The machine gunner Aleksandr Gordeev deplored the crudity of his own army’s tactics: “The frontal attacks puzzled me. Why advance straight into German machine-gun fire? Why not make flank attacks?” He briefly deluded himself that his own company, reduced to one-third strength, would be spared from making further assaults, but instead early one morning it was reinforced by rear-area personnel, some of them clerks. They were issued double rations of vodka, “and those who wanted it drank more.” Gordeev’s assistant gunner was reassigned as a rifleman, and “walked off as though assured he was
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