In late May 1943, when Germany, the United States, and the Soviet Union engaged in round after round of behind-the-scenes interactions around the war and peace issues, the Soviet-German battlefield contest did not stop, but became more and more intense. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

On the southern front of the Soviet-German battlefield, the Dnieper defense line, held by the main forces of the Soviet Southwestern Front, had begun to fall apart, and a small part of the Soviet troops withdrew to the Crimean peninsula. Most of them were divided and surrounded along the Dnieper River for the last stubborn resistance.

On the southern front, in the Kharkov-Donetsk area, the Soviet Southwestern Front received reinforcements from the Reserve Front (which was the newly formed Reserve Front) and the Caucasian Front, and was able to cobble together more than 100,000 troops to hold out in the city of Kharkov, temporarily blocking the German 1st Panzer Division and the 5th SS Panzergrenadier Division rushing from the banks of the Desna River. However, the situation is still extremely serious!

And the middle and northern routes of the Soviet-German battlefield, from May 20 to the end of May, showed the calm before the storm. There were no large-scale clashes between the Soviet and German armies, except for the fierce fighting in Smolensk.

But the senior generals on both sides only had to look at the increasing number of arrows and troop numbers on the map (both of their own and those of the enemy) to smell the stronger and stronger smell of gunpowder.

"Chief of the General Staff, First Quartermaster General, at present in the Leningrad-Smolensk area, the tendency of the Soviet army to brew a decisive battle has undoubtedly appeared."

On 1 June, Field Marshal Quchler, commander of the German Army Group North, arrived at the General Staff of Tsosen, personally reported to Hersmann and Guderian on the military situation at the front, and at the same time submitted a plan for a decisive battle.

"After careful analysis of the enemy situation, the army group command believed that it was a very risky move to let the Soviet troops attack first." "Because our army has no front to hold in the Leningrad-Pskov area," he said, pointing at the two sides on the map, "because our army has no front to hold in the Leningrad-Pskov area." If Army Group were to go on the defensive, it would have to retreat from under the city of Leningrad, which would greatly boost the morale of the Soviet troops and be extremely detrimental to the peace efforts currently under way.

Therefore, the advice of the army group command was to launch an offensive before the Soviets were ready, and to engage in a decisive battle with the Soviet mechanized group outside Leningrad. After the victory in the decisive battle of the mechanized cluster, launch a storming operation against Leningrad! ”

In a few words, Qu Hillel roughly explained his plan - first a decisive tank battle outside Leningrad!

After the victory, he began to attack the fortifications and took Leningrad...... Or force Stalin to sue for peace!

"How many armored divisions does Army Group North need to win the decisive battle of tanks outside the city?" Hersman asked, frowning.

In fact, he did not want a decisive battle with the Soviet army near Leningrad, but the Soviet army opened a decisive battle on the Leningrad-Smolensk line.

The USSR wants to fight, and of course Germany has to accompany it!

And as Quchler said, the Germans did not have a single line of defense around Leningrad that could be held. If the Soviet Union is allowed to prepare to complete the first strike, Army Group North is likely to suffer.

"In addition to the mechanized units that Army Group North already has, 2 armored divisions and 2 panzergrenadier divisions are needed," Quchreel said. ”

Not much!

The German General Staff had far more reserves at its disposal than Quchell had demanded - since the German army was now basically fighting on a single front, and because it had gathered most of Europe and had far more oil than it had historically been, it had plenty of mechanized forces at its disposal.

Of course, there is never too much foreign cannon fodder for attacking fortifications. After all, under the current conditions of technology and preparation, attacking a fortified city will always cause considerable casualties.

"Marshal of the Reich," Guderian had already suggested at this time, "I support Marshal Quchel's plan. ”

Well, Guderian is all for it, and that shouldn't be wrong.

Hersmann nodded in agreement - he was now a bit like World War I's Chief of General Staff Hindenburg, and Guderian, First Quartermaster, was similar to Ludendorff...... Nominally, Hersman is in charge, but in fact Hersman listens to Guderian (who made the family Guderian!). ）。

"How many more troops are needed to fight the city of Leningrad?" Hersmann then asked about the reinforcements needed for the Leningrad storm.

"20-30 divisions."

This time, Qu Hillel didn't dare to ask for less.

The decisive battle of tanks in the field was easy to fight, and in the recent "Battle of the Junction", the two sides repeatedly fought several times, and each time the German army won a big victory. Moreover, the German army (French army) also has Breguet attack aircraft and HS129 attack aircraft that specialize in tanks, so they have a great chance of winning. However, it is difficult to storm the city, and the troops of the Smolensk Central Army Group have not yet taken it, let alone the fortified city of Leningrad?

"The Polish Army Group will soon be formed," Hersman said after a moment's thought, "all of them will be assigned to Army Group North, which has 20 Polish divisions. Plus, give you 15 more German infantry divisions. Is that enough? ”

35 divisions were given, which seems to be a lot. However, the number of German infantry divisions is not as large as it was during the war, the establishment has been reduced from 2 brigades and 4 regiments to 3 regiments, and the total strength has also been reduced from 17,200 (full) to 14,200. At most, 35 divisions have a total strength of less than 500,000. Combined with the existing strength of Army Group North, plus the 2 Panzer Divisions and 2 Panzergrenadier Divisions previously promised to Quchler, the strength of Army Group North has increased to almost 1.4 million, which should be able to fight Leningrad.

"Not enough," Quchell shook his head, "after all, the combat effectiveness of the Polish division cannot be compared with that of the German division, and there are still weaker White Russian and Finnish units in the existing units of Army Group North. ”

"It doesn't matter," Hersman shook his head with a smile, "the assault on Leningrad is just a feint...... After the victory in the decisive battle of tanks outside Leningrad, it was enough to take advantage of the situation to surround Leningrad and then make a feint and scare Stalin. ”

……

Almost on the same day, Zhukov and Pavlov were also calculating the number of troops they had at hand for the Fourth Leningrad Campaign.

"There are 10 tank corps and mechanized corps, and about 2,000 tank/assault artillery pieces. There were 35 infantry corps and 5 assault armies. In Leningrad there were also 45 divisions, most of which were adapted from militia divisions...... The combined strength of the Leningrad Front and the Kalinin Front exceeded 2 million. ”

Zhukov first counted the strength of his troops with his fingers, then nodded and said: "There are 2 million people who should be able to bluff the Germans, and there are 200 JS-2 heavy tanks...... Victory should be expected. ”

The "victory" he spoke of was not the annihilation of the German Army Group North, but the mere distraction of Army Group North from the vicinity of Leningrad.

In order to achieve this goal, the plan for a decisive battle drawn up by Zhukov and Pavlov was in fact a feint. The attack on the German Baltic state was a feint, and the attack on the city of Pskov was no less a feint.

According to the plan, the Kalinin Front was to be divided into three groups, the left flank group to feint against the Baltic, the center group to feint against Pskov, and the right flank group to regain lost ground with the Leningrad Front after the German retreat near Leningrad.

If all went well, the Soviet Red Army, numbering as many as 2 million people, would not have a hard-to-head Armageddon with the Germans.

Because a battle in which 2 million Red Army troops participated in the General Assembly would not be decided in a matter of days. The location of the battle between the two sides was close to the Baltic Sea and the German border, so the German high command had time to draw reinforcements from all over the country - according to Soviet intelligence, Germany still had sufficient reserves, at least one strong Panzer Corps in East Prussia, and a strong French Mechanized Corps (including three reserve armoured divisions and three mechanized divisions) had recently arrived in Poland, ready to reinforce the decisive battles in the Leningrad and Pskov areas.

Therefore, the use of bluff tactics to force back the German Army Group North in order to drag on the war was the most ideal choice in Zhukov's opinion.

Pavlov also nodded, and said with a smile: "I think the key to this battle is to bring out the power of 200 JS-2 heavy tanks...... I think the Germans will be shocked when they first see our JS-2 tank. Perhaps the Germans would have waited for their new tanks to enter service before launching a new offensive, which would have been ideal. ”

……

"William, I know that you are a brave and warlike naval officer, but this time the mission of the Atlantic Fleet is not to fight a decisive battle with the European Combined Fleet, but to dispel the German superstition about JU288."

While the Soviet and German high commands were busy planning another battle of Leningrad, Admiral Stark, commander of the Allied Atlantic Fleet and commander of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet, was also giving a face-to-face lecture to Admiral Halsey, commander of the U.S. 3rd Fleet.

"I understand," Halsey said, nodding, "that our aircraft carriers and battleships are to be kept against the Japanese, so they can't be consumed in the Atlantic." ”

Admiral Stark smiled and said, "That's right! But we have to scare the Germans...... It is necessary to make them understand the fact that in the Atlantic, we the United States, cannot be defeated, and if the Germans want to fight a protracted war of attrition, they will definitely go bankrupt in the end. ”

Halsey laughed, "I know, I have to make the Germans understand that they have absolutely no power to defeat the United States in the Atlantic...... Even if they were willing to pay ten times more than it would have cost them to destroy the USSR on the Eastern Front, they would not have been able to win! (To be continued.) )