Seven Hundred and Four Play

In the busy headquarters of the German Army Group E on the Eastern Front, Commander Liszt is drawing something on the map with his staff. His defense line is in Belarus on the entire Soviet-German defense line, and the straight-line distance from Minsk is considered to be the closest. .

A staff officer put several fuzzy aerial photos on the table, and then pointed to one of them and introduced to General List: "General, this is a comparison of two aerial photos of the same place. There's been a lot of camouflage built around here, and there's no exact analysis of what they're trying to hide."

Another camouflage officer pointed to the enlarged partial photo with a frown and said with a frown: "If we are operating a camouflage net of this size, it should be a large piece of equipment such as a tank or an aircraft." , it may also be a car or a howitzer. In short, if it is not a deceptive camouflage, these enlarged places should be large-scale equipment."

Although it is known that the Soviets are preparing for a large-scale winter offensive, the German army does not know the specific attack direction of the Soviets, so each group army is trying to analyze the possibility of the Soviets attacking in their defense zone. After all, this is related to the first Whether the defensive operation in the first stage is successful or not.

In Liszt's defense zone, the Soviets behaved relatively calmly, but the German army held the battlefield air supremacy on the Eastern Front, so the reconnaissance planes that often took off finally found some suspicious places.

For example, around some forests, unknowingly, there are more vegetation areas that were not there before. Obviously, these are all camouflages set up by the Soviets. As for what is inside, the Germans cannot distinguish clearly. It could be a tank, it could be an infantry barracks, it could even be nothing at all, just some fake camouflage to confuse the opponent.

"In terms of distance, our heavy artillery can't hit this area. If we use bombers, the risk will be greater." A staff officer felt that this problem was more difficult, and it belonged to the category where both the army and the air force were not suitable: "Our large-caliber There are not many artillery pieces, and the range is limited. Most of these places are more than 20 kilometers deep, so it is obviously unrealistic to use artillery. The Air Force reported that it could not confirm the situation there, and suspected that there was ground anti-aircraft fire from the other side."

The Luftwaffe fighter jets on the Eastern Front have already ruled the sky, but the Soviets are not completely waiting to die. They use decoys and preset anti-aircraft gun positions to lure German pilots to attack, so as to ambush German dive bombers and small bombers. purpose of counterattack.

Therefore, even though the Luftwaffe was free to come and go over the Soviet Union, the Air Force still took a cautious attitude towards the bombing of take-off aircraft. Moreover, only relying on the comparison of two photos as evidence, requiring the Air Force to take off a plane to bomb a forest with no strategic value, obviously any Air Force commander must carefully consider it.

Lisztmer remained silent. In fact, as a senior German military commander, the instinct deeply buried in his bones made him feel that the targets marked on these comparison photos were eerily dangerous.

It made him unable to move away from his scrutinizing gaze. He feels that these anomalies are definitely not that simple, but he lacks valid evidence to support his view.

The entire Soviet-German defense line is now in the shape of an s. The upper part is half of Belarus controlled by the Soviet Union, and the lower part is most of Ukraine cut off by Germany. In fact, Germany's offensive plan is exactly the opposite of that of the Soviet Union. The action plan is to encircle the Soviet troops near Minsk and wipe out the Soviet troops nearby.

This is determined by the geographical environment of the areas occupied by both sides, because after taking this map of the actual control line of both sides, the first thought of most generals is to level this twisted S-shaped line of defense-it may be obsessive-compulsive disorder, but more The reason is that it is always easier to attack from the side than to attack from the front.

The principle is similar to attacking a person with a knife. If you hit a person's stomach with a knife, you may only leave a bloody wound, but if you hit his protruding part, you may cut off the opponent's stomach. An arm, as far as the result is concerned, the effect of breaking the arm looks more shocking.

However, the German Supreme Command drew up an overall plan that went in the opposite direction. Unlike the Soviet Union, which focused on attacking from north to south, the German army adopted a tactic in which both wings went hand in hand in the overall strategy. In the north, Marshal Rundstedt Army Group A led the main attack, while in the south, Army Group G led by General Guderian mainly attacked, and together they completed the entire "New Barbarossa" offensive plan.

But before the offensive begins, more depends on the defense line, including the four armies of Klug, Liszt, Model, and Weicks, as well as the five new m army formed by Manstein at the southernmost tip. Whether the defense and counterattack of the group army can be carried out smoothly.

Just like on the football field, those forwards who destroy the city are brilliant, but a team can win more by relying on a stable midfielder. Those stable defenders or midfielders may not be able to make the team Familiar star, but definitely a pivotal existence in a team.

Although generals such as Guderian and Rommel are more fascinating, it is impossible for all the generals in a country's army to be so shining. More soldiers are as simple and unpretentious as steel, but they are absolute in their positions. It is an irreplaceable existence. It can be said that it is with them that the myth of an invincible empire has truly been built.

Among the German generals on the Eastern Front, except for Kluge who relied on his absolute loyalty to the head of state and obedience to stand in the position of army commander, the other generals were carefully selected by Akado. Competent field specialist.

Among them was Weicks, the commander of the group army, who was stable and well-regulated in combat. This field expert was good at encirclement and annihilation warfare. He was an excellent frontline commander. He performed very well in the encirclement operations in Poland. Known as an elite national defense force, he is a general with no obvious shortcomings.

The other general, Model, is a general known as the "Imperial Wall" because he is good at commanding defensive operations. He led the troops to defend the position in Poland, annihilated a large number of Soviet forces with local counterattacks, and finally bought time for the main force to encircle the main force of the Soviet Union. Therefore, he is familiar to the world. If Guderian and Rommel are the imperial twins in terms of offense , then Model is a steady general who is immovable in defense.

However, this most defensive general was not in the position where the Soviet Union was about to launch a general offensive, but led his army group, waiting near Kyiv for a possible large-scale attack by Soviet troops. This is why Akado insisted on such an arrangement, because he hoped that after the counterattack began, the two armies of Guderian and Manstein could have a solid rear.

General Liszt, like Weicks, is a general without obvious shortcomings. He was already the main German general in Poland on the Eastern Front when the Germans invaded France. He dared to put him on the Eastern Front to deal with possible Soviet attacks Offensive, this in itself is a kind of affirmation for Liszt, he accomplished the task brilliantly, built the prototype of the multi-port defense line, and laid a solid foundation for the victory in the first phase of the Soviet-German War.

Now he is in charge of the defense of the area south of Minsk. For this reason, he has carefully constructed three lines of defense. If these lines of defense are overlooked from the sky, they are a bit like a matt shape, and they are also used to transfer troops in the vertical direction of the line of defense. The trench design, and the blank areas of matts are filled with mines and obstacles, forming a good flank cover.

At the junction of the trenches, he strengthened machine gun bunkers and anti-tank artillery, in order to eliminate as much as possible of the effective force of the Soviet offensive forces. The entire position is actually the improvement and development of the crenel-type defense line. To put it bluntly, it is a bit like a simple World War I position, with more investment than the typical defense line of World War II, and more permanent fortifications.

This is also the obvious feature of the first phase of Germany's "New Barbarossa Plan", which is to use permanent fortifications to spend the dangerous early period, buy time for the German armored forces, and protect the forward offensive positions-as long as the early period is over Dangerous time, then the departure point of the German armored forces will extend a large distance ahead of another time and space in history, so that Moscow, which cannot be reached in another time and space, becomes one of the pockets of the German armored forces things.

"Report!" Just as Liszt was thinking about whether to ask the Air Force to reconnaissance these suspicious places again, an officer pushed open the door of the combat headquarters and walked in front of General Liszt: "Long live the head of state! Mo General Del has called, the Soviets have started bombarding his forward positions on a large scale, and the battle has begun!"

"Fight the front of Kyiv first? The Soviets are interesting this time..." Liszt walked to the front of the map, squinted his eyes and looked at the location of Kiev on the huge map of the Eastern Front. After knocking twice, a person murmured, "Is it a feint? Or does Zhukov really want to knock down the front of Kyiv?"

After thinking for about ten seconds, he turned around, looked at the air force liaison officer in the corner of the headquarters, and ordered: "Order, the air force reconnaissance aircraft unit directly under our army, take off the plane immediately, and investigate the Those suspicious places! If those camouflages are not false targets, they should move now! I have a hunch! This time the curtain rises, it's my turn to play!"