At the beginning of October 1942, the war situation in the northern Soviet Union is like this.
Since Yang Mingzhi participated in the "Battle of Gomel" commanded from the end of June to the beginning of August, its occurrence had a chain reaction, resulting in a shortage of German frontline troops, and ultimately the Soviet army successfully liberated Rzhev. The Soviet army must counterattack
, they saw the opportunity of chaos in eastern Belarus and launched a quite successful strategic counterattack at the right time.
According to original history, the Soviet army did launch an offensive from the end of July to mid-August. As a result, they did not chew through the German defense lines in Rzhev.
With the current direction of the war in the north, on the surface, the Soviet army does have a great strategic advantage.
Smolensk is a city of great strategic value in Russia. Throughout Russian history, whenever enemies from the west attack, a bloody battle will inevitably break out in Smolensk, whether it is 1612 or 1812, or
The year 1941 just passed.
In mid-August, while the remaining power of the army in liberating Rzhev was not exhausted, the Soviet army continued to attack. They were almost within the range of heavy howitzers from the suburbs of Smolensk. However, the German army's crazy counterattack prevented the Soviet army from long-term troops.
Near the city of Smolensk, it also lost the newly liberated city of Dukhovshina to the north.
For German General Model, his Ninth Army must protect Smolensk. After all, for the German army, this city is an important strategic fulcrum on the northern front.
Once the Soviet Union retakes Smolensk, it will mean that the German army will have to retreat to Belarus.
The German army cannot lose Smolensk! But the current situation puts a lot of pressure on this German general who is quite good at defense.
In fact, Model's nickname of "defensive general" has not been widely circulated up to now.
The reason why he is widely circulated is because of his amazing performance against the Soviet Union's Operation Mars.
However, the battle has not yet begun, and the Soviet army's planning meeting for this battle has not even been held. Both the Soviet Union and Germany are full of doubts about the future direction of the war.
But in Model's view, the German army's ability to stabilize the Smolensk battle relied heavily on two fulcrums, namely Rzhev and Vyazma.
The situation facing the German army is very bad now, and Model has to face a very disgusting situation.
The Soviet army occupied Rzhev and built a fairly strong defense line. After doing so, the Soviet army cut off a railway line that was very important to the German army. As a result, the German army occupied Velikiy Luki and Vyazma,
There is no longer a direct railway line between the two places. This forced Model's troops to rely heavily on the railway from Smolensk to Vyazma and the unused land mule and horse transportation for supplies.
Model's military strength is limited, and he no longer has the ability to organize enough mobile forces to drive the Soviet army out of Rzhev. Perhaps he once had such an opportunity and went all the way south to attack the Soviet army in Smolensk, but they were overwhelmed.
At that time, the German counterattack was not strong enough.
In fact, what Model was doing throughout September was strengthening the German defenses. Even if Berlin asked him to recapture Rzhev, he refused on the grounds of insufficient troops and cried out for more reinforcements.
Berlin gave Model some reinforcements, but unfortunately, these so-called reinforcements consisted of a large number of infantry. The reinforcements of the tanks, heavy artillery, and various heavy equipment he needed most were very small.
Why? Berlin even transferred Manstein's aviation units and some Karl heavy artillery that were attacking the Caucasus to attack Stalingrad!
Poverty has its own way of getting rid of poverty. Although Model complained, he still had to bite the bullet and strengthen the defense line.
If Rzhev was liberated by the Soviet army, one advantage would be that Model's limited troops did not have to defend a huge area. The railway line from Veliky Luki to Rzhev was controlled by the Soviet army, so the German army would not have to worry.
There is only one thing Model has to do now, which is to desperately strengthen the defenses of the Vyazma salient.
At the same time, he also strengthened the northern defense line of Smolensk. Since he lost the "castle" of Rzhev, he built Dukhovshina into another "castle". He believed that he did not need to worry too much about the south, because that was
Troop defense zone of the friendly Fourth Army.
Throughout September, the first task of all the German soldiers from Vyazma to Smolensk was to dig holes desperately.
The German army even dispatched a large amount of cement and even used special trench excavators.
So time and space are like going back to Verdun during World War I. The German army intended to build a strong and airtight defensive position. Unfortunately, Model's biggest problem was insufficient troops. He could not make the defense line truly airtight.
, and besides, today’s wars already focus on air-ground cooperation.
After more than a year of fighting with the Soviet army, Model fully understood the Soviet army's traditional combat mode. To be honest, he felt that his opponents were always fighting stupidly, but that kind of enemy was not a mob at all.
The Soviet army was very ferocious, and soldiers at the grassroots level often did not hesitate to die, organizing rounds of human waves to charge. Even if there were corpses everywhere, as long as the command system was still functioning, don't try to defeat them.
However, one of the reinforcements Model received was the 100th Army transferred from France. The three divisions of this army encountered great resistance in the "bandit suppression" operation in southern Belarus, and some troops suffered heavy casualties.
Model was fully aware of the detailed war that took place in Belarus from the end of June to the beginning of August. After the arduous "bandit suppression" battle, the German army suffered at least 70,000 casualties and a net loss of 30,000. The German propaganda department announced its victory, combined with the September
According to the intelligence coming from Belarus, the German army's "bandit suppression" operation seemed to be a victory, an untimely and tragic victory.
It was really a tragic victory. The German garrison in Belarus and the troops transferred from other places made huge sacrifices and dealt a fatal blow to the various Soviet guerrillas in Belarus. After this battle, the guerrillas became destitute.
, the German army in Belarus finally ushered in a rare moment of stability.
However, the German army not only paid the price of 70,000 casualties. The war swept through the eastern and southern parts of Belarus. Worst of all, the guerrillas actually blew up all the bridges on the Pripet River, the Sozh River, and the upper reaches of the Dnieper River.
destroy.
For the German engineers, they were very efficient in building some pontoon bridges. They could quickly repair some roads across the river and allow carriages and trucks to pass smoothly. What was bad was that the main force of the German army's logistics transportation was railways.
Transportation, bulk transportation such as heavy artillery and tanks, cannot be transported to the front line efficiently without the usual railway lines.
Before dying, the Soviet guerrillas blew up all the railway bridges they found, even blowing them to pieces. Various signs indicate that this sabotage operation, which was different from the past, must have been carefully directed by Moscow.
Therefore, the traffic situation Model faced in early September was very bad. Both his Ninth Army and Ludwig's Fourth Army entered temporary strategic defense with Smolensk as the center.
For a long time, the logistics supplies of the two armies have relied on two railway hubs extending from Belarus to the east.
The Soviet army occupied Rzhev, and the guerrillas completely blew up the railway bridges over the Pripet and Sozh rivers. This meant that throughout September, most of the supplies needed by Model were indeed transported by military trains, and the military
The train must rely on the only railway line, which also goes by a giant s on the map.
The German military columns often enter Belarus from Lublin in Poland. The military columns go north to Minsk from Brest or Pinsk, and then go all the way east to Smolensk. This transportation line can be a good place for Model.
Ludwig's army provided material supplies, but because there was no railway bridge, all the supplies Ludwig's army needed had to take this railway.
What a huge workload it is for a railway to provide blood transfusion to two huge German army groups.
It’s not that the German army doesn’t want to vigorously develop land transportation, because the areas passed by mules, horses and trucks are the most brutal battlefields in August. Along the hundreds of kilometers of road, the German transport team can see many blackened villages and towns.
The ruins of the Belarusian village that were supposed to provide food tribute to the German army disappeared, and the villagers disappeared. Walking in the no-man's land of the war, people felt desolate. The feeling of desolation is a trivial matter, but the worst part is that there are no German soldiers along the way.
Utilized supply depot.
Or because of the large-scale operations carried out by the Soviet guerrillas, the German army's already fragile land transportation line was completely interrupted. Rebuilding it will not happen overnight.
No matter how difficult it is, Berlin has always believed that Model's troops shoulder a heavy responsibility. Mustache and his staff all know this. However, the Austrian corporal has not been able to get the German army in mid-September.
After receiving the good news of occupying the entire Stalingrad, he was so angry that he refused to listen to even the well-intentioned advice of any staff officer or general, and insisted on occupying the city named after Stalin.
The war situation is such a contradiction. Everyone in Berlin knows that their corporal leader is taking risks, but no one can convince their leader.
"What is war economics? In a two-front battle, we focus on one and lose the other. If we fail to capture Stalingrad and the Soviet army launches a large-scale counterattack in the north, our strategic plan in the north may completely collapse." Guderian was like this.
Thinking about it, he questioned Mustache's decision on the northern war situation, and he also knew that he could not persuade the Austrian corporal who had fallen into madness.
Model was once a subordinate of Guderian, and he knew his subordinate very well. Since the main force of the army was fighting in the south, he could only pray that Model would use the existing troops and weapons and equipment to resist the Soviet attack in the north.
Endless attack.
Guderian was even more worried that with Model's nearly 300,000 troops, the Soviet army's constant tug-of-war had seen its military strength continue to decline. If this decline could not be changed, Model's defense line was likely to be lost somewhere.
The situation deteriorates rapidly at that point in time, and it is no longer possible to save it.
The intuition of the soldiers convinced Guderian and many senior German generals such as Zeitzler that since the Soviet army had recaptured Rzhev, they would definitely try to "eat" the Vyazma salient.
Any officer who is not stupid would think of a way to chop it down if the enemy's defense line looks like a king oyster mushroom on the map.
Everyone knows that under such a strategic situation, Model's Ninth Army, and even Ludwig's Fourth Army, have been facing the dilemma of being completely surrounded by a Soviet pincer offensive. They insisted on attacking Stalinger desperately.
Don’t Le’s mustache know?
Of course he knew, but the Austrian corporal was so confident that his judgment was very good. The so-called Soviet army launched a heroic attack in August, and its actual purpose was to recapture Smolensk. This strategic attempt was rejected by the Germans
Frustrated, the Soviet army suffered heavy casualties like all previous battles. As a result, if the Soviet army wanted to repeat such a strategic offensive, they would have to practice for a long time.
Mustache decided to take a gamble. Although the north was facing a lot of war pressure, wasn't the pressure in the south even more serious? Germany would use all its strength to occupy the rich southern Russia of the Soviet Union and gain access to the railway transportation network and the Baku oil field.
Next, we can develop real allies with the flirting potential ally south of the Caspian Sea, and then obtain more oil. What is this called? This is war economics!
Now, the Austrian corporal still firmly believes that when the Caspian Sea country faces the German army rushing here, they will immediately interrupt their cooperation with Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union, and become allies of the German army.
The Germans will win as long as they fight harder! Even if the Germans lose a lot, they will pale in comparison to what the Germans will gain.
After this battle, does the Soviet army still have enough strength? No! Mustache wishfully believed that as long as the German army won this battle, the Soviet Union would lose the material basis to continue fighting. The war lasted for more than a year, and the German army had paid a lot of
The war goal of defeating the Soviet Union was finally achieved at a great cost, and the sacrifice of the soldiers was what it meant.
Of course, all this is just the madness of Mustache alone. Contrary to this, his generals' confidence in victory in the current stalemate war situation in South Russia is rapidly disappearing. After all, it is already October, and when winter comes,
The problem of supplying materials needed by the German army is even more difficult!
If the German army fails to achieve significant results before December, the "Strategic Retreat from Moscow" of the German army at the beginning of this year may happen again.
If this is the case, then it would be better to send the huge mobile troops of the country and its allies, totaling two million people, to the northern front from the beginning. The German army will continue to follow the path it took in 1941 and capture Moscow in one fell swoop.
From a military perspective alone, the German army regained its strength and really stormed Moscow for the second time. This time the Soviet army may not be able to defend it.
However, the grand strategy set by Berlin in 1942 was to seize Southern Russia from the Soviet Union. This strategic plan was absolute, so Paulus would take the initiative to carry out the planned offensive campaign and carry out the "Kharkov Offensive"
"Battle", the Soviet army had a strong defensive counterattack, which made Paulus very happy.
There is no such thing as regret medicine.
Mustache wants to take a gamble, and all the generals must fully agree even if they have complaints. Everyone hopes that Paulus can solve the Stalingrad problem before the coldest gathering, and if he can complete this strategic plan, South Russia's supplies will be
All became the spoils of war for the German army. At the same time, the freed up German army was able to march northward and attack Moscow again after the snow melted in 1943.
It’s really exciting to think about it!
Mustache believed that if we followed this path, the Soviet Union would definitely surrender by the summer of 1943.
For the German army, this is the way to win, but what about the Soviet Union? Without Southern Russia, the entire Eastern Europe of the Soviet Union is no longer safe. With the character of the Russians, they will never admit defeat. Even when they were occupied by the Mongolian Empire, there were still a group of free people.
The people ran to the cold Novgorod to survive.
The worst option is to preserve the Soviet Union's spark in Siberia, but in that case, the Soviet Union will essentially lose its status as a great power and will no longer be the most powerful opponent of the German army.
The Soviet Union couldn't lose Southern Russia even if it put in 10 million soldiers, and the German army fought hard to win Southern Russia. The leaders of the two countries competed on the battlefield with Stalingrad as the core, and the important generals under the two men,
Many people have noticed the "calm" Vyazma salient.