Word: luki
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...Army's capture of Rzhev last week freed the 160-mile railway between Velikie Luki and Moscow. Soviet engineers immediately began to broaden the gauge to the Russian size. For the Germans this "axle war" had involved moving the wheels of captured rolling stock slightly toward the center of the axle. The Russians are now having to return the wheels to the ends of the axle...
...they had done at Velikie Luki, the Russians flowed around and then into...
...Hedgehogs. The cities of Rzhev and Vyazma lie a-flank Moscow, some 125 miles to the northwest and southwest (see map). Connecting them with Smolensk, Vitebsk, the town of Velikie Luki and nearby Toropets to the northeast are railways and roads, now the military arteries of a fortified rectangle. Against the eastern edge of this rectangle, between Rzhev and Vyazma, and against the upper edge just west of Rzhev and on two sides of Velikie Luki, the Russians drove last week. Their purpose was to surround both places, to cut the railways and roads serving them and the whole German...
...Russians cut the railway between Rzhev and Vyazma. They cut the chief highway serving Rzhev. They cut two railways north and south of Velikie Luki. They took positions between Velikie Luki and the pivotal German strongpoint at Toropets. Artillery, tanks and infantry, including ski troops, within 48 hours had repeatedly broken through the outer line of the rectangle, flowed around the German's mighty fortress at Rzhev and all but isolated some 75,000 German troops there. Very near Rzhev, where Red Army troops had won a foothold last September, they attacked the suburbs of the city itself...
...developed at week's end. The Russians had isolated Velikie Luki; they had broken three rail lines and had put four German infantry divisions and one tank division to rout. But, compared to the Stalingrad offense, the Rzhev action was so far only a knocking against the German...