Chapter 448: Burning Moscow (18)
After mastering air supremacy, Daming Army Aviation has already sent a large transport plane that has been modified to fly in the high altitude of the Russian army's position. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 infoThese large modified aircraft are equipped with powerful jammers, which can greatly interfere with the radio communication of ground forces. The Russian army originally had poor communication, and if it was interfered with by the Ming army, it was directly unable to contact its own troops at all.
By the afternoon, Lieutenant General Tivinov had only the 48th Infantry Corps, two infantry divisions of the Tver combat group, and part of the artillery units in place. As for the vital armored units, only the 197th Tank Brigade and several battalion-sized armored units arrived. The total number of tanks of all types is less than two hundred. With such a force, Lieutenant General Tivinov did not dare to launch a counterattack in any case. He sent a telegram to Zhukov asking to postpone the attack and wait for the troops to assemble, but Zhukov ruthlessly refused.
Zhukov knew about Tivinov's distress, but he had no choice now. The advance speed of the Ming Army's Sixth Panzer Army far exceeded his expectations, and even in the case of inconvenient transportation, the Sixth Panzer Army still broke through the Russian defense line at a super high speed and quickly approached the important train transit station Klin.
For this reason, Zhukov had to mobilize the troops of the Tver Combat Group, which was supposed to launch a counterattack on the 11th Panzer Army of the Ming Army, to plug the hole. He now did not have time to slowly assemble his troops for Tivinov.
The helpless Tivinov could only launch a counterattack against the armored corps of the Ming army with a serious lack of strength in his hands, and the result was naturally self-evident.
At half past three o'clock in the afternoon of 2 September, tens of thousands of Russian infantry, supported by less than 200 tanks, launched a counteroffensive against the forward units of the 11th Panzer Army under the fierce shelling and bombardment of the Ming army. At the same time, Grand Duke Nikolai, who was in Moscow, anxiously awaited the good news of the success of Tivinov's counteroffensive.
For Grand Duke Nikolai, now Moscow is already very dangerous. Almost all sides were surrounded by Ming troops, and only Kling, Tver, and Torzhok, the northernmost cities along the railway line from St. Petersburg, were still in their own hands. This last lifeline sustained the forces of the entire Moscow theater of operations.
The Russian defenders were not short of men, and the total strength of the Russian army near Moscow at this time was nearly a million. All they lack is supplies. It's not just guns, ammunition, artillery, tanks, and other things. Millions of troops and a large number of local residents need food and water every day, the sick and wounded need medical medicine and equipment, vehicles need fuel, and so on. These things had to be transported from other places, and because of the huge base of demand, the current level of reserves in Moscow simply could not last long.
Once all the land passages near Moscow were captured and closed by the Ming army, what would happen to Moscow, which lost its supply lines, could not even imagine what would happen to Moscow. Not to mention the airlift of the Russian Air Force, the materials that can be delivered to Moscow after breaking through the air blockade of the Ming army at a huge cost with their transport forces are completely a drop in the bucket, and they are not enough for the Russian army to stuff their teeth.
Moscow had a lot of material reserves before that. After all, this is the transportation hub of the whole of Russia, and a large number of various materials will be stored on weekdays, ready to be transported to various front-line battlefields at any time. Moscow is the largest railway exchange in the whole of Russia.
But when the Ming army launched the summer offensive, the Russian army began to send various supplies from Moscow to the front line on a large scale. As the Russian army continued to lose, the loss and demand for various materials quickly exceeded the replenishment capacity. Moscow's reserves are already beyond their means. By the time the Russian army launched a large-scale counterattack in Sasovo and other places, the Russian army used most of the supplies stored in Moscow for counterattack operations. However, with repeated defeats and being surrounded by the Ming army, the heavy army group. These materials were either destroyed and captured by the Ming army, or they were waiting to be destroyed and captured by the Ming army like the Russian army in the encirclement.
It's like the besieged Russian army near Ryazan now, they are struggling to hold on under the offensive of the Ming army, hoping for a rescue force that doesn't know when it will come. If it weren't for the large quantities of supplies that were transported from Moscow and stored in Ryazan, these Russian troops would have been encircled and annihilated a long time ago.
The failure of multiple counterattacks has an all-round impact on the Russian army. The morale of the army, as well as the loss of troops and the consumption of materials, etc., all made the Russian army fall into a trough. If Tivinov's counterattack did not stop the offensive of the 11th Panzer Army, then in three days at most the two powerful armored armies of the Ming army would converge in the area near Tver, completely closing the land link of the Moscow defenders.
In the busy war room of the headquarters, Grand Duke Nikolai, who was constantly pacing back and forth with his hands behind his back, would call the combat staff officer almost every few minutes, and asked with a gloomy face, "Is there any news for Tivinov?" ”
It's just that because of the powerful battlefield interference of the Ming army, the Russian army's communication system was directly damaged, especially when the Ming Army Air bombed Moscow, through the help of spies and moles, several Russian communication base stations were raided, which greatly hit the Russian army's communication ability.
"No telegrams were received from Lieutenant General Tivinov." This was the only answer from the combat staff officer for several hours.
After the dinner of chewing wax, the Grand Duke Nicholas, who was already full of anger because of anxiety, found the combat staff officer again, and after inquiring about the contact situation, he looked at the combat staff officer's blank expression, and the angry Grand Duke Nikolai immediately raised his voice, "When will we be able to get in touch!?" ”
It's a pity that at this time, the combat staff officer can only be a pale-faced submissive. He's just an ordinary operational staff officer, how can he answer? Normally, it's easier to get in touch, but now it's a war. There was destruction and war everywhere, and everything had to be carried out according to wartime standards. But the Russian army has hardly succeeded in implementing such wartime standards for several years.
Feeling that he was about to have a heart attack, Grand Duke Nicholas turned to the map table and asked Zhukov, who was studying the map, "Konstantin!" What happened to our counterattack? Will Tivinov be able to repel the offensive of the Ming army? ”
"Your Excellency." Zhukov threw away the pencil in his hand, turned to look at Grand Duke Nikolai, and his bloodshot eyes flashed with a look of irritability: "I have sent a communications staff officer to the front line in a ******** to communicate with Tivinov, and at the same time, the communication office is now constantly calling Tivinov's signals. That's all we can do now. As for whether or not the Ming army's offensive can be repelled, I can tell you frankly that no. ”
"What? No?! "When Grand Duke Nikolai heard Zhukov's words, he suddenly felt dizzy and almost fell to the ground.
"You don't think that with tens of thousands of rifles and more than a hundred tanks alone, you can defeat the elite armored army of the Ming army, right?" Zhukov frowned and said in a deep voice: "If that is the case, then now we are not anxiously defending Moscow here, but directing the siege of the imperial capital on the outskirts of the imperial capital thousands of miles away." ”
“...... All right. "Over seventy years old, the spirit of Grand Duke Nicholas, who had already been exhausted on the battlefield in the past few years, suddenly stepped down. He gave everything for the country, but the situation still slipped into the abyss. The exhausted Grand Duke Nicholas suddenly felt very, very tired, and now he just wanted to rest.
"All the command is up to you, do what you can." Grand Duke Nikolai shook his head, feeling his waist bend down a little. After taking a deep look at the busy war room again, he turned around and walked towards the door of the war room, "Not a war crime." ”
Looking at the back of Grand Duke Nikolai leaving, Zhukov frowned unnaturally. He himself was grateful to Grand Duke Nikolai, after all, it was Grand Duke Nikolai who promoted him from an ordinary infantry division commander all the way to his current position. But as a soldier, Zhukov did not have a good feeling for such old men as Grand Duke Nikolai.
In fact, before the outbreak of this war, quite a number of new officers of the Russian army had kept up with the trend of military reform in the world, and they proposed that we should closely follow the changes of the Ming army, carry out mechanized reform of the army, and at the same time vigorously increase investment in the air force. In fact, this is also the common practice of the various powers participating in the war at this time, closely following the footsteps of the Ming army.
However, the Russian army at that time was firmly in the hands of old men in their sixties and seventies and even eighty years old, such as Grand Duke Nikolai. They stubbornly cling to their own set of outdated combat theories of the last century. Needlessly, the already small resources were spent on artillery, border defense, and the navy.
The old guys thought that the strength of the Ming army lay in its powerful, invincible artillery force. So they also massively built artillery units to try to confront the Ming army.
But can Russia's national strength be compared to the Ming state? The gap between the two sides is already a generation gap. Even if the Russians put all their national strength into the construction of artillery, they would definitely not be able to keep up with the rhythm of the Ming army. This was also confirmed after the outbreak of the war, when the Russian artillery units were almost completely suppressed by the artillery of the Ming army, as well as the army aviation. The Russian artillery that was grouped before the war is now almost completely annihilated.
While building artillery, the old guys were obsessed with building a large number of fortifications near the Line of Actual Control with the Ming Army. Countless steel and concrete and a lot of money, manpower and material resources were consumed on the long line of defense. These lines were built with corruption. Defeat and greed. Unclean. The investment that was originally useless was even more failed after encountering the tofu scum project. These so-called fortified defensive lines played almost no role in the face of the breakthrough and outflanking of the Ming army's armored forces after the battle. The huge investments were all wasted, or turned into deposits in American banks. (To be continued.) )