"Comrade Chief of the General Staff, Commander Fedyuninsky sent a telegram that a large number of German tanks had been found in the area of Lyuban, southwest of Leningrad, and he felt that the Germans were likely to attack......"

"Attack?" Zhukov took a breath, "How many tanks were found?" Where is our tank army group at the moment? ”

Lieutenant General Kokopev, chief of operations of the General Staff of the Red Army, replied: "According to the reconnaissance of the partisans and the Air Force, the German armored units that appeared in the Lyuban area should be at the level of an army group. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 infoAnd the 4th Tank Army and the 6th Tank Army of our army are currently on standby near the city of Veliky Novgorod and ready to maneuver at any time. ”

The tank units of the Soviet Red Army, which lost the Battle of the Junction, suffered heavy losses, and the number of tanks/assault guns lost on various battlefields on the Eastern Front was almost more than 6,000!

Moreover, the city of Kharkiv, one of the four major tank manufacturing centers of the Soviet Union, is now also under attack by the German army, and the factories in the city are urgently relocated. And the Kirov plant in Leningrad was largely shut down after the siege of Leningrad last year. So now two of the four major tank-building centers of the USSR are temporarily paralyzed. The production of tanks/assault guns has been significantly reduced, and the rate of replenishment has slowed down.

In addition, it is not enough to have a tank without a tank crew and a mechanic to repair the tank, and the Soviet tanks are not easy to control (you have to drive the standard of a racer), and there are many breakdowns, which require high-level mechanics to repair. It is not easy to make up for the lost crews and mechanics in a short period of time than to replenish tanks.

So the loss of more than 6,000 tanks / assault guns, I really don't know when it will be made up? And the Supreme Command of the Soviet Red Army is now also tasting the lack of tank units!

And in order to fight the Fourth Leningrad Campaign, the Supreme Command took a lot of patchwork to put together a tank 6th Army for the Kalinin Front, and at the same time to replenish the 4th Tank Army.

The two armies now have about 1,700 tanks/assault guns, which is almost a "army group" armored cluster by German standards.

However, after the Battle of the Junction, the whole Soviet army knew about the fact that the Soviet tank units were far from being the opponents of the German armored forces!

And now the JS-2 heavy tank, which Zhukov has high hopes for, has not been built, and it is simply impossible to go into battle.

After listening to Kokopev's report, Zhukov's face was cloudy and thoughtful, and after a while, he asked Marshal Pavlov: "What do you think of this battle?" ”

Marshal Pavlov is now the First Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, theoretically Zhukov's superior (about half a rank), but in practical work, he was unwittingly swayed by Zhukov, as if he had become Zhukov's chief of staff.

Hearing Zhukov's inquiry, he pondered and replied: "The Germans cannot be allowed to attack first...... Now there is no full-fledged front on either side, except for the Leningrad Siege Front, so whoever concentrates the armored forces first and throws them into the offensive is the first to do so. ”

Zhukov nodded, he had the same opinion as Pavlov on this issue...... However, Stalin had to wait for Leningrad to complete the reorganization and the new JS-2 tank to form combat effectiveness, and as a result, he was delayed for some time. Otherwise, the Kalinin Front, most likely, would have already begun to attack by now.

"It's still too late!" Pavlov said, "Let the 4th and 6th tank armies immediately attack and attack the city of Pskov." ”

Zhukov shook his head, this advice of Pavlov made him look down on the old fellow a little.

If you lose the first hand, you will lose, and you can't catch it back by chasing!

If you follow Pavlov's method to hit the city of Pskov, there will be more than 200 kilometers on the road, and you will definitely not be able to go during the day, otherwise the tank cluster will not be able to reach the place and the German planes will be bombed. And if you want to walk day and night, you will walk at least 2 nights, tonight and tomorrow night are in a hurry, and you can attack the night after tomorrow at the earliest, and then the Germans will rush into Kalinin, what else to fight?

"It's too late," Zhukov whispered, "the plan for an active offensive must be abandoned in favor of a mobile defense." ”

"Mobile defense? How to prevent it? Pavlov asked.

Zhukov has been thinking about this question since the defeat in the Battle of Gomel. The biggest problem in the Battle of Gomel was that the Soviet tank units could not defeat the German armored clusters.

Barely attacking when you can't beat it, the losses are, of course, heavy!

However, the battle of Collective Farm No. 13, which took place at the same time, showed that the Soviet tank group could still withstand the superior strength of the German army in defensive operations. In this battle, the Soviet tank 5th Army fully withstood the onslaught of the opponent for more than 20 days, and in the end, although the whole army was annihilated, even the commander General Lukin was taken prisoner.

But the value of the battle was enormous, and it taught a Red Army commander like Zhukov how to use tank clusters to maneuver quickly and then put them into defensive operations in the most critical areas.

"Tonight, let the 4th Tank Army and the 18th Army go to the Little Vyshela to set up defenses," Zhukov thought for a moment, and then said, "The two armies should form a composite group, unify the command, and arrange the defense line with the tank brigade and the mechanized brigade as the core." ”

The 18th Army, originally attached to the Southwestern Front, participated in the fierce fighting in Ukraine on the right bank in the winter of 1942. At the time of the resumption of the Soviet-German war in May '43, the army group was regrouping near Moscow. It was only recently completed that it was transferred to the Kalinin Front.

And this 18th Army is the so-called "composite group army", that is, a mobile group that combines motorized infantry, cavalry, mechanized troops and motorized artillery, and the five assault armies are of the same nature, all of which are units that can follow the mobile combat of tank groups.

In the later stage of the "joint army battle," the Soviet army's high command department had already realized the value of this kind of coordinated operation between the combined army and the tank army in the strategic defense stage, so it became the object of key development.

According to Zhukov's line of thought, because the Soviet-German battlefield was too vast, it was impossible for the Red Army to form a long and strong defensive line. It is only possible to use highly motorized synthetic clusters to conduct defense-oriented operations in the field without strong fortifications -- this style of play is what Zhukov called "mobile defense", and although victory is not guaranteed, at least it can obtain a relatively ideal exchange ratio.

Zhukov thought for a moment, and then said: "The 6th Tank Army continues to be covert in the vicinity of Veliky Novgorod, and after the 4th Tank Army and the 18th Army have fully exhausted the German armored clusters, it will be engaged in a counteroffensive. ”

"Then should the left flank of the Kalinin Front retreat?" At this time, Pavlov asked the question of the left flank of the Kalinin Front, which was also the place between Leningrad and Velikiye Luki, where to go.

According to the original plan, these troops were supposed to be used for assaults on the territory of the Baltic States, and now that the Germans were going to strike first, there was naturally no need for such a bluff assault.

"Can't be withdrawn." Zhukov shook his head, "Someone has to block there, otherwise the armored units of the German army on the Smolensk front line will easily go north to Pskov and even enter the battlefield near Leningrad......"

"Into the battlefield near Leningrad?" Pavlov frowned deeply, "Are you worried that they will besiege Leningrad again?" ”

"Yes!" Zhukov nodded, "If the Kalinin Front is defeated, the Germans will most likely besiege Leningrad again...... The second capital of the Soviet Union is a big bargaining chip for peace! Moreover, the possibility that the Germans were really going to capture Leningrad cannot be ruled out now.

Therefore, the Leningrad side must also be ready to be surrounded and defend the city again! ”

……

The instructions of the High Command of the Red Army soon caused a chain reaction in the city of Leningrad - the veteran revolutionary Kaminsky, who had joined the Red Army in 1918, was promoted from lieutenant deputy battalion commander to major battalion commander, while his friend and superior Voskoponico became the commander of the 644th Infantry Regiment and remained Kaminsky's superior.

The 344th Infantry Regiment was part of the newly formed 347th Infantry Division, which was formed on the basis of Leningrad anti-GM soldiers, Siberian labor campers, and a small number of the original regular army. There were three infantry regiments under its jurisdiction, two of which were a mixture of Leningrad anti-GM soldiers and Siberian labor reformers, and the other was a regular Red Army army from other places.

Of course, both the Leningrad anti-GM soldiers and the Siberian labor camp were organizationally the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party. Like the troops with the title of guard, they are all revolutionary armies with party branches built up to companies, and political deputies (grassroots political workers) are readily available.

In addition, in addition to the 347th Division, which was not very reliable (there were 30 such divisions in Leningrad), there were 15 more reliable divisions in Leningrad, including five Guards Infantry Divisions, the 1st, 20th, 21st, 22nd and 23rd.

The so-called internal guard infantry divisions are infantry divisions composed of members of the NKVD control of the border guard units, internal defense units, and other units (there were hundreds of thousands before the outbreak of war), and they are particularly loyal and reliable units. There are some in all the armies, and they are usually deployed 10-20 kilometers behind the front-line combat units as reserves and overseers.

In Leningrad, five Interior Guards Infantry Divisions guarded the most central areas of the city. On their periphery were 10 ordinary infantry divisions of the Red Army (neither Leningraders nor from Siberia), defending most of the urban areas of Leningrad.

As for those who held on to the periphery of Leningrad, of course, it was such an "unreliable unit" as the 347th Division of the Red Army. (To be continued.) )