Island of Fire: The Battle for the Barrikady Gun Factory in Stalingrad by Jason Mark

Author:Jason Mark [Mark, Jason]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780811766197
Publisher: Stackpole Books
Published: 2018-04-30T22:00:00+00:00

12 December, 1942

Fugenfirov’s artillery grouping began to fire on the German front between 138th and 95th Rifle Divisions from 12 December, 1942. They had orders to annihilate German firing points up to the depth of 300 metres from the Volga bank while offensive actions were being organised by 138th and 95th Rifle Divisions to clear the Germans located along the Volga bank between them. The artillery bombardment began at 0700 hours. The ten 122mm howitzers fired 2 shells per minute each, for a total of 1080 rounds, while the twelve 76mm guns and twelve 120mm mortar each fired a shell per minute, also for a total of 1080. Chuikov would later write:

We could not destroy the enemy who had reached the Volga in the area of the Barrikady factory merely by attacks with our infantry regiments: we had neither tanks nor reserves. What were we to do? How could we help Lyudnikov’s division?

The artillery we had installed on the left bank of the Volga now came to our aid. To use this artillery we did not have to ferry ammunition across the Volga. We decided to wipe out the enemy by artillery fire. But to do this involved difficulties, which seemed insuperable: we needed to organise absolutely accurate fire on every enemy position, we needed artillery and mortar marksmen. We had such marksmen, but to correct their fire from the right bank was difficult – telephone links were being continually broken by the ice, and radio communication was weak and unreliable. Studying all these factors, we worked out and started to implement the following method of destroying the enemy who had broken through to the Volga.

We marked out the area occupied by the enemy from north and south and from the Volga to the farthest point in the front-line, indicating landmarks which were clearly visible from the left bank. This gave us a 650-850 yard corridor occupied by the Germans. Our artillerymen, seeing this corridor clearly, could fire accurately at the enemy’s firing positions.

Spotters on the right bank watched the firing. They indicated and watched the targets, and errors in the gunners’ aim. All this was communicated to the artillery observation posts, and then in turn transmitted to the firing positions.

In preparation for the artillery fire, some of the most exposed Soviet positions were pulled back. The war diary of 138th Rifle Division even reported that “the left flank group (Rolik) was moved 100 metres in a northern direction into the area of the waterworks on the bank of the Denezhnaya Volozhka channel”. Not all of the fire landed accurately. The combat journal of 650th Rifle Regiment records that “army artillery lay down powerful artillery fire along our forward defensive line and on enemy emplacements. Destroyed by this artillery fire were two of our own dug-outs and three enemy emplacements in the area around the transformer hut”. Fortunately for the regiment, there were no fatalities. Total losses for the day were two men wounded.

The beginning of the Soviet attritional fire did not have much impact on Hauptmann Rettenmaier:

There is nothing new to report.

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