This is a map that the German spies painstakingly sketched to approximate the actual situation, and if you use the map in the hands of the Soviets, the Germans can walk 20 kilometers in the wilderness in a day, which is estimated to be fast.

The speed of the German advance was indeed not slow, and with the cooperation of the Soviet troops commanded by Zhukov, the German troops advanced several hundred kilometers in just 15 days, and even surrounded Smolensk, which Stalin claimed did not want to lose. But along the way, the transportation situation of the German army fell into a "catastrophe".

First of all, there is the old problem that the Soviet railway standards are different from those of Europe, although Germany helped the Soviet Union to improve the construction standards of some railways in the early days, but it did not solve all the problems. At least in the Moscow region, where railways are denser, the Soviets still used their own standards because of cost, which left the Germans in the dilemma of unusable railways near Smolensk.

Then there is the fact that the roads in the Soviet Union are also not the asphalt roads that the Germans think they are, most of the Soviet roads are paved with dirt, and they are completely temporary roads according to German standards. These roads, combined with snowfall, have reduced the efficiency of road transport in Germany by almost half.

The German army was already using Wanguo cars because of production capacity problems: cars from the captured British, French, and Belgian coalition forces, civilian cars from their own country requisitioned, and the German military off-road vehicles were in a slightly better situation.

Horses and mules became the main means of transportation for the Germans to transport supplies to the front, and this efficiency made Army Group A, the most mechanized on the central front, miserable. The King Tiger and Tiger tanks, as well as a large number of Leopard tanks and armored vehicles, have become real oil tigers, making it extremely difficult for Rundstedt to take every step forward.

The situation now was not how fierce the Soviet resistance was, but looking at the seemingly endless road, which made the Germans lose the courage to take another step forward. Because with every step they take, they lose more cans, more fuel, and more ammunition, which sounds desperate.

"And we need time to purge the guerrillas, the repressors, the pro-Soviet civilians behind us. Rundstedt reluctantly continued to Accardo: "These people will do everything they can to destroy our transport system, attack our convoys, blow up bridges, destroy railways, and we must move our forces to drive out and suppress these enemies." ”

"All sorts of things, all sorts of things that involved our experiences, and the fact that the arrival of the SS armed forces relieved part of our pressure, at least in my troops. Rundstedt did not forget to support Accardo at this time: "But these troops need to be better trained, which is the best way to reduce their casualties." ”

"I agree with this that the Army can train these SS armed forces to make them better at their combat missions. Accardo nodded, giving the marshal who supported him enough face.

Rundstedt saw that Accardo agreed with his opinion, which was considered to be enough to save his face, and hurriedly continued to complain. After all, the real war cannot be a battle in which the commander draws on the map and the troops fight wherever they want: "My Führer, another issue is the security of the flanks of the southern and central clusters. ”

As he spoke, he pointed to a vast area on the map and said to Accardo: "As the war progresses, the southern cluster of our army advances too fast, resulting in a serious shortage of our troops on such a long front stretching from the west bank of the Volga to the outskirts of Smolensk. ”

"Along such a long line of defense, in the middle of the southern and central clusters, in turn, was the 1st Ukrainian Army, which suffered considerable losses in the battle for the capture of Kharkov. Rundstedt pointed to the northern part of Manstein's Army Group M and said to Accardo: "Next to this army group is General Modell's Army Group D. ”

Then he pointed to the flank of Army F, and then went on to explain: "General Kluger's Flank F, which is also under-armed, is an army group in Romania, and further south is the Italian Expeditionary Force. ”

Now the division of the German forces was such that in the far north was an army group from Finland, and then Liszt's Army Group E. These two armies formed the northern cluster of the German army, and the main direction of attack was Leningrad, the northern stronghold of the Soviet Union.

In the center was Field Marshal Rundstedt's Army Group A, further south was General Kluger's Army Group F, plus the Romanian 1st Army, and the Italian Expeditionary Force, which had just been grouped into a central cluster for the attack on Smolensk and in the direction of Moscow.

Further south, Moder's Army D, Ukraine's 1st Army, Manstein's Army Group M, and Guderian's Army Group G formed the Southern Cluster, with the aim of foolproof capture of the Soviet Union's Caucasus oil production bases.

The original idea was simple: put the most defensive, Moder in the middle of a few less reliable Axis allies, and rely on Army Group D to reinforce a weak board in the entire defensive line. However, as the war progressed, the German offensive continued to advance, resulting in the entire front being stretched and extended, making it impossible for Army Group D to effectively cover the flanks of the various clusters.

Accardo no longer had military talent, and he understood Marshal Rundstedt's concerns, and had to admit that this line of defense was fragile, and as the war progressed, it could not be effectively compensated and strengthened even in a short time. Once the Soviet Red Army launched a counterattack on these sections, the German armies in the southern cluster would be forced to retreat to end the battle for the Caucasus, even if they were not encircled and annihilated.

Thankfully, the Soviet Union is now in a hurry to shrink its defensive line, and there are not so many troops to invest in the counterattack, or the entire Soviet top brass has been fooled by the victorious German army, and they have not properly analyzed their position and considered such a thing as a counterattack. So this line of defense is safe for now, but once Zhukov pulls his hand, then it is better to count on these allies to hold the line than to expect some other miracle to happen.

Sometimes Accardo really felt very helpless, there really is such a country in the world, its territory is surprisingly large, and the invincible tanks, planes, and cannons are as small as a bug in front of it, and the blitzkrieg that crushed France with one blow has to be used several times on this country, and the result is still not able to end the war.

"This kind of thing, we have to ask the relevant person in charge of the army's logistics department, about when the N, O, and P armies will be put into operation, and we urgently need to strengthen the forces in several directions, this is not a joke. Accardo looked at the generals who were sitting farther away, the officers in charge of the German army's logistical equipment.

One general was wiping his sweat with a handkerchief, and another was wiping his monocle desperately. Obviously, none of them wanted to answer Führer Accardo's question head-on, after all, the timetable they gave was really embarrassing. But when it comes to the end, if you don't say it, you have to say it head-on.

"My Führer, it's not that the logistics department is delaying, it's really the equipment and personnel that these group armies need, and the difference is too much. One general finally replied in a mournful voice: "When General Hult's Army Group J was formed, weapons production was almost unable to keep up, so we had to draw some assault rifles and G43s that should have been given to other troops, and then everyone made up for it with Mauser 98K rifles in stock." ”

"And that's just the notches in the rifles, the artillery, the Iron Fist anti-tank rockets, the cars, the armored vehicles, ......," he said, already crying, as if he had been tormented mad by the people who had come from various army groups to demand all kinds of supplies: " I am not complaining, in fact the industrial sector has provided so much weapons and equipment that it has surprised our logistics departments, but the pace of our military expansion is really too fast, two years ago we had less than 1 million troops, and now we have to buy weapons, ammunition, food and equipment for 7 million troops. ”

The Germans actually did not have 7 million troops, but some SS security forces needed to be armed with weapons, and Germany's allies imported weapons from Germany from time to time to improve their military strength - this back and forth caused the German army to be overstretched in the distribution of weapons.

Most of Manstein's troops were using Mauser rifles, and although his troops had a large number of cannons, they were a collection of British, French, and German calibers and models, and in fact the logistical pressure was very huge.

On the surface, it seems that the German armored forces are attacking by leaps and bounds on the front line, but behind the scenes, the logistics department is piecing together, and the thousands of tons of oil that have been accumulated with great difficulty have disappeared as if they were evaporating. Now the production capacity of the Romanian oil fields is honestly no longer enough for the German army to squander, and the current offensive has begun to deplete Germany's domestic strategic stocks.

The German Navy has stopped going to sea on a large scale because of the problem of fuel, and only submarines are still active in the entire sea area around Iceland, and even the routine patrols of reconnaissance planes have been canceled on a large scale. The German garrison in France kept only 60 percent of the oil reserves in the strategic reserve, and less than 70 percent in Germany, all of which Accardo knew.