In March 1941, Lin Youde summoned his senior generals in Potsdam to determine preparations for the spring offensive.

Unlike in the past, this time all the generals of the Navy and the Air Force also participated.

At the beginning of the meeting, in order to take care of the German Navy's feelings, Lin Youde first praised the achievements of the submarine force in the sabotage battle.

Just as Lin Youde predicted at the end of the 40s, Dönitz readily agreed to cooperate with the Air Force, and the Air Force's AWACS airships would guide the submarine force to ambush the enemy's transport fleet. Coming from a family of engineers, Dönitz had a great interest in new technologies, and he had served as a submarine officer in the last war, so he had no shadow of the failure of the surface ship force to break through the British naval blockade and break out of the ocean, so it was only natural to cooperate with the air force, which was resented by the senior admirals.

With the cooperation of modified airships, Dönitz's submarine forces carried out four wolf pack attacks, almost completely wiped out four supply fleets, and sank a total tonnage of ships to a million tons. This action made the situation in Britain that had just improved sharply again, and Churchill was so angry that he scolded Lin Youde on the radio for being a beast, and all kinds of hats were buttoned non-stop.

And Lin Youde's propaganda department responded that unrestricted submarine warfare is a helpless strategy that Churchill forced Germany to adopt, and if you surrender, it will get better.

Lin Youde told everyone Churchill's scolding as a joke, which made the admirals' expressions relax a little.

The topic of the meeting then turned to the upcoming spring offensive.

"Depending on the weather conditions, the offensive may start later than we originally expected," Lin Youde pointed to the map, "The snow melts on the grasslands more slowly than we expected, and the muddy ground will severely affect the speed of our attack." Although we have replaced all of our vehicles with tracks that are more suitable for the soft ground of the steppe, I still hope that we will be able to attack in better conditions. ”

"Can the time of the offensive operation be delayed, will the Russians take the lead?" Franz? Halder continues to play the role of his questioner, "Our intelligence indicates that the Russians have amassed a considerable number of forces in the Bryansk direction, and it is likely that they still want to cut off our attack clusters concentrated in the Donetsk direction from friendly forces with large forces. ”

"That's why we formed a special army group to deal with the threat in the Bryansk direction," Lin Youde replied disapprovingly, "and this work will be in the hands of General Manstein." After we take Rostov-on-Don, most of General Paulus's 10th Army will also leave the Crimea and join Manstein's forces in defensive operations. ”

"I must remind you that the Russians have received a fairly reorganized number of tanks, and after a winter's supply, they may well already have an assault cluster of more than a thousand tanks, which is likely to be deployed in Bryansk now, in the hands of General Konev."

"Yes, it is true, as you say, that the enemy, unlike last year, has a new, larger armored force than it was at the time of the Polish campaign, with the help of the Americans, and this force is indeed in Bryansk. That's why I've prioritized the placement of tiger-like troops in the Manstein cluster. ”

"It is too unsafe to try to block the enemy's offensive with only a new type of tank, and we should adjust our strategy to deal with the enemy in Bryansk first, and then attack Rostov."

"This will take a lot of time, we need fuel, and only when there is enough fuel can we outlast the Russian army with the assistance of the United States."

"We can use bombing to weaken the capacity of the Trans-Siberian Railway, and use submarines to cut off the Americans' routes to Russia through the Guò Arctic Ocean."

"Listen," Lin Youde interrupted Halder, glancing at the Admirals, "and that's true that our submarine warfare is paying off now, but soon the Americans will be mass-producing destroyers and cruisers at an astonishing rate to cover their convoys." Immediately after that, they will have a cluster of aircraft carriers to search for our radar airships. In the same way, the effect of the bombing can only be slightly delayed by the assistance of the Americans, the railway is very difficult to be cut off by the bombing, as long as the Russians have enough rails, and there are enough locomotives and carriages, the transportation of the railway will continue forever, and the bombing can only be interrupted for dozens of hours at most! ”

In fact, judging from the speed at which the railway units of the Volunteer Army rushed to repair the railroad during the Korean War, even the intensity of the Americans' sorties could not cut off railway transportation for a long time.

Therefore, it is not cost-effective to attack the railway, and it is better to attack the locomotive, the core component of the train, so the key to destroying railway traffic is to attack the train dispatching yard, the locomotive maintenance factory, and other facilities where a large number of locomotives are gathered. However, if the opponent's production capacity is fully able to offset the damage of the attack, then the effect of this method will be greatly reduced.

"So," Lin continued, "it's not realistic to expect to cut off American aid, we should cut off Russian oil supplies." If the Americans had to supply the Russians with fuel in addition to equipment and ammunition, their capacity would be occupied, and once the capacity of the Trans-Siberian Railway was exceeded, even the Americans would have no choice. They can only resort to other means, such as the Arctic Ocean. What's more, we need oil, you know, we need Baku, and I've been emphasizing this over and over again since last year, so why are you still against it? ”

Halder did not speak again.

"Good." Lin Youde nodded, "That's right, after the ground becomes hard, we will launch an offensive, take the Don steppe and the Kuban steppe, and then go straight to Baku to lure the enemy to fight us in the plains south of the Volga River." One qiē is the same as we planned five months ago.

"The first to go into battle was the Guderian group, and when Rostov was taken, Rommel's group went into action, crossed the Kerch Strait and landed on the coast of the Kuban Plain, swept away Yekaterinadar, and then began to advance along the southern foothills of the Caucasus Mountains, capturing every pass along the way, annihilating every enemy you encountered, and smashing the Yellow Dragon. At the same time, Guderian's cluster went out to the east of Rostov-on-Don and waited in the steppe, with the goal of covering the combat sappers to establish front-line airfields and radar stations. Then the Air Force will be responsible for interfering with the enemy's reinforcements to Baku, and once we find that the main forces of the Russian army are moving, we will have a decisive battle with them in the field here. ”

After Lin Youde finished talking about the previously decided deployment in one breath, he glanced at the room.

He deliberately did not say anything about the operations in the central and northern parts of the "traditional" German army, but it was clear that none of you here would be unsavory to remind him of this.

"Very good, if anyone has a special need now, just mention it to me, and I won't necessarily meet you if I mention it later, so if you have any requirements, you can put forward all the requirements."

At this time, the commander of Army Group North, who was in charge of the northern offensive, von ? Loeb raised his hand and said: "We need the navy to cooperate with us in order to put an end to the possibility of the Russians landing in the rear of our army." ”

"No problem, almost all combat ships in the Navy except for submarines are in the Baltic Sea, and they will do their best to cooperate with your actions and protect the coast."

At this time, the admiral said: "I thought that only the air force was needed......"

"The main force of the air force will be in the southern theater, and in the north we can put in a limited number of forces." Lin Youde told the truth, "The new dive bomber wing will not be trained until May this year, and they will be deployed to you at that time to blockade and annihilate the remaining Russian naval forces." ”

"More heavy artillery is needed in the center, Mr. Lin." The chief of staff of Army Group Center raised his hand, "Especially the 210-mm heavy artillery, which we need very much, to conquer the enemy's fortified cities." ”

"No, the new gun is still being produced, and I promise that it will be sent to you as soon as the artillery training is completed."

Next, the generals put forward a few more requests that were not so important, and Lin Youde agreed to them one by one.

Then he cleared his throat.

"Gentlemen, last year we achieved a brilliant victory, not even in the military history of mankind, in which we advanced the front nearly a thousand kilometers in a matter of months, and we annihilated an incomparably large number of Russian troops, and the exploits of all the military commanders in history were overshadowed by these brilliant victories.

"Gentlemen, this year we are about to achieve even more brilliant victories. Our enemies are incomparably stronger, so we must lay the foundation for future victories within this year. In foreign propaganda, we always emphasize that the United States has fallen into the quagmire of China, which is indeed true, it is difficult for Americans to completely conquer China, and the resistance of the Chinese will drag down a lot of American energy. But now, too, we are stepping on one foot in the quagmire called Russia, and there is no way to conquer Russia, and you have already experienced the power of Russian winter.

"If the war enters a terrible phase of stalemate, then it will be the war potential of all countries that will be contested, and the United States will have a greater advantage than us. In addition to the disparity in war potential, the United States has the advantage of being able to directly support Russia, and even if we can open a road with China by land, we will not have a railroad to use. The Americans' superiority in oil is even more fatal, and if we fail to seize the oil production areas and obtain an abundant supply of oil, we will certainly be defeated by the Americans within a few years.

"We must use a resolute victory to gain the capital to compete with the Americans, and if we fail to do that, we will be a sad defeat."

"So how are we going to win the war?" Someone asked.

Lin Youde didn't look for anyone to ask, he smiled at the generals and said, "Win battle after battle, keep winning, gentlemen, that's all." ”