There is a sentence that Frank said is not right, the Americans still value him very much, otherwise the main force of the Atlantic Fleet would not have poured out of the South Atlantic to encircle and suppress him, but Hoffman really can't take care of the Falklands Fleet for the time being, and now there are more important battles to be fought -- the second British air raid in the west, and the Soviet counterattack in the east, which involved a lot of energy from the Führer. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

With Hoffmann's connivance, intentionally or unintentionally, the fire in the Caspian Sea and Transcaucasia finally became more and more vigorous. By the first week of April, the total strength of the Soviet troops gathered in Transcaucasia was nearly 400,000 men - almost an entire front, and even then Chernyakhovsky continued to receive supplies and technical troops from the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea. By April 8, the Transcaucasian offensive cluster had acquired more than 1,000 tanks, nearly half of which were relatively advanced IS-1, T-43/85 and American-made Shermans, and more than 200 T-43/76s of the remaining 500-odd tanks, less than 200 of the earlier T-34/76s, and even fewer of the other light tanks.

In order to contend for air supremacy around the Caspian Sea, the Red Army aviation units also went out with all their nests and took the initiative to fight with the German army in the past few days, especially after receiving supplies from the US military twice in a row (36 ships from the Soviet Union and 24 ships from Japan), Comrade Stalin went crazy and sent them all in the direction of the Caspian Sea and Central Asia, mobilizing a total of more than 600 aircraft, of which nearly 400 were fighters of various types, and the remaining more than 200 were the unique Il-2 of the Soviet Union. As for the bomber units, Stalin no longer expected them to come out and send them to their deaths. Voroshilov, who was in charge of military production, believed that the raw materials and fuel consumed by a bomber could often be used by two fighters, and the training of bomber pilots was more troublesome than that of fighter aircraft, so in the second half of 1943, especially after entering 1944, the Soviet side completely stopped manufacturing bombers, concentrated all its resources and focused on the development of fighters, and the goal was also very clear, to compete for campaign air supremacy and local air supremacy.

Now the main opponent encountered by the Luftwaffe is the Yak-3 and La-5 as the main force, but the new aircraft such as the Yak-9 and La-7 have also begun to be equipped in batches, and the US-aided aircraft are still tragic, neither the popular P-47\P-51, nor the Navy's F4U, let alone the Meteor jets that the United States and Britain themselves have not yet equipped -- and now there is the problem of protection money that "can not be mentioned but cannot really be regarded as none", and advanced fighters cannot be given at all. It was still the P-63 that the Americans themselves did not want, which was given to the Red Army. But the P-63, no matter how rubbish, is much better than the original P-39\40 series. Comrade Stalin was still very grateful to Comrade Roosevelt for his generosity, and even more so when he knew that Japan wanted a piece of the pie, he sent the Red Army extremely valuable high-grade aviation fuel, armor steel, aluminum ingots, and other urgently needed materials.

Therefore, he not only presented the IS-1 and T-43/85 in full sets of physical objects and materials according to the requirements of the US side, but also gave additional compensation -- he sent the wreckage of German technical equipment obtained on the battlefield, such as the Raider, Himmler pipe organ, and even the Tiger tank, which the US military was most interested in. In addition, it negotiated with the Japanese side and demanded that the Japanese side, which had received the protection money, release a group of American sailors who had been initially detained. Stalin and Molotov thought very well that in the event that in the future there were people who were entangled in the fact that some of the supplies for the Soviet Union fell into the hands of Japan, and there were people who could give an account to the United States -- they had to redeem them in exchange for American citizens. The Japanese side, which had benefited from it, quickly agreed, and the American side, of course, expressed its deep gratitude.

Now Japan is living a relatively comfortable life, the combined fleet robbed outside Australia and New Zealand and no one dared to take care of it, the Indian dispatch army that continuously increased troops defeated the British army one after another, and the supplies for aiding the Soviet Union were divided into 40 percent of the benefits, and the Chinese mainland direction also frequently made money, and then trade with Europe in exchange for one stubble after another of useful materials, including Do-412 and Ju-198, began to provide Japan with them, and all sides were deeply satisfied, believing that now was the best day since the start of the war. The proposal to set up 15 security divisions and regiments was adopted as a matter of course, and even the Tibetan minister at the five-phase meeting took the initiative to say that at the end of the year, if the army really needed it, another 15 public security divisions and regiments could be formed. King Minoru Higashikurenomiya praised the "blessing of the ancestors" again and again - after all, no one was an immortal, and they did not know that Spruance would soon go to India with the TF44 fleet, 4 escort aircraft carriers and 2 British native divisions to find them trouble.

Of course, the Japanese side also got the P-63 and the Sherman tank, and the Japanese had a very low evaluation of the P-63, thinking that it was not as good as the Fw-190 or other German aircraft, so it proposed to the Soviet side if it could exchange the Sherman tank, and would rather exchange 2 aircraft for 1 Sherman. At present, Japan is the country with the most complete range of Sherman models in the world - almost none, Britain and the United States use the gasoline version of the Sherman, the Soviet Union gets the diesel version of the Sherman, only Germany and Japan have both versions, but the German diesel version of the Sherman is very few, far less than Japan. Therefore, the Japanese army, especially the Kwantung Army, wanted to form more tank brigades with pure American weapons, but tanks were also urgently needed by the Soviet Union, and they were reluctant to exchange them for P-63.

However, there are a lot of smart people after all, some people put forward a plan to exchange bombers for P-63, and got Voroshilov's approval, and finally the two sides reached an agreement, the Soviet Union exchanged 40 Pe-2 from Japan for 93 P-63, the Japanese side was deeply satisfied with this, and was even more satisfied after the test flight evaluation, thinking that Pe-2 is currently not as good as the German Ju-188 bomber, it is stronger than other goods in Japan's hands, especially compared to the Italian BR20 bomber introduced by the army that year. The main equipment of the domestic manufacturing is the Flying Dragon or the Dragon-Swallowing Heavy Explosion (said to be a heavy explosion, and the bomb carrying capacity is not as good as the Pe-2) has a great advantage.

After the beginning of this project, other things were easy to do, the Red Army had a lot of Pe-2 in stock, since the bombers were not a top priority now, they could be exchanged for more desperate supplies in the hands of the Japanese army, so those armored steel and aluminum ingots were not hot in Japan, and in a blink of an eye, they became Pe-2. The Soviets did not feel sorry for this, because they still had better Tu-2 bombers in their hands, and besides, a mere hundred Pe-2s could not change anything, so they were simply exchanged for export - in a few months, the British and Indian troops would have the opportunity to taste the bombs dropped by the Pe-2 painted with the Japanese army's logo.

Faced with such a complicated situation in the Transcaucasus, Zeitzler could not sit still and ran directly to Rostov to prepare for the deployment of counteroffensive work, but here he heard the shocking answer of Marshal Manstein of the Eastern Joint Theater of Operations: "Counteroffensive? What are you doing on the counteroffensive, let the Russians fight! I wish they were calling. ”

"I know that you have deployed a lot of troops in the direction of the South Caucasus, but the reconnaissance situation shows that the three fronts of the Red Army on the Stalingrad line are eager to try, in case the enemy army advances north and south and encircles and suppresses our South Caucasus headquarters, I am afraid that it will be more troublesome in the future."

Before the formation of the Eastern Joint Theater, Army Group South had jurisdiction over three army groups, A, B, C, of which Army Group A was Army Group Kleist, Army Group B was the Hult cluster, and Army Group C was the Rommel cluster; After Manstein became the commander of the Eastern Joint Theater of Operations, the three army groups A, B, and C were integrated, and Marshal Hult's Army Group B and the original headquarters of Army Group South formed a new Army Group South, with Marshal Hult as the commander, and the front in charge was roughly along the Volga River from Samara to the periphery of Stalingrad, with nearly 600,000 troops, with Marshal Weix's Army Group of the East on the northern flank and Marshal Kleist's Caspian Army Group on the southern flank; The spearhead of the most elite offensive was the 4th Panzer Army, commanded by Colonel-General Jorg Hans-Reinhardt.

The Caspian Army Group was formed by the merger of the former Army Group A headquarters and the Rommel Group (Schellner was the commander of the Fifth Army, not the commander of the Central Asian Army Group), with Marshal Kleist as the commander, and the front included the Volga River basin on the line from Astrakhan to Stalingrad, the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian Sea coast, with Army Group South on its northern flank and the Turks in Transcaucasia on its southern flank. Theoretically, Central Asia was also under the jurisdiction of the Caspian Army Group, but due to the relative distance and the special circumstances of the Central Asian Army Group, Schellner gained independent status. The Caspian Army Group, excluding Schellner's division, had a total strength of more than 500,000 troops, and the most elite offensive force was the 1st Panzer Army under the command of General Eberhard von Mackensen.

In Zeitzler's view, it was quite certain that Kleist alone would be able to deal with the forces of the Red Army in Transcaucasia, even with the addition of the Malinovsky Independence Army on the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, but it would be very difficult to cope with the two fronts of Yeremenko and even Rokossovsky in the north, which together - the latter two combined forces were nearly 900,000. Even if Marshal Hult's support forces are counted, that is, 750,000 vs 1.55 million, the German army obviously suffered.

Manstein agreed with all of Zeitzler's judgments and analyses, but Zeitzler and Kleist themselves did not understand the coping strategy he was going to adopt.

"Hold off the Russians at the Caucasus mountain passes, and then let them in." Manstein laughed, "They like to come to the Caucasus so much, so let them come...... Spring is coming soon, and the scenery of the Caucasian steppes is so good, it's a pity not to come and see it! ”

"Prairie! Grassland! Zeitzler and Kleist were recalling these two words, and suddenly reacted, "You want to put it in to fight tank group warfare?" ”

"How can the mountainous and muddy fields of the Transcaucasia give full play to the advantages of tanks?" Manstein smiled strangely, "The Führer has prepared a feast for them......"

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