NAZIS ADOPT NEW TACTICS?

Marlborough Express, Volume LXXVI, Issue 251, 24 October 1942, Page 5

NAZIS ADOPT NEW TACTICS?

STRCNGHOLDS IN STALINGRAD.

B.O.W.

RUGBY, Oct. 23.

There is little, if any, slackening in the scale or weight of the fighting in the Stalingrad area, according to the Soviet supplementary communique and the latest Moscow messages. Enemy infantry and tank attacks are being repulsed by machinegun and mortar fire. Inside the city the Germans are building up strongholds on a circular plan. Often they find it necessary to gain some particular building to complete the contact between groups. The fiereest fighting centres round these premises, which may change hands several times. The Germans give their fortified points every protection possible, so that in places the Russians, when they attack, are compelled to concentrate considerable fire and forces against every house they storm. Nevertheless the Russians recovered several blocks of houses in the western suburbs two days ago. The newspaper Red Star says that where a deadlock is reached in the fighting inside Stalingrad the Germans are seeking new methods of street fighting in which batteries are broken up and single tanks accompany tommy-gunners and infantry in charge. Light guns are mounted on roof-tops. Tanks are very vulnerab'le in street fighting, and are therefore used with extreme caution, often

merely as hide-outs for small groups of tommy-gunners. Red Star adds: "Twenty-two German divisions are concentrated against Stailngrad, including 15 infantry and three motorised infantry, four tank divisions possessing in all over 500 tanks, 1200 field guns, 1000 trench mortars, and 800 aircraft. North-westward of the city the Russians on the Germans' left flank dislodged the enemy from an important height. Rumanian troops freshly thrown into the battle here suffered severe casualties. An enemy group which, as reported in yesterday's communique, had driven a wedge into the Soviet positions in the Mosdok area was mopped up and the position restored. Moscow radio reports activity by the Baltic Sea Air Arm, which attacked enemy naval units. They damaged a torpedo-boat and a cutter. Another group of aircraft silenced eight enemy gun batteries and six mortar batteries, and destroyed anti-aircraft installations, railway trucks, and station buildings in several places.