The Russian army held on to Akhtubinsk for a week. During this period, more than 200,000 US troops crossed the Volga River from here, including the First Tank Division, the Second Armored Division, the Third Armored Division and other several ace troops, as well as thousands of various main combat equipment.

In a sense, this is another strategic retreat similar to Dunkerke.

However, the withdrawn US troops did not get rest, but were immediately used on Volgograd's defense line and became the main force guarding the legendary city.[..com]

In history, Volgograd was also called Stalingrad.

It must be admitted that the US military retreated very promptly, but not quickly enough.

On January 8, Wei Chenglong discovered that Akhtubinsk was not so easy to capture. At that time, Giulianov had not adopted human tactics, but Wei Chenglong only discovered that the 39th Army's propulsion speed was faster than that of the two adjacent armies and had formed a protruding part. The result was that the logistics supply of the 39th Army must have encountered problems, which reduced its offensive ability.

Affected by this, Wei Chenglong asked the First 38th Army in the north to move south. The 38th Army took over all fronts in the north of Akhtubinsk, and the First 39th Army in the south accelerated its advance towards Astrakhan to eliminate the threat to the left wing of the 39th Army.

Given the situation at that time, if the Russian army had also defended it in Astrakhan, the situation of the war would have been very different.

Unfortunately, Astrakhan's Russian army failed to withstand the fierce attack of the First 39th Army and retreated to the west bank of the Volga River on January 10th.

The First 39th Army did not stay in Astrakhan, but immediately rushed north.

This time, nearly 250,000 US troops between Akhtubinsk and Astrakhan were surrounded and killed. The 138th Army heading south was attacking the left-wing defense line of the US troops, and the 42nd Army, who came from the east, was advancing with all their might, which was equivalent to driving the US troops to the guns of the 139th Army.

Of the 250,000 of the US troops, only 100,000 retreated from Akhtubinsk to the west bank of the Volga River.

If the 39th Army occupied Akhtubinsk, none of the US troops could escape. Of course, it would be a great victory to be able to annihilate 150,000 US troops in one go.

On January 11, Wei Chenglong used the last army group of the first echelon to the north.

At that time, the 38th Army had already assaulted less than 100 kilometers from Volgograd and began to cut off the US military's retreat as planned.

To the east of the 38th Army, there are at least 250,000 US troops.

In order to prevent this US military from escaping, Wei Chenglong sent the First 42nd Group Army up.

Obviously, Wei Chenglong was a little too hasty this time.

At that time, the US military north of Akhtubinsk mainly advanced towards Volgograd. If the First 42nd Army did not rush upward, the US military would likely continue to fight against the 38th Army. As a result, when the First 42nd Army was pressing up, the 39th Army had not been able to adjust its direction in time, so the US military began to move southward. In the end, another 100,000 US troops crossed the Volga River from Akhtubinsk.

By January 13, the battle surrounding Akhtubinsk was basically over.

In addition to the escaped 200,000 US troops, there were about 100,000 US troops scattered and broken through the 38th Army's defense line in the north. On January 14, a US troops of about 50,000 were broken through the defense line of the 38th Army and arrived in Saratov on January 14. There was also a US troops of about 30,000 to break through the west of Ural in Kazakhstan and went to Samara. The other 20,000 US troops all used small troops to cross the Volga River while the chaos was in trouble.

Among the 300,000 American troops who failed to break through, 170,000 were prisoners of war, of which as many as 80,000 were wounded.

Another 130,000 US troops died in battle on the battlefield, and the other 80,000 US troops were drowned when they were in intensity. Especially on the night of January 11, three US military divisions launched an attack on the east bank of the Volga River guarded by the 39th Army in despair. As a result, nearly 50,000 officers and soldiers were attacked by the 39th Army while crossing the river and all fell into the cold river.

According to information disclosed after the war, less than a thousand of the three US military advisors swam across the Volga River.

After the battle, the Chinese army salvaged tens of thousands of bodies of US military officers and soldiers at the mouth of the Volga River, near Astrakhan. Because many of the bodies lost their identity cards, the identity cannot be identified. Therefore, the Chinese army built an unknown military cemetery east of Astrakhan, buried the bodies of these US military officers and soldiers, and carved the names of the found US military ID cards on the stone tablets.

It can be said that this is the most tragic battle fought by the US military in this war.

Even in the history of the United States, this was the battle with the worst casualties of the US military to that time.

You should know that the US soldiers who died in this battle exceeded the total number of US soldiers who died in the Vietnam War and the First Korean War.

Interestingly, in the face of such a crushing defeat, Nozirov still refused to admit that it was his fault.

At that time, Nozirov even bit back, claiming that it was the Russian army that did not defend the Volga defense line, which led to the US military being besieged when retreating and was forced to break through in Akhtubinsk, resulting in hundreds of thousands of officers and soldiers having to cross the Volga River in a river less than 20 kilometers long.

Obviously, Nozirov was quibbling.

You should know that according to the division of labor, the US military is responsible for guarding the area between the Volga River and the Ural River, and the Russian army has no obligation to guard the east bank of the Volga River. In a sense, if the Russian army had not defended Akhtubinsk, 600,000 US troops would have been doomed. It was Brushilov who allowed the Russian army to enter Akhtubinsk. And he issued an order to Julianov on January 1st, when Nozirov ordered the US military to retreat. It took the Russian army three days to enter Akhtubinsk, only two days earlier than the 39th Army.

Of course, this battle also made Julianov famous.

In fact, not many people knew that he used civilians as shields and exchanged more than 100,000 Russian civilians for more than 200,000 US troops. At that time, the outside world only knew that Julianov defended the last stronghold on the east bank of the Volga River and was the savior of more than 200,000 US military officers and soldiers.

As a result, after the battle, US President Lucas personally awarded Giulianov the Medal of Honor.

This Russian general also became the first foreign soldier in history to receive the highest medal of honor in the US military, and became famous for it.

For a moment, even the Russians regarded him as a national hero.

However, the Russian army failed to defend Akhtubinsk, or there was no need to guard the city on the east bank of the Volga River, because the more important city needed Russian troops to guard it, which is Volgograd.

On January 15, the Russian army retreated from Akhtubinsk to the west bank of the Volga River.

At that time, the Chinese army did not occupy Akhtubinsk. It was not until the end of January that it was discovered that it was necessary to attack Volgograd, and it felt that it was necessary to encircle Volgograd from the south and reduce the strategic importance of Volgograd. It was then that the troops were sent into Akhtubinsk.

In fact, by this time, the biggest problem with the Chinese army is that it advances too fast.

You should know that in less than a month and a half, the Chinese army pushed more than a thousand kilometers westward and completed the task that originally planned to take four months to complete. When formulating the combat plan, Qi Kaiwei set the last time to advance to Volgograd at the end of April. In other words, Qi Kaiwei was preparing to take five months to advance more than a thousand kilometers, and he had no idea of ​​rushing to Volgograd.

It’s not that Qi Kaiwei is too conservative, but that there will definitely be problems if he advances too quickly.

The biggest problem is that logistics support cannot keep up.

Although air transport aircraft and tactical transport aircraft have been obtained, especially after the electric tactical transport aircraft began to be put into service in large quantities, air transport has become the main means of material transportation. A large fleet of transport aircraft is enough to support millions of troops to fight on the front line, air transport also requires infrastructure. Especially when transporting some large equipment that cannot be air transported by tactical transport aircraft, airports must be obtained on the front line or field airports must be opened. The problem is that there are only three slightly larger cities in the northwest of Kazakhstan, and there are no air force bases. Russia's airports in the lower reaches of the Volga River are also near several major cities, and all have been transferred to the west bank of the Volga River. As a result, there are not many airports available for Chinese troops, and field airports must be built on the front line.

At that time, the Chinese Army had already made preparations for this and purchased dozens of sets of prefabricated parts from field airports.

In the hands of skilled engineering troops, a 1,500-meter-long runway can be laid in twelve hours for large electric transport aircraft to take off and land. The problem is that this always takes time, and before this, you have to choose or open a site suitable for building field airports, and then you have to use tactical transport aircraft to send the prefabricated parts, and you have to transport the engineering troops and engineering equipment, and finally let the engineering troops start construction.

Generally speaking, it takes two to three days to build a field airport.

Obviously, in this extremely fast-advanced battle, the front-line troops can advance hundreds of kilometers in two to three days, and when the field airport is built, it will be almost at the rear. The result is that the combat burden of tactical transport aircraft has not been reduced, and most of the time, tactical transport aircraft still has to send supplies to the front-line troops, rather than allowing the front-line troops to obtain supplies directly near the field airport.

In the Battle of Akhtubinsk alone, the Chinese Air Force and the Army's tactical transport aircraft flew 210,000 times!

What is this concept?

At that time, the Chinese army invested about 3,500 tactical transport aircraft. In the eleven-day battle, each tactical transport aircraft had to fly six times a day, and there was no delay in one day. Fortunately, because the transportation distance was short, the average flight time per time was less than an hour.

If the transportation distance is slightly longer, it will definitely lead to disaster.

You should know that among these 3500 tactical transport aircraft, only one thousand are electric transport aircraft with strong dispatch capabilities, and the remaining 2500 are oil-burning transport aircraft.
Chapter completed!