Zhukov left the conference room with great indignation, and then rushed to the front line to coordinate the operation without stopping, and the continuous development of the war hit him very hard:

The first is that Manstein's sudden general attack during the day today broke through his expectations, which not only made him miscalculate, but also made him make a big ugly appearance on the spot at the meeting, especially when he received information about the enemy's attack on all fronts just after saying the sentence "If you are quick next Monday, if you are slow at the end of the month", the situation is as ironic as it is, as if he was slapped in the face by someone coldly, and his face hurts hotly. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 InfoWhile most of the High Command appreciated his judgment of the situation, Manstein's surprise behavior embarrassed him.

Second, he was very worried about the unhappiness of the war in the Transcaucasia. Although Comrade Stalin did not anger anyone this time, and his attitude towards the commander of the Caucasian Front, Tyulenev, and the martyred Lieutenant General Mezzov, was quite mild, even after hearing the news of the surrender of the defenders of Baku, the monstrous anger only lasted for a moment and subsided, and he did not explain to the Ministry of Internal Affairs to investigate it to the end, Zhukov still felt very uncomfortable - although the Transcaucasian campaign was not under his direct command, and the situation was greatly aggravated by the sudden offensive of 500,000 Turkish troops. But since the General Staff is responsible for overseeing the overall situation, he feels that he should anticipate these things in advance and be prepared to deal with them, rather than be passive after the fact.

The third is to feel sad about the situation in Transcaucasia, Georgia is the hometown of Comrade Stalin, when he was young, Stalin participated in many revolutionary activities in Georgia, especially in the Tbilisi area, and had a deep affection for the region; although Comrade Stalin's words and deeds always seemed to be more Russian than Russians, and he did not particularly want to hold his subordinates accountable for the loss of Georgia, Zhukov was still uneasy about the fall of Georgia.

Finally, I was worried about the future situation of the war: the Red Army lost the densely populated and industrially developed areas in the west, the large coal mines in the Donetsk Basin and the extraordinarily large oil fields in Baku, and the war economy would be seriously affected, even if supplementary production in the Far East or elsewhere would not help. Although the situation on the battlefield seems to be relatively stable in recent months, Zhukov knows very well that this is an illusion and an illusion, and in fact the Red Army's ability to sustain combat has been declining continuously, especially after the forced conscription of a large number of troops in order to cope with the German offensive and interspersed in the Blue Operation at the turn of summer and autumn this year, the army's combat effectiveness has reached a miserable point: the quality of soldiers, command ability, equipment level, and logistical supply are completely lagging behind the German army, and the difficulty of sustaining combat is very great.

Zhukov studied the battle reports sent from the front, especially carefully studied the battle situation of the 11th Guards Heavy Tank Brigade this time, and saw many problems from it: the KV-3 tank, which was pinned on by the Red Army, was still not an opponent of the Tiger tank, and even if the impact of air raids was excluded, in a face-to-face armored battle, the KV-3 only survived a little better on the battlefield than the T-34/76, and the exchange ratio with the Tiger was still as high as 5:1 or even 6:1, which was a very unacceptable result. The General Staff of the Red Army estimates that Germany now has 1,000-1,500 Tiger (in fact, even if you count the Assault Tiger and the exported Tiger, the overall number of Tiger in the German army does not exceed 700), while the Red Army has only more than 500 heavy tanks, most of which are still outdated KV-1 series, and this batch of KV-3, which is very unstable in performance and mechanical level, can be regarded as new tanks.

Marshal Voroshilov has instructed technical experts to continue to develop new tanks on the basis of the KV-3, and has also given this equipment a new designation - IS-1, while insisting on the development of heavy tanks, the Red Army has also accelerated a comprehensive upgrade plan for the T-34 tank, but in sharp contrast to the rapid upgrade of the No. 4 tank to the H-type, the T-34/85 plan for replacing the T-34/76 with 85mm caliber guns has not been able to land, and there have been problems in the implementation, which made Zhukov very anxious. At present, the front-line tanks do not have an advantage in performance, aircraft performance, or logistical support, and the only advantage is probably only the number and size of the troops -- but unfortunately the Germans did not recognize this truth at all, and they still fought a large number of Red Army troops to retreat like an avalanche.

What's even worse is that the three roads to receive foreign aid support from the allies have been cut off in one go, and at present, only from the Far East can smoothly import supplies, but it is still unknown whether the Japanese will cut off this route, even if Japan continues to implement the policy of non-interference, to quickly transport materials from Vladivostok to the front line, the loss and delay time in the middle are amazingly high, and the number of materials delivered is also insufficient, which is simply not enough for the needs of the front line or the production needs of the rear. The troops had to endure the battle with the Germans with T-34 tanks made of inferior armor.

Vasilevsky was much calmer and more composed than him, and his opinion was: "We all judged that Manstein was going to attack, and even saw that his offensive line was basically the same as what we envisioned, and the only guess that was wrong was the time and method of the general attack, but this kind of large-scale engagement of 2 million troops, in addition to causing some hardship, the sudden attack at the beginning could not significantly change the overall battle situation deduction and balance of forces, why did the Germans fight this kind of war?" ”

The plan prepared at the General Staff predicted the offensive line of Army Group South, hoping to lure the Germans to the vicinity of Stalingrad, use the urban defense line to hold back the Germans, and then outflank and annihilate the intruding enemy forces through the reserves on both flanks and finally achieve victory. Now that Manstein is following this idea step by step, Vasilevsky is muttering: is it really that simple? If the Germans were so easily deceived, why had the Red Army been retreating all the way for the past two years?

Even in the absence of large-scale fighting between the two sides in January and February, the Red Army behaved clumsily: several fronts considered launching a fierce offensive in winter, only to be hit head-to-head in the face of the German defenses and mobile defenses, with the total number of casualties, wounded, sick and wounded, fleeing and surrendering reported from the front exceeding 300,000, while the German casualties on the opposite side did not exceed even 50,000, and with better transport, medical and transportation conditions, the proportion of German wounded soldiers returning to the battlefield in the future would exceed 60% - That's a terrible number.

Vasilevsky's worries and kind reminders that Zhukov could not listen for the time being, and his mind was now full of the idea of stabilizing his position, gradually retreating, and then relying on favorable terrain to block the enemy and carry out a full-scale counterattack...... (To be continued.) )