81_81266 "On the Eastern Front, we must remain on the defensive, and I know very well what state the preparations for war in the Soviet Union have entered, but the Führer's order is that the operational policy of strategic defense must be adhered to. General Liszt took the phone and ordered one of the division commanders over there.

After hanging up the phone, he looked at General Klug, who was sitting on the side, smiled wryly, and then picked up his teaglass: "Klug, I really don't know why I missed such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Our soldiers are ready, and the entire 2.3 million troops are hoarded on the Eastern Front, waiting for the Soviets to strike first. ”

"The Führer gave the order to wait, and my troops were scheduled to wait. Klug replied with a smile: "Even if Moscow is in sight, as soon as I receive an order from the Führer, then my troops will stop and wait." ”

Compared to General Liszt, Kluger's command skills were not outstanding, and to put it bluntly, Kluger, like Raeder, was placed on the Eastern Front for the only reason that he was reassuring loyalty. That's why Accardo was willing to hand over the army to Klug, because Klug never did anything to add insults.

Some generals are easy to change combat orders without authorization, they are talented and have a strong ability to capture fighters, the reason for their disobedience is to be able to win the victory, these generals are relatively strong "geniuses", so Accardo gives these people free space to play, such as Dönitz, Guderian, Rommel; Keitel: And there are people who are capable but not very easy to use, for all kinds of reasons can only make do with it, such as Brauchitsch, Bock, and of course there is a group of people who are not comfortable with it, and have problems with loyalty, and have been almost wiped out by the Führer......

The last group of German generals were the likes of Raeder and Klug, who were loyal to the Akado, but their ability to command operations needed to be improved. Accardo likes to use such generals, because they faithfully carry out Accardo's orders, which can often achieve unexpected and surprising results under Accardo's accurate "predictions".

So the supreme commander of the Eastern Front, Accardo, chose the mediocre Kluger, instead of the more capable Liszt or Moder. And Kluge also tried his best to restrain Liszt and other generals, wholeheartedly strengthening the defense system of the Eastern Front, waiting for the Soviets to launch a "surprise" attack one morning.

At this moment, several armies on the Eastern Front were trying their best to complete the defense line in their own jurisdiction, and Germany was fully prepared for the Soviet attack this time, and Accardo came up with the theory of large-depth defense in advance in order to cope with the possible situation of a large-scale offensive by the Soviet troops, and prepared a full 15 defense lines for the Soviets in the Polish area.

Millions of troops were idle, training and vacation, and the rest of the time was spent digging trenches with Polish concentration camp laborers, although these 15 lines of defense were not huge permanent fortifications, but they were definitely more than enough to deal with the Soviet Red Army, which had no advantage in firepower and mobility.

These fortifications were deployed in the shape of the edges of gears, or rather like battlements on the Great Wall. Some of the fortified lines were held up in front and the flanks were equally well constructed, and once the Soviets began to attack, they would find that some of the sections were easy to break through, while others were not able to advance half a step.

Behind these prominent defensive positions, elite German infantry and armored units were deployed, and once the Soviet Union entered the recessed part of these toothed positions, it was tantamount to crashing headlong into the pockets carefully arranged by the German defenders, who would close these pockets with the cooperation of the armored forces and the air force and besiege the Soviet "invaders" inside.

The German High Command has conducted countless exercises and evaluations of this large-depth defensive position, and Brauchitsch and other generals have conservatively estimated that the Soviet Union may have to use 1.5 million people to fill the first 10 defensive positions, while some more optimistic generals believe that there is no problem at all in eating up the 2 million men of the Soviet Union on this defensive line. As for the price to be paid by Germany, the predictions are relatively unanimous, with only about 200,000 to 300,000 people lost.

However, once the Soviet-German war began in full swing, there were still about 700,000 or so reserves behind the 2.3 million regular troops on the German border. The frontal comparison of the forces of the two sides was not simply 3 million versus 5 million, but the 5 million troops of Germany, Romania, Italy, and France against the 5 million troops of the Soviet Union - Germany had absolute superiority in armored forces and air force.

If you take into account the input of at least 700,000 regular troops on the side of the potential ally Turkey, as well as the possible supply of troops from countries such as Finland and Ireland, the Axis bloc even has an advantage in terms of troops, and as for how big the advantage is, it depends on how well the German assault forces fight on the frontal battlefield.

In fact, the Soviets are not idle these days, and their troops are actively preparing to "burn the red flame all over Europe." Millions of Stalin's followers took up arms and were armed into the Soviet Red Army, ready for a great war against Germany, the source of evil. For this war, the Soviet Union prepared a full 5 million regular troops, these troops were not the soft persimmons of the Soviet Union when it attacked Poland, but the real Soviet Red Army that had been strengthened, and they were not even inferior to the invincible Germany in terms of armored strength, and even had some local advantages.

Summing up the lessons of various countries in the past two years, the Soviet leader Stalin paid more attention to the construction and development of armored forces than the United States, and Soviet engineers improved the T-26 tank and strengthened the frontal armor. Of course, in addition to the T-26 tank, which had already suffered in front of the Germans, the real killer feature of the Soviets was the KV-2500 heavy tanks of the whole 2500 units.

The Soviet troops, with 5,000 tanks on the Soviet-German border, had reason to believe that their troops were deliberately breaking through the German lines, and both Stalin and Khrushchev were so confident in the Soviet surprise attack on Germany that they felt that they had the chance of victory, and Stalin even appointed mayors and secretaries of Warsaw and Berlin.

For example, Zhukov, who has now become the deputy commander-in-chief of the Soviet army in the Far East, was full of confidence in attacking Germany, and after studying the fighting methods of the German army, he put forward the view that the number of artillery of the German army was insufficient.

Zhukov accurately identified the shortcomings of the German artillery number, and put forward his own views on the war: the German army kept advancing during the offensive, that is, constantly moving rapidly, so they preferred flexible small-caliber artillery, so they were not good at defensive operations, and they lacked artillery support in defense, and they would collapse faster than other opponents.

This is not just his opinion, but the opinion of many generals in the Soviet Union. So the argument of the Soviet top brass was: "Instead of waiting for the Germans to attack, we should concentrate our forces and fight first." In this way, the Germans will have to be forced to defend, and we will have the advantage. ”

Speaking of which, it is necessary to briefly introduce the differences between the Soviet army and the armies of other countries in details.

The Soviet Union was accustomed to mothballing obsolete weapons, mothballing and storing some unused weapons and equipment, and there were special personnel to maintain them.

In peacetime in the Soviet army, each main division had a division commander and two deputy division commanders. In the same way, each regiment has two deputy commanders, each battalion has two deputy commanders, and each company has two deputy commanders, and each platoon has two platoon leaders......

As soon as the Soviet Union entered a state of war, and this main division was ordered to go to the front, it would leave behind a deputy division commander, two or three deputy regiment commanders, four or six deputy battalion commanders, a dozen deputy company commanders, and hundreds of squad and platoon commanders of deputy positions - now you know, this is almost the skeleton of another division.

Of course, in terms of combat effectiveness, this "shadow division" left behind is of course inferior to the main division that has left, but after replenishing the troops, this is indeed a division and a new unit capable of fighting.

This new unit is made up of reservists and retired personnel who receive obsolete old equipment. This old equipment is exactly the familiar weapon used by reservists and retired soldiers, so that the unit from five or even ten years ago can immediately become combat effectiveness and can quickly enter the front line of battle.

This is why, in another time and space, after Germany annihilated the Soviet Union with 3 million troops in one fell swoop, the Soviet front still maintained more than 3 million troops. That is why the seemingly endless "secrets" of the Soviet troops.

As in another time and space, the German spies did not reveal this simple little secret, and they truthfully reported to the German High Command what they had worked hard to discover: intelligence revealed that the Soviet forces numbered about 370 divisions, with a total strength of about 5 million to 6 million. Until the Soviet Union, Accardo knew that the real combat strength of the Soviet Union was around 10 million - provided that they had so many weapons and equipment to arm these soldiers.

Compared to Hitler, Accardo and the current German generals had an invisible advantage, which was that Britain and the United States would not supply as much as they had in another time and space, in 1942. Britain was now too busy to take care of itself, and there were not so many supplies to supply the Soviet Red Army. So whether the Soviets will be able to get American aid, and how much, is hard to say at this time - but, Accardo knew, there would be no more