At the same time as the German offensive of Army Group Center, the 9th Army Corps of Moder in the north broke through the Russian line on a frontal width of 32 kilometers and advanced 9.6 kilometers, which was the first result of the German army in the north during the entire battle. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 infoManstein to the south is progressing more smoothly, but at a higher cost. On September 9, the 4th Panzer Corps of Hoth had broken through the three lines of defense of the Russian army in the south and charged the fourth line of defense, and the 48th Panzer Army was only 25 kilometers away from the center of the Russian defense, Oboyan. The Red Russian army urgently mobilized the two main armies of the Strategic Reserve Steppe Front to reinforce the Voronezh Front. On September 12, the main force of the Steppe Front, Rotmistrov's 5th Guards Tank Army, forcibly marched more than 300 kilometers to the Prokhorovka area, and encountered the German 2nd SS Panzer Army of Hausser, which was assaulting to the east and seeking to maneuver, the Russian army 850 tanks and self-propelled guns launched a large-scale tank battle with more than 500 tanks and self-propelled guns of the German army. The Germans still had a few divisions of tank strategic reserves that had not yet been committed, and Manstein intended to let the last tank divisions go out at a decisive moment after the opponent had been exhausted to a considerable extent.

Germany launched an offensive from Ukraine and Donbass on the left bank of the Dnieper to crush the plans of the Russian army to organize a defense in this area. Another reason why the Dnieper is suitable for defense is that the right bank of the river is high and can control the left bank, which is low and gentle for a long distance. At the end of September, the enemy built a well-engineered defense here full of anti-tank and anti-infantry weapons, which was the basic part of the so-called "Eastern Barrier". Where the Red Russian High Command believed that the Germans could cross the river, an extremely solid multi-zone defense was constructed. In a series of areas on the right bank of the Dnieper, Russian units built bridgeheads with strong firepower. In the Kremenchuk, Zaporozhye and Nikopol regions, particularly powerful fortifications were constructed.

The Red Russian army seized the Dnieper and used it as a life-saving straw. The Red Russian generals believed that they would be able to prevent the Germans from forcing the Dnieper again by using this powerful natural river barrier and the fortifications built on the river.

After the loss of Kharkov, Marshal Vasilev, deputy chief of the General Staff of the Red Russian High Command, declared: "The Dnieper is a huge river obstacle 700 to 900 meters wide, and we have prepared a continuous permanent launch point, a natural fortress that cannot be attacked. Unless the Dnieper flows backwards, the Germans will not be able to overcome it. ”

The defense of the Dnieper is closely related to the preservation of the rich regions of Orel, Tula and so on. This region was of great economic importance for Red Russia. Dzhugashvili understands that the collapse of positions along the Dnieper will allow Red Russia to once again lose grain in this region, coal in Donetsk, manganese and non-ferrous metals in Zaporozhye and Nikopol. In a word, the loss of the Dnieper means the loss of an important raw material base for the Russians.

The glorious task of strictly defending the Dnieper was accomplished by the troops of the Central Front, the Voronezh Front, the Steppe Front, the Southwestern Front, and the Southern Front. The base camp was appointed Marshal of the Soviet Union Г?? k?? Zhukov and A?? m?? Vasilevsky coordinated the combat operations of the armies of the various fronts.

On September 12, when the German troops of the Northern Front reached the Kharkov defensive outskirts and engaged in fierce battles south of Bogodukhov, the command of the Steppe Front, the Voronezh Front and the Southwestern Front had already received an order from the headquarters of the Red Russian High Command, in which the tasks for the troops of the three fronts were given. The intended direction of the Steppe Front was to attack Krasnograd and Verkhniy Dneprovsk, and the rapid troops were to advance to the Dnieper and occupy the crossings. The task of the Voronezh Front was to attack Kremenchug, and the troops of the South-Western Front were to move in the general direction of Barvenkovo and Pavlograd, advance to the line of Zaporozhye and Pologhi, and cut off the retreat of the enemy Donbass group to the west. The Red Russians planned to use the offensive to deplete a large number of the German army's vital forces, and after obtaining a relatively stable front, they would mobilize forces to block the Chinese Wehrmacht advancing on the eastern front.

In order to drive the Germans out of the Russian border, the Central Committee of the Peasants' and Workers' Party and the Supreme High Command took all measures. The base camp had sufficient reserves and it was considered possible and necessary to strengthen the Russian armies on all fronts. In the first half of September, the base camp transferred the 60th, 52nd and 3rd Guards Tank Armies, 2 tank corps, 1 mechanized corps and 2 cavalry corps to the Central Front and the Toronezh Front; The 37th Army and the two armies drawn from the friendly Voronezh Front and the Southwestern Front, respectively, were transferred to the Steppe Front. Events developed rapidly. The time devoted to the preparation of a new assault was limited, the necessary measures in terms of the deployment of troops were still taken, tasks were determined, the organization of the campaign to recover Ukraine on the left bank from the German invaders and then organize a defensive line in the lowlands on the eastern bank of the Dnieper.

However, the German army, which had received the latest equipment assistance from China, repelled the counterattacks of the Red Russian armies on all fronts step by step with advanced weapons and a stern order not to retreat. By September 20, the German Northern Cluster had captured Bryansk, and Manstein's Central Cluster had completed the encirclement of Volonezh, coupled with the news that the Chinese Eastern Front Army and the German Southern Cluster were about to join forces in the lower reaches of the Don River, the Red Russian army had begun to waver, and there was no longer that desperate spirit of not giving up an inch of land.

On 23 September, just as Manstein believed victory was in sight, Führer Hess ordered an immediate halt to the "Eastern" campaign, since British and American troops had landed in Scotland on 20 September, and in order to prevent the collapse of the British front, troops had to be drawn from the Soviet-German battlefield. Manstein believes that stopping the war now is tantamount to giving up the victory, at least the strategic reserves of the Russian army. Hess relented, and except for the Germans in the south, who continued to consume the Russians, the rest of the troops withdrew from the battle, but several of Manstein's panzer divisions were transferred a few days later.

Führer Hess's "Eastern" campaign ended in this way, in fact, for Germany and Führer Hess, Freiberg's mushroom cloud was the fatal blow to the German dream of world domination. On September 25, the Bryansk Front of the Red Russian Army and the Western Front launched an offensive against Orel behind Kruger's "Northern Cluster". At the same time, the Voronezh Front and the Steppe Front also launched a counterattack on Manstein in the south, and the Germans were defeated in the north and south. On October 5, the Red Russian army miraculously recaptured Belgorod and Orel, and the battle of the "East" that Germany had planned for half a year finally ended with the forced repair of the German army's northern front and central cluster. The strategic reserves of the German army were exhausted in the battle, and the German army completely lost the strategic initiative on the Russian-German battlefield, and no longer had the ability to independently assume the destruction of Red Russia.

From the German side, the biggest mistake was to delay the attack, and before April and mid-May, the German army took advantage of the victory of the second capture of Kharkov and attacked the Russian hinterland with the forces in its hands at that time, and indeed had a considerable chance of victory. At that time, the Russian army Voronezh, the Southwestern Front, and the Central Front suffered heavy losses and had not yet been reorganized, and the steppe front had not yet arrived, and the deployment was unfolded. The salient is not a decent thing to defend. However, on the one hand, Führer Hess hoped to obtain a cheaper victory through secret weapons, and on the other hand, he also lacked the ability to make decisions on the spot, so he hesitated, and then waited for the new "Tiger" tank and the "Snow Leopard" tank supported by China, and delayed for a total of more than two months, losing a good opportunity on the battlefield, and committing the taboo of the battle determination.

The new tank, which Hess had waited for at great expense, did not perform as well as he could. In his memoirs, Guderian mentions: "In the Moder Army, although there were 90 Porcy-type 'Tiger' tanks, they were both lacking in ammunition and without machine guns. Therefore, although they can penetrate into enemy infantry positions, they cannot destroy enemy fire. It can be seen that the Führer Hess's delay in waiting for the new tanks was a fatal defeat, and this delay led to the timing of the landing of the Anglo-American Allied forces in Scotland coinciding with the decisive moment of the Battle of the "East". To make matters worse, the new tanks were not very effective at such a heavy price.

Judging from the Red Russian side, their judgment of the situation was more accurate. For both Russia and Germany, the Kursk salient must be attacked, and the attack must be defended. Whoever attacks first in this battle will be disadvantageous to whom, and this is something that both sides are aware of. Manstein advocated that the Russian army attack first, because in the spring of the twenty-second year of the Taichu Dynasty, the Russian army took the initiative to attack the Kharkiv region and was encircled and annihilated, and the German army defending and counterattacking had the upper hand. Also in view of this, Zhukov advocated letting the Germans attack first, and Zhugashvili's final decision was to let the Germans attack first, and if the Germans extended the offensive for a long time, the Russian army would take the initiative to attack. If the Germans had waited patiently for the Red Russians to launch an offensive first, they would have broken away from the fortified Kursk defensive tank cluster positions and engaged the Germans in a field battle, and the Germans' powerful tank strategic reserves would not have crashed into the opposing fortifications. The experience of maneuvering operations in the open areas of the steppe, the Russian army was inferior to the German army. However, in the end, the Germans misjudged the situation and struck first, which ultimately led to the defeat of the war. Taking the lead in a war may not always be able to control people, and this is the most important lesson left by the "Eastern" battle to future generations of military strategists.

Due to the accuracy of the judgment of the Red Russian High Command, the battle was carried out according to the plan chosen by itself, and the main forces originally deployed in the Dnieper bag-shaped area were withdrawn to the rear, leaving only a variety of specialized combat arms that consumed the German tank clusters, and at the same time, it also maximized the advantages of in-depth echelon defense, although the Red Russia did not regain the lost ground, but the task of consuming the German army was completed relatively well with the cooperation of the German Führer Hess, and they could use almost half of their strength to defend against the German counterattack in the fortified area, And the strategic goal of transferring troops to the south to open up the passage of the Don River and rescue the main force of the Russian army on the southern front that had been cut off is their strategic goal. In a sense, in addition to being proactive, Germany is really not a reliable teammate in containing Red Russia, but nearly a third of China's army and air force have already set foot on Red Russian European territory, and Red Russia's nightmare will have to wait until they wake up.