Boom Boom Boom ......

The dull sound of artillery continued to reach the underground command post where Admiral Moder was. Pen %Fun %Cabinet www.biquge.info Because the artillery of the Soviet Red Army was so powerful, the German troops in Warsaw now hid underground when possible, and the headquarters of Moder's 6th Army was no exception, hiding in the basement of the former Polish Ministry of Defense building.

"Jorg, Valentin, I'm sorry to bring you both from comfortable Lithuania to Warsaw."

In Moder's headquarters, two German generals came at this time, a former commander of the 41st Panzer Corps, Joerg Brown. Hans. General Reinhardt Panzer Corps, the other was the commander of the 16th Panzer Division, Hans. Valentine. Major General Hube.

"Walter, I heard you have a great armored force to give me command so I came here." Admiral Reinhardt looked at the dark, damp basement where Moder was and asked with a smile, "What about my armored units?" I can't wait to meet them. ”

"Me too, Your Excellency." Major General Hu Bei, who was a little chubby and seemed to be an uncle next door, also asked with a smile.

"The troops are in Vormianki," Mr. Moder said, "and I would not be willing to put 132 Tiger tanks and 88 Panthers in Warsaw to be bombed." ”

He was talking about 501-505 and other 5 heavily armored battalions, which were reorganized and adjusted after the battle of Legiono-Vovomin, of which 3 battalions were all armed with Tiger tanks and 2 battalions were all armed with Panther tanks.

"Those 5 heavily armored battalions?" Reinhardt raised an eyebrow, although he, like most German Panzer commanders, was opposed to the massive use of Tiger and Panther tanks. But he still wanted to be able to command an armored cluster of "Tigers" and "Panthers".

The two points of view are actually not contradictory, because the "Tiger" tank and the "Panther" tank are undoubtedly very good tanks. Although there are still minor problems, many armored commanders still like them. The objections were made from a strategic point of view, in the hope of getting more and more maneuverable tanks.

"There was also the 1st Cavalry Division, which had previously belonged to the 9th Army, as well as the 5th SS Tank Battalion, the 5th SS Panzer Artillery Battalion, the SS 'Northern' regiment, the SS 'Wallonia' brigade, the SS 'Finland' battalion and the Hungarian mechanized corps, as well as three smoke launcher regiments. These forces will form a temporary corps-level armoured group, known as the 'Reinhardt' cluster. ”

Then he said to Major General Hubey: "Five of the heavy armored battalions, the 5th SS tank battalion, the 5th SS armored artillery battalion, the SS 'Wallonia' brigade, and the SS 'Finland' battalion will form a divisional panzer group, called the 'Hubey' heavy armored division, under your command." ”

"That's good," Reinhardt nodded, and then asked, "Walter, what are you going to do with this corps-grade armored group?" ”

"Launch a short assault." Moder said.

"Where?"

"Legiono-Vovomin line!" "Now that the Soviets are making progress on both the central and southern routes of Warsaw, only the northern route is holding out, which means that they are accumulating strength and preparing for a major offensive," Moder said. Moreover, the air force reconnaissance found that the Soviets were gathering heavy troops around Vovomin recently, so I wanted to strike first and launch a counteroffensive before they could attack. ”

The method of attacking before the enemy launches an offensive is more advantageous in the era of mechanized warfare. This is because in the era of mechanized warfare, what will be studied is "attack and defense in great depth," and the depth of defense on the defending side is very large, and the depth of defense of several tens of kilometers is at least, and it is not impossible to have a depth of hundreds of kilometers or even 200 kilometers. On the other hand, the attacking side should press forward as much as possible, and will also hoard a large amount of supplies close to the front line to ensure that the attack momentum is not consumed by their own transportation lines.

In this case, the transition between offense and defense is very slow, and it is impossible to be in an offensive state on the first day, and in the blink of an eye, a defense in depth will be put on.

And if an army in an offensive state is suddenly attacked by an opponent and cannot break the enemy with an offensive force, then it will quickly fall into extreme passivity. Historically, the Soviet Red Army caused the Germans to suddenly beat the Germans, and there was a factor in this regard -- the Soviet Red Army at that time did not defend in great depth, but concentrated a large number of troops near the border line, which was a typical offensive layout.

"If our counterattack on the Legiono-Vovomin line is successful again," said Morder, "if our counterattack on the Legiono-Vovomin line is again successful, then it is very likely that the Soviet high command will think that we are about to launch a counterattack near Warsaw, so as to concentrate more forces on Warsaw and create the most favorable conditions for the offensive of Army Group North." ”

……

Preparations for the counterattack of Army Group North were in full swing, and the main task of this Army Group according to the "Blue Plan" was to break the Soviet offensive on Poland and inflict heavy damage on the attacking forces of the Soviet Army by launching counterattacks in the three directions of Minsk, Brest and Leningrad.

However, there are multiple plans for choosing one, two, or three of these predetermined counterattack targets at the same time.

Of the three targets, the closest to the possible attack – a transport hub in Baltia or the Grand Duchy of Lithuania – was Minsk, the capital of Belarus, which was also the base camp of the Soviet Western Front, with a large stockpile of military supplies and the presence of a large number of fortifications built in the early years of the Stalin Line.

In addition, the Soviet reserve front was concentrated in Smolensk and could be reinforced.

Therefore, it was not a big problem for the German armored group to break through to the vicinity of Minsk, but it was not easy to capture Minsk.

And Brest, the closest to the Polish front, was the starting point for the Soviet Union to launch a heavy thunderstorm assault. Originally a Polish fortress, it was captured by the Soviets in 1939 and subsequently became the most important Soviet stronghold on the Western Front. According to intelligence, the Soviet army stored a large amount of supplies there, which could support the main forces of the Western Front for a long time.

In other words, even if Minsk falls and the communication between the Western Front and Moscow is cut off, the Western Front will be able to rely on Brest supplies to maintain operations and move in the direction of Ukraine.

And to capture Brest, it was extremely difficult for Army Group North. Because Brest was at least 250 kilometers from various possible points where Army Group North would launch a counterattack. And there are very few good roads available along the way, and after the Soviet Union seized the Ukrainian land on the right bank of the Bug River west of the Bug River in Poland, it carried out preventive road destruction, and completely destroyed all the north-south roads in the former West Belarusian land, and at the same time strengthened the east-west roads and railways.

So the Germans were going to make a sortie from Lithuania to take Brest, almost a 250-kilometer cross-country march. The speed of the mechanized troops' cross-country march cannot be compared with the road march, and it is fast to advance a few kilometers in an hour. The 250-kilometer off-road would take forty or fifty hours to walk even without enemy obstruction, and at least four days if the day and night march was not carried out.

The pre-selected target for the last counterattack was Leningrad, the historical Petrograd, the capital of the Russian Empire. This was a politically significant goal, and given the current closeness of the Hohenzollern and Romanov dynasties, once Leningrad fell into German hands, the name of Petrograd would be restored, and Empress Olga would be returned to the Winter Palace, which she had been thinking about day and night.

However, since Germany had controlled Estonia for more than two decades, the Soviet Red Army had always been attentive to the defense of Leningrad. The city was also basically a large fortress, and it was still the base camp of the Northwest Front, and it was very difficult to capture it.

And to attack two or all of the three pre-selected targets at the same time, the amount of troops required is astronomical! And considering that the fortresses of Leningrad, Minsk and Brest were fortified, Germany also needed to commit powerful siege artillery.

However, the German army, which emphasized mechanization and field warfare, was actually insufficient in its ability to attack fortified cities and positional warfare. Unless the Germans could be supported by strong French artillery, it would be difficult for them to capture heavily defended and well-defended cities by the Soviets in a short period of time.

"The French government agreed to declare war on the USSR when we needed it!" In the conference room of the High Command at 73 Wilhelmstrasse in Berlin, Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, who had just returned from Paris, loudly reported a great news that Hersmann had anticipated.

He went on to say: "Whenever we want the French to declare war, they will declare war!" On the question of countering Bolshevik aggression, the French people and the German people stood completely together! ”

And rightfully so! Hersmann said: With the V2 ballistic missile, the sarin gas, and the inevitable atomic bomb, what reason do Petain, Darlan, and Weygand have not completely surrendered?

Moreover, Germany will support France to use fascism and Nazism to deal with all kinds of disobedience in North Africa!

Hitler looked at Hersmann with smugness and asked, "Reich Marshal, now we will be able to completely defeat the Soviet Union, right?" ”

"Of course," Hersman smiled and nodded, "now we have a lot more troops...... I think the French could form their powerful artillery into artillery divisions and reserve artillery groups, using them in the counterattack plan of the blue scheme. And with the help of French artillery, we can be on a par with the USSR in the number of medium-caliber suppressed artillery, and far surpass the USSR in the number of large-caliber super-heavy guns!

Then we may be able to consider the simultaneous attack on Minsk and Leningrad. (To be continued.) )