"Comrades, according to the latest intelligence, the German army has begun to accumulate a large number of forces in Romania and Western Ukraine. Pen~Fun~Pavilion www.biquge.info According to current intelligence estimates, at least 50 divisions are approaching the Romanian area, and it is estimated that they will launch a large-scale offensive to try to regain control of the Ploiesti oil fields. ”

Hitler's approval of the plan to attack Romania was followed by a massive movement of forces on the Eastern Front.

He dispatched the most elite units of the whole country to the south, and sent the commanders with the best combat results and the most experience to the Southern Army Group to command, and also allocated the latest and greatest aircraft, tanks, and artillery to the Southern Army Group, with the intention of giving the Southern Army Group an advantage in equipment and the quality of its troops.

Of course, it is not enough to have a slight advantage in equipment and the quality of soldiers, but also to have enough troops. To this end, Hitler transferred more than 10 divisions from Army Group Center to the south, and also requisitioned hundreds of thousands of troops from Hungary, Slovakia, and other client states.

However, as a result, Army Group Center had fewer than a dozen divisions, while the strength of the Soviet Western Front on the opposite side reached more than 100 divisions, putting Army Group Center in a situation of disadvantage.

Hitler had already thought of this, so he requisitioned hundreds of thousands of men from the rear to fight on the Eastern Front, and also transferred several divisions from the Western Front to make up for the loss of troops caused by this transfer.

But even so, the Soviet Red Army, with a total strength of 10 million (according to the Russian edition of Wikipedia, the strength of the Soviet Red Army exploded to 10 million in July 1941, but after many crushing defeats, it was a few million) still had the advantage in the strength of the major theaters.

On the Western Front alone, the Soviet Red Army deployed more than 6 million troops, while the German Army deployed only more than 4 million troops on the Eastern Front (more than in history).

Despite this, Hitler was willing to risk the collapse of the entire front and mobilize a large number of troops around Romania in order to gain control of the Ploiesti oil fields as soon as possible.

"How many troops do we have in Romania?" When Stalin heard the news, he suddenly frowned. He had long expected that the Germans would launch a major offensive against Romania, but he did not expect the operation to come so quickly, nor did he expect the Germans to mobilize so many troops from other fronts at all costs.

"Now, Romania has 60 divisions of the Red Army, plus the Romanian army, a total of 1.4 million troops, 3,000 tanks, 3,500 aircraft." Zhukov truthfully reported to the members of the Supreme High Command, including Stalin, on the situation of troops on the Romanian side.

"Although Romania still has enough local troops, we must not take it lightly." Manturov analyzes from the perspective of a time-traveler: "Romania is simply too important for the Germans. Most likely, the Germans will try to seize the oil resources of Romania in the shortest possible time, at any cost.

In order to seize Romania, the Germans would not only send a large number of troops, but also equip these forces with the best weapons and send the best command personnel to command them.

While we have had some victories in Belarus, Ukraine, and Romania, that doesn't mean our future will be easy.

The fact that the Germans were able to easily defeat a traditional power like France proved their military prowess. Although they are inferior to ours in strength, there are all indications that their army is still quite capable of fighting power.

Despite our superiority in Romania, we should not take it lightly and should be fully prepared to mobilize more troops to Romania to meet the enemy's attack. ”

Manturov's words were agreed by Zhukov, Timoshenko, Voroshilov and Shaposhnikov, who had been on the battlefield for a long time, knew the cruelty on the battlefield, and had fought with the Germans, so they naturally knew what level of strength the German army was, so they did not dare to take it lightly.

But Molotov and Stalin did not go to the Soviet-German battlefield, they were only in the rear, sitting in a safe and comfortable office commanding, and most of their knowledge of the front came from the reports from the front and the dictation of the command staff. It is easy to get carried away by temporary victories and overestimate the capabilities of the Soviet Red Army.

"Comrade Manturov is quite reasonable," said Marshal Shaposhnikov, who had been fighting for a long time, "although we achieved brilliant victories in Western Ukraine, Belarus and Romania, and also encircled and annihilated the German 2nd Tank Group and the 11th Army, causing a large number of enemy casualties, this does not mean that the strength of the German army has been decisively affected.

They may learn from these failures, while developing more and more advanced weapons and strengthening the training of soldiers and command personnel to improve the combat capability of the army. ”

Speaking of experience, Manturov thought of something else: "The Germans will certainly learn from their temporary defeats, but our short-term victories will also require us to identify existing problems and come up with solutions to them."

It is not difficult to win, but the difficult thing is how we can achieve victory with the least casualties, the least cost.

Only by constantly improving our army's combat level, repairing our army's existing shortcomings, and summing up experience from failures can we ensure that we pay a smaller price and win more victories.

From the Romanian campaign, we have discovered many problems, including the problem of military discipline of our army, as well as the problems of insufficient logistical supply and insufficient command coordination.

These problems led us to pay a lot of money when we attacked Romania. Because of the confusion of command, many units did not act according to the plan, and there were even cases of command conflicts.

The lack of logistical supplies has also led to a lack of supplies for some troops, and soldiers do not hesitate to loot local supplies in order to get adequate supplies, and this is one of the reasons for the emergence of military discipline problems in our army. ”

"Comrade Manturov," Stalin finally said, "the problems you are talking about do exist and need to be solved as soon as possible." It is important to sum up experience, but it is even more important to formulate a plan for dealing with the German attack on Romania as soon as possible.

At present, the forces of our army in Romania are sufficient, but as Comrade Manturov said, Romania is too important for the Germans.

They will certainly concentrate more troops, give them the best weapons, and give them the best commanders, so that they can achieve the goal of fascist Germany occupying Romania and obtaining oil resources from Romania. Therefore, we must be prepared to develop a complete strategy for dealing with the enemy as soon as possible......"