Stalin was the right decision, the Kyiv exercises were originally designed to test the offensive capabilities of large-scale mechanized troops in general terrain (excluding high mountains and fortified areas), and an air-ground offensive on an unprecedented scale was staged in the west. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 info Now is the right time to sit down and take a good look at how Germany and Britain and France are playing against each other, and the experience in it can be used to strengthen the army.

Hitler and Manstein's plan could be described as insane, with the main spearhead of the German offensive being placed in the center of the battle line, with powerful armored forces, to carry out the main assault on the strategically decisive breakthrough in the Ardennes Forest area. Manstein's plan was to attack France by surprise and victory, cut off the connection between the North and the South Allies, divide and encircle the British and French forces, and quickly destroy France.

Lin Jun was able to understand Hitler and Manstein's considerations, but in 1940, military decision-makers in all countries would have thought that this was a crazy assumption that would expose the elite of German armored forces to a flank attack by the French army, which could lead to the annihilation of the entire army. If the Germans' plan is made public, it is estimated that apart from Hitler, Manstein, and Guderian, the only people who can have confidence in this plan are probably Lin Jun and the "Red Napoleon" Tukhachevsky.

In order to quickly solve the problem of France and the Low Countries, Germany put into the Western Front a total of 136 divisions, including 10 armored divisions, 4 motorized divisions, 2,439 tanks, 3,700 aircraft, and 600 transport aircraft.

1. The 64 divisions of Army Group A in the center (including 7 armored divisions and 3 motorized divisions), commanded by Colonel-General Gert von Rundstedt, were tasked with breaking through the Ardennes Mountains in the middle and heading straight to the English Channel;

2. The 28 divisions of Army Group B on the right flank (including 3 armored divisions and 1 motorized division), commanded by General Fedor von Bock, were assigned the task of assisting, with the aim of attacking the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg in order to attract the main forces of the Anglo-French forces;

3. The 17 divisions of Army Group C on the left flank, commanded by Admiral Wilhelm Ritter von Loeb, whose task was to feint the Maginot Line in order to pin down the French so that they could not go north for reinforcements;

4. 27 divisions as strategic reserves.

And what is the situation of Germany's opponents? The Dutch, Belgian, Luxembourg, French and British expeditionary forces have a total of 135 divisions (including 103 divisions of the French and British armies, organized into 3 army groups), 3,469 tanks, 2,000 aircraft, and can also use more than 1,000 aircraft in the British Isles to support the battle.

This time it was not a simple arithmetic problem, but a contest of strategy and tactics, and the balance was completely tilted in favor of Germany, and the Allies did not have, and probably did not think about, how to deal with the German air-ground blitzkrieg attack.

The Allied High Command's conservative battle plan, codenamed D, was completely miscalculated before the "Blitzkrieg", which focused on defending against the main German assault on Belgium and using Belgium as the main battlefield for both sides.

According to Plan D, the Allies deployed their main forces at the northern end of the Franco-Belgian border and the northern provinces of France, and if the Germans carried out the main assault on Belgium, the five-nation coalition would work together to block the German attack; Most of the other forces were deployed on the Maginot Line in the south; If the Germans launched a frontal attack on the Maginot Line, the Coalition relied on strong fortifications to defend it; In the middle section, it held the Ardennes Mountains and the Maas River, leaving only the weaker combat units to garrison.

The plans of the Allies were clearly out of step with the times, and they were still stuck in the thinking of the First World War, but unfortunately their opponent was no longer the Second German Reich.

At dawn on May 10, 1940, hordes of German Ju 87 dive bombers suddenly bombarded airports, railway junctions, heavily assembled areas and cities in France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.

At 5:30, on a front of more than 300 kilometers between the North Sea and the Maginot Line, German ground forces launched a large-scale offensive against the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, opening the prelude to the invasion of France.

The German Army Group B, which was the main force to assist and attract the British and French troops, first carried out attacks with airborne troops on important bridges and fortress facilities in the Netherlands and Belgium. This sudden blow immediately caused panic among the Dutch and Belgian troops, and immediately afterward, the armored units of Army Group B took advantage of the chaos to launch a fierce attack. Since the paratrooper units have already occupied the main roads.

The breakthrough of the German Army Group B on the border between the Netherlands and Belgium caused the main Anglo-French forces assembled in northern France to immediately cross the Franco-Belgian border and quickly reinforce them.

While Bock's Army Group B attracted the main British and French forces, Loeb's Army Group C also put on a posture and staged a feint attack on the Maginot Line. The performance was very successful, and the super-large caliber heavy artillery constantly bombarded the Finnish defensive line, and there was a great posture of onslaught after the bombardment, which made the French hesitate to withdraw troops from the south to support the north.

In the Ardennes Forest, a place destined to go down in history, "the starting point of the fall of France and the battlefield of the Last Stand of the Third Reich", the German army is now crossing this perilous as planned.

In the early hours of 10 May, Lundstettedt's Army Group A, which was the main German attack in the center, carried out the main assault on Luxembourg and the Ardennes Mountains in Belgium.

Luxembourg, a small country with a population of only 300,000, simply did not have the ability to resist and surrendered without a fight that day.

Colonel Lundstedt was led by the Panzer Corps under the command of Paul Ludwig Ewald von Kleist, which included Guderian's 19th Panzer Corps, Hermann Hort's 15th Panzer Corps, and Jorg-Hans Reinhardt's 41st Panzer Corps. Guderian's 19th Panzer Corps was the most combat-ready in this German iron fist, and it was the main force and vanguard of the Kleist Panzer Corps, which had three Panzer Divisions. The 15th and 41st Panzer Corps had only two armoured divisions each.

Guderian's 19th Panzer Corps easily broke through the loose resistance of the Belgian army and penetrated deep into French territory in just two days through a 110-kilometer gorge in the Ardennes. On the afternoon of May 12, Guderian's three armored divisions had reached the north bank of the Maas River and captured the famous French fortress city of Sedan.

Guderian began to prepare for the crossing of the river that night, which was the key to attacking France, and would have a surprising impact on the development of the war - Guderian knew this very well and threw all three armored divisions into it.

At 11 o'clock in the morning of 13 May, the Germans dispatched nearly 400 bombers to bombard the French positions and artillery groups on the south bank of the Maas River for five hours in batches, and the spirit of the French troops on the other side of the river was even paralyzed!

At 4 p.m., the Germans began to force their way across the Maas River in hundreds of rubber boats. After a fierce battle, at 5:30 p.m., the Germans finally gained a foothold on the south bank of the Maas River, and then the German sappers immediately began to erect pontoon bridges. By 8 p.m., Goodry's 1st Panzer Division had penetrated the French positions, and the 2nd Panzer Division and the 10th Panzer Division had all crossed the Maas River at midnight.

On the same day, Hermann-Hort's 15th Panzer Corps' 7th Panzer Division of Erwin Rommel also crossed the Maas River near Nantes, 40 miles to the west.

As soon as the Maas line was finished, the road to Paris and the English Channel was opened, the British and French troops fighting in Belgium were in danger of being outflanked, and the French army on the Maginot Line would also be exposed to the enemy, and the British and French felt that the situation was serious.

Britain quickly deployed 10 additional squadrons of fighters to carry out a counterattack with the British and French air forces in France. On the afternoon of the 14th, the fiercest air battle since the beginning of the war broke out over the Maas River, and it was also the largest air battle in the history of air warfare.

Under the cover of fighter planes, the British Brenchen bombers and the French army's latest Breguet bombers went straight to the Maas River, and the fighters of five German wings rose into the air to intercept them, and each side put in more than 500 planes.

From noon to dark, the guns and artillery on the landing ground were incessant, and the fighters of both sides flew up and down, chasing each other; from time to time, planes were hit by bullets and caught fire, dragging black smoke down, and bombs dropped by British and French planes indiscriminately exploded one column of water after another on the river surface. Not to be outdone, the German anti-aircraft guns continued to shoot British and French planes that infiltrated at low altitudes with heavy fire.

The dense ground-to-air firepower network turned British and French planes into fire-fighting moths, breaking in batches and devouring them in batches. The melee continued until nightfall, and it became clear that the British and French air forces were no match for their German counterparts and were shot down like flies, and even the German anti-aircraft artillery units shot down hundreds of Allied aircraft that day. The British and French planes, which suffered heavy losses, could only be defeated, and the German pontoon bridges crossing the river were mostly intact.

In this battle, the Germans shot down hundreds of British and French planes, of which the German Second Anti-aircraft Artillery Regiment alone arranged 112 aircraft! Sixty percent of the planes sent by the British were lost! The Allies completely lost air supremacy on the battlefield.

The Germans drove in with a force and speed unheard of in the history of warfare, and France was in a panic.

In the early morning of May 15, French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud called Winston Churchill in frustration and said: "We are afraid that we will lose this battle." ”

Churchill was stunned: "I simply don't understand that an attack with a large number of rapid armored units would cause such a drastic change." ”

In order to further find out the truth of the war situation and to cheer up the already desperate French leaders, Churchill flew from London to Paris on May 16. When Churchill Fa Prime Minister Renaud and the Commander-in-Chief of the Anglo-French forces were Gambler, he realized that the situation was much worse than he had imagined - every Frenchman had a gray face.

Churchill asked Ganmalin: "Where are the strategic reserves?" Gammelin shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and said, "There are no strategic reserves."

Churchill was dumbfounded.

It was not only Churchill who was dumbfounded, but most of the decision-makers and senior military officers in the vast majority of the countries of the world who could understand the development of the war situation in Western Europe were also dumbfounded: what is wrong with the world?!

On May 14, Stalin informed Lin Jun in Zhukov that he was going to Lin Jun's house for a lunch meal.

Of course, Stalin did not come to eat to taste the Chinese food that Lin Jun loved, but he wanted to ask Lin Jun: What if Germany's goal was not the West?

"Comrade Stalin, we need to expand the army." Lin Jun said what was in his heart as soon as he saw Stalin in front of the villa. (To be continued, if you want to know what will happen next, please log in to the www.qidian.com, more chapters, support the author, support genuine reading!) (To be continued.) )