3/15/42
Posted: Wed Jun 05, 2002 8:41 am
Rain falls at the end of another less-than-stunning week of Sovjet military demonstrations.
Battle in the north about Tikhvin and the south around the Dneiper bend see Soviet forces stymied despite the return of a near-normal supply situation.
As you can imagine, Comrade Stalin is not impressed. As yours truly watched Uncle Joe become empurpled with a rage that made the veins in his neck bulge, I tried to come up with some good news that might pull my bacon from the fire and keep my family out of the Joy-Through-Labor programme.
After several minutes of profuse sweating I mentioned to comrade Stalin that a chink had appeared in the seemingly impenetrable armor of Generalfeldmarschall von Techex. Our heavy commital of air power in the recent defence of Moscow, though expensive had caused Herr von Techex to remove fighter units from rear areas, the most important being the Ploesti oilfields.
Every sortie that could be managed (which wasn't many after the punishment received from the Luftwaffe) winged their way toward the beckoning refineries from all over the western USSR. Casualties were heavy...one attack involving 24 IL-4 bombers in 4 groups lost 23 of it's number to deadly flak. Other attacks were more fortunate, causing 3 minor damage reports and 2 very minor.
Comrade Stalin..after heavily imbibing in vodka after my last series of reports and during this one seemed somewhat satisfied with this minor and sure to be short lasting glimmer of light.
I was allowed to return to HQ with my head intact...this time.
Battle in the north about Tikhvin and the south around the Dneiper bend see Soviet forces stymied despite the return of a near-normal supply situation.
As you can imagine, Comrade Stalin is not impressed. As yours truly watched Uncle Joe become empurpled with a rage that made the veins in his neck bulge, I tried to come up with some good news that might pull my bacon from the fire and keep my family out of the Joy-Through-Labor programme.
After several minutes of profuse sweating I mentioned to comrade Stalin that a chink had appeared in the seemingly impenetrable armor of Generalfeldmarschall von Techex. Our heavy commital of air power in the recent defence of Moscow, though expensive had caused Herr von Techex to remove fighter units from rear areas, the most important being the Ploesti oilfields.
Every sortie that could be managed (which wasn't many after the punishment received from the Luftwaffe) winged their way toward the beckoning refineries from all over the western USSR. Casualties were heavy...one attack involving 24 IL-4 bombers in 4 groups lost 23 of it's number to deadly flak. Other attacks were more fortunate, causing 3 minor damage reports and 2 very minor.
Comrade Stalin..after heavily imbibing in vodka after my last series of reports and during this one seemed somewhat satisfied with this minor and sure to be short lasting glimmer of light.
I was allowed to return to HQ with my head intact...this time.