Chapter 668: The Empire Strikes Back End

"Comrade Commander, the Supreme Command has agreed to our request. The Front Army Headquarters can be moved to the Brest Fortress or to Poland. All 20 armies of the Western Front can be used for the Poland-Western Ukraine operation. The original Western Front Army In addition, the entire Belorussian Defense Area will be transferred to the Reserve Front Army. In addition, Comrade Ponomarenko will no longer serve as the Military Commissar of the Front Army, and the position of Military Commissar will be held by Comrade Bulganin.”

At 7 o'clock in the evening on July 21, the Western Front Chief of Staff Rimoschik informed General Pavlov of the instructions he had just received from the Supreme Command. The strength of the Western Front has not increased on its books, and is still 20 armies. However, several armies originally deployed in Belarus can now be used for combat in Poland.

In addition, the Military Commissar of the Western Front Ponomarenko finally threw away the hot potato, and the person who took over this fatal job was Stalin's confidant, Vice Chairman of the People's Commissar and President of the State Bank of the Soviet Union Nikolai Alexander. Drovich Bulganin.

This Bulganin did not have any military experience and was a Cheka soldier. However, he had been engaged in economic and government work since 1922 and was an experienced senior government official and economic expert. So Stalin gave him another position, the General Advisor of the Third International to the Bolshevik Party in Poland, which was actually the Supreme General Secretary of Poland. In addition to leading the political work of the Western Front, his task was also to help the Polish Bolsheviks establish people's power as soon as possible. .

After hearing the decision of the Supreme Command, Pavlov breathed a sigh of relief and said, "Call back to the Supreme Command. The Western Front Headquarters will be moved to Minsk, Mazovia Province, Poland, as soon as possible. By the way, send another message. A telegram was sent to Comrade Bogdanov (Commander of the Reserve Front), asking him to come to Minsk as soon as possible to discuss the matter of taking over the defense of Belarus.”

"Comrade Commander, there is no need for Comrade Bogdanov to come to Minsk," Rimoschik said. "The Supreme Command has just issued an order to appoint Deputy Chief of General Staff Comrade Vasilevsky as the commander of the Reserve Front. member."

Vasilevskiy is now the representative of the Supreme Command stationed in the Western Front. He is familiar with the situation on the Polish front and Belarus, so he is very suitable to serve as the commander of the new reserve front.

Pavlov nodded, "It's Comrade Vasilevsky... That's good, then I can rest assured. With him as the commander of the reserve front, there will be no danger in our rear."

"By the way, have there been any changes on the front line?" Pavlov asked again about the latest situation on the front line.

"It was quite calm before dark." Rimoschik replied. "Our 3rd Army was unable to mobilize during the day due to the indiscriminate bombing by the Germans, and their two armored groups did not launch an attack. In the Vistula The cluster north of the river is still near the town of Zakroqim, probably waiting for the troops to arrive... This should be a quite large cluster, probably at the army level! I don't know about the heavy armored cluster that captured Raziming. Why, there was no action, no advance towards Wowomin or the Renaf River."

"You haven't taken action yet?" Pavlov rubbed his head and frowned. This heavily armored group has been delayed for almost 10 hours. What are you waiting for? Will more heavy tanks arrive in Razimin?

Thinking of this, the cold sweat on Pavlov's forehead began to gather again.

…

"Is everything fixed?"

"Sir, most of them have been repaired. Now the 501st Battalion has 41 Tiger tanks available for use."

"Sir, most of the Tigers of the 502nd Battalion have been repaired, and 40 of them are ready for operation."

"Sir, 42 Tigers of the 503rd Battalion are ready for use."

Major General Hubei, the division commander of the German "Hubei Heavy Armored Division", was also wiping beads of sweat at this time. The sweat beads were not caused by heat, but by urgency. Because most of his Tiger tanks were broken down after more than twenty hours of continuous combat. Either the gearbox gears cracked, or they burned themselves while walking, or it was a common failure of the track and road wheels - if you switch to a No. 4 or No. 3 assault gun, failure of the track and road wheels are minor problems. But it's different on the Tiger tank. Because the Tiger uses staggered road wheels, once a failure occurs (mainly due to wear and tear), several road wheels must be removed at the same time to repair. The track replacement of the Tiger tank is also very troublesome, because the tank is too heavy to be towed to a temporary repair point. Three Sdkfz9Famo half-track trailers are needed to tow one Tiger tank. Moreover, the tracks are too tight and cannot be dismantled simply by removing the pins. Sometimes oxygen cutting is required to fuse the tracks.

Fortunately, Germany now has the best team of technical workers in the world, otherwise the problem of Tiger repair alone would make the front-line armor commanders crazy.

In the battle from the early morning of the 20th to the morning of the 21st, only 6 Tiger tanks were actually damaged by Soviet artillery fire, while nearly 40 Tiger tanks were damaged due to various malfunctions.

So much so that Major General Hubei did not dare to let these delicate tanks that "break down as soon as they are used" continue to fight. After the capture of Razimin, all tanks were ordered to stop for maintenance - if they were broken, they should be repaired quickly, and if they were not broken, they should be carefully inspected and a few easily damaged parts should be replaced to avoid losing the chain when they go to the battlefield again.

Major General Hubei was relieved when he heard that the battalion commanders of his three heavy armored battalions reported that most of the Tigers could be used. He turned to his superior, General Reinhard, and gave a wry smile: "General, our heavy armored division can be put into use again. Should we attack now, or wait until dawn tomorrow?"

"We need to take action now, but not to attack, but to defend." Admiral Reinhard waved to an adjutant beside him, who immediately spread a military map in front of Hube. Reinhard pointed to the small town Ruda on the map, which is located between the Razimin and Reinav rivers. "Three heavy armored battalions, the Hungarian assault artillery brigade and the SS Wallonian brigade set out immediately to set up defenses here. Today during the day Air Force reconnaissance found that a large mechanized group of the Soviets began to turn back east after being blocked by Manteuffel's cavalry, and is expected to cross the river from the pontoon bridge near Serotsk tonight."

"Are we going to stop them in Ruda?" Huber already understood Reinhardt's intention.

Now that the German Air Force has remote-controlled gliding bombs and controls most of the air superiority in the theater, it is not difficult to blow up the pontoon bridge. Since the Air Force did not blow up the bridge, it must have wanted to let the Soviet tank group across the Renav River.

"That's right, Hans, you go defend Ruda and teach the Russians a lesson with Tiger tanks!" Reinhardt said. "I'll guard Razimin and use Black Panther and No. 4 to take care of the Russians heading north!"

When Hubei discovered that the plan had changed, he asked: "Guard Raziming? Are you not going to attack Wowoming?"

"We won't fight Wowomin anymore," Reinhardt said with a smile. "It was originally a short assault. How many troops do we have? It is impossible to repel millions of Soviet troops. We can only achieve our goal if we can kill them as much as possible. During the day, the Air Force Our reconnaissance also found that the Soviet army was still tending to gather towards Wowoming, and they were obviously preparing to attack us together with the Soviet armored group on the west bank of the Renav River. We just took the opportunity to give them a taste of their power!"

…

"Marshal, there will be a decisive battle tonight?"

In the conference room of the Berlin headquarters, Hitler, who had just returned from Paris (he went to discuss France's participation in the war with Marshal Pétain), immediately asked about the war as soon as he saw Chief of the General Staff Kesselring.

"Leader, it's not a decisive battle, just a short assault." Kesselin replied, "About two army-level armored groups will be deployed, and we will have more than 900 tanks/assault artillery participating in the battle."

"The battle involving more than 900 tanks/assault guns is not decisive?" Hitler was a little surprised when he heard the number of tanks/assault guns participating in the battle. "So how many tanks/assault guns will be invested in a decisive attack?"

"About 8,000 tanks/assault artillery will participate, accounting for two-thirds of the armored strength of the Wehrmacht." Hessmann, who presided over the meeting of the headquarters, interjected at this time. "The short assault that started in the early morning of the 20th was just to further attract the main Soviet troops to the Warsaw battlefield and create favorable conditions for the major counterattack in the Blue Plan."

Mentioning the big counterattack in the Blue Plan, Hitler twitched his mustache and showed a triumphant smile: "Marshal Pétain and General Weygand agreed to dispatch 10 artillery divisions by the end of July, with a total of more than 1 suppressive artillery. To support our operations. By mid-August, another 10 French artillery divisions will arrive at the front line, and by the end of August, 30 artillery divisions with a total of more than 48 suppressive artillery will be used by us. . In addition, the French will send a railway artillery group with hundreds of large-caliber railway guns to participate in the offensive against Soviet cities and fortresses.

Imperial Marshal, with the addition of so many French artillery, there is no Russian city or fortress that we cannot defeat, right? "

"Leader, the Soviet Union is a very big country!" Hessmann glanced at Hitler and said with a smile, "We can't take down all the cities, we can only use focused attacks."

Hitler nodded, "So where should we focus our attack now?"

Marshal Kesselin replied: "The opinion of the General Staff is to focus on attacking Minsk and feigning an attack on Leningrad at the same time. After capturing Minsk and defeating the Soviet Western Front, they will then switch to attacking Ukraine."

"Fake attack on Leningrad?" Hitler thought for a moment, "How can we make Stalin believe that our target is Leningrad?"