[X] What happened at the hill. Did we fight back the Germans?
[X] Is everyone from the company alright? What happened to the comrade captain?
While I am interested about the commander, our guys and that small clash, a comparatively insignificant episode in the history of the siege are what made us come back from the dreamworld. It would make sense for a 14 year old to concern herself with field duties rather than with overall strategy.
I'd rather not stick around High Command for longer than we need to be briefed. That's way above our level.
Tanya struggled to keep up Nikolai's long strides. They had departed the medical tent at a rapid pace, and were moving through the entire camp very quickly. Tanya could see men running all around with bandoliers of ammunition, pulling heavy guns, and all sorts of other things. It was very loud. And busy.
"Comrade Nikolai, where's the rest of the company?" Tanya asked. She didn't recognize any of the men here as people from the company. "Are they alright? Where's the comrade captain?"
"They're in at the front," Nikolai answered. "We're quite a far bit behind lines, near the city proper. As for the comrade captain, he is alright, though his pride wounded."
Where they that near the city? Tanya hadn't noticed at all, but indeed, they were. Apparently they had taken her behind all the defensive belts and Tanya hadn't noticed a bit.
"Is he?" Tanya didn't know the man very well, but she thought he had seemed like a good commander. "That's good. But how did we end up all the way back here comrade?"
"You mean...?"
"What happened at the hill," Tanya clarified. "The comrade captain said that we were to receive tank support. Surely they would have driven the fascists back."
"Ah, yes." Nikolai nodded. "We withdrew in good order."
"...withdrew?" What? Tanya couldn't understand. Weren't they supposed to hold that hill to keep the Road of Life open? If they fell back.... what reason would there be to fall back?
They said the company was still intact and in reasonable fighting condition! There was no reason to give up the position! "Did we fail to destroy enough tanks?"
Maybe the company was really in worse condition than Nikolai was telling her.
"No, none of that." Nikolaid shook his head. "The positions to our right and left flank were dislodged, and we were about to be hit from the flanks. With no way to strengthen the position, the battalion commander ordered us to fall back and abandon the salient."
"Besides, there was no more point to holding the position."
...no more point? Tanya couldn't understand. She wanted to ask more questions, but before she could think of the right ones to ask...
...they were already there.
Comrade Colonel Victor haulted them outside the tent. He looked them both over with a critical eye. "Comrade Nikolai make sure you keep a firm grasp on the girl. Make sure she doesn't do anything foolish or out of place."
"Yessir," Nikolai said. Tanya was about to respond that she would never do anything foolish or out of place but Nikolai made a motion clearly intending her to be quiet so she did not speak.
"And you, girl, stay quiet and do not speak unless addressed to," the comrade colonel told Tanya dismissively. His words burned her pride, but he was a colonel, not some minor captain or sergeant that she could mouth off to. She recognized that for the time being she would have to follow his orders. So, instead of talking back, she just nodded.
"Now, let us go." And so the comrade colonel stepped into a reinforced hard building which despite its stolid and spartan exterior was actually quite warm in the inside.
As Tanya followed him in, her ears were assaulted by a cacophony of noise. There were men in fancy uniforms arguing over tables with maps strew across them, all of them with shiny brass on their shoulders. High ranking officers. Tanya felt somewhat intimidated by them, but she had expected that there would be very high officers here if a colonel was sent merely to fetch her.
What she didn't expect was the other girl sitting on a high stool next to the most central table. She was hovering over the map, whispering, and occasionally pointing at specific points. Tanya felt like she should know the girl, but she didn't quite. Either way she could sense a bit of power in what the girl was doing.
"Comrade Colonel Victor, is this the girl?" A man with three stars on his collar asked. He had a somewhat round face- ovalish, and large lips. And amazingly, Colonel Victor, the commander of an entire regiment.... saluted the man like a superior officer.
"Yes, Comrade Lieutenant General, this is the girl," Victor said, nodding at Tanya.
Who in turn...
[ ] Saluted immediately back, reporting to the Lieutenant General.
[ ] Blurted out a question about the young girl sitting at the table.
[ ] Froze in shock at the sudden attention by such a high ranking officer.
[ ] Did something that no one expected (Write in)
Jemnite Says: Mikhail Khozin was Zhukov's Chief of staff until Zhukov left to command the defense of Moscow, thereupon he was commander of the Leningrad front. He was relieved of command in June for failing to relieve Lyuben offensive operation (launched by the Volkhov Front to the Leningrad Front's South) to relieve Leningrad.
[X] Froze in shock at the sudden attention by such a high ranking officer.
If she wants to stay alive she should learn how to respect her superiors. Blurting shit out may not kill her now but it will if she has to deal with Stalin's politburo.
Well, the reason they did withdraw is as it said, their flanks were in danger, but the commander of that army surely wasn't an idiot- he would have had reserves ready to counterattack and push the Germans back as their forces became spent from breaking through initial defensive positions.
However, in the update, if you notice, Nikolai says there is no more point to holding the position. Then, it falls back to why that position was so important to hold originally. If you recall, the Germans were going to use it as a staging point to attack the Road of Life, the singular supply chain across frozen Lake Ladoga. If there is no more point to holding that position- then that must mean the cost of men and material spent defending it is no longer worth it because it's objective is there.
IRL, the Finish pushed up to the edge of Lake Ladoga but never used artillery to interdict it at any point, despite potentially having the capability to push across the lake to besiege Leningrad directly. It was due to Mannerheim, who disliked Nazi Germany even though he was forced to rely on their assistance against the Soviet Union. Mannerheim staunchly refused to have his forces participate directy in the siege of Leningrad.
Now... if something was to change his mind about Leningrad.... or even to remove Mannerheim from power....
Then, there would be no reason the Finns could not cut that supply line, would there?
You can draw your own conclusions from that about where I plan Arc 1 to go.
IRL, the Finish pushed up to the edge of Lake Ladoga but never used artillery to interdict it at any point, despite potentially having the capability to push across the lake to besiege Leningrad directly. It was due to Mannerheim, who disliked Nazi Germany even though he was forced to rely on their assistance against the Soviet Union. Mannerheim staunchly refused to have his forces participate directy in the siege of Leningrad.
That's a common myth in the West (and even in Russia), especially so since USSR was keen on restoring diplomatic relationships with Finland and didn't deem it worth to remind them of their cooperation with the Nazis after they left the war.
Mannerheim didn't stop the assault on Leningrad in 1941 because he was reluctant. He noted that he couldn't continue due to heavy Soviet resistance which resulted in big losses, and lack of air support and heavy artillery. He requested reinforcements from the Germans, but was denied since they needed them elsewhere.
That Finns didn't use artillery during the siege is attributed to Mannerheim being 'merciful', but the fact is that they didn't have that much in terms of long-range artillery, and they were perfectly willing to let Leningrad defenders starve to death without shelling them. In January 22 1942 Mannerheim signed the instruction for the fleet that explicitly stated the importance of disrupting the communication lines in the vicinity of Ladoga Lake - i.e. attacking the Road of Life.
Ethnical cleansings, and concentration camps for PoWs and civilians (including children) with death rates higher than the German ones - which Mannerheim personally visited so it's not like he wasn't aware what transpired there - was the memory he left behind on the occupied territories.
It wouldn't be that big of a deal and most people wouldn't know better if a group of lobbyists didn't try to install a memorial plaque in his honor in the very city he sieged recently, which sparked a lot of outrage and made historians come out to remind people of his 'achievements'. An attempt to rehabilitate and whitewash a Nazi collaborationist who is complicit in the acts that resulted in millions of civilian deaths is a very hot topic around here.
[X] Blurted out a question about the young girl sitting at the table.
Tanya was vaguely aware that the colonel was referring to her. But only vaguely, because for some strange reason between the colonel pointing at her and the general turning eyes upon her, she had completely disassociated herself from the girl with a Lieutenant General looking at her, and the whole scene in general.
The redhaired young girl who was looking oddly healthy for essentially starving to death within the last couple of hours was very familiar, but Tanya couldn't quite recognize her. Not at all.
Yes indeed, she didn't recognize any of this because none of it was happening to her. Not at all, Tanya was probably just at home with her mama and her sisters and her brothers and-
"Fyodorova, you said her name was?" The general's voice idly crushed her attempt to have an out of body experience to escape reality.
"Yes, Comrade Lieutenant General." The Colonel placed one hand on Tanya's shoulder and pushed her forward. "She was recently recovering from a battle around three or four days ago."
...wait, three or four days? That meant- the battle Tanya had been in had almost been half a week ago! Then, she had been unconscious all this time? Tanya started to open her mouth to say something-
The general was looking curiously at her.
-and then closed it. Nevermind. She didn't want to say anything after all.
"Then, she does not know anything then." The general shuffled some papers and turned to Tanya. "Comrade Fyodorova, you displayed... superhuman powers in aid of a defense against a German attack, as corroborated by multiple footsoldiers, correct?"
"I-" Tanya's throat was so dry. So choked. She couldn't speak. "I-"
They were all staring at her. Tanya felt her conviction die away. What was she thinking? She wasn't some saint or whatever- she was just a girl who had gotten over her head. Now that her adrenaline had bled out of her system, she could feel the uncertainty and fear creeping back again. She was just a girl over her head.
She wasn't some saint.
"I- yes," Tanya manage to choke out. "Yes."
"Since then, the position has changed quite a bit. Olga!" The general snapped his fingers at the girl sitting next to him. She gave him a quick nod, put pencil to paper and began scribbling. It seemed like it would take a moment, so Tanya spent the time studying this other girl.
She was small, pale, and short, with a headful of strange completely white hair. It was a bit alarming to be quite honest. That sort of hair simply wasn't naturally, an Tanya's peasant's blood instantly took an almost superstitious dislike towards it. Wasn't natural. Wasn't like God intended.
She wrote with half of her tongue sticking out, and with a tightly closed fist. Tanya watched in awe- not because she didn't know how to write, the Soviet Union's literary campaigns were quite impressive- but because she was putting so much effort into it, that it produced an almost mesmerizing effect of its own.
Finally she finished, flipping over the several sheets of paper she had been working on to the Lieutenant General, who scanned an eye over them, and then turned them over the Tanya. Tanya figured she should take a look at them too. What she saw surprised her.
They were draws of German tanks and soldiers crossing a frozen icey lake. That wasn't surprising, given the available choices of reference material, but what was surprising was the amount of detail put in them. It was almost like a photograph, the way the picture was shaded. She could almost imagine the scene.
"Around the same time the attack began on your flank, the Finish and German troops launched a surprise attack across Lake Ladoga," the general explained. "They had been strengthening the ice with salt, however we were unable to anticipate their attack until they launched it due to the failure of intelligence services."
Some officers in the room wearing intelligence uniforms coughed softly and looked away.
"They launched a combined panzer and infantry assault and swept all the way to the docks, where we were able to deploy our reserves to bog them down in as they advanced into urban territory. They won't be going any further. But that's not the main problem."
Tanya looked up from the photo- the drawings. "We're not going to be able to ferry supplies across the Lake anymore!"
The Lieutenant General nodded. "Yes. They've forced our hand, with a complete encirclement. We'll have to attempt to break through to connect with Volkov Front and establish a bridgeway there."
Tanya noticed his hands were clenched very tightly, and he had an almost strained look to his face. But his eyes. His eyes were angry.
"The terrain is bad and poorly fit for tanks and we have little artillery and munitions left in reserve, so this will be a primarily infantry operation. That's why we plan to use you.... witches, to spearhead the breakthrough as a special operations unit. The hope is that your special abilities will allow us to overwhelm the better equipped and dug in 18th army.
"...witches?" Tanya asked. Were there others? Others like her?
"Besides you, we have four other... witches with superhuman powers." Indeed, there were. "Olga, here, is one. The others will be introduced to you shortly. By our estimates, you are the oldest, and are the most combat-experienced. We will be relying on you to lead the unit."
....lead. Oh, wow. This was a lot of pressure being placed upon Tanya all of a sudden.
"The Colonel," the Lieutenant General inclined his head as he spoke, "will be the commanding officer of this new unit. His regiment will be formed into a new shock brigade intended to support your squad and exploit your breakthroughs."
"Do you have any questions?"
Tanya noticed his hands were shaking.
Tanya responded.... (pick 2)
[ ] Um, are we getting any weapons or anything? (Optional: Ask about your PTRD)
[ ] ...is there anything I should know about the others? If... if I'm to be their leader and all.
[ ] If- if they're going to support us... are they going to have some artillery or something?
[ ] Er, do you know anything about my family? My mother and siblings are still in the city....
[ ] ...no, sir, no questions. I'm ready. [ ] ....sir..... are you alright? You seem to be shaking pretty badly.
Jemnite Says: I don't actually know a lot about Khozin's personality- didn't seem to be a lot written about him (he was sacked pretty quickly), so I'm basically making this character up.
Also, there's a new anime coming out that's taking place around ww2, and it has a magical girl with a PTRS! Awesome! Looks hellla baller if you ask me. Check it out, guys.
[X] Um, are we getting any weapons or anything?
[X] ask about the PTRD
[X] ...is there anything I should know about the others? If... if I'm to be their leader and all.
getting to know about our comrades and what we are armed with is a priority so we can make plans around what we can do
[X] Um, are we getting any weapons or anything?
-[X] ask about the PTRD
[X] ...is there anything I should know about the others? If... if I'm to be their leader and all.
[X] ...is there anything I should know about the others? If... if I'm to be their leader and all.
[X] Er, do you know anything about my family? My mother and siblings are still in the city...
[X] ...is there anything I should know about the others? If... if I'm to be their leader and all.
[X] Er, do you know anything about my family? My mother and siblings are still in the city...
[X] ...is there anything I should know about the others? If... if I'm to be their leader and all.
[X] Er, do you know anything about my family? My mother and siblings are still in the city....
[X] ...is there anything I should know about the others? If... if I'm to be their leader and all.
[X] Er, do you know anything about my family? My mother and siblings are still in the city...
[X] ...is there anything I should know about the others? If... if I'm to be their leader and all.
[X] Er, do you know anything about my family? My mother and siblings are still in the city....
