rumbling, they drove through the large factory halls, rolling machines and work benches into the concrete. The tanks were often engaged by antitank guns and destroyed before they spotted their own targets. The tanks crept forward over mountains of rubble and scrap iron and fired on Russian soldiers who showed themselves. These factories – which consisted of multiple halls reduced to rubble by constant shelling – offered good shelter to the Soviet defenders (p. The factories contained smelting ovens (so-called Martin ovens), rolling mills, forges, and other equipment. These giant factories were crisscrossed by railways for the transport of raw materials and finished products. Winter Storm: The Battle for Stalingrad and the Operation to Rescue 6th Army. The book is available from Amazon ( USA, UK, and Canada): In fact “field of ruins” is often mentioned so I thought I’d collate some of the descriptions. ![]() The phrase that struck me most was “gigantic field of ruins”. It is full of first hand German accounts of combat in Stalingrad. I’ve been reading Winter Storm: The Battle for Stalingrad and the Operation to Rescue 6th Army by Hans Wijers.
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