May 17 at 5 a.m.; At 30 minutes, more than 200,000 of the most elite armored units of the SS, 11 panzer divisions, 4 infantry divisions, and more than 10,000 trucks gathered outside Rostov began to start, and they went not towards Stalingrad, but towards the upper reaches of Stalingrad.

The commander of this escort all-mechanized corps was the Viking army commander Steiner, and on the way to Stalingrad, there was basically no Soviet defensive line, and more than 600,000 Soviet troops completely relied on the city of Stalingrad and established countless defensive positions, the farthest position was no more than 30 kilometers from the city of Stalingrad, and the commander of Stalingrad was Timoshenko, who fled from Odessa.

In Odessa, Timoshenko's defeat was inexplicable, and the Ukrainian Front under his command actually surrendered without a fight, although Timoshenko ran away in a submarine at the last time, but he was also severely criticized by Stalin, Stalin asked Timoshenko to go to Stalingrad to make meritorious contributions, and Timoshenko is now commanding not the Ukrainians, but the regular Soviet Red Army, which makes Timoshenko feel a lot more relieved.

Timoshenko learned the lesson of the last time in Odessa, and of course he would not put all his troops in the city, and besides, he would not be able to put more than 600,000 troops in the city. Timoshenko had his troops arrange defensive positions around the city, and these positions were not linear defensive positions, but composed of numerous circular positions, a company in small circular defensive positions, more than a regiment, and if you look at it from the air, the surroundings of Stalingrad were completely surrounded by various large and small circular trenches and fortifications.

Of course, there are many advantages to this kind of defensive position, but it is not conducive to counterattack, because Timoshenko never thought about counterattacking at all, and Timoshenge means that I will hold Stalingrad to the death, uncle, and see what tricks you German have. It is impossible for the German SS to take Stalingrad, which is defended by more than 600,000 people, in a short period of time, and of course Zhang Jun will not be stupid enough to use people to fight Stalingrad, that is extremely stupid, Zhang Jun will certainly not do such a thing.

"Boom...... Boom ......"

The escort assault group has a total of eleven armored divisions, almost 1,700 tanks, and other vehicles, the momentum of the earth-shattering power is enough to shock everything, the ground is a torrent of steel, and the air is escorted by countless aircraft, after this period of air strangulation, the Soviet planes in Stalingrad are basically reimbursed, and the Soviet and German planes are really incomparable, and they can fight 1; 5 is very good, in the entire battle for air supremacy in Stalingrad, Germany shot down only more than 30 planes, while the Soviet Union lost almost 300 planes, almost 1:10 battle losses, and now the Soviet planes in Stalingrad are basically exhausted.

However, Zhang Jun still sent an aviation division to escort his escort corps, and these eleven armored divisions were Zhang Jun's lifeblood, and they could not suffer any huge losses, otherwise the SS would be in danger.

……

At the Stalingrad headquarters, Timoshenko was holding a pipe and staring intently at the sand table, and now the war situation is extremely unfavorable to the Soviet Union, and there is unfavorable news coming from the Soviet front every day, not that it is broken through by the German army here, it is surrounded by the German army, and it can be said that the entire Soviet Union is extremely nervous and afraid.

Fortunately, however, there are several good news, the first good news is that the Soviet Union has finally signed the "Soviet-Japanese Non-Aggression Pact" with Japan, and now the Soviet Union does not have to worry about fighting on both sides, and more than 2 million troops deployed in the Far East are being transported by rail day and night, and in a month at most, these troops will arrive near Moscow, and in addition, the young people from all over the Soviet Union are also stepping up their reorganization, and as long as the Soviet Union can hold off Germany for two or three months, the entire Soviet Union will have about 15 million troops. At the same time, there are about 15 million reservists, and as for guns and ammunition, it is indeed a bit difficult in a short period of time.

The second piece of good news is that the United States has agreed to the Soviet Union's request for lend-lease, and this time the United States seems to have suddenly been very generous, directly granting the Soviet Union a $10 billion application for arms lend-lease, which will be shipped from the western region of the United States, directly through the Bering Strait to the Soviet Union's Far East, and transported part of it through the Far East Railway. The ice-free port of Murmansk of the Soviet Union could also take over a large amount of Lend-Lease arms, and as long as these arms were in hand, Timoshenko believed that the Soviet Union's 15 million troops would soon be armed, and with such a huge military force, Timoshenko did not believe that the Germans could destroy the Soviet Union.

The third good news was sent by the Anglo-French alliance on its own initiative, they actually sent weapons to the Soviet Union free of charge, no matter what the purpose of Britain and France, the Soviet Union did not refuse to come, and received as much as they sent, and even opened their mouths to ask, don't think that the Soviet Union does not understand the purpose of Britain and France, Stalin is a thief!

As the only three marshals of the Soviet Union, Stalin of course informed him of these confidential information, and according to the analysis of these circumstances, Timoshenko said that a world anti-German alliance was about to be formed, or an alliance of anti-European countries was about to be formed, and the four major countries of Britain, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union would abandon their differences in political systems and forcibly bring them together under German pressure, whether they were in the same bed or in different dreams, and this was an extremely dangerous signal for Germany.

"Report to Marshal Timoshenko: According to reports from the front, the German SS suddenly concentrated more than a dozen panzer divisions, and a large number of trucks and planes, to assault our upstream."

"Oh, you quickly mark the route of the German attack on the map, and at the same time send a large number of scouts to figure out the specific strategy of the Germans."

The intelligence officer who reported the situation hurriedly marked the general direction of the German advance on the map with several staff officers, and then went to contact the reconnaissance force.

"Comrade Vatutin, what do you think?"

"Comrade Marshal, we still don't understand what the strategic purpose of the Germans is, all their troops are basically armored divisions, even if I want to send troops to block it, I'm afraid there is no way, especially if we lose air supremacy.

I judge that there may be two purposes for this German attack, the first is that the Germans want to completely cut off our land communication line to Moscow, and it is simply impossible for the Germans to realize this strategy, and on the side of the Stalingrad city on the Volga River, there are more than 200,000 of our troops to arrange perfect ring fortifications, and if the Germans really want to do this, they can only suffer heavy losses.

The second scenario is that the Germans want to attack along the Volga River, and then go directly to the back of Moscow, even if the Germans have more than a dozen armored divisions, there is no way for them to supply, so this should not be true. ”

In fact, Timoshenko also fought some defensive battles, and there was nothing outstanding in offensive battles, and now Vatutin's analysis made Timoshenko decide that it is the king to preserve the living forces and resolutely hold Stalingrad now. In fact, Timoshenko's idea is not very wrong, his own infantry and garbage tanks go to fight field battles with the advanced tanks of the German devils, then there is absolutely no hope of victory, how the German SS looked forward to the Soviet army out of the city for a decisive battle!

Steiner commanded the torrent of steel to roll away, there was no defense of the Soviet army along the way, the whole assault group took a day, rushed to the crossing of the Volga River, Steiner quickly arranged his armored troops into a huge semi-circular defensive position, established a solid crossing, and then the boat bridge troops began to build bridges.

Because Zhang Jun had enough troops on the bridge, Steiner erected a total of four pontoon bridges, and Vincent was the first to let his armored vehicles cross the river to establish a defensive position on the opposite bank, and the Soviet Union had lost the possibility of blocking Vincent's armored assault group. Besides, the Soviet Union went there to find so many armored units to encircle and suppress Vincent in the assault, but the Soviet Union did not, most of the Soviet armored forces were transferred to Baku and Moscow, and there was basically no armored force in the rear.

Although there were four pontoon bridges at the crossing, it took Vincent a day and a night to get all the vehicles and men to the other side of the Volga, and as soon as Vincent had crossed the river, Steiner ordered the pontoon bridges to be removed, and then returned to the same route between Rostov and Stalingrad and stopped.

After Steiner paused, Zhang Jun would transfer three armored divisions, but would transfer ten EU infantry divisions to Steiner, with a total strength of about 25, and these 250,000 troops were not used to attack Stalingrad, but to monitor the Soviet troops in Stalingrad, so that the Soviet troops did not dare to go out of the city to attack the Baku troops**.

Of the more than 600 EU troops, 200,000 have gone to attack the small towns and towns of the Rostov region, and the remaining 300,000 are all following Zhang Jun's main SS force of 1 million to attack the Baku region.

In order to fight the Battle of Baku well, Zhang Jun first threw out a nail -- Vincent's Italian SS, and they went to the interior of the Soviet Union to turn the world upside down, attracting most of the Soviet Union's firepower and vision. The SS** was guarded by five SS Panzer Divisions and ten EU Divisions. The remaining 1.3 million people were all transferred by Zhang Jun to the front line of the Soviet republic of Georgia.

A few hundred kilometers from the Georgian border to Baku. The SS was more than one million, the Soviet Union was more than two million, the Soviet Union had geographical and defensive advantages, while Germany had the advantage of advanced weapons and good quality of soldiers, Georgia was surrounded by the sea on both sides, the Black Sea on one side, and the Caspian Sea on the other, and the width of the entire Soviet defense line was about 300 kilometers.

…… (To be continued.) )