After listening to Leitel's ideas and requirements for the overall campaign plan, Zhukov had a general idea in his heart, and after thinking about it, he said: "Your campaign concept is generally positive, but I still need more information to support this, and tonight all the radio stations must try their best to contact the comrades on the front line and tell me the exact battlefield situation; Tomorrow morning I need to fly in to observe the situation of the enemy and see what the situation is; As for the adjustment of the strategic concept of the two-tier encirclement, I alone said that it is not counted, and it must be discussed collectively by the General Staff. Pen Fun Pavilion www.biquge.info"

"So......" he accentuated, "at present, other forces can be concentrated on Tambov, but the forces on the two flanks cannot be withdrawn yet, even if it is to buy time for the construction of Tambov's defense system, they cannot be withdrawn too early!" ”

"Yes, I totally understand."

The rumbling of artillery rang out all night, but by 11 o'clock in the evening, the fighting finally stopped, and both the Soviet and German sides, which had been fighting all day, temporarily turned to rest.

The lights in the Smolensk command were bright, and Hoffman was reading the messages from the front one by one, and there were good news everywhere. Zeitzler reported with joy on his face: "Führer, the first day of the campaign was a major success, we broke through the lines of the two armies of the Bryansk Front and divided and encircled them, at the moment the 2nd Panzer Army of General Rudolf Schmidt is attacking Michulinsk, and the 4th Panzer Army of General Reinhardt has successfully cut the railway line between Tambov and Borisoglebsk, and is currently encircling and suppressing the enemy's 40th Army......

The overall progress of the campaign was 16-24 hours faster than the battle plan, and it was originally planned that we would only be able to break through the first line of defense tomorrow, but because everything went well, the troops advanced much faster than planned, and if tomorrow's operation could go as smoothly as today, we could lay siege to Tambov on the morning of the 27th. ”

Hoffman nodded with satisfaction: "What are the current difficulties or unexpected situations in the troops?" ”

"The supplies are a little disjointed, because the fighting is too fast, and the logistics convoy is a little unable to keep up, so the fighting is now stopped on the spot, and everything is being done to send the supplies up, and the whole is expected to be completed after 8 o'clock tomorrow, and the Fourth Air Force under the command of General Alexander Lehr is in full control of the air situation, and he said that if the ground forces need it, the Air Force can urgently airlift a batch of supplies."

Among the front-line commanders of this castle battle were two Austrian fellows, one was Rous, who commanded the Panzer Army, and the other was Lehr, who was the Fourth Air Force.

Hoffman frowned slightly, but he felt normal when he thought about it, and advised: "You can discuss the logistics matters, if it is not completed at 8 o'clock tomorrow, the attack time can be postponed a little more." ”

At 6 o'clock in the morning, Zhukov risked his life and flew into the sky with a Pe-3 heavy fighter, and Leytier strongly opposed him, but after persuading Zhukov all night, he could not resist Zhukov and had to be finally released. In order to cover its safety, Leitel not only selected the best 24 fighters from the fighter division reinforced from Moscow to provide escort, but also had the Air Group take off an additional 3 PE-2 (PE-3 and PE-2 are very similar in appearance) bombers to cover it.

Zhukov took the position of the machine gunner in the back seat, glanced at the battlefield in the air, and the more he looked, the more surprised he became:

At dawn, when the German army's supply entered the climax, he saw the huge supply truck team and the dense tanks below that could not be seen at a glance, he immediately deduced that the scale of the German armored force was not small, and the so-called 2000-2500 tanks situation report was not nonsense at all; He looked down from a high altitude on the situation near the first line of defense, and it seemed that there were few traces of engagement, and combined with the information that he received only a few responses to the radio call last night, it showed that after a day and a night of fierce fighting, the total number of troops of the two armies totaling about 180,000 had been basically wiped out from the battlefield -- and he was extremely surprised by the strong combat effectiveness of the German army.

If we extrapolate from this combat effectiveness, if the German army continues to launch a fierce attack this morning, the two armies on the left and right flanks of Tambov will probably not be able to hold it soon, and once these two armies are lost, the 3rd Army and the 6th Army of Guards Tanks alone will not be able to hold Tambov, not to mention that the tank army has already withdrawn two tank armies to reinforce the left and right flanks respectively, and the available forces in Leuttel's hands will be even less. If he did not hold these two flanks and let the Germans go straight to Tambov, he did not think that the weakly defended cities would last long - the distance between the two was generally only 50-60 kilometers, that is, half an afternoon of attack time for the armored troops.

At 8 o'clock and 15 minutes, his group was finally discovered by German fighters, although the German pilots could not understand why there were only 4 Soviet bombers but more than 20 fighters escorted, but it did not prevent them from ferociously pounced on the attack, the escort planes immediately divided half to entangle the German planes, and then asked Zhukov's heavy fighters to quickly leave the battlefield, and under the cover of the Red Army pilots, Zhukov left the Tambov theater in embarrassment and flew straight to Moscow. He didn't know how lucky he was: because the Fourth Air Force was busy sending bombers and transport planes to deliver supplies to the front line, a large number of fighters were transferred to escort the aircraft, otherwise he would have died in the dead world.

As soon as Zhukov got off the plane, he hurried to the General Staff, and as soon as he entered the door, he shouted: "The situation is very bad...... The Bryansk Front was in danger of total annihilation. ”

"Ahh Vasilevsky thought he had misheard and said in disbelief, "They have more than 500,000 people and more than 800 tanks, and they have only been fighting for a day, and they are about to be wiped out?" ”

"Yesterday the German army used 2 Panzer armies to attack, I inspected the battlefield, and found that the enemy situation was not exaggerated, there were indeed 2,000-2,500 tanks, and this morning I ventured deep into the war zone to observe the situation, and there were trucks and tanks densely packed below."

Kuznetsov interjected: "Then go and blow them up!" ”

"Fried?" Zhukov smiled bitterly, "You think they don't want to?" There were 24 fighters to protect me when I set off today, and when I was bitten by the Germans, 9 were shot down in just a few minutes, and yesterday I took the most skilled fighter pilots, if it was bombers, how long do you think they could survive such a ferocious attack by the Germans? Of course, these are not the key, Comrade Leitel proposed a new plan......"

Zhukov pulled Vasilevsky to the map and gave a general account of Leyter's plan.

"Do you agree with this plan?"

"I agree with half of it! I am in favor of retracting the troops back to Tambov, but I am afraid it will not be so easy to send troops from the north and south at the same time. He pointed in the direction of the Kremlin with his hand, "There is no problem with the use of the Central Front, it was agreed in advance, but the use of the Western Front is very problematic -- it is useless to draw fewer troops, and if it is too much, what if the Eastern Army Group really goes straight to the Orel line?" Moreover, intelligence has always indicated that the enemy's Army Group Center also has an armored army, and they have not made any moves at the moment. ”

Vasilevsky nodded: "According to intelligence, the enemy's Eastern Army Group will launch an attack at dawn tomorrow, and now the enemy is in full swing to prepare, Comrade Meretskov has gone to Tula to take command, his troops cannot be easily used for the time being, if the Western Front is really withdrawn from 500,000, then there are only more than 600,000 troops left, what if Moder kills from the Rzhev-Vyazma line?" ”

"Although the opinion of building a double encirclement is inappropriate, Tambov still has to actively defend, at least find a way to attract the enemy's two armored armies." Zhukov's finger crossed Tambov and continued to move south, "My idea is that the Central Front should not go north for the time being, let alone try to open up the connection between the two fronts, they should make a decisive attack and attack ......"

"You mean, going to attack Karachi?" Vasilevsky frowned and thought for a moment, "It's an idea, but it may not work so quickly." ”

"Report, Comrade Baglamiyan, commander of the Central Front, sent a telegram: ...... The reconnaissance showed that the main force of the armored army in the enemy's Hoult cluster had basically moved north to attack the Tambov direction, and this front army planned to move part of its forces to the Tambov direction to protect the flank, and use the main force to attack Karachi, which was garrisoned by Italian troops, and its combat effectiveness and fighting will were relatively weak. ”

Vasilevsky laughed: "It seems that Comrade Baglamyan, like you, has his eyes on the Italians. ”

Zhukov spread his hands helplessly: this was also forced, the Germans were too powerful to beat, so they could only fight the Italians. Once Karachi was taken, the German Voronezh was cut off from Army Group South, for the same reason that the Germans wanted to attack Tambov to cut off the north and south.

The key to this adjustment is who is faster - if the Germans take Tambov quickly, the troops left on the flank of the Central Front will be quickly eaten by the Germans starting from Tambov, and then further threaten the rear of the Central Front, and even the front itself will be in danger; And if the Central Front can quickly take Karachi and eliminate or annihilate most of the Italian troops, the rear road of the Hort cluster will be cut off, and the flanks will naturally lose cover, so that not only can the siege of Tambov be quickly lifted, but the situation of the entire southern flank battlefield can be improved, and the whole front will return to the original starting point.

However, Vasilevsky was still a little uneasy, and asked Zhukov: "Do you think the Central Front can accomplish this task?" ”

"I think there is still a great deal of hope for it to be completed, 70 percent of his front army is a new unit drawn from the Far East, and its combat effectiveness is relatively strong, and with my understanding of Comrade Bagramyan, he will definitely take this part of his forces to attack and leave the new supplementary troops on the flanks."

"Call back Comrade Bagla Miyan, agree with his ideas and deployment adjustments, and be resolute and fast when attacking!"

Zhukov thought for a moment and added: "Comrade Leitel will hold Tambov until the comrades of the Central Front achieve victory!" (To be continued.) )