According to Hoffmann's requirements and Speer's plan, by the spring of 1943, the production of Tiger tanks should reach the scale of 250 vehicles per month (equivalent to 5 heavy battalions), and then start trial production of Leopard tanks (if the production of Leopards is not produced, the production capacity of the Tiger will continue to rise), and by April 1943 at the latest, the monthly production of German tanks will exceed 2,000 units a month. At the same time, the production and maintenance of tanks using the T-34 tank production line can also reach the scale of 300 tanks a month, plus the production of the Stalker modified by the 38T, the monthly output of the relevant tanks/tank destroyers can be close to 3000.

"Our troops, weapons, and equipment are coming in a steady stream, and the reserve army is constantly improving, and I am less anxious than them." Manstein made a gesture on the map, "What is more important is that the Führer has launched a de-Bolshevization campaign in Belarus, Ukraine, and the Baltic, and they are nervously distributing land, organizing power, preparing armies, and every month the strength of these non-Russian nationalities recovers and grows, these are our allies and sources of strength. Then, you should also note that the industrial capacity of Italy was brought under the unified management of Minister Speer, and that with the characteristic hard-working and technical level of German workers and engineers, the little Italian bourgeois must have been commanded to be busy, and the main products would not be multiplied several times by then. Maybe by May next year, the production of tanks alone will reach 3,000 units a month......"

"3,000 cars!" Weller exclaimed, "That's an exciting number to think about. We didn't have that many tanks when we launched Barbarossa......"

"The Americans may be able to produce more than us, but it takes a lot of hardship for the Americans to send their tanks to Russia, and a bomb and a torpedo can make hundreds of tanks flutter into the sea to feed the fish." Manstein said sarcastically. "Stalin is not hot-headed and insists on attacking us, if from a purely military point of view, the most important thing he should do at the moment is to accumulate strength, integrate the army, train and improve their combat skills, instead of rushing to the death in a hurry, but he is afraid - will the Ukrainians, Balts, Belarusians, Cossacks, etc., who have obtained the land and have a good harvest for 2-3 years, still be willing to go with him in the future? The more than 60 million non-Russians alone are enough of a headache for him, not to mention political dissidents like the Russian National Liberation Council and the Russian Liberation Army - his position is not secure at all. Maybe in a few years we will all be able to retreat home, just watch the non-Russians fight the Russians. ”

Weller nodded in agreement with Manstein. During this time, all sorts of ethnic minority soldiers or officers sneaked in from the Red Army units every day. Although they had different ranks and different branches, they all carried the leaflets sown out by the Luftwaffe units (if they were found in the Red Army, they were shot), and the first thing they said when they met was: "Can I go home?" The second sentence after receiving an affirmative answer was to ask hopefully: "Can you give priority to the distribution of land to the troops of your own country in the fight against the Bolsheviks?" After getting a satisfactory answer, it was "Ulla".

Except for a small number of soldiers who defected to the army, they were tired of military life and were disarmed and returned to the fields. The rest, without exception, joined their own armies, and the political leaders of the various national regimes spared no effort to call on these former "Red Army" to join. The Don Cossack chieftain P.N. Krasnov called in his manifesto: "Everyone join the German army!" Go into battle with them! At the same time, it should be borne in mind that, at the dangerous juncture of the final battle, only those who did not hesitate to fight firmly alongside the Führer and the German people could have a place in the new Europe. "For this reason. The Cossack Union came up with the slogan: "Cossacks! Germany's victory is our victory! ”

This trend can also be seen in the letters sent by ordinary soldiers to their families (the army's counterintelligence agency conducts random inspections of letters). For example, Semyon Larin proudly told his father in a letter home: "...... I now have the right to be proud, because I am now a soldier in the German army, belonging to the Don Cossack unit. After the Red Army was drafted, I didn't want to fight, so I simply ran to the side of the Germans. I don't want to do it for a minute with them anyway...... and the Kuban Cossack Alexei Klivenko wrote in a letter to his wife: "I am now in the German army...... Our superiors care about us very much, not only for us, but even for our families. ”

"Of course, 3,000 tanks is a trifle, and the biggest German reinforcement this year is not this."

"Reinforcements?" Welleren paused for a moment. "What's the biggest reinforcement of the year?"

"The biggest reinforcements this year are the Führer. He fell down and was hospitalized after a fight with Halder, and when he came to his senses, he was completely changed. The clear-headed, well-informed Führer of the past is back - he no longer tries to command armies and divisions, which he is not really good at, what he is best at is strategy, and what he is strong at is this ......" Manstein joked solemnly and pointed to his head, "You see, now he does not say a word about the stupidity of not retreating an inch and fighting to the last man, and he no longer says, 'Attack!'" Offensive! Attack again! Occupy this place first, then occupy this place...... and then occupy it,' and now he only said, 'Manstein, Zeitzler, everything is left to you to fight at the front, and you can withstand it...... I will find a way to replenish you with equipment and supplies.'" ”

"But didn't he also give such a strange order as a high exchange ratio?"

"Do you think it's weird?" Manstein shook his head, "I don't think it's surprising that the Führer finally realized that the war against the Soviets was a long war, a war of attrition, not won by one or two short surprise attacks, nor by capturing Moscow or Stalingrad to force the Bolsheviks to surrender, and that the high exchange ratio is a summary of the nature of the totalized war - without this exchange ratio, we would have undoubtedly lost last December." That's why I say that the best harvest of the empire is a clear-headed and well-planned Führer, this decisive ability I saw before the Munich Conference in 1938, when the French campaign resolutely adopted the strategic direction of assault from the Ardennes, last year's choice to fight Ukraine first and then Moscow was actually right, but unfortunately it was destroyed by the Halders who did not understand the Führer's intentions - they always applied the experience of Western European countries to the Russians, thinking that if they took Moscow, they would surrender, and Napoleon did not fail to take Moscow, The result? The General Staff made a mistake, and then Guderian and a bunch of people carried the black cauldron......"

"So now the Halders are out of luck......"

"Of course, otherwise you really think Halder is treasonous? This is absolutely impossible, he must have been against the Führer - but unfortunately he was wrong, so the Führer finally appointed Zeitzler exceptionally, well, let this kid take advantage of ......"

While he was talking, the operational staff officer came to report that the Red Army units on the opposite side had launched a tentative attack.

After glancing at the map, Manstein said: "Fight and retreat, give them another 50 kilometers, and prepare to retreat to the first line of defense...... Remember to bluff and pretend that the defenses are empty and the main force has shifted to the southern flank......"

"You're going to carry out the trick to the end." Weller laughed, "If the Russians don't pounce on them, Generalissimo Stalin will probably be angry......"

The 21st Army of the 27th Army of the Red Army was the strength selected by Chistyakov to test in depth, and as a result, the corps commander Karpov strangely found that the German troops on the opposite side were weak and not strong in combat, so he retreated at the slightest contact, and in two days he advanced 50 kilometers in one go, and paid the price of less than 1,000 casualties and 4 tanks.

As Weller expected, on November 9, Comrade Stalin, who had been closely following the progress of the front, could not help but get angry: "Four days earlier the 21st Army had crossed the river with all its armies, and two days earlier its vanguard, the 27th Army, had approached less than 220 kilometers from Rostov-on-Don, and reported that the enemy's resistance was weak. But after several days, except for the 21st Army, the rest of the troops did not move at all. Why didn't the follow-up troops of the army group follow up and attack in depth? Why did the 62nd and 57th armies downstream advance so slowly? Why didn't the Don Front send other troops to pick up the corresponding army group? ”

Zhukov and Vasilevsky glanced at each other: "We were worried that the Germans had an ambush, so we ordered the front-line troops to postpone their advance. ”

"Is there one? Which of our troops were surrounded by the Germans, why didn't I see it? Stalin sneered, "Now there is only one army group of the 21st Army on the other side of the river, if there is really a trap, the group army should have sent a distress signal a long time ago, but the report I received is that the army group has advanced the fastest and achieved the best results, recovering a large number of territories on the west bank of the Don River, if I don't send follow-up troops, I am really afraid that the Germans will come to their senses and surround them." Listening to Comrades Chuikov and Tolbukhin, the Germans are desperately trying to stop us, but they have deployed heavy troops downstream......"

The rapid progress of the 21st Army was in stark contrast to the difficulty of the 62nd and 57th armies, which Zhukov and Vasilevsky had been studying for several days in a row, and still couldn't figure it out, according to their ideas and logic, there must be a trap in it, so the instinctive way to deal with it was not to move, to continue to wait and see, or to hope to open a gap downstream, but such a disposition did not satisfy Stalin, and he banged his pipe on the table and set it angry. (To be continued.) )