Настоящая история WW2. На русском и английском - стр. 27

On December 5, the Soviet command decides on a counter-offensive near Moscow, which, even with the numerical superiority of German troops in technology and people, is generally successful. Irrevocable losses of the parties since the beginning of the offensive against Moscow from Smolensk: the Soviet Union – 940 000 people (including 200 thousand people’s militia recruited in the capital), the Wehrmacht – 120 000.

As the next stage, from January 8 to April 20, 1942, the Rzhev-Vyazma operation is carried out. The general plan is, with a shortage of artillery and, in general, heavy equipment, to cut and destroy enemy troops advancing through forests and ravines with infantry units. He failed, in particular, because of Stalin’s personal decision to attack immediately on all fronts, without concentrating forces on certain directions, with a clear goal. The result: the losses of the Red Army about 320,000 people killed and captured, the Wehrmacht is unknown, according to some sources, 90,000. Further, on July 30, the offensive continued as a Rzhev-Sychevskaya operation, now with massive use of tanks, and ended on October 1, approximately the same the number of losses from the Soviet side – 300 000 people, as well as 1,100 armored cars; the losses of the Wehrmacht are unknown.

From January 7 to April 30, 1942, the Luban offensive operation is conducted. The goal is the lifting of the siege of Leningrad, the liberation of Novgorod, the collapse of the entire German front in the North. Soviet armies have incomplete personnel, a quarter of the ammunition, inadequate supplies; they enter the breakthrough section two kilometers wide and spray the blow in different directions. Practically there are no radio stations, telephone cable, even sights for guns. At all levels of government – an amazing inconsistency of action. Four armies exhaust forces in attacks, the fifth, the 2nd Shock falls into the encirclement. When an order is issued to retreat, there remains 500—800 meters for the exit, which is permanently guarded by only six to eight tanks KV and T-34. For three days with interruptions, 12 thousand people pass through it, almost all the wounded and sick. Losses of the Soviet troops – 300 000 people, German – is unknown.

Unfortunately, not many songs are composed about this, there are almost no films and books «in the bull’s eye». About exploits and losses speak little, except for, say, speeches, such, it turns out, an intelligent historian on the «Echo of Moscow», accompanied by the giggles of his interlocutors. It corresponds to the spirit of the times «Leningradskaya zastolnaya», verses of the front-line correspondent P. Shubin:

Of the relatively modern songs, you can recall, perhaps, only the works of the folk singer V. Vysotsky. Total war is a mixture of smells, sounds, memories; feelings, which can hardly be expressed in a logical order of words: