Battle of Stalingrad

West Rome

England

France

Kliment Voroshilov

Boris Shaposhnikov

Aleksandr Vasilevsky

Semyon Timoshenko

Aleksei Antonov

Ivan Konev

Fyodor Tolbukhin

Ivan Bagramyan

Konstantin Rokossovsky

Vasily Chuikov

Yuri Belov

Sashenka Gromova

Stasya Makarova/Scarlett Moon

Pasha Gromov (KIA)

Supported by:

Alexandra Kendrick

Marsha A. Harris (WIA)

Joshua J. Mayberry

Otozō Yamada

Yoshijirō Umezu

Korechika Anemia

Yasuhiko Asaka

Shunroku Hata

Seishirō Itagaki

Kotohito Kan'in

Iwane Matsui

Toshizō Nishio

Yasuji OkamuraHajime Sugiyama

In the normal timeline, the **Battle of Stalingrad** was a large military engagement between the Russian and German forces on the Eastern Front taking place from August 23, 1942 - February 2, 1943. It is regarded as one of the largest and bloodiest battles in history. In the alternate timeline presented in the TACITUS Expanded Universe, it was not the Nazi Germans the Soviets were fighting, but the Imperial Japanese Empire, which invaded the Soviet Union. However, the invasion happened on the same date that it did in the Modern TImeline, but ended a couple days later (February 19, 1943, instead of February 2).

## Background

*Main article:* Operation Rising Sun

The Imperial Japanese had invaded the Soviet Union, annexing a large chunk of land and designating it the Imperial Federation of Japanese Russia. Resistance movements were appearing all over the occupied zone, but the location where the fighting was fiercest happened to be Stalingrad, where the Russian Resistance was soon reinforced by scattered units of the Soviet Armed Forces.

At first, the Soviets were afraid to rebel against the Japanese occupation, pending news of the Imperial Japanese Occupation Force brutally executing dissenters. However, they were soon spurred into action when word got out of a Soviet sniper, going by the name "Scarlett Moon", who showed unexpected bravery against the Imperial Japanese by slowly and systematically killing major personnel in the occupation force across Occupied Russia.

Inspired by these reports, the Soviet citizens of Stalingrad decided to launch a rebellion against the Japanese invaders, which coincided with a Soviet counteroffensive launched by the Soviet Armed Forces to retake the city.

## The Battle

The first major event in the battle was an effort by the Soviet Armed Forces to destroy a building that was being used by the Imperial Japanese Occupation Force as a forward operating base. During the operation, Alexandra Kendrick, having decided to become a foreign volunteer with the Russian Resistance and the Soviet Army, fought alongside the Soviets in capturing the building. However, while capturing the building, the Soviets fell victim to an ambush by the Imperial Japanese Army, which rigged the upper floors of the building with explosive booby traps to kill Soviet soldiers. Alexandra survived, albeit with injuries. While the remaining Soviet soldiers were killed off by the Imperial Japanese, Alexandra tried to play dead in order to deceive the Japanese, only to witness them being killed off by the mysterious female Russian sniper known as the Scarlett Moon.

She later helped to repair a field wire that the Imperial Japanese had severed to hinder Soviet military communications. During the mission, the Imperial Japanese tried to trap her comrades in a bombed-out building in order to weaken the Soviets enough to slaughter them. However, the Soviet sniper known as the Scarlett Moon again saved their lives.

During another mission to capture a Soviet train station being used by the Imperial Japanese Army as a supply depot, the Imperial Japanese fought tooth and nail against the Soviets, quickly routing them by assembling a much bigger security force than the Soviets anticipated. The Soviets were soon decimated by a massive entourage of Imperial Japanese Army troops while they tried to storm the Station House.

Alexandra believed all was lost-until the Scarlett Moon threw a grenade into the building to kill the Japanese soldiers hiding inside. Alexandra then tried to flee the carnage, but was attacked by a Japanese soldier. Weakened from injuries sustained during the massacre of the Soviet soldiers trying to capture the building, Alexandra was quickly overpowered during the ensuing hand-to-hand fight. Once again, the Scarlett Moon saved her life and also revealed her real name: Stasya Makarova.

After getting Alexandra to safety, Stasya informed Alexandra of her mission to cripple the Japanese Occupation Force in Stalingrad by bombing the supply depot, revealing that the Station House was also a prominent weapons storehouse. Discovering a cache of weapons to be transported across Occupied Russia, Stasya and Alexandra worked together to bomb the weapons cache and blow up the railroad tracks leading to Stalingrad, effectively crippling the Imperial Japanese Army's ability to move supplies into the city. She also helped Stasya capture City Hall in Stalingrad.

Months later, on February 19, 1943, the Imperial Japanese retreated from Stalingrad, though the Soviet war against Japan was far from over.