In Rastenberg, also known as the "Wolf's Lair", in East Prussia, Germany, Reinhard, who visited the forward headquarters, was pleasantly surprised to find that Stalin's luck seemed much worse than in history. In other words, he, Reinhard,
I'm so lucky now!
In the battle between Belarus and Pavlov's Western Front, the Soviet army, which was trapped in a huge encirclement, not only did not insist on fighting and caused heavy casualties to the German army as in the original history, but on the contrary, won the battle extremely easily.
A total of about 490,000 Soviet soldiers were captured, and more than 2,500 artillery pieces and more than 3,400 tanks were destroyed or captured. This result was a complete optimization compared to the Minsk siege and annihilation battle in the original history that Reinhard knew.
Read it again.
Completely contrary to the history he knew well, the Soviet Western Front in the encirclement basically did not put up any strong resistance, and the technical weapons captured by the Germans were much higher than the German high command expected. What is even more gratifying is that this time in Minsk
There were a full 200,000 more Soviet troops captured in the battle than in the original history!
The number of Soviet troops who escaped outside the encirclement was only about 50,000.
On the Soviet side, Commander Timoshenko, who was sent by Stalin to take over the command of the remaining troops of the Western Front, was not so much taking over the remnants of a front as he was taking over the command of an army, not even a group army!
It has to be said that the Western Front Army is indeed the unit with the best weapons and equipment among all the front armies in the Soviet Union.
According to the German armored division's full equipment standard, a division with 324 tanks is considered a perfectly equipped and powerful armored force, and in most cases, many German armored divisions do not meet this standard.
It's not because Germany can't produce so many tanks, it's because the German armored forces are expanding too fast. People and equipment are often transferred from the original armored forces to serve as the backbone of new armored divisions. As a result, each armored division is often withdrawn.
Take the personnel tank.
On the other hand, the German army has been in a state of war for almost a long time, and the number of tanks in the army will continue to be lost to a certain extent, resulting in a constant decline in the number of tanks in each division.
From this point of view, the Soviet Western Front destroyed and captured more than 3,400 tanks in one go, which was enough equipment for 10 fully equipped armored divisions in the German army!
Reinhard would never refuse these captured Soviet tanks. Especially after this battle, many Soviet tanks were directly delivered to the German army by the Soviet army under white flags, and were not captured on the battlefield.
The senior generals of the Soviet Western Front who remained in the encirclement did not know what stimulation they had. Suddenly, under the leadership of their chief of staff Klimovsky, they collectively expressed to Bock's Army Group Center that they wanted to surrender in an organized manner.
And hand over all weapons, equipment, ammunition and supplies.
Among them, the division commander of the 4th Tank Division of the Soviet Western Front, Major General Potaturchev, directly led the tank division with complete combat effectiveness and surrendered completely with its tanks.
Because these Soviet tanks were more mobile and retreated early to avoid contact with the Germans, their losses have been very small. This also led to the fact that after they surrendered, the Germans captured almost the entire Soviet Fourth Tank Division.
All tanks and armored vehicles.
At Reinhardt's request, the German army had long made systematic preparations for the full use of these captured armored weapons. Both the depth and breadth were beyond the imagination of ordinary people. It can be said that every piece of Soviet equipment
This type of armored vehicle could be deployed in the German army's battle order at that time.
In this way, the Soviet armored forces almost became the German army's mobile armored fighting vehicle arsenal, allowing the German army to increase its strength through such captures and effectively make up for the congestion of its own military production capacity. In a sense
It is said that General Pavlov, the former commander of the Soviet Western Front, has become the first "transportation brigade captain" of the German army in disguise.
In addition, the rest of the Western Front, large and small, from the chief of staff of the front to the corps commanders and division commanders of each group army, all behaved in the same manner and surrendered to the Germans very readily.
They handed over their weapons and gave up their base, allowing Marshal Bock to occupy the rest of Belarus almost effortlessly.
Not only Marshal Bock in the headquarters of Army Group Center, but also Reinhardt in the "Wolf's Lair" could not restrain himself from feeling ecstatic about Army Group Center's victory.
Capturing nearly 500,000 Soviet troops in one breath was an almost crazy victory. It broke the record for the scale of the German encirclement in Poland and became the new "largest encirclement and annihilation battle in history."
What is even more fortunate is that the Soviet army that was encircled this time gave up resistance and surrendered on its own initiative. This saved the German army a lot of effort in clearing the troops in the encirclement, and also avoided a large number of casualties.
In addition to the 7 Ukrainian divisions that rebelled against the Southwest Front, there are about 100,000 troops. The number of captured and mutinous Soviet troops alone has reached the 700,000 mark!
You must know that 20 years ago, the total strength of the German Wehrmacht was only 100,000. Today, the army that evolved from 100,000 has forced 700,000 Soviet troops to surrender without a fight, effortlessly defeating the enemy.
The loss of 700,000 troops was a result that the German top brass had been proud of for quite some time.
This is not over yet. On the day when the encircled Western Front surrendered, Marshal Bock of the German Army Group Center signed a new combat document, arranging for Guderian to lead the Second Armored Corps to attack Smolensk - opening the door to Moscow.
The key!
At this time, Guderian was already the famous "Scud Heinz".
Guderian, who served as commander of the 2nd Armored Army, and General Hoth's 3rd Armored Army were under the command of Army Group Center.
The 2nd Armored Corps is equipped with the 24th Armored Corps, which has the 3rd and 4th Armored Divisions, the 10th Motorized Infantry Division, and the 1st Cavalry Division. The 46th Armored Corps has the 10th Armored Division, the SS
The Fatherland Infantry Division of the Army, the Grossdeutschland Infantry Regiment. There are also the 17th and 18th Armored Divisions and the 29th Motorized Rifle Division under the 47th Panzer Corps.
With such a large mobile force, Guderian and Hoth's 3rd Armored Army used a pincer offensive to penetrate deep into the rear of the Soviet army, and implemented it 400 kilometers deep in the Soviet Union, in Minsk, the capital of Belarus.
Encirclement action.
After completing this task, Guderian's remaining purpose is to prevent the Soviet army from recollecting the remnants of the Western Front (although there are not many), and to prevent Timoshenko from having enough troops to form a new line of defense, thereby creating a new line of defense.
The entire war against the Soviet Union laid a decisive foundation.
If nothing else, Smolensk, an ancient Russian city that once became a formidable obstacle for Napoleon’s French army on their way to Moscow, could not stump Reinhard’s German army this time!