While Li Xiaofeng was busy with the issue of custom-made guided weapons, his old opponent Tukhachevsky was not idle. After entering October, Tukhachevsky was rather depressed, the Politburo and the Military Commission almost completely rejected all of his ideas, and the power of the General Staff was greatly reduced, and there was a slight feeling that the upper and lower levels were not relied upon.

Naturally, Tukhachevsky is certainly not satisfied with the current state of affairs, and has been actively trying to find a way to "make a comeback", but there are no good opportunities and solutions in a hurry.

And this time, the counterattack of the Bryansk Front fell short, failing to leave the main forces of the enemy's 1st and 2nd tank clusters, which allowed Tukhachevsky to see an opportunity.

He felt that this was a good opportunity to turn the tables, and if he could find a way to keep the enemy's main force, would this prove that he Tukhachevsky was not outdated and was still the mainstay of the Red Army?

Of course, it is not easy to do this, Guderian and Kleist are both old foxes, and their troops are quite mechanized, and now they are running away like a desperate game, who can catch up? Who can stop it?

At this time, the German 1st and 2nd tank groups were rapidly fleeing in the direction of Unecha, and the nearest vanguard of the 12th Army of the Red Army was still in Degganevka, anyway, judging from the diagram deduction, there was no possibility of interception.

In fact, the Bryansk Front has basically given up chasing and destroying the main force of the German army, focusing on eating the German army to block the troops behind the palace, if these two armies can be eaten, not to mention reversing the decline of the Red Army on all fronts in one fell swoop, how can it be said that it can also fight a turnaround!

Rokossovsky's next phase of the battle plan focused on this. According to his plan. After annihilating the enemy's blocking forces. The Bryansk Front will advance slowly, stabilizing the front on the Russian-Ukrainian border in mid-to-late December. This can be regarded as a "successful" completion of the tasks assigned by the Military Commission, at least a certain immortal can be handed over to the Politburo.

And just when Rokossovsky was ready to implement this set of plans in an orderly and steady manner, Tukhachevsky played a joke on him.

"There is still a possibility of the total annihilation of the enemy's 1st and 2nd tank clusters by the Bryansk Front. The General Staff has already drawn up a complete plan for Operation Lightning, and as long as it is carried out in strict accordance with the plan, everything is possible! ”

But when Rokossovsky saw the text of the lightning action, he gasped at the time, because the plan was too bold and crazy!

Crazy lightning. This is what later historians said about the Lightning Project and Tukhachevsky at that time, because this plan was really crazy!

According to Tukhachevsky's plan, the Red Army would concentrate the 1st Guards Airborne Division and the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th Airborne Brigades to conduct a large-scale airborne operation in Unechia, occupy this key city ahead of the German army, leave the German armored forces on the east bank of the Ipzi River, and create fighters for the Bryansk Front to encircle and annihilate the German army.

This is completely a purebred Tukhachevsky-style method of warfare, in Tukhachevsky's version of the large-depth operation, the paratroopers or the mechanized paratroopers in his imagination are used to quickly cut into the transportation hub behind the enemy and cooperate with the main force to fight a war of annihilation.

It's just that, before. The paratroopers of the Red Army, due to various problems, have not been able to perform the function that Tukhachevsky envisioned. First of all, in the early thirties, after Tukhachevsky was forced to step down. The importance of paratroopers was greatly reduced, and the two carriages of the Red Army at that time were cavalry and armored troops, and paratroopers could only stand aside.

For example, Li Xiaofeng drastically cut the Airborne Forces, directly reducing a complete Airborne Army (five airborne divisions) of the original Tukhachevsky era to five airborne brigades, and the TB-3 assigned to the Airborne Forces was also re-thrown to the long-range aviation forces, not to mention the flying tank program of the Tukhachevsky era.

Let's put it this way, from 1935 to 1940, the size of the Airborne Forces barely grew, and the only thing that pleased the Airborne Forces was the replacement of the half-hung TB-3 by the specialized transport aircraft Li-2.

Of course, Li Xiaofeng did not pay attention to air raid operations, but he felt that parachuting had many problems at that time, and the efficiency and consumption ratio were not particularly high. So in that era, the focus of the Red Army Airborne Forces was on airborne landing, and at one time paratroopers were assigned to the Air Force.

However, when Tukhachevsky came to power for the second time, the situation changed, and as a loyal supporter of parachuting, he once again raised the status of the airborne troops. Not to mention that the paratroopers were taken back from the Air Force to the Army, it was immediately announced that the paratroopers would be directly under the command of the Central Military Commission and the General Staff, and the establishment of the paratroopers was re-expanded, and the brigades were re-transformed into divisions.

This gave birth to the 1st Guards Airborne Division, which was formerly known as the 1st Guards Airborne Brigade. It's just that the expansion of the Airborne Forces has just begun, and the Great Patriotic War broke out, and only this first brigade was reorganized into a division. The other four airborne brigades remain unchanged in size.

Speaking from the heart, Tukhachevsky was full of anger at that time, and severely condemned Li Xiaofeng's "misdeeds," believing that if the airborne forces had not stopped developing, and now there were five airborne divisions instead of five brigades, the situation would have been completely different.

"Then, in the first big counterattack, I will be able to throw five divisions into a surprise attack behind the enemy in one fell swoop, which will turn the enemy's rear upside down, and then the battle situation will be completely different, and victory is entirely possible!"

Is it possible? It can only be said that Tukhachevsky overestimated the role of the Airborne Forces, and put aside the parachute attributes of the Airborne Forces, to put it bluntly, they are elite light infantry. It was really a real light infantry, and there were almost no heavy weapons.

Take the Red Army's airborne troops as an example, in addition to the fact that light weapons are preferentially equipped with assault rifles, which are very advanced, heavy weapons are very shabby. At the company level, ordinary infantry divisions have 60-mm mortars and howitzer machine guns, but the Airborne Forces are equipped with ultra-light mortars, which are lighter than the standard 60 mortars, and at the same time the projectile power and range are much smaller.

This is still even one level. The distinction is even more pronounced at the battalion level and at the regimental level. Ordinary infantry is equipped with 120 and 82 at the regimental and battalion level. But here in the Airborne Forces there are 82 forced (120 forced is too heavy, the Airborne Forces cannot be brought for the time being), the biggest difference is the support firepower at the division and brigade level, ordinary infantry divisions have 76 plus, 122 grenades and 130 rocket artillery, while the Airborne Forces only have ultra-light 76 grenades and 107 rocket artillery (or six-barreled).

Such light firepower will suffer against standard light infantry divisions, and against motorized infantry and mechanized infantry, it will only be blown up. Looking at the large-scale airborne operations in World War II, except for taking advantage of surprise attacks at the beginning, the further back you go. The more the airborne troops are mixed.

In Normandy and in the Garden of the Market, the Allied airborne forces suffered heavy losses, and the fundamental reason was that the airborne troops themselves were weak in firepower, and the airdrop collection process was too laborious, too easy to be exposed to enemy fire and hanged.

And this time, Tukhachevsky not only wants the paratroopers to capture the city, but also makes them resist the attack of the armored forces head-on, no matter how you look at it, it is like going to die!

In any case, neither Rokossovsky nor Li Xiaofeng were optimistic about the success of his blitzkrieg, and tried to persuade the marshal to dispel this unrealistic idea, but it was a pity. At this time, Tukhachevsky was already a little crazy and paranoid, and he was pushing forward with this very crazy plan.

"We will concentrate all the transport aircraft and a considerable part of the four-engine bombers for the airdrop of paratroopers. One paratrooper division and two paratrooper brigades will be airdropped near Unecha in one fell swoop. Among them, the 1st Guards Parachute Division was responsible for the capture of the city and the airport, and the 2nd and 3rd Paratrooper Brigades were responsible for the capture of bridges. When the above tasks were completed, the 4th and 5th paratrooper brigades followed up and landed directly at the Unecha airfield. ”

The mission statement is nothing unusual, but there is a huge crisis hidden in this ordinary. For example, on the issue of transport planes, a considerable part of the Red Army's transport planes were used to ensure the supply of Kyiv, and airdrops and airlifts became the only lifeline of this isolated city. And in order to carry out the blitzkrieg, this part of the transport aircraft will be withdrawn, you can imagine how many materials a day in a large city with a population of one million people, originally airdropped and airlifted can only barely give Kyiv the military and civilians a breath of hanging, now that even this breath is gone, will the situation in Kyiv deteriorate sharply?

And no one can guarantee that the airborne operation will be smooth, once there is a mistake, the Bryansk Front is beyond the reach of the whip, and it can really only be seen that the paratroopers are beaten by the German armored forces. But as mentioned earlier, Tukhachevsky is out of the way, this is his hard fight!

On 9 December, the blitzkrieg began, with transport planes drawn from Leningrad, Moscow, Kiev and the Far East gathering in Smolensk, where hundreds of Ri-2 transport planes and an equal number of B-17s, Tu-3s, Pe-8s, and even some obsolete TB-3s were ready to go. And the airborne troops, who had just arrived in Smolensk by train, did not have time to breathe, and began to reorganize their equipment and be ready to attack at any time.

After only a day's rest, at Tukhachevsky's impatient orders, the paratroopers were stuffed into the cabin, and after more than two hours of turbulence, they arrived over Unechia, and as the green signal light in the cabin came on, the hatch was opened, and soon patches of white flowers bloomed in the air.

More than 10,000 officers and men of the 1st Guards Airborne Division, led by division commander Gayulauv, jumped out of the cabin and headed straight for the city and airport of Unechia.

It must be explained here that in the process of airborne, neither transport planes, bombers, nor the officers and men of the 1st Guards Paratrooper Division suffered much losses, and Tukhachevsky's move was crazy, but it was indeed unexpected by the Germans. Neither Guderian nor Kleist expected the Red Army to play the airdrop, so the German garrison stationed in Unecha reacted almost completely and practically could not react, the garrison had almost no anti-aircraft guns, and the only anti-aircraft machine gun was the old Maxim captured from the Red Army.

The 1st Guards Airborne Division completed the most dangerous and thrilling journey almost unscathed. After landing, they quickly gathered and rallied and galloped towards their intended goal. During the march, the young red paratroopers could not hide their excitement, they thought that the next step would be as smooth as before, and that they would complete this difficult task and go home with a full body of honor.

It can only be said that the lads rejoiced a little too soon, and the Germans were not so vulnerable, on the contrary. Their resistance was stubborn!

The paratroopers responsible for the assault on the Uneccha airfield soon discovered this. Pre-war intelligence shows. There is only one reinforced company stationed at the Unecha airfield, and it is really a knife to capture it with the strength of an airborne regiment!

However, after the battle broke out, the paratroopers found the enemy quite tricky, repelled the siege again and again, and held the airfield more and more courageously. This also directly led to the shelving of the plan to airlift the 4th and 5th Airborne Brigades to Unecha in the afternoon of the same day, according to Tukhachevsky's plan. You can't let the transport plane fall in the enemy's defense zone under the threat of bullets, right?

Not only did the attack on the airfield not go well, but the attack on the city became even more passive, and the 2nd and 3rd Airborne Regiments, which were responsible for attacking the city, were attacked head-on as soon as they stepped into the city. Every street, every house, even every bundle of grass hid the Germans, and every step forward had to pay a heavy price. Fierce street fighting continued until late that night, and the anxious Gayulauf was restless and had to force his troops to intensify the offensive again and again.

But this was of no avail, because the commander of the German city defenses, Lieutenant Colonel Wiesel, had already received instructions from Guderian to hold out at least 48 hours at all costs, and must wait until the main forces arrived in Unechia!

The lieutenant colonel also let go, threw all his guards on the front line, and even went to the front line to shoot at the Red Army in person, inspired by him. Although the Germans retreated step by step, the magnitude was quite small. Even in the most pessimistic way, surviving 48 hours is not a big problem.

It's a simultaneous race, and whoever is fast has the potential to win. At the beginning of the game, Tukhachevsky took the Germans by surprise and took them by surprise. But a good start did not mean that the victory was firmly in the pocket, and in the ensuing head-to-head confrontation, the tenacity of the German army made the red paratroopers suffer.

For example, the 2nd Brigade of the Airborne Forces, whose mission was to seize the bridge over the river and hold on, but the luck of this brigade was not ordinarily bad, after the 1st Guards Airborne Division parachuted, their group continued to fly forward under the escort of fighters, and according to the predetermined plan, they would be airborne five kilometers from the river bank.

But a funny scene happened at this time, I don't know what the reason, the pilot long plane did not stop after flying on the river bank, nor did it send a signal, just buried its head and flew forward, and the second transport plane and bomber followed behind were also confused by the second monk, so they stupidly followed and flew forward.

This flight lasted for half an hour, and when the pilot plane found that the follow-up transport plane did not carry out the airdrop operation, it hurriedly flew back, and this U-turn caused a confusion in the formation. In the confusion, the planes of the 2nd and 3rd paratrooper brigades were mixed, and the formation of all units was disrupted.

In the midst of the chaos, the airborne landing began, and the paratroopers of the two brigades were thrown out of the engine room in a mess, not to mention, and they were also more than a dozen kilometers away from the originally scheduled airborne landing site. In addition, there was a sudden air flow through the airborne field, which caused the paratroopers to disperse quite widely, and some of the parachute bags with heavy weapons were also directly blown into the river by the strong wind.

So after the two brigades landed, it was really chaos, the officers couldn't find the soldiers, the soldiers couldn't find the organization, and even some of the soldiers were simply empty-handed. According to the predetermined plan, the two brigades were supposed to assemble within an hour, and then after an hour's march, they would attack by three o'clock in the afternoon.

But the actual situation was completely beyond expectations, and it took three hours for the assembly alone, and note that it was not an orderly assembly, but a chaotic mix of various units of the two brigades, and the order was chaotic anyway.

Not only was there chaos, but the build-up did not completely gather all the paratroopers, and a considerable number (about a quarter) of the paratroopers lost their way and headed in the wrong direction.

It was not until 5 p.m. that the commanders of the 2nd and 3rd brigades resumed a certain command order, which was far from the scheduled time, and according to Tukhachevsky's plan, the task of seizing and blowing up the bridge should have been successfully completed at this time.

After hastily completing the assembly, the 2nd and 3rd Brigades began to march towards their intended target, noting that the planned distance was about five kilometers, but due to yaw, the distance was actually 12 kilometers. The paratroopers, who had been tossing for a day, arrived at the intended target almost with their tongues crossed, and it was already seven o'clock in the evening.

The paratroopers were overstaffed, and a hastily organized attack was quickly repulsed by the German bridge-guarding troops. In desperation, the two paratrooper brigade commanders could only order to suspend the attack and rest in place. But after the war, this proved to be an outright mistake.

That night, on Guderian's orders, the Germans stationed in Liarrich and Klintsy quickly reinforced Unecha and arrived near the bridge at five o'clock the next morning. Directly led to the offensive of the second and third paratrooper brigades on the second day, and also kicked on the iron plate!

All in all, in addition to the fact that the airborne process went smoothly and did not suffer any losses, when the paratroopers landed, Operation Lightning turned into Operation Snail, and the original perfect battle plan was full of loopholes, and one unexpected factor after another disrupted Tukhachevsky's wishful thinking.

Now, Tukhachevsky is in front of a mess, and he must think carefully about how it should end...... (To be continued......)

PS: Bow and thank you to the Schistosoma parasite, SS Guard Flag, hzwangdd, Mashin Bobo, Admiral Hood and Comrade Juventus!