Timoshenko looked at the young man who opposed his proposal with a little disdain, "Comrade Manturov, I think that it is negative to take a defensive posture at this time. The www.biquge.info should hurry up and destroy the enemy before they have made progress, so that they will abandon their plans to invade the Soviet Union! ”

"Comrade People's Commissar of Defense, I do not think that we are capable of destroying the invading German army." Manturov's attitude was very resolute, he did not consider a counteroffensive against the enemy at this time to be an appropriate decision, "they must have come prepared, they have a certain understanding of the disposition and strength of our army."

Their forces will definitely be more than ours, and their offensive will definitely be fiercer than everyone imagined, and more concentrated than we imagined. Now the Soviet Red Army was attacked by enemy raids, and the operational initiative was with them. If we launch an offensive rashly, I am afraid that we will cause more unnecessary casualties and weaken the combat effectiveness of various units. ”

"Comrade Manturov, why do you think that our army cannot repel the enemy?" Timoshenko asked. "The Soviet Red Army has an absolute superiority in both strength and equipment, and as long as we can effectively launch a counteroffensive, we will be able to annihilate the enemy army."

"Marshal Timoshenko, our army does have a slight advantage in equipment, I know this very well. But the commanders and soldiers of our army lack combat experience, and even more so lack sufficient training, and their combat effectiveness will not be better than that of the Germans.

In addition, our army does not have an advantage in terms of troops. According to my estimates, the central cluster of the German army has a total of 50 divisions and a strength of 1 million troops, but the Western Special Military District has a total of only 45 divisions, and the front line has only 26 divisions and about 500,000 troops, which is obviously at a disadvantage in terms of military strength.

Moreover, as far as I know, the Germans still have dozens of divisions in reserve, which will be rushed to the battlefield one after another to enter the battle. At that time, we will not have to face as simple as 114 German divisions, and if we count the Romanian, Hungarian, and Italian armies, we may have to face 190 divisions or even more enemies. ”

"How do you know that the Germans have 190 divisions?"

Stalin put down his pipe full of tobacco and reprimanded Manturov, an unknown young man: "Vladimir, please believe in the competence of the People's Commissar of Defense and Comrade Chief of the General Staff, who will take into account the actual situation before making any decisions.

Besides, you are now not a soldier, but the Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars (Deputy Prime Minister of the USSR), People's Commissar for Construction. Your duty is to promote the country's economic construction, not to command the army! ”

"Yes, Volodya, you just take care of your own affairs, don't worry about leading troops to fight." Voroshilov's also persuaded his son-in-law with good words.

Now that Stalin and Voroshilov had come forward, Manturov no longer dared to argue with Timoshenko. If he quarrels again, I am afraid that he will not be able to change the historical process of the failure of the Soviet counteroffensive and being surrounded by the fascists, and he himself may also be demoted and punished, losing the opportunity to change history.

Manturov could only smile bitterly and said: "Well, I hope that our army will be able to destroy the enemy as soon as possible and let fascist Germany abandon the invasion of the Soviet Union." ”

"I think Comrade Manturov has a point." Zhukov suddenly sided with Manturov. "Until we have a clear picture of the battlefield, we should hold our defensive line and when the time is ripe before we organize our forces to launch a large-scale, organized counteroffensive.

Otherwise, we will only suffer unnecessary losses, which will not only weaken the combat effectiveness of the Red Army, but also make it easier for the troops on the front line to be annihilated by the German encirclement. ”

"Say no more," said Stalin, who had already decided to take Timoshenko's advice, "Comrade Timoshenko, give the order." ”

"What order?"

Stalin said resolutely: "Give the order to use all the forces of the border military districts to violently return the advancing enemy troops, stop them from continuing and annihilate them!" ”

"Yes!"

"Comrade Manturov, you go back and instruct the departments of industry and construction to increase the production of strategic materials and strengthen the construction of the defense industry."

……………………………………

Immediately after the Politburo meeting, Manturov rushed back to his office, instructed various departments to increase the production of strategic materials, and personally called the Stalingrad Tractor Plant and the Novosibirsk Plant 179 and asked them to convert the existing tractor production lines into production lines for tanks and tracked transporters.

In addition, instructions have also been issued to major aircraft factories, engine factories, steelworks, and other related enterprises in order to provide the armed forces with the largest number of munitions and armaments in the shortest possible time.

At the same time, the Soviet troops in the Western Special Military District, the first line of defense had already been broken through by the Germans, and the troops of the second line were fiercely attacked by the Germans on the way to the border, and the various units fell into a very chaotic state, completely losing the tactical and strategic initiative, and suffered heavy losses.

Moreover, at dawn on 22 June, sabotage teams pre-planted by the Germans on Soviet territory disrupted wired communications, killed liaison personnel, and even attacked command staff, causing chaos in communications after the start of the war.

Almost all the wired communications between the Western Border Military Districts and the troops were disrupted by German spies, and the military districts and army group commands were unable to transmit orders through wired communications.

In the southwest, the situation is ideal, but not much better. The commander of the Kiev Special Military District, Colonel-General Kirponos, was also extremely vigilant about the war, and had already ordered the troops in the fortified area to move into the forward positions the day before the start of the war, but Zhukov stopped him, believing that "this would provoke the Germans to provoke an armed conflict."

Despite the cancellation of the order to move troops to forward positions, Kirponos instructed the whole army to be ready for combat at any time, and when the Germans attacked, all 59 divisions of the Kiev Special Military District were ready for combat to meet the German attack.

Even if their wired communications were destroyed by the enemy, Manturov's great efforts in the production of wireless communication equipment significantly increased, and the Kyiv Special Military District was the most prepared for war. The vast majority of the troops in the southwest were provided with the relevant equipment, and the command was not affected.

Of course, the troops of the Western Front also received a lot of radio communication equipment, and their command was not as chaotic as in history, but because of their lack of preparation for war and their lack of vigilance, and because the commanders lacked experience and the ability corresponding to their ranks, failure was inevitable.

More importantly, the strength of the Western Special Military Region itself is insufficient, with only 45 divisions and 680,000 people. In the face of 50 divisions and more than 1 million people in Army Group Center, the Western Special Military District, commanded by General Pavlov, was powerless.

In addition to the Army, the Soviet Air Force suffered heavy losses within hours of the start of the war. A number of military airfields in Belarus, western Ukraine and Lithuania, less than 100 kilometers from the border, were hit by air strikes, and many planes that did not have time to take off were destroyed on the ground by German aircraft.

Fortunately, before the war, the Soviet early warning system was greatly improved by Manturov, and when German planes penetrated deep into the border, they were met by Soviet aircraft groups almost every time.

The Soviet Air Force dispatched the most advanced Yak-3 and La-7 fighters in the world at the time to meet the arrival of the German bomber group. Several clusters of both sides began fighting in the skies over Belarus, Western Ukraine and Lithuania.

The German pilots suffered from the Soviet Air Force, which was comparable in number and had better aircraft, and although their pilots were full of combat experience and were rigorous and well-trained, their BF-109F fighters were clearly no match for the Yak-3 and Ra-7, and the German Stuka Ju-87 bombers were "fat on the plate" for Soviet pilots.

As a result, after 8 o'clock, all the German flight groups suffered a lot of losses and lost air superiority. (To be continued.) )