ps: Crying to death, what I wrote last night because of the word collapse, it's all gone, woo woo woo woo......

Soon after Stalin's telegram arrived, Vasilevsky's telegram also arrived, but the telegram was written very long, and it took a long time for the translator to deliver it to Zhukov, not so much in his accord with Stalin's opinion, nor in the fact that he sent the telegram in his own name, but in the sadness revealed between the lines, and Zhukov rarely saw this sentiment in his old partner. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

“…… A diplomatic note from the American side came, which the United States authorities refused when the Politburo agreed to be patient for the time being and accept the humiliating 40 per cent transit fee. The reasons and excuses used are irrefutable:...... As a democratic country, the United States cannot accept such blackmail, still less can it watch the materials produced with American taxpayers' money end up in the hands of Japan, the enemy of the United States. It's not a question of losing tens of thousands of tons or a few ships, it's a matter of investing in the enemy. At the same time, due to the many setbacks suffered by the US navy, the Japanese navy was in full swing, so we were unable to provide armed escorts.

…… If the Soviet side cannot solve the current problems, this route will be forced to temporarily suspend, and the United States will consider building a new air base on the Aleutian Islands to provide emergency air transportation to the Soviet Union, which can reach a transportation scale of about 10,000 tons per month. ”

Zhukov knew that when calculating this year's material supply and operational support, the Politburo and the General Staff counted the US aid materials, and the standard was 300,000 tons/month, and if 500,000 tons/month could be ensured, the situation would be more abundant. But if there is only 10,000 tons/month, it is basically impossible to provide the rest except for some very urgent parts and medicines. Judging from the current situation, air transportation can not be carried out until at least May, and heavy equipment will certainly not be transported. For a high-intensity war of 5 million large countries, what can a 10,000 tons/month transportation scale be worth?

“…… The comrades on the diplomatic front made painstaking efforts and negotiated and finally came up with a plan in which the United States would transport supplies and ships to the vicinity of the Aleutian Islands, and then our side would send sailors to carry out the last leg of the route and be responsible for dealing with Japanese blackmail, so as to formally circumvent the situation of "the United States financing the enemy." We have received privately that the United States Military Command, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, agreed to the alternative, but their heads of Government refused to sign such an executive order. According to the secret information we have received, Mr. Roosevelt, President of the United States, who has always advocated friendly cooperation among the allied countries to jointly fight fascism, is seriously ill and hospitalized and cannot take care of things.

This man is said to have no prestige in Washington, and is instinctively antipathetic to the Bolsheviks, as well as a bit of political cleanliness and stupid idealism...... Not only did he refuse to give us material aid, but he even complained about the British aid bill, saying that 'the sacrifice was too great, the effect was very low, and the meaning was not great', and the military attachés conveyed the private sympathy of the senior military generals for us and the indignation of the current political situation!

At the Politburo meeting, in view of the current state of affairs, many comrades re-submitted their request to consider peace, believing that if we continue to delay, not only will there be no hope of victory in the war, but it may lead to the complete destruction of the party and the country. I would like to give you a comprehensive, insightful and realistic overview of the situation, and I hope that you will not think that I am capitulationist or vacillator. ”

Immediately, Vasilevsky listed a long list of figures and introductions, which did not need to be talked about by him, and Zhukov had a vague full estimate in his heart, but when he looked at them all together, he found that the scene was very shocking:

By the beginning of 1944, due to the reduced scope of control, insufficient food supplies, and successive defeats in the northern and central theaters, the overall strength of the Soviet armed forces could only exceed 7 million after joining more than 800,000 female soldiers, of which nearly 1 million were distributed in the Far East. In a situation where Japan had already turned around and the Kwantung Army was about to move, this part of the force could no longer be drawn, so the actual number of troops that could be used against the Axis was only about 6 million.

The Supreme High Command estimated that the strength of the German army on the Eastern Front was between 4.2 million and 4.3 million (actually 4.08 million), and the rest of the troops provided by the Axis partners such as Finland, Italy, Romania, Hungary, and Turkey, plus the Russian People's Liberation Army, Ukraine, Belarus, Central Asia, and the Baltic States, totaled nearly 2 million (about 1.75 million in fact). This means that the Axis has not only greatly overwhelmed the Red Army in terms of personnel quality, but has also basically maintained parity in numbers. At present, the Soviet army is full of 16-year-old or even 15-year-old baby soldiers and grandfather soldiers in their 50s, and their opponents are basically concentrated in the 18-40 age group, and even the proportion of ordinary officers and soldiers in the German army in the 35-40 age group has gradually decreased.

In addition to personnel, the contrast between the two sides in heavy equipment is also becoming increasingly unbalanced. The Supreme High Command estimated that the number of tanks and self-propelled guns in the Axis was more than 20,000 (actually about 15,000), while the Soviet army itself only had more than 13,000, and the main land combat equipment - the armored vehicles above the T-34 level was even more unbalanced, about 8,000 vs. 5,000, and the Soviet products were obviously inferior in quality to their German counterparts.

The performance in aviation equipment was relatively similar, with the General Staff estimating the number of Axis aircraft at 25,000 (actually 19,000), while the Red Army itself had only a little more than 15,000. In terms of aircraft performance, when the Red Army was forced to replace aluminum alloy with a large amount of steel and wood for aircraft construction, the quality and performance of the Axis aircraft were still steadily improving. Now the military industry is even embarrassed to the point of collecting the wreckage of the aircraft, whether it is its own side or the enemy's reproduction.

The comparison in equipment does not seem to be completely unbalanced, at least on the surface, but the difference in quality is almost desperate. Because the Red Army lost the Baku oil field and cut off the North Atlantic and the Black Sea two foreign aid channels, the current oil output is only about 10 million tons per year. At present, the training cycle of tank crews and pilots has been compressed to six weeks -- more than 40 days, and it is necessary to train people from a blank slate to tank crews or pilots. Ninety percent of the soldiers who come out of this kind of rapid training can't survive the first 20 hours of combat.

At present, less than 20% of pilots in the Red Army have more than 200 flight hours, and less than 10% of pilots have more than 400 flight hours, and the vast majority of pilots hang up after three sorties, and when they are shot down, they have not even fully mastered the skills of parachuting and landing. As it became more and more difficult to find qualified pilots, the Red Army was forced to use a large number of female pilots as pilots, not only bombers and transport planes used a large number ......of female pilots, and even fighter planes began to use female pilots on a large scale, and the Germans also noticed signs of depletion of the Red Army's reserves. "Five? 8 pcs? Hey, I don't remember exactly. ”

If another 400,000 tonnes of aid per month were to be lost, the volume of heavy equipment would soon be reduced by 20-25 per cent, with even a fundamental impact. For example, the reason why the IS-1 and T-43/85 have a good combat performance is that they use armor steel provided by the United States in key parts, and if it is a domestic product of the Soviet Union, the defense level will be reduced by at least 2 grades. Without the high-grade aviation gasoline, aluminum alloy, copper ingots and other materials provided by the Americans, many heavy equipment would have to be greatly discounted. However, after last year's cruel "reducing the number of people and increasing the grain" measure, the grain shortage is not so big.

Zhukov basically knew these numbers in his heart, but when they were all listed together, the impact on him was still very huge.

For these reasons, Vasilevsky's next words are quite logical.

“…… On the current central front, after you draw 1 million troops to form a special front army in Central Asia, the ratio of forces between us and the enemy is about 3:1, and the individual areas and positions are about 5:1, after considering the quality of technical weapons and personnel, I think the ratio is 6:1, it is impossible to defend, the difference is when we fail, I think the time point is very likely to come in May -- the most optimistic estimate is that the German army will only be able to take the Ural industrial area in May. Therefore, I ask you to complete your decision as soon as possible for the sake of the party and the state, for the sake of the common destiny of the hundreds of millions of people and all nationalities of the Soviet Union! ”

As for what the decision was, Vasilevsky did not say - probably he did not think it was necessary to say it, Zhukov must have understood.

The Ural Mountains Industrial Zone is the only large heavy industrial zone left in the Soviet Union at present, with 75% of the industrial capacity and output value currently under the control of the Soviets, and the remaining 25% is distributed in a few cities such as Moscow, Stalingrad, Omsk, etc., the Politburo believes that once this industrial zone is lost, the industrial capacity of the Soviet Union (mainly referring to the armaments industry) will fall to a level similar to that of Italy, and in fact, due to the transfer of many German armaments industries to Italy, the latter's strength is also steadily increasing, The USSR simply could not reach it!

He closed his eyes and thought for a long time, and then said to the staff officers beside him: "Please invite two comrades, Chernyakhovsky and Chuikov, to come to me, and I will discuss important matters with them." ”