"Comrade Commander, the Supreme High Command has agreed to our request, and the Command of the Front can be relocated to the Brest Fortress or to the territory of Poland. The 20 armies belonging to the Western Front www.biquge.info Pen, Fun, and Pavilion can all be used for the Polish-Western Ukrainian operation. The former Belarusian defense zone of the Western Front was transferred to the Reserve Front. In addition, Comrade Ponomarenko will no longer be the military commissar of the Front, and the post of military commissar will be held by Comrade Bulganin. ”

At 7 p.m. on July 21, the Chief of Staff of the Western Front, Limowik, informed General Pavlov of the instructions he had just received from the Supreme High Command. The strength of the Western Front on the books did not increase, it was still 20 army groups. However, the several army groups that were originally deployed in Belarus can now all be used for Polish operations.

In addition, the military commissar of the Western Front, Ponomarenko, finally threw away the hot potato, and the person who took over the fateful errand was Stalin's confidant, the deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and the head of the State Bank of the USSR Nikolai Brown. Aleksandrovich. Bulganin.

This Bulganin, who had no military experience, was a Cheka soldier, but had been working in the economy and government since 1922, and was an experienced senior government official and economic expert. So Stalin also gave him another position, the general adviser of the Third International to the Polish Bolshevik Party, in fact, the general secretary of Poland, whose task was not only to lead the political work of the Western Front, but also to help the Polish Bolsheviks establish people's power as soon as possible.

Hearing the decision of the Supreme High Command, Pavlov sighed softly, "Call back to the Supreme High Command, the Western Front Command will be moved to the city of Minsk in the Polish province of Masovia in the shortest possible time." By the way, send another telegram to Comrade Bogdanov (commander of the reserve front) asking him to come to Minsk as soon as possible to discuss the matter of taking over the defense of Belarus. ”

"Comrade Commander, Comrade Bogdanov does not have to come to Minsk," said Limowskik, "the Supreme High Command has just issued an order for the post of Deputy Chief of the General Staff Comrade Vasilevsky as the commander of the reserve front." ”

Vasilevsky, who was now the representative of the Supreme High Command on the Western Front, was familiar with the situation on the Polish front and in Belarus, and was quite suitable for the post of commander of the new reserve front.

Pavlov nodded, "It's Comrade Vasilevsky...... That's good, then I'll rest assured, with him as the commander of the reserve front, there will be no danger in our rear. ”

"By the way, has anything changed at the front?" Pavlov again asked about the latest situation at the front.

"It's pretty calm before dark." Limoskik replied, "Our 3rd Army could not be mobilized during the day because of the indiscriminate bombardment of the Germans, and their two armored groups did not attack. The cluster north of the Vistula River is still near the town of Zacrochim, presumably waiting for troops to arrive...... This should be a fairly large cluster, most likely at the army group level! The heavily armored group that captured Razimin did not know why, did not make any action, and did not advance towards Vovomin or the Renaf River. ”

"No action yet?" Pavlov touched his bare head, his brows furrowed. This heavy armored cluster has been delayed for almost 10 hours, what are you waiting for? Will more heavy tanks arrive in Razimin?

Thinking of this, the cold sweat on Pavlov's forehead began to gather again.

……

"Is everything fixed?"

"Sir, most of them have been repaired, and now there are 41 Tiger tanks in the 501 battalion that can be used."

"Sir, most of the Tiger in the 502nd Battalion has been repaired, and there are 40 units that can be operated."

"Sir, there are 42 Tiger units in the 503rd Battalion that can be used."

Major General Hubei, the commander of the German "Hubei Heavy Armored Division", was also wiping sweat beads at this time, and this sweat beads did not come out of the heat, but in a hurry. Because most of his Tiger tanks broke down after more than twenty hours of continuous fighting. Either the gears of the gearbox cracked, or they burned up while walking, or they were common failures of the tracks and load-bearing wheels - if you change to the No. 4 or No. 3 assault gun, the failure of the tracks and load-bearing wheels is a minor problem, but this is not the case with the Tiger tank. Because the Tiger uses staggered load wheels, in the event of a breakdown (mainly wear), several load wheels must be removed at the same time to repair. And the replacement of the tracks of the Tiger tank is also troublesome, because the tank is too heavy to tow to a temporary repair point, and it is necessary to tow a Tiger tank with three SDKFZ9FAMO half-track trailers. Moreover, the track collapsed too tightly to remove the track by removing the latch alone, and sometimes even had to use oxygen cutting to fuse the track.

Fortunately, Germany now has the best skilled workers in the world, otherwise the problem of Tiger repairs alone would have driven front-line armored commanders crazy.

In the battle from the early morning of the 20th to the morning of the 21st, only 6 Tiger tanks were really damaged by Soviet fire, while nearly 40 were damaged due to various breakdowns.

So much so that Rear Admiral Hube did not dare to let these delicate tanks that "break down as soon as they are used" continue to fight. After the capture of Lazimin, he ordered all the tanks to stop for maintenance - repair the broken ones, check the ones that were not broken, and replace a few easily damaged parts, so as not to drop the chain when they went to the battlefield again.

Hearing that the commanders of his three heavily armored battalions had reported that most of the Tiger could be used, Major General Hube breathed a sigh of relief. Turning his head to his superior, Admiral Reinhardt, he smiled bitterly: "General, our heavy armored division can be put into use again." Do you go on the offensive now, or wait until tomorrow after dawn to act? ”

"It's time to act, but not to attack, but to defend." Admiral Reinhardt beckoned to one of the lieutenants beside him, who immediately spread out a military map in front of Hubey. Reinhardt pointed to the small town of Ruda, located between the Razimin and Reynaf rivers on the map, "Three heavily armored battalions and the Hungarian assault gun brigade and the Walloon brigade of the SS will immediately set off to set up a defense here. Air force reconnaissance during the day today found that a large mechanized group of the Soviets, after being stopped by Mandolfel's cavalry, began to turn back to the east, and was expected to cross the river from the pontoon bridge near Serotsk tonight. ”

"We're going to stop them in Ruda?" Huber already understood Reinhardt's intentions.

Now that the Luftwaffe has remote-controlled gliding bombs and controls most of the air supremacy in the theater, it is not very difficult to blow up the pontoon bridge. Since the Air Force did not blow up the bridge, then it must have wanted to let the Soviet tank cluster go across the Reynaf River.

"That's right, Hans, you go to defend Ruda and teach the Russians a hard lesson with the Tiger tank!" Reinhardt said. "I'll guard Razimin, and use the Black Panther and No. 4 to clean up the Russians going north!"

When Hube noticed a change in his plans, he asked, "Shou Lazimin?" Don't assault on Vovomin? ”

"Don't fight Wowomin," Reinhardt smiled, "It's supposed to be a short assault, how many troops do we have?" It is impossible to repel a million Soviet troops, and if you can kill them to the maximum extent, you will achieve your goal. During the day, the air force's reconnaissance also found that the Soviet troops were still massing towards Vovomin, apparently preparing to flank us together with the Soviet armored clusters on the west bank of the Renaf River. We just took the opportunity to give them some awesome taste! ”

……

"Marshal, there will be a decisive battle tonight?"

In the conference room of the Berlin High Command, Hitler, who had just returned from Paris (he had gone to discuss France's entry into the war with Field Marshal Petain), immediately asked about the war as soon as he saw the chief of the General Staff, Kesselring.

"Leader, it's not a decisive battle, it's just a short assault." Kesselring replied, "There will be about 2 corps armored clusters, and we will have more than 900 tanks/assault guns in battle. ”

"The battle in which more than 900 tanks / assault guns took part is not yet decisive?" Hitler was a little surprised to hear the number of tanks/assault guns that took part in the battle, "So how many tanks/assault guns were put into the decisive offensive?" ”

"There will be about 8,000 tanks/assault guns, which is two-thirds of the Wehrmacht's armoured strength." Hersman, who was presiding over the meeting of the High Command, interjected at this time. "The short assault that began in the early morning of the 20th was only to further attract the main forces of the Soviets to the Warsaw battlefield and create favorable conditions for the big counteroffensive planned by Blue."

Referring to the big counteroffensive in the blue plan, Hitler's mustache moved and showed a triumphant smile: "Marshal Petain and Admiral Weygand agreed to send 10 artillery divisions, a total of 1,620 suppressive guns of more than 150mm, by the end of July, to support our operations. By mid-August, another 10 French artillery divisions will arrive at the front, and by the end of August another 10 artillery divisions will be dispatched. At that time, there will be 30 artillery divisions with a total of 4,860 suppressed guns of more than 150mm at our disposal. In addition, the French will send a railway artillery group, and hundreds of large-caliber railway guns will take part in the storming of Soviet cities and fortresses.

Marshal of the Reich, with so many French artillery on the board, there are no Russian cities and fortresses that we can't take down, right? ”

"Leader, the USSR is a big country!" Hersmann looked at Hitler and said with a smile, "We can't take all the cities, we can only take the method of focusing on the attack." ”

Hitler nodded, "So where are we going to focus on attacking now?" ”

Marshal Kesselring replied: "The opinion of the General Staff is to focus on the offensive of Minsk, and at the same time make a feint for Leningrad. After capturing Minsk and crushing the Soviet Western Front, it turned to attack Ukraine with troops. ”

"Feint on Leningrad?" Hitler thought for a moment, "But how can we convince Stalin that our goal is Leningrad?" (To be continued.) )