In the afternoon of the next day, at the headquarters of Army Group South in Rostov-on-Don, Manstein and the chief of staff, Lieutenant General Weller (also his partner in the Battle of Crimea), were looking at photographs sent back by reconnaissance planes, showing that the pontoon bridges used by the Soviet troops to cross the river had been turned into five roads, and after a day and a night and nearly 24 hours of forced crossing, the entire 27th Army had crossed the meanders of the Don River.

"Sir, you just watched the Russians cross the river? I thought you were going to hold them off at the river......"

"Block?" Manstein shook his head, "It's easy to block across the Don River, but how can you destroy the enemy?" ”

"Stopping them is the best way to get rid of them." "After all, the Führer's first task was to hold the existing defensive line. ”

"I can't stop it, the local guide told me that from mid-November, there will be a 140-day ice period in the upper reaches of the Don River, and in mid-December, the lower reaches will also start to freeze, and then there will be more than 90 days of ice periods, and they can come anywhere. We are now at a disadvantage in terms of troops, and I can't defend the whole while still being able to divide my troops along the river, let alone keep an eye on this place all the time, so the depth of the defense line will be too shallow. Gotta give them a flood outlet - at least so they can find a place to cross the river, and if they are forced to disperse across the river, how can I stop them? ”

"So you picked this place?"

"I didn't pick it, the Russians picked it themselves." "Because they think it's the easiest place to cross the river: hydrologically, the flow here is slower because of the big bends." It is relatively easy to erect a pontoon bridge; From the point of view of the strategic situation and the distribution of troops, the Bend Division is closest to Stalingrad, and the river-crossing troops can be well covered. Once the river crossing is successful, it is easy to unfold quickly. Of course, this is not the only place where the Russians cross the river, and they must have chosen one place downstream. ”

It is not that there are no bridges on the Don River, on the contrary, there are more than one place, the Red Army did not have time to blow up these bridges when they retreated, and the Germans did not choose to blow up the bridges after retreating across the river. However, anyone with a brain knew that bridges were very unreliable and destined to be the focus of the enemy's defense, so the Reds wisely did not choose to cross the river with bridges. Instead, he avoided them far away. Weller laughed at Manstein's explanation, and after a moment of conversation, he said something else: "The people below are complaining that you took all the three assault guns. What to do with the tanks of the Russians in defensive battles? ”

"It's not that they were given 57mm. Russian-made 76.2mm anti-tank guns and our own 88 guns? ”

"But these things can only be used for fixed positions and ambushes, and they can't be maneuvered."

"What are they going to maneuver for? Someone did the maneuvering work, and Lieutenant General Hubey's 16th Panzer Division was used to do this. Manstein waved his hand, "Don't think nonsense, I've already arranged it, and it's not like I haven't been the commander of a group army." ”

Weller laughed.

While Manstein and Weller were discussing the war situation, the Soviet Union's Supreme Deputy Commander Zhukov also explained the war situation in the Supreme Command:

"Judging by the detected situation and the intelligence analysis of various channels, the commander of the German Army Group South in person was Field Marshal Manstein. He had about 85-90 divisions under his command, with a total strength of between 1.45 and 1.7 million. September-October this year is strange. The Germans unexpectedly disbanded the corps-level establishment, on the one hand, strengthening the divisions, and on the other hand, trying to reduce the size of the army group at the same time. However, so far the work has obviously not been completed, the Germans have only dismantled the army, and the work of reducing the size of the army group has not been done, for example, the 6th Army, of which Manstein himself is the commander, is said to have more than 300,000 troops......"

In the Eastern Front Campaign, the Soviet Union and Germany set up completely different formations, in terms of infantry, the Soviet Union adopted a small division system, a division full strength of about 10,500 people, but unfortunately most of the time can not be full, the basic number is between 4,000-7,000, and the German infantry division is about 15,000-16,000, the actual number is about 12,000-14,000, if it is less than 10,000 (unless surrounded) is generally required to go back to rest and replenish. After Hoffmann's action of "dismantling the army and replenishing the division", the full strength of the German infantry division reached about 17,000, while the actual number was about 13,000-15,000, considering the firepower of the German army, it was almost equivalent to one German division equal to three Red Army divisions.

In terms of armored forces, the Red Army adopts the formation of tank corps-brigade-battalion, a tank corps usually has 3 brigades and some infantry units, the total number of people does not exceed 10,000, and the number of tanks is about 170, while the German army adopts the formation of armored divisions-regiments-battalions, an armored division has an armored regiment, and 3 armored battalions under it, with about 160 tanks, and the total number is about 12,000-14,000 people, which rose to about 170 tanks after being reinforced in the summer of 1942, 1.3-15,000 or so. So even if one tank corps of the Red Army and one German panzer division had the same number of tanks (without taking into account the difference in the quality of equipment). Because of the difference in infantry units, its combat capabilities were weaker than those of German armored divisions.

"The enemy forces in front of him were divided into three interconnected but separate heavy groups." Zhukov pointed to the 2,400-kilometer front on the southern flank with his whip, "The left flank of the enemy is the Hult group, the middle flank is the Manstein group, and the right flank is the Kleist group - this group is the so-called Army Group A, which was regrouped with Army Group B at the end of August to form Army Group South, and in September when Hitler carried out a purge in the army. Field Marshal Liszt, the former commander of the group, went away after a conflict with him (which is why Manstein did not react for a while when Zeitzler ridiculed him as the most capable field marshal on the southern flank), and the forces of the three enemy groups were roughly evenly distributed. According to incomplete statistics, the enemy army on the left flank is about 45-500,000 people, 500,000-600,000 on the center flank, and 50-600,000 on the right flank. The enemy's armored forces were also divided into three groups, with the left wing being the strongest, the right wing second, and the center being the weakest......"

The rest of the Supreme Command commented: "Manstein's deployment is very strange, isn't it clear that let's divide the encirclement?" ”

"I don't understand the deployment of the German army, but the even distribution of forces is obviously not what a commander should do, and it seems to be exhaustive, but in fact it only makes the troops take care of one thing and the other." The veteran Marshal of the Red Army, Voroshilov, quipped, "This marshal is probably still immersed in the victory on the Crimean Peninsula......

"Maybe he felt that there were too many troops and that some of them had to be divided to facilitate command, after all, he had not been the commander of the group army for a long time." Timoshenko smiled, "Otherwise, why would he be the commander of the 6th Army at the same time, this is really a strange person." ”

"It's not at all surprising if you consider that he was still moving backwards in September, even when he was in a good situation." Molotov added, "I don't understand how Hitler could have allowed such a man to be in charge of Army Group South while still in charge of Army Group South, perhaps he was very obedient - those who did not obey were killed or purged by the Führer." ”

Zhukov didn't seem to hear these discussions, but continued to introduce: "We have also made adjustments to the enemy's deployment. With regard to the Manstein Group in the center, we plan to concentrate more than half of the forces and technical weapons on the southern flank of the front to overwhelm it, and strive to form a two- to three-fold superiority in strength and equipment over the enemy. Our operational expectation is to create an opportunity for our central cluster to encircle and annihilate the Manstein group by interfering the left and right flanks. In the overall campaign concept, the middle lane is our main offensive direction, and we will divide it into two routes, north and south. ”

Looking at the offensive arrows drawn by Zhukov, everyone basically nodded in agreement, after all, it is impossible for more than 1 million troops to accumulate in one direction, so it is impossible to deploy and give full play to the superiority of troops.

"Of course...... The General Staff also had different opinions, and Comrade Vasilevsky wanted to encircle and annihilate the enemy's left-wing group first. Zhukov made a twist, sketching a rightward arrow on the map with red and blue pencils for the spearhead of the attack on the north side of the center, "He thought that it would be possible to quickly cut off the enemy's left flank from the center, use the main forces of the Bryansk, Voronezh, and Don armies to encircle and destroy the Khott cluster, and then turn to Rostov." ”

Stalin put down the butt of his cigarette and asked in a deep voice: "What do you think of this point of view?" ”

"I don't recommend it." Zhukov's answer was very simple: "The left flank of the enemy Hort group is the enemy's Army Group Center, and the right flank is the Manstein group, and if we attack in this direction and line, it does not mean that we can encircle the Hult group - as long as he leans towards the center, he will be connected with Army Group Center again, which will mean that we are far away from the flank of the Manstein group, so that the pressure of the enemy in front of us will be weakened." I still stand by my assertion that the forces in the middle should be strengthened at all costs! Of course, there are still many difficulties in the middle of the road, although the offensive has been launched on all fronts, but the comrades generally report that there is a lack of ammunition and supplies, and it is difficult to maintain high-intensity operations, and most of the new infantry replenished in the summer has not been trained, and now they can't even walk in line, if they can delay a little longer......

"This will not work...... Stalin interrupted Zhukov's complaint with displeasure, "let Comrade Vasilevsky tell you the specific reasons." (To be continued.) )