Seeing that there were so many troops waiting on the periphery, Vlasov couldn't hold back, he stood up and asked: "Your Excellency the Marshal, why do we have so many troops, and we still deliberately retreat to let the enemy come and fight?" I think the losses of these two days are completely unnecessary. Pen ~ Fun ~ Pavilion www.biquge.info"

Although Vlasov was supported by Germany, his ability to fight the war was not bad, and when he heard about the reserve army group, he knew that the battle could not be lost. And he wants to say what the attitude of the Germans was towards him, whether they were only propping themselves up to defeat Stalin or really wanted to establish a Western Russian regime - for the latter, Vlasov was obviously not reconciled, and he wanted to get rid of Stalin and the Bolsheviks completely, and completely unify Russia instead of only half of it, as he is now.

Manstein was well aware of his thoughts, so he avoided talking about political factors, and only said: "The intention of our army is to lead as many Red Army troops as possible to the steppe and completely wipe them out, and the gains and losses of one city and one place, and the loss of part of the army, are necessary costs and are not within the scope of military considerations." How, if it had not created such a favorable situation, could the heavy group of the Red Army be able to emerge from the impregnable system of urban defenses? ”

Guderian smiled: "General Vlasov, I know that you are heartbroken by the loss of your subordinates, but as far as I know, of the more than 40,000 troops you have lost, only more than 10,000 are real casualties, and the rest are all surrendered or re-surrendered to Stalin's arms. It is clear that it is more beneficial to eliminate now than to eliminate in the future. ”

This was what made Vlasov speechless, and this was where he was annoyed, believing that if these troops were reformed a little longer, they would not defect to Stalin, but apparently the Germans did not see it that way. The Germans considered these forces to be unreliable, and that they had to surrender in the first place, but now they were exposed at the slightest test, and it was better to expose them early than later. However, he is not reasonable in this regard, saying that no one pays attention to him - why is it that only the Russian People's Liberation Army is anti-water? The Ukrainian army, the Cossack army, and the Kalmyk army all followed the Germans well, and there was indeed a Cossack division among them who did not listen to the command, but all of them were killed in battle, and only the Russian Liberation Army could fight back.

"I ......"

Although Manstein and other soldiers did not look down on Vlasov, they at least knew that this person was useful to the Führer, and he would be the head of a country in the future, and he was unwilling to make the contradiction too stiff, so he said: "I understand your feelings, but this is inevitable, and when this battle is won, we will capture more Red Army, and what troops will be replenished at that time?" Maybe you can get a few Guards to have a good time. ”

Vlasov was quickly convinced, and there was no way to accept it, this should not be his concern.

"Judging from the situation on the battlefield in the Caucasus, it is impossible for so many troops to be deployed at the same time, and the width of the battlefield is not enough, so I consider dividing the Thor's Hammer Army into two clusters and putting them in batches."

Guderian laughed, "Let me guess how you're going to put it." ”

"Okay."

Guderian walked to the map, took the staff officer's pencil and began to draw: "Divided into two groups on the left and right, the left flank group cut in from Saratov, attack about 300-350 kilometers from the front to the right, and make a detour to the right to outflank and cut off the connection between Stalingrad and Astrakhan; The right flank group waited for the enemy to attack Rostov, and then our army began to advance from the Luhansk line, seized Volgodontsk, and cooperated with the left flank group to fight for the enemy's Southwestern Front and the Don Front. ”

Manstein laughed: "It's worthy of Scud Heinz, thinking about it basically the same as me, the right wing is exactly the same, but the left wing is slightly different." ”

"Left?" Guderian raised his eyebrows, "You want?" ”

Manstein took the pencil, redrew it along Guderian's handwriting, and said with a smile: "You are all going to advance 300-350 km from Saratov, why don't you just shoot a little more?" ”

He circled the most important city on the right bank of the lower Ural on a map and said aloud: "The left flank group struck forward 400-450 kilometers, took Uralsk, and went straight down the Ural River to Atyrau on the northern shore of the Caspian Sea." ”

Everyone gasped: Guderian only wanted to deal with the more than 1 million troops of Vatutin and Rokossovsky, and at Manstein's arrangement, he wanted to wipe out the three fronts of the Red Army on the southern flank on the west bank of the Ural River.

"Army Group Center and Army Group East attacking in the middle will be able to complete the blockade of the middle section of the Ural Mountains in another 3-5 days." Manstein pointed with a whip on the map, "I have communicated with Marshal Moder, he personally led 300,000-400,000 people to block the pass, leaving 100,000 troops to backup, and the remaining more than 600,000 troops were all transferred to the south, attacking along the Ufa-Sterlitamak-Saravat-Orenburg line, cutting off the Ural River, cutting off the Red Army on the southern flank and the Ural industrial area, and then attacking in coordination with the left flank cluster of Thor's hammer." ”

Guderian nodded: "I thought the Führer would ask the Central to attack the Ural industrial zone?" ”

"It's too far, and besides, the bottom line of our peace agreement is to cut along the Ural Mountains, so there is no need to drag it out too long."

"If we can have more than 600,000 troops, I think we can achieve this goal."

According to Manstein's troop allocation, it was to carry out a large detour outflanking tactic on the southern flank, dividing the entire Red Army on the southern front into two encirclements, the first large encirclement was the northern half of the encirclement formed by the left flank cluster and the Eastern Army Group that turned southward, and the other was the southern half of the arc composed of the two army groups of Holt and Kleist, which was the main encirclement, which was roughly equivalent to encircling the 1.8 million Red Army with 2.3 million German troops; The small encirclement is to take advantage of naval superiority to transport troops ashore on the Pakistani reunification line, cooperate with Iranian troops to break north, repeat the original strategy of occupying Transcaucasus, and hold back the attacking aircraft group of Chernyakhovsky, which is currently attacking.

Of course, it is impossible to completely hold on, after all, Chernyakhovsky still has the way to retreat from the Caspian Sea, but under fierce pursuit

As for why he went ashore from Batumi, Manstein didn't say, Guderian didn't ask, but Vlasov understood it with a flash of his eyes: after the landing in Batumi, the German army closed the offensive channel in the northeast of Turkey and then stretched out its hand to the three countries of the Transcaucasia. Yes, first force your way through the German front - the Turks can't even beat the Russians, how dare they open fire with the Germans? At that time, there is no need to fight hard, as long as the troops landed in Batumi come ashore and the Iranian army (including the German army and Iranian troops in Iran) attack, the Russians can fight to the death.

Therefore, Manstein did not arrange for the landing of troops in Batumi, only an infantry army group in the reserve army group, with a total strength of more than 100,000 troops, plus more than 50,000 German troops and 150,000 Iranian troops in Iran, which was enough to cope with the scene, the southern half of the small encirclement was the Transcaucasian landing force, and the northern half of the arc was the Kleist cluster, with a total strength of about 300,000 and 400,000 (without double counting the strength of the Kleist cluster), and on the whole, it was to surround the enemy army with 2.6 million troops and 2.2 million, Of course, the Red Army may still draw 200,000-300,000 mobile troops in Central Asia, but even if it is added, it is only comparable to the German army. Again, this completely excludes the strength of the Turks, whose value in Manstein's battle plan was equal to zero.

In the overall concept of the campaign, the task of the Kleist cluster was the heaviest, he had to exert a difficult defense to prevent the two attack groups of the Red Army from eating it up, and when the final battle unfolded, he had to play the style of the center flowering; The distance of the left flank cluster of Thor's hammer is the farthest, about 600-800 km of the route to attack; Hort's Southern Army Group had the heaviest responsibility for command and coordination, and he was responsible for coordinating the three Army Groups South, Caspian and Reserve, while also holding on to Rostov-on-Don.

"The focus and key to the victory of the battle is time, whether we will first successfully build the overall encirclement in a roundabout way, or whether the enemy will eat the thorn (referring to the Kleist cluster) that lies in the encirclement first."

Marshal Kleist, who had not spoken much, smiled: "You can rest assured, although I rarely fight defensive wars, it does not mean that I will not fight defensive wars, I can fight offensive battles in the Caucasian steppes - offensive defensive wars. ”

Everyone laughed, in the last month, this marshal really did not fight much defensive warfare, but he repeatedly used the knife in the course of the pursuit, and made the Red Army miserable with short assaults, which is why he was able to calmly retreat every time without being touched by the enemy.

"So I'm very sorry, Heinz, but your army group will be split into two parts and thrown into the front." Manstein said apologetically, "I think this arrangement is more reasonable." ”

Guderian shrugged: "I expected this, everyone thinks that Thor's hammer is too powerful and wasted, haha......"

"So, how do you choose? Go to the northern line for a big detour or go to the middle line to kill the Caucasian steppe? "Manstein didn't say anything about the Southern Front—where a commander of an army group would do the job, and it was all rugged mountainous terrain that didn't require Guderian's drive.

"Since you all call me Scud, I'm the only one who does the big detour - I'm a fast runner."

All the staff officers couldn't help but laugh, it was rare to hear Marshal Guderian have such a humorous moment.

"So, the right wing of Thor's hammer and the selection of commanders?"

"Paul Hauser went to the right flank and Zepp Dietrich went with me to the left. The right flank has to fight the enemy hard, and the strength is slightly stronger, with 4 armored divisions of the Guard Banner, Empire, Skeleton and Youth, and two grenadier divisions of Nordland and National Leader; I took the rest of the troops to the left flank. ”

"Okay, after the battle plan is formed, it will be reported to Berlin today, and all units will move quickly according to the requirements of their duties."

"Yes!"

Manstein turned his head and explained to Vlasov: "Your army is engaged in a defensive battle in all the departments of the Caucasus in cooperation with Marshal Kleist, and if there is any further compromise, vacillation, or escape, the highest measures will be implemented regardless of the rank and rank. ”

"Yes!"