Chapter 1894 Yang Mingzhi speculates on the strength of the imperial division
Balzen looked around and guessed that none of the men in the room were opposed to smoking.
Then he took out the cigarette case and lit it for himself skillfully. He talked eloquently: "Cigarettes are a good thing, but those who don't love them squat in the trenches and endure the bombardment of enemy artillery. A cigarette made of Pravda,
It can also make me feel at ease. Well, I learned an interesting thing. Right now, the railway stations in the city are loading heavy anti-war artillery. I took the opportunity to ask the comrades on the conscription committee, but I didn’t expect that they were all shipping.
For the troops around Stalingrad, they are very powerful. It's a pity that my troops can't get them for the time being. I really like these devices."
"Don't be discouraged!" Yevgeny said with a hopeful smile: "What did Lenin say? There will be bread and butter, we just don't have it for the time being. Look, the general is here. We don't want to equip more advanced weapons, those combat defense artillery
What's the point? Besides, a huge thing with a barrel over three meters long, doesn't this reconnaissance battalion commander who is good at running like to use it?"
"He's the division commander!" Balzen held a cigarette and laughed: "We will be fully equipped with assault rifles and large-scale equipment with catfish rocket launchers. With these, we don't need too much heavy equipment. Of course, if there is, I still hope for more. By the way.
, General.”
"Huh?" Yang Mingzhi looked at him.
"What is an assault rifle? It is your new invention. There are many new weapons? You and your two followers are both inventors. Can you tell us?"
"Of course." Yang Mingzhi was even more excited: "I came to Perm for three purposes: First, to tell you that the main enemy is the hateful and powerful Imperial Division. Second, to tell you what the new weapons are.
Use. Third, you must be mentally prepared for all-out urban street fighting."
In order to emphasize the atmosphere, Yang Mingzhi deliberately banged the table hard when talking about the third point, which was to show that the third point was the top priority.
Yang Mingzhi sighed: "So, where should I start?"
"Let's start with the imperial division that is strong on the outside and hard on the inside, in the order you just described." Balzen said.
"Are they strong on the outside but weak on the inside?" Yang Mingzhi smiled bitterly and sat up straight, staring at Balzen: "Forget what you just said. This enemy is not strong on the outside but weak on the inside. They are very powerful. You must face them."
"But, after all, we defeated a regiment-level unit of the Imperial Division, and the price we paid was not high. Since they were one division, didn't we defeat at least 30% of their combat strength in that battle? I know they
There are still many armored ones with strong combat effectiveness, and they will eventually become the result of our superior anti-tank weapons."
Balzen is still as confident as ever. This nearly forty-year-old guy seems to have never had the word fear in his dictionary. Yes, this old guy will never complain about the kind of battle he will participate in. In short, he will have the opportunity to attack the enemy.
Any obstacle can be overcome.
However, Balzen was not part of the remnants of the 284th Division's retreat at the time. He also learned about the "hilly forest ambush" from Lavrenti and Yevgeny. Because it was narrated by the two of them, there is inevitably some subjective exaggeration.
.
Balzen believed that it was all true. After all, in the Battle of Gomel just three months ago, the reconnaissance battalion he commanded served as a decoy, attracting an SS troop to a preset location, and then all the enemies were wiped out by new rocket launchers.
.
SS troops, aren't they all the same guy? Although they have strong combat capabilities, it is not difficult to defeat them.
Yang Mingzhi still shook his head: "You are too optimistic. I conservatively estimate that the Imperial Division has more than 17,000 troops!"
Balzen didn't expect this at all: "What? So many people? General, you are serious."
"This is probably the number of people. I learned about this situation through some channels."
For a moment, Balzen broke into a cold sweat. He reluctantly comforted himself and said: "Maybe, only half of the people here are combat troops? They have up to five regiment-level units as the main force, and the rest are logistics troops."
"Huh? You can't use our standards more than a year ago to speculate on the enemy." Yang Mingzhi corrected, "Just like our group army is often organized into five or six divisions, or even fewer troops. The German group army
, are often organized into more than twenty divisions. I learned that this abominable imperial division has a combat strength of 17,000 people!"
"Ah!" Balzen was shocked, and Lavrenti and Yevgeny also had the same shocked expression.
Yang Mingzhi paused and continued: "Now that you three have arrived on the battlefield, your logistics supplies are also handled by specialized troops. Your divisions can generally reach 9,000 troops, and they are basically combat troops.
In this way, the infantry division does not have to maintain a particularly large establishment. Think about our former 284th Division, which was also a behemoth with more than 15,000 men. However, 5,000 of them were mainly responsible for the transportation of logistics supplies. The troop establishment was too large.
The headquarters has to consider fighting, but also the dispatch of logistics supplies. The workload is too great. Now, the three of you only need to carry out the combat orders from your superiors in the future. Logistics supplies are no longer a consideration for you.
What I want to talk about in particular now is the German Imperial Division, which has a combat strength of 17,000 people. I guess they also have hundreds of main tanks, as well as armored vehicles that are twice or three times more than the tanks, and at least two more
Thousands of trucks.
They don't have to think about logistics themselves. The enemy has specialized troops to provide this group of people with everything they need.
I now conservatively estimate that this force may have 300 tanks, 1,000 armored personnel carriers, and more than 200 artillery pieces with a caliber of 75 mm or more. They are not an infantry division at all, but a completely mechanized force, quite
Our conceptual mechanized army is still an enhanced one. In other words, this force has very strong mobility in the wilderness and powerful firepower. The long-distance raids that we are proud of may pale in comparison."
"Are they really that strong?" Lavrenti was a little disgusted that the general was now "touting" the enemy's strength. "In that battle, we couldn't feel the strength of their armored force."
"But the defeated troops of the 32nd Army felt it! Nine thousand people were almost wiped out!" Yang Mingzhi knocked on the table and emphasized with disgust: "I have already said, forget the past victories. You must face this enemy.
, I can tell you clearly that before 1943, the three of you will definitely fight a big battle with this unit! Will we win or the enemy will win?"
"Of course it's us!" the three of them said in unison.
"Really? So you must know them. At least I got some important information in Moscow. I know them better than many people."
Now, Yang Mingzhi said this on purpose. In fact, his understanding of the Imperial Division was relatively limited, and all he knew was some information about the Imperial Division of that plane.
But in another dimension, this huge mechanized combat unit with a combat strength of nearly 20,000 people at one time achieved great success in the French campaign and was stationed in France for a long time to frighten and destroy all resistance actions by the French.
.
These guys used cruel methods and committed many atrocities in France.
They later participated in the invasion of the Soviet Union, but after completing their great achievements in the second half of 1941, the Soviet army launched a major counterattack on Vyazma in 1942, and here, the Imperial Division fell into a disgusting quagmire of war.
I am afraid that even the little butterfly Yang Mingzhi, who commanded the troops' operations in Belarus, also interfered with the war process of the Imperial Division.
Not only did the Imperial Division not be transferred back to France for replenishment in the summer, because the fighting on the front line from Rzhev to Vyazma was too fierce, the Imperial Division with its strong combat effectiveness was once used as a trump card for the German army to continue its offensive. Under the pressure of reality,
Model used it as a defensive weapon.
The situation of the German army is quite bad now. If the Imperial Division is transferred away under such conditions, Smolensk will lose an important shield!
Since Rzhev was recaptured by the Soviet army and its defenses were continuously strengthened, the German army also began to expedite the dispatch of new troops to the Ninth and Fourth Army.
The Imperial Division, known as one of the three aces of the SS, once suffered heavy losses in the war of attrition, but now they have received a batch of fresh blood.
The facts are even crazier than Yang Mingzhi estimated. The combat strength of the Imperial Division has been increased to 18,000 men!
However, SS troops such as the Imperial Division are fundamentally different from the German Wehrmacht. Their loyalty is not to Germany, but to that Austrian corporal with the mustache, the source of all evil.
The nearly 20,000 members of the Imperial Division a few months ago were almost all Germans. They were all tall guys with blond hair and blue eyes. Such people had typical Nordic physical characteristics, but in Europe, where mixed blood is very serious, even if
This is Germany, and there are only a few such people.
People with such physical characteristics in Germany are promoted as "descendants of the gods". Most Germans do not believe this too metaphysical statement, but it is true that Germany treats such people very highly.
They are not "descendants of gods", they are just ordinary people with golden hair, and a bullet can kill them.
Almost all such people in Germany were recruited, and Germany had to recruit similar volunteers elsewhere in Europe.
As a result, the Dutch, French and even Czechs appeared in the imperial division. Some of them were local Germans, or not Germans at all. But they all had one thing in common, golden hair, fair faces, and blue
beautiful colored eyes.
The German army recruited more than 2,000 volunteers in France alone, and more than 500 people in the Netherlands.
The Imperial Division supported the Smolensk operation at the end of August. In fact, their losses were not small. Although the Imperial Division made great achievements, after the war was over and the wounded soldiers were discarded, they once only had 12,000 men left to fight.
As a result, due to desperate efforts to increase troops, although the Imperial Division suffered losses every day in the tug-of-war in September, their strength was quickly increased to 18,000.
In addition to the increase in military strength, they also received a batch of heavy equipment.
Once upon a time, the Imperial Division was deployed with a large number of No. 1, No. 2 and Czech 38t tanks to make up the numbers. They lost a lot of tanks and received a lot of replacements. They even used the captured Soviet T3476, repaired it and painted it with German paint.
, expanded into its own strength. Its total number of tanks once approached 500.
During the whole year of fighting on the Eastern Front, these early tanks were either damaged in battle or used as tractors for transporting supplies.
The enhanced versions of No. 4 and No. 3 and the captured T3476 became the main vehicles of the Imperial Division. The combat number of them was actually only two hundred.
The heavy equipment of the Imperial Division has been being replaced. By October, they no longer need No. 1 and No. 2 to follow the charge.
Now, the Imperial Division has more than fifty Panzer IV tanks, and the rest are Panzer III tanks, captured T3476 tanks, and a small amount of 38t tanks.
The Imperial Division also has a hundred No. 3 assault guns. For now, these are counted as armored vehicles. After all, assault guns are powerful auxiliary vehicles for infantry attacks and are only used as tanks at critical moments.
Note that all tanks were remodeled when they arrived at the hands of the army. For example, a steel plate was welded to key parts, and soldiers often welded a thin steel sheet to the fence armor that was already equipped. The so-called "no dead ends" prevented the Soviet RPG warheads from passing through.
The gap penetrates in, thus detonating the armor-piercing projectile in advance and weakening the penetration depth of the hot metal liquid.
After a long battle, they nominally had more than a thousand armored vehicles of various types. In fact, they basically had one for every infantry squad. Moreover, these armored vehicles were also equipped with tow hooks, making it effortless to pull a heavy howitzer.
But now the number of armored vehicles has dropped to 600. Even so, the armaments of the Imperial Division are still the most luxurious among the German army!
Objectively speaking, they have a strong will to fight, they also have the most luxurious ordnance in the German army, and their supply of logistical supplies has always been very good, which constitutes their strong combat effectiveness.
The Imperial Division has completely bid farewell to horses and carriages. They are completely mechanized. They are also one of the few troops in the world with a strength of nearly 20,000 that can still be fully mechanized.
Of course, this unit is really a terrifying oil tiger. Their biggest task now is not to attack, but to defend the current line of defense. For the time being, the German army does not require this unit to carry out the high-speed maneuver breakthrough that it is proud of.
Now, many long-barreled Panzer IV tanks have been used as forts by the German army. Not to mention, their combat performance is actually quite good.
The Imperial Division was originally equipped with 500 trucks. Due to the insistence of the division commander, Model could not freely deploy these trucks belonging to the Imperial Division.
Therefore, Yang Mingzhi is now sternly warning his old subordinates about the dangers of the Imperial Division, but the actual situation is even more terrifying.
Regarding war, Yang Mingzhi believed that the optimism in the army was often a major source of his own failure, so he thought of the enemy as stronger and wiser, so that he could deal with it calmly when the war came.
Yang Mingzhi's data on the equipment quantity of the Imperial Division's heavy equipment was basically a blind guess. Of course, as an old guy on the battlefield, his estimate was not very different from the facts, especially the speculation on the number of Panzer IV tanks.
"Comrades, do you still remember the battle when we blocked the German army in Loyev City?" Yang Mingzhi suddenly asked.
"Of course! That battle was really dangerous!" Balzen sat upright suddenly and said specifically: "Natasha is not here now. If she were here, I'm afraid she would have more say."
"I know that it was a very dangerous battle. And you, Balzen, were the commander at the time. The Germans took advantage of the fog to launch an assault, and your defense line was almost breached."
"The actual first line of defense collapsed. They were all those damn Panzer IV tanks! Their armor was actually thickened to 90 mm. Our self-produced RPG warheads were basically useless against their frontal armor. If it weren't for the soldiers holding them
With a sacrificial attitude, I suddenly approached and bombarded its side to destroy it, and a big hole was torn in my defense line."
"That's right!" Yang Mingzhi slammed the table hard, "As far as I know, the current German Panzer IV tank has been further improved. If you want to break through its frontal armor, you must either use the cutting-edge 57mm caliber combat anti-cannon, or
It means direct bombardment by our Catfish rockets. But no matter what method is used, if the German army organizes a continuous tank assault force and faces a large number of German tanks, our anti-tank capabilities will still appear weak."