The Rise of the Third Reich

"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 and the Western Front Headquarters will be moved to Minsk, Mazowiecke Province, Poland as soon as possible. By the way, send it again. 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 Raziming, 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.

Hearing that the commanders of the three heavy armored battalions under his command reported that most of the Tigers were available, Major General Hube breathed a sigh of relief. He turned to his superior, General Reinhardt, and smiled bitterly: "General, our heavy armored division can be put into use again. Should we attack now or wait until tomorrow morning?"

"We have to act now, but not to attack, but to defend." General Reinhardt waved to an adjutant beside him, who immediately spread out a military map in front of Hube. Reinhardt pointed to the small town of Ruda between the Radzimin and Renaf rivers on the map, "Three heavy armored battalions, the Hungarian assault gun brigade, and the SS Walloon Brigade will set out here immediately to deploy defenses. Today's daytime air force reconnaissance found that a large mechanized cluster of the Soviets began to turn back to the east after being blocked by Manteuffel's cavalry, and it is estimated that they will cross the river from the pontoon bridge near Serotsk tonight."

"We will stop them in Ruda?" Hube already understood Reinhardt's intention.

Now the German Air Force has remote-controlled glide bombs and controls most of the air superiority in the war zone, so it is not difficult to blow up the pontoon bridge. Since the Air Force did not blow up the bridge, it must be that they wanted to let the Soviet tank cluster cross the Renaf River.

"That's right, Hans, you go to defend Ruda and teach the Russians a lesson with the Tiger tanks!" Reinhardt said. "I will defend Radzimin, and use the Panther and the No. 4 to deal with the Russians heading north!"

Hube found that the plan had changed, so he asked: "Defend Radzimin? Not attacking Wowomin?"

"Not attacking Wowomin," Reinhardt smiled, "It was originally a short assault. How many troops do we have? It is impossible to repel millions of Soviet troops. The goal is to kill them to the maximum extent. The air force reconnaissance during the day also found that the Soviet army has a tendency to gather towards Wowomin, and it is obvious that they are preparing to attack us together with the Soviet armored group on the west bank of the Renaf River. We just take this opportunity to give them a taste of their power!"

...

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

In the meeting room of the Berlin High Command, 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 when he saw Chief of Staff Kesselring.

"Leader, it's not a decisive battle, just a short assault." Kesselring replied, "About two army-level armored groups will be deployed, and we will have more than 900 tanks/assault guns participating in the battle." "Isn't a battle involving more than 900 tanks/assault guns decisive?" Hitler was a little surprised to hear the number of tanks/assault guns participating in the battle, "Then how many tanks/assault guns will be deployed in the decisive attack?" "There will be about 8,000 tanks/assault guns participating, accounting for two-thirds of the Wehrmacht's armored forces." Hessmann, who was presiding over the meeting of the High Command, interrupted at this time. "The short assault that began in the early morning of the 20th was only to further attract the main force of the Soviets to the Warsaw battlefield and create favorable conditions for the major counterattack in the Blue Plan."

When mentioning the major counterattack in the Blue Plan, Hitler's mustache moved and he showed a smug smile: "Marshal Pétain and General Weygand agreed to send 10 artillery divisions with a total of more than 1 suppression artillery before the end of July to support our operations. By mid-August, another 10 French artillery divisions will arrive at the front, and by the end of August, another 10 artillery divisions will be sent. By then, there will be 30 artillery divisions with a total of more than 48 suppression artillery at our disposal. In addition, the French will also send a railway artillery cluster, with hundreds of large-caliber railway artillery to participate in the attack on Soviet cities. siege of cities and fortresses.

Imperial Marshal, with so many French cannons joining us, there will be no Russian cities and fortresses that we cannot take down, right? "

"Leader, the Soviet Union is a very large country!" Hersmann glanced at Hitler and smiled, "We can't take all the cities, we can only take the approach of focusing on attacking."

Hitler nodded, "So where should we focus on attacking now?"

Marshal Kesselring replied: "The opinion of the General Staff is to focus on attacking Minsk and feinting at Leningrad at the same time. After capturing Minsk and defeating the Soviet Western Front, we will switch our forces to attack Ukraine."

"Feinting at Leningrad?" Hitler thought for a moment, "But how can we convince Stalin that our target is Leningrad?"