"Marshal of the Reich, where has our 18th Army advanced?"

In today's conference room of the High Command, Hitler was a rare step ahead, and when Hersmann walked in, he immediately asked about the war on the Leningrad side. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

"Leader, the vanguard of the 1st SS Division and the Russian Guards has reached the vicinity of the city of Luga, still 30 kilometers from Luga." "Luga is the southern gate of Leningrad, located on the banks of the Luga River, between the Gulf of Finland and Lake Ilmen," Hersman replied. Once captured by us, we will be able to turn northeast, attack Chudovo, cut off the August railway line from Leningrad to Moscow, and encircle Leningrad from the east. I estimate that this goal can be achieved in 10 days. ”

Leningrad is a mega-city, with an estimated number of defenders in the hundreds of thousands, and an estimated number of militias that can be mobilized. The only way to capture such a city is usually to encircle it first. Only by besieging it can the defenders be able to consume the strength of the defenders little by little, and finally take it.

If the encirclement is not realized, the situation will become similar to that of Warsaw today. Although the Soviet Red Army had captured more than half of the city, it was constantly reinforced by the German 6th Army defending Warsaw. Therefore, the Battle of Warsaw turned into a tug-of-war of constant bloodletting for the Soviet Union, which lasted for nearly two months, and has caused nearly 400,000 Red officers and soldiers to be killed, missing, or seriously wounded, and nearly 2 million people piled up on the Polish battlefield east of Warsaw.

So if the Germans did not want to make the same mistake in Leningrad, they should first complete the encirclement, and then launch a siege.

And to achieve encirclement, first of all, it is necessary to cut off the communication between Leningrad and Moscow. The goal can be achieved by capturing Luga, Chudovo, Novgorod, etc. Since it was the German 18th Army that attacked Leningrad from the south, the combat effectiveness was still very considerable, so this goal was not difficult to achieve.

After successfully cutting off the communication between Leningrad and Moscow, cutting off the communication between Leningrad and Murmansk, Molotovsk and other places in the north is the key to completing the encirclement. And this goal is obviously difficult to achieve by relying on Finland's South-East Army and Karelian Army Group alone.

"Reich Marshal, are the Soviets now showing signs of a massive build-up of troops in Leningrad?" Hitler asked.

"No," Hersman shook his head, "there is no information on this at this time. ”

Soviet intelligence was not easy to inquire about, and Comrade Beria's NKVD was not transparent. Therefore, Hersman did not know much about the movement of Soviet troops at the moment, and could only draw conclusions through the analysis of air reconnaissance and bits and pieces of intelligence from Leningrad.

"But there was a general mobilization in Leningrad, and it is likely that Voroshilov, the People's Commissar of Defense of the Soviet Union, went there and took up a post called Commander-in-Chief of the North-Western Direction." Hersmann's message was heard through the ostensibly neutral Swedish Consulate General in Leningrad.

He sat down in his seat and continued: "Voroshilov has mobilized millions of people to build fortifications on the outskirts of the city of Leningrad, and is still calling up a large number of militia battalions...... These are not far from what we expected.

It is estimated that Stalin has not yet drawn a large number of troops from the Belarusian and Ukrainian directions to reinforce Leningrad. ”

"It is very likely that Stalin will not transfer troops from Belarus," Hitler said, wrinkling his eyebrows, "unless there is a real possibility that Leningrad will be captured by us...... Marshal of the Reich, is it possible for us to capture there? ”

Stalin and the High Command of the Red Army were not fools, and of course they knew that the reserve front now in Belarus could not be easily mobilized, otherwise the Western Front that broke through into Poland might not be able to secure a future.

The direct withdrawal of the Western Front from the Polish front would not only have too great a negative political effect - it would be tantamount to admitting that the world revolution had suffered a major setback. Moreover, the adverse military impact is also great, because once the Soviet Red Army retreats from Poland, Germany can draw troops from the Eastern Front for the island of Ireland, and once the island of Ireland is controlled by Germany, the British mainland will be completely blocked, and it is very likely that it will choose to compromise with Germany.

And as soon as Britain compromised, the USSR would have to face an attack on the whole of Europe (excluding the territory of the USSR)!

Therefore, Stalin preferred to maintain the Polish battlefield, a great bleeding point, and to fight a war of attrition with the Germans in Warsaw. And the 2 million mechanized Red Army in a fighting state is almost impossible to eat in one bite, and there are a huge number of reserve front and southwestern front behind them. The combined strength of the three zigzag fronts is likely to be more than four million, and it is very difficult to defeat and encircle a large part of them without spreading their forces.

And Leningrad seems to be the most likely direction to attract the forces of the armies on these three fronts.

"Of course," Hersman said lightly, "if we attack at any cost, we can take Leningrad down, but that would leave us with insufficient forces to crush or annihilate the Soviet Western Front." ”

"So what do we do?" Hitler frowned.

"We're going to give Stalin a slap in the face, so that he can see the possibility of Leningrad being surrounded."

Hersman paused before he continued: "The General Staff plans to use the Baltic detachment of the Combined European Fleet and the Airborne Forces to launch a landing and airborne operation in the Gulf of Finland. ”

"Landing and airborne?" Hitler asked, "Where is the goal?" ”

In the "Blue 3 Plan", there is a plan for a landing/landing operation somewhere in the Gulf of Finland, but there are many places in advance.

"Kronstadt." Hersman came up with a surprising place name.

"What? Kronstadt? Is that the ...... The naval fortress guarding the gates of Leningrad? ”

"That's right! There it is! "As long as we take it, Stalin will be convinced that our goal is Leningrad." ”

The naval fortress of Kronstadt was actually part of Leningrad, and once it was captured by the Germans, the siege of Leningrad began. However, the Kronstadt Naval Fortress is theoretically the most heavily defended place in the entire city of Leningrad, and since the time of Peter the Great, Kronstadt is located on Kotlin Island, which has been built as the foundation of the Russian Navy, not only on Kotlin Island there are a large number of coastal defense batteries, but also on the periphery of the island, there are many forts built on artificial islands - it is very easy to reclaim an island in the Gulf of Finland, as long as the reclamation materials are dragged to the designated location during the ice season.

In addition, Kotlin Island is at the bottom of a very narrow bay, the terrain is a bit like a wine bottle, the entrance is only 20 kilometers wide, and it is completely blocked by coastal artillery on both sides. Therefore, it would be difficult for the invading fleet to break into this "bottle" to capture the Kronstadt fortress on the island of Kotlin.

Moreover, the current Kronstadt fortress does not seem to have much value to occupy. It was originally the base camp of the Baltic Fleet of the Soviet Red Navy, and its strategic value was somewhat significant. But the main ships of the Baltic Fleet went to Molotovsk (Severodvinsk) to join the Northern Fleet long before the war.

So Kronstadt is now an empty shell, and it is useless to take it, and it is impossible to use it as a springboard to attack the city of Leningrad. Because Kronstadt's port facilities were located on the east side of Kotlin Island, near Petergoff (part of the city of Leningrad) and Lomonosov, the 152mm howitzers deployed in both places could block the port, making it impossible for the Germans to bring large quantities of supplies and troops into Kronstadt.

Eventually, the sea area where Kronstadt was located would freeze in winter, when the Red Army in Leningrad would be able to counterattack the Kronstadt fortress from the ice. Considering that the fortified port could not be used, the beachhead (there was a beachhead to the west of Kotlin Island that could be landed) could only be used for replenishment, so it would be difficult for the Germans to withstand the counteroffensive of the Soviet mechanized forces, even if they captured the fort.

Therefore, the military significance of the capture of Kronstadt was very limited, and the only effect was probably to frighten the layman Stalin - even the Germans who had taken down a strong fortress like Kronstadt showed that they were determined to enthrone Empress Olga in Petrograd.

"Can we really take the Kronstadt fortress?" Hitler seems to have little confidence in the supermen who had opened up Germany.

"Of course," Hersman's tone was unusually affirmative, "we will be able to take it there, because we have a means of surprise attack, which we have learned from the Japanese." ”

"Japanese?"

"Yes, they have a very unique naval tank tactics." Hersman said, "The use of submarines to transport amphibious tanks for surprise attacks, which was the method used by the Japanese to carry out surprise attacks in the Battle of Oahu." Now we intend to use this method to sneak up on Kronstadt, and as long as our amphibious tanks are able to capture a beachhead on Kotlin Island, the Airborne Forces will be able to quickly enter the battle to seize the island. ”

The Germans learned the idea of using submarines to transport tanks for sneak attacks, but it was not used in the campaign to land on the island of Ireland, because the specially developed Type 3 amphibious tank had not yet been produced at that time. Moreover, at that time, there were not many U-boats that had completed the modification of carrying tanks, and they could not complete this kind of brain-opening sneak attack mission at all.

But the elite of the German General Staff had already noticed the fantastic combination of "submarine + tank", and therefore the possibility of using this method in the Blue Plan to seize the Kronstadt fortress or land on the Leningrad beach was raised. (To be continued.) )