Chapter 156: The Southern Wing of the Eastern Front as the War Comes (Part 1)

Facts have proved that the attack time guaranteed by Comrade Zhukov's head is very reliable. When the cold current from the Arctic blows through, even the warmest Crimean Peninsula feels the biting cold, the road in the entire southern flank of the Eastern Front has been closed. Freeze firmly. All signs point to the coming of the winter of 1942, and the arrival of Russian reinforcements, General Winter.

Looking at the heavy snow falling from the sky, the Red Army soldiers cheered for joy. From officers to soldiers, they felt that their combat effectiveness had risen to a higher level. Of course, the Germans have also made full preparations this year. General Schmundt has worked hard to equip the frontline troops with winter equipment. For the convenience and convenience of transportation, not only all the trains and wagons are lined up in long queues to ship supplies to the Eastern Front, but Germany can All the ships that were mobilized were dispatched for North Sea transportation-they could not run ocean transportation anyway under the British and American naval blockade, and the cruisers and destroyers of the German Navy were used for escort missions. Fortunately, the Russian navy was extremely weak. During the two-month shipping process, except for four ships that collided due to careless operation, the remaining cargo ships suffered almost no damage.

Looking at the ships of different sizes, specifications and speeds, Schment still admired the head of state's foresight: he asked the warship designer to quickly design a general-purpose 10,000-ton transport ship. This kind of ship looked unattractive. The cargo capacity can reach 9,900 tons, and the internal dimensions seem to be tailor-made for Tiger tanks, which can conveniently accommodate the transportation of this new tank - although there is currently no Tiger on the Eastern Front, because all Tigers They were all sent to the North African desert to support Guderian, but Schmenter believed that the Tigers would definitely be equipped on a large scale on the Eastern Front next year. This large-scale replica of the ship is said to have been developed to compete with the American Liberty Ship concept. The head of state personally named it the "Will Wheel". They used a large number of prefabricated parts, flow operations and welding processes, and the construction speed was greatly improved. It is faster to manufacture than the previous riveted cargo ships, but the price is less than half of the previous price. The durability may be a little worse, but it should be enough to last until the end of the war. However, the Americans seem to be more skilled. They only need 98 days to build a Liberty Ship, while the German Voluntary Ship takes 127 days. If it is manufactured by an Italian shipyard, this time will take about 230 days. Minister Speer was aware of this problem. After Mussolini agreed to combine German and Italian military production, a large number of German workers, technicians and engineers rushed to Italian factories to help those comfortable and lazy Italian scum improve production. In terms of efficiency and technical level, Italian capitalists applauded this matter with both hands, and even the Italian leader's support, which had dropped due to the defeat on the North African battlefield, was restored a lot. As for the objections of the working class who were accustomed to comfort, the top officials in Rome pretended to be deaf to them.

In addition to the Italians, all countries with shipbuilding capabilities such as Romania, Finland, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Greece are also allowed to build this kind of freighter. The only requirement is that the design is not allowed to be changed, and all parts must be interchangeable with the German side. Their overall estimated build time is similar to the Italians. But even so, everyone is still happy, because this means that there will be a large number of cheap ships available in the future. The only unhappy person in Germany is probably Dönitz, the commander of the Navy's submarine force. After inspecting the construction site, he said something : "My boys are finished, they will never have peace..."

Schment's efforts over the past two months have been seen by everyone. In addition to arms and ammunition, he also bought millions of antifreeze, antifreeze gasoline additives, winter coats, gloves, hats with ear protection, high-calorie Chocolates and fast food trucks using self-heating agents were sent to the front line, allowing frontline soldiers in the ice and snow to truly feel the warmth of the Führer. The story of being defeated due to the unexpected cold last winter will never happen again - although The Soviets believed that 1941 was actually a mild winter, but no matter how warm the winter was, it would still be minus 30 degrees... The only drawback was that those hats with ear protection that were hastily made by women all over Europe looked too close to the Russian ones. Style, if a red star is embedded in the middle of the brim, it is a genuine Red Army hat. Therefore, the soldiers used many methods to solve the identification problem. The most effective method is to follow the pattern and embed an Iron Cross logo. The advantage is The Red Army caps captured by the soldiers can be used directly after replacing the cap badge.

Zhukov timed his attack well. When Manstein was using mobile power to attack the Red Army's defense line in Voronezh in the north and the Kalmyk steppe in the south, he used two tank armies (1st and 4th Tank Armies). , 1 Guards Army (1st Guards Army), 11 other group armies (12th, 18th, 21st, 24th, 37th, 51st, 57th, 62nd, 64th, 65th, 66th Army), code-named "Uranus" A huge offensive began. In order to support this counterattack, Comrade Stalin also spent a lot of money. Not only did he allocate all the mobile forces of the three front armies (Don Front, Southwestern Front, and Stalingrad Front) in the entire southern area, but he also desperately mobilized nearly 900,000 troops and 1,000 vehicles. The tanks are pressing towards the Germans. If that is not enough, another 300,000 troops drawn from the Far East and Siberia can also serve as strong backing for Zhukov.

Stalin's only requirement for this counterattack was to capture Rostov as soon as possible, split the German group in the Caucasus region (to be annihilated in the next stage of the battle), and annihilate the nest of the Russian Liberation Army. If possible, capture the traitor Vlasov and bring him to Moscow. He wanted to hang him in front of all the Red Army generals - so that Comrade Zhukov could receive a Red Banner Medal.

In terms of the comparison of the forces on the southern wing of the entire Eastern Front, the Red Army had a greater advantage: although the German Southern Army Group had concentrated nearly half of the forces on the Eastern Front, if the necessary forces on other defense lines such as Ukraine and the Crimean Peninsula were excluded, there were still about 1.3 million troops directly used for front-line combat (in addition, there were about 200,000 Axis brother troops to cooperate in combat, mainly Italians and Romanians, and the Hungarians were assigned to the Central Army Group to avoid fighting with the Romanians again), distributed on a front of about 2,400 kilometers from Bolkhov in the north to the Caucasus in the south. The Soviet army confronting it had Bryansk, Voronezh Front, Southwestern Front, Don Front, Stalingrad Front, and Caucasus Front, a total of 6 heavy troops, a total of about 2.6 million troops, even if the number of deep defense troops was excluded, the front-line combat force was as high as 2.2 million, far higher than the Southern Army Group.

The Red Army still has a certain advantage in terms of equipment and technical weapons, but not as obvious as the advantage in numbers: the number of tanks on both sides is 1,800 to 2,500 (of which Germany has 1,500 and another 300 belong to the Axis Allies), but only about 1,800 of the Red Army's 2,500 tanks are T-34 or equivalent (including KV series, old Shermans aided by the Americans, Valentines aided by the British, etc.), and the rest are outdated goods such as T-26 and T-70. Among Manstein's tanks, the Type 3 accounted for 40%, the old Type 4 accounted for 20%, and the Type 4G with a long barrel and 80 mm thick front armor has reached 40%. The Axis Allies' tanks are a little worse. Except for a small number of Type 4s, most of them are Type 3s, and some are Type 38Ts donated by the Germans. Considering the difference in tank performance and quantity, the Red Army has a slight advantage in armor strength, but the overall balance is high.

The difference in the number of artillery pieces between the two sides was large. The Red Army, which always adhered to the artillery doctrine, had a greater advantage. The German army had 17,000 artillery pieces of various calibers, while the Soviet army had more than 30,000 pieces. The only gratifying thing was that the number of medium and heavy artillery pieces above 75mm was basically equal. In terms of artillery quality, both Krupp and Skoda Arsenal's products were slightly better. The only advantage of the German army was the air force. The number of combat aircraft on both sides was about 1,600 to 1,300, and the performance of German aircraft had a greater advantage.

This equipment and force comparison was the result of Hoffman's best efforts. On the one hand, because he quickly stopped the offensive operations after September, the losses on both the Blue Plan in the Caucasus and the Stalingrad front were very small; on the other hand, because the production scale continued to rise rapidly after the early transition to the total mobilization system, the equipment replenishment efforts were increased. During the entire period of September and October, all the Type 2 tanks and Type 38Ts on the Eastern Front were cleared out and replaced with the latest Type 4Gs. The Type 2 tanks were converted into anti-aircraft vehicles, and the Type 38Ts were given to the Axis brothers as rewards (many people think so, but they don’t know that these countries provided a lot of logistical supplies and grain accordingly). In addition, the T-34 tanks handed in by the various army groups were also replaced with Type 4Gs. The commanders of the various army groups were very satisfied with this, which meant that the armored forces had at least increased their combat power by 30% without changing their organization, and what was even better was that they almost didn’t need to refuel or resupply.

The generals on the Eastern Front were very grateful to Speer, because the effect of the production adjustment in just two months was so great. If they could continue at this pace, it would not be a fantasy to complete the replacement of all Type 3 tanks before the end of the year. All the staff members of the High Command and the Army General Staff were glad that they did not take the bet on the tank production reorganization case. Otherwise, hundreds of officers above the rank of major general would have to stand guard for Speer in disgrace, and if each person worked for a week, they would have to wait until 1945.