The new Chief of the General Staff and representative of the Supreme High Command of Stalingrad, Colonel-General Vasilevsky, made an additional statement at Zhukov's indication: "Judging from the current situation, the Stalingrad salient in the north and the salient in the Caucasus in the south have been initially formed, like our salient sandwiched between two successive undulating mountain peaks. And Rostov-on-Don, as a key hub in it, is the core of the enemy connecting the two salients, the valley between the mountain peaks. If the enemy advanced 300 kilometers from there, the battle line would be leveled and the two salients in the north and south would be combined to form a larger frontal salient, which at that time was about 1,200 kilometers long, and in the middle of it was the more than 1.3 million troops of the enemy's Army Group South. If, in turn, we can recapture Rostov, we will be able to sever the two salients of the enemy. ”

Stalin nodded, indicating that he had seen it from the map.

According to Hitler's summer combat order to the German army, the main direction of operations on the southern front was Stalingrad, and the other was the "Blue Operation" in the Caucasus mountains, with the former aiming at capturing the city, and the latter with the goal of seizing the oil of Mykop and Grozny, and finally pointing to Baku. However, due to the continuous resistance of the Soviet troops, these two became impossible targets, and by the end of August, Army Group B was still outside the outskirts of Stalingrad, and the Caucasus oil fields had only captured Maikop -- this was still the withdrawal of the Soviet troops after destroying the oil facilities on their own initiative, and there were at least 100 kilometers to go from Grozny, and the operational objectives of the Baku oil fields were even more far away. After Hoffman crossed, all of these targets were stopped.

Vasilevsky added: "I had drawn up a counteroffensive plan with Comrade Zhukov, that is, the German offensive group was tightly pinned down under the city of Stalingrad, and at the same time a powerful assault was carried out on both flanks. Establish an internal front against the encirclement of the German Stalingrad group and an external front to ensure the elimination of the encircled group. The project is codenamed 'Uranus'. It seems that there is no way to implement it at the moment, and we need a new deployment. At the same time, in the Caucasus, our original goal was to fight for the mountain passes and defend the Grozny and Baku oil fields, but now the Germans have no impetus to propulsion, and only put their forces on the plains, and these operational deployments are also not feasible to carry out. ”

"You mean that the enemy may have abandoned the desire to advance to the mountainous regions of the Caucasus, where the terrain is rugged. What is the situation in the defense of the endless North Caucasus (mainly in the Kalmyk steppe)? The fascist gangs don't want our oil anymore? Stalin stood in front of the map and looked at it carefully, feeling puzzled himself.

"The General Staff has been analyzing the enemy's next move, and we believe that there are three possible goals for the German army in the summer: first, an all-out attack on Stalingrad; the second is to attack in the direction of the Caucasus with all its might; The other is Army Group A and Army Group B's attacks on the above two areas. By the end of August this judgment was reliable, but now we were a little uncertain about the direction of the enemy's offensive - judging by the fact that they were shrinking their lines but not simply retreating, the Germans should be planning a major operation. ”

After listening to Zhukov's words, Stalin's old face turned red and he didn't speak for a long time. The words of the general just now saved a lot of face for the "great leader": before the start of the summer campaign, the General Staff of the Soviet Army judged that the main forces of the German army were on the southern flank, but Stalin insisted that it was still in the direction of Moscow. In particular, the repeated battles for the Rzhev salient strengthened his confidence, and he decided to deploy the main forces in the direction of Moscow. Only a part of the forces remained on the southern flank. As a result, after the German army launched the "Blue Operation" and the Battle of Stalingrad, the southern flank was obviously insufficient, and it was not until August 27 that 3 army groups were dispatched from the Moscow direction for reinforcement under Zhukov's repeated persuasion, and Chuikov was appointed as the commander-in-chief of the Stalingrad Front, and Vasilevsky was appointed as the representative of the Stalingrad Supreme Command. It turned out that Stalin's judgment of the German offensive in the summer was completely wrong, and it was only because of the good response of his men that the consequences of last year did not occur.

"In addition, not only are the defensive areas deployed by the Germans retreating, but the forces we are facing are also changing. Judging from the contacts of the front-line commanders, there were two less armored units of the SS Viking Division and the Greater German Division this month - these were the main forces of the Germans, and their area was often the main direction of the Germans' offensive breakthroughs, and they were not weakened too much in the early stage of the operation, and it stands to reason that they should not be transferred back to rest, but now we cannot find these two troops. Our judgment is ......" Zhukov's expression was a little hesitant, but after a moment he elaborated on it.

The General Staff of the Soviet Army had two very different views on the situation on the Eastern Front in September, the first of which was that the Germans had switched to strategic defense, based on three reasons:

First, the Germans carried out a general mobilization, which showed that their resources, materials and reserves were no longer able to sustain a large-scale offensive, and judging from the process of the German army's focus on the southern flank in the summer and did not achieve obvious results, the German army's will to attack was extremely weak;

Second, Hitler's purge of senior generals, for whatever reason, greatly weakened the strength and morale of the army, and reflected the serious internal divisions of the Germans, judging from the continuous retreat of the enemy troops in August and September, they lacked a clear strategic thinking, and the Germans would not choose to attack in winter;

Third, in the four-month summer operations from June to September, except for the Crimea and the Black Sea line, the Germans did not achieve outstanding results, whether it was the oil fields of the Caucasus or Stalingrad was always firmly in our hands, the total casualties of the Germans and the servant army were more than 500,000, and the current overall combat strength of the enemy and our troops was expected to be 3.5 million to 5.5 million, which was a loss of the capital for them to continue the offensive.

Zhukov himself basically agreed with this point of view.

"Another point of view is that the Germans are preparing a new offensive, and the spearhead is likely to be directed back at Moscow, which Comrade Vasilevsky and some other comrades hold." Zhukov did not analyze the reasons for supporting this view in detail, but simply said, "From the point of view of time, this time also happened to be the time point of the start of the Moscow Battle last year, and the Germans could use last year's timetable without even changing the time; Judging by the terrain and climatic conditions, after the first winter of operations, the Germans were well prepared for this, familiarized themselves with the relevant environment and geography, and the winter equipment was completely updated, which gave them additional advantages; From the point of view of troops, since we have drawn a lot of troops to move south, and the Germans may have been moving to the north at the same time, the balance of forces in Moscow may change significantly. ”

"Moscow?" Stalin was reminiscing about these three words, which had a different meaning for him, last winter, the German army launched a campaign to seize Moscow, but after being repulsed by the Red Army, this year it was thought that the enemy had turned its attention to the southern front, but it does not seem so simple from the current point of view.

Vasilevsky did not explain much about the reasons for his own views, but added: "In addition, the front-line aviation also reported to us that the range of activity of the Luftwaffe on the southern flank had also begun to decrease, and that air strikes on Stalingrad, which had been maintained more than 300 sorties a day, were now greatly reduced, and for two days there was simply a blank air. At first we thought that the Germans were gathering the money to strike a furious blow at us, but after several days there was no such tendency. Originally, there was also a theory that the Germans would throw the main forces in the direction of Grozny after the occupation of Mykop, but a month later, this did not happen. ”

Hearing this, Stalin could not sit still even more, stood up and spun around in a circle in place, muttering: "What exactly was Hitler's intention?" ”

The two of them looked at the Supreme Commander thinking there, but they didn't mean to say much, and the other figures in the High Command, including the veteran generals Antonov, Bulganin, and Kuznetsov, all entered a state of whispering communication.

"What do you guys think now?"

"The Germans behaved strangely." Zhukov considered his words, but his eyes revealed fortitude, "The opinion of the comrades is that since the enemy has retreated to rest, we also need this time to rest. The summer campaign had left us in disarray, and many infantry divisions had fallen below 2,000 men -- a danger sign that these units would lose their combat effectiveness if we continued to fight. ”

"Comrade Konstantin, what will happen if we launch a counterattack against the fascist army?"

"Fight back?" Zhukov looked suspicious, "You mean?" ”

"Since the Germans are now forming a shock department......," Stalin walked to the map, his voice was calm and powerful, and he made a big outflanking gesture with his right hand, "We will simply attack the enemy from the upper and lower edges of the salient, that is, from the direction of Voronezh and the Caucasus, in particular, to attack the junction of Rostov, with the goal of completely driving the enemy out of the Caucasus, and we will restore the front at least until the end of June this year, and then give the enemy a fatal blow after the onset of winter." ”

Upon hearing this, the conference room fell into a terrible silence, and no one spoke for a long time, and everyone pondered this possibility. After another half minute, in Stalin's anxious waiting, Zhukov finally spoke, but everyone sweated for his words.

"I'm sorry, Comrade Stalin, your request may be a little difficult, although I would also like to call back." Vasilevsky didn't dare to say it so directly, and he didn't speak for a long time, but Zhukov pushed back bluntly.

PS: March is coming, Wutong at the end of the article called for next month's guaranteed monthly pass, recommended ticket, two guarantees in March, every 100 monthly passes plus 1 chapter, thank you for your support! (To be continued.) )