"Comrade Chief of the General Staff, Commander Fedyuninsky sent a telegram that a large number of German tanks had been found in the area of Lyuban, southwest of Leningrad, and he felt that the Germans were likely to attack" "Offensive" Zhukov took a breath of cool air, "how many tanks have been discovered, where is our tank army at the moment" Lieutenant General Kokopev, chief of operations of the General Staff of the Red Army, replied: "According to the reconnaissance of the partisans and the Air Force, the German armored units that appeared in the Lyuban area should be at the level of an army group.
And the 4th Tank Army and the 6th Tank Army of our army are currently on standby near the city of Veliky Novgorod and can maneuver at any time. ” The tank units of the Soviet Red Army, which lost the Battle of the Junction, suffered heavy losses, and the number of tank assault guns lost on various battlefields on the Eastern Front was almost more than 6,000 Moreover, the city of Kharkiv, one of the four major tank manufacturing centers of the Soviet Union, is now also under attack by the German army, and the factories in the city are urgently relocated.
And the Kirov plant in Leningrad was largely shut down after the siege of Leningrad last year.
So now two of the four major tank-building centers of the USSR are temporarily paralyzed.
The production of tank assault guns has been significantly reduced, and the pace of replenishment has slowed down.
In addition, it is not enough to have a tank without a tank crew and a mechanic who repairs the tank, and the Soviet tanks are not easy to handle to the standards of a racing driver, and there are many breakdowns, which require high-level mechanics to repair.
It is not easy to make up for the lost crews and mechanics in a short period of time than to replenish tanks.
Therefore, the loss of more than 6,000 tanks and artillery pieces really does not know when it will be made up, and the Supreme Command of the Soviet Red Army is now also tasting the lack of tank troops And in order to fight the Fourth Leningrad Campaign, the Supreme Command took a lot of patchwork to put together a tank 6th Army for the Kalinin Front, and at the same time to replenish the 4th Tank Army.
At present, the two armies have about 1,700 tanks and guns, which is almost a "army group" armored cluster by German standards.
However, after the Battle of the Junction, the Soviet army became aware of the fact that the Soviet tank forces were far from being the opponent of the German armored forces And now Zhukov has pinned high hopes on the JS2 heavy tank, not a few have been built, and it is simply impossible to go into battle.
After listening to Kokopev's report, Zhukov's face was cloudy and thoughtful, and after a while, he asked Marshal Pavlov: "What do you think of this battle?"
Marshal Pavlov is now the First Deputy People's Commissar of Defense, and theoretically he is about half a rank of Zhukov's superior, but in practical work, he was unwittingly swayed by Zhukov, as if he had become Zhukov's chief of staff.
Hearing Zhukov's inquiry, he pondered and replied: "The Germans can't be allowed to attack first, and now except for the Leningrad Siege Front, both sides do not have a complete front, so whoever concentrates the armored forces first and puts them into the offensive is the first to attack." ” Zhukov nodded, he had the same opinion as Pavlov on this issue, but Stalin had to wait for Leningrad to complete the reorganization and the new JS2 tank to form combat effectiveness, and as a result, he was delayed for some time.
Otherwise, the Kalinin Front, most likely, would have already begun to attack by now.
"It's still too late," Pavlov said, "to get the 4th and 6th Tank Armies to attack the city of Pskov at once." ” Zhukov shook his head, this advice of Pavlov made him look down on the old fellow a little.
If you lose the first hand, you will lose, and you can't catch it back by chasing If you follow Pavlov's method to hit the city of Pskov, there will be more than 200 kilometers on the road, and you will definitely not be able to go during the day, otherwise the tank cluster will not be able to reach the place and the German planes will be bombed.
And if you want to walk day and night, you will walk for at least 2 nights, tonight and tomorrow night will be in a hurry, and you can attack as soon as the night after tomorrow, and then the Germans will rush into Kalinin, what else to fight "It's too late," Zhukov whispered, "the plan for an active offensive must be abandoned in favor of a mobile defense." ” "How to defend against mobile defense," Pavlov asked.
Zhukov has been thinking about this question since the defeat in the Battle of Gomel.
The biggest problem in the Battle of Gomel was that the Soviet tank units could not defeat the German armored clusters.
Barely attacking when it can't be beaten, the losses are of course heavy However, the battle of Collective Farm No. 13, which took place at the same time, showed that the Soviet tank group could still withstand the superior strength of the German army in defensive operations.
In this battle, the Soviet tank 5th Army fully withstood the onslaught of the opponent for more than 20 days, and in the end, although the whole army was annihilated, even the commander General Lukin was taken prisoner.
But the value of the battle was enormous, and it taught a Red Army commander like Zhukov how to use tank clusters to maneuver quickly and then put them into defensive operations in the most critical areas.
"Tonight, let the 4th Tank Army and the 18th Army go to the Little Vyshela to set up defenses," Zhukov thought for a moment, and then said, "The two armies should form a composite group, unify the command, and arrange the defense line with the tank brigade and the mechanized brigade as the core." ” The 18th Army, originally attached to the Southwestern Front, participated in the fierce fighting in Ukraine on the right bank in the winter of 1942.
At the time of the resumption of the Soviet-German war in May '43, the army group was regrouping near Moscow.
It was only recently completed that it was transferred to the Kalinin Front.
And this 18th Army is the so-called "composite group army", that is, a mobile group that combines motorized infantry, cavalry, mechanized troops and motorized artillery, and the five assault armies are of the same nature, all of which are units that can follow the mobile combat of tank groups.
In the later stage of the "joint army battle," the Soviet army's high command department had already realized the value of this kind of coordinated operation between the combined army and the tank army in the strategic defense stage, so it became the object of key development.
According to Zhukov's line of thought, because the Soviet-German battlefield was too vast, it was impossible for the Red Army to form a long and strong defensive line.
It is only possible to use highly motorized synthetic clusters to conduct defense-oriented operations in the field without strong fortifications, and this style of play is called "mobile defense" by Zhukov, although it does not guarantee victory, but at least it can obtain a relatively ideal exchange ratio.
Zhukov thought for a moment, and then said: "The 6th Tank Army continues to be covert in the vicinity of Veliky Novgorod, and after the 4th Tank Army and the 18th Army have fully exhausted the German armored clusters, it will be engaged in a counteroffensive. ” "Then should the left flank of the Kalinin Front retreat?"
Pavlov then asked about the left flank of the Kalinin Front, which was also the question of where the troops between Leningrad and Velikiye Luki were going.
According to the original plan, these troops were supposed to be used for assaults on the territory of the Baltic States, and now that the Germans were going to strike first, there was naturally no need for such a bluff assault.
"Can't be withdrawn."
Zhukov shook his head, "Someone has to block there, otherwise the German armored units on the Smolensk front line will easily go north to Pskov and even enter the battlefield near Leningrad" "Enter the battlefield near Leningrad" Pavlov frowned deeply, "you are afraid that they will besiege Leningrad again" "Yes," Zhukov nodded, "If the Kalinin Front is defeated, the Germans may most likely besiege Leningrad again, and our second capital of the Soviet Union is a big bargaining chip for peace, and the possibility that the Germans will really capture Leningrad cannot be ruled out now."
Therefore, the Leningrad side must also be prepared to be surrounded and defend the city again" The instructions of the High Command of the Red Army soon caused a chain reaction in the city of Leningrad: in 1918, the old revolutionary Kaminsky, who had joined the Red Army, was promoted from lieutenant deputy battalion commander to major battalion commander, while his friend and superior Voskoponiko became the commander of the 644th Infantry Regiment and remained Kaminsky's superior.
The 344th Infantry Regiment was part of the newly formed 347th Infantry Division, which was formed on the basis of Leningrad anti-G soldiers, Siberian labor reformers, and a small number of the original regular army.
The family soldiers were mixed with the Siberian labor campers, and the other was the regular Red Army troops who came from other places.
Of course, both the Leningrad anti-G soldiers and the Siberian labor camp were organizationally the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army under the leadership of the Bolshevik Party.
Like the troops with the title of guards, they are all revolutionary armies with party branches built up to companies, political deputy positions, and grassroots political workers.
In addition, in addition to the 347th Division, which is not very reliable, there are 30 such divisions in Leningrad, there are 15 more reliable divisions in Leningrad, including 5 Guards Infantry Divisions, the 1st, 20th, 21st, 22nd and 23rd.
The so-called Interior Guard Infantry Division is an infantry division composed of hundreds of thousands of members of the Border Guard Force, the Internal Defense Force, and other units under the control of the NKVD before the outbreak of war.
There are some in all the armies, and they are usually deployed 1020 kilometers behind the front-line combat units as reserves and overseers.
In Leningrad, five Interior Guards Infantry Divisions guarded the most central areas of the city.
On their periphery were 10 ordinary infantry divisions of the Red Army, neither Leningraders nor from Siberia, defending most of the urban areas of Leningrad.
As for those who held on to the periphery of Leningrad, of course, it was such an "unreliable unit" as the 347th Division of the Red Army. t1706231537: