The Rise of the Third Reich

Military enthusiasts in later generations always like to complain that Germany in World War II failed to mobilize in time, which caused the blond and blue-eyed Aryan supermen to always face the Soviet Red Army, which had an advantage in numbers and paper power, on the Soviet-German battlefield. But they often ignore the fact that mechanized equipment needs to be fed with sufficient fuel!

And the amount of fuel Germany has directly determines how many tanks and aircraft the "Germanic supermen" can use.

Of course, in the later stages of the war, when Germany entered the passive defense stage, mechanized troops no longer needed to maneuver over long distances, and the logistics line was relatively shortened, they could use less fuel to support more mechanized equipment.

However, compared with the United States and the Soviet Union, two oil tycoons who have a total of 300 million tons of oil, Germany can support more armored forces and aircraft with only 10 million tons of various oils.

Fortunately, Germany under the guidance of Hessmann chose to take the Mediterranean and Middle East oil seas first... Although this gave the Soviet Union an extra year of war preparation, it was able to arm a more powerful Red Army, making it impossible for Germany to launch a large-scale full-scale offensive in the first year of the Soviet-German war.

However, after taking over the Middle East oil sea, Germany's oil bottleneck was greatly alleviated. Now the European Community has an expected annual oil production of 34 million tons (in 1943) and 8 million tons of synthetic fuels (including various fuels extracted from coal and oil shale). In addition, there are 15 synthetic fuel plants (coal-to-oil) that are about to be built in the UK, and the production capacity is not included. If these plants are put into production, the European Community can get millions of tons more fuel a year.

However, the fuel production that has increased several times compared with history cannot be fully converted into the advantages of German mechanized forces. Because in this time and space, in order to win over European countries, Germany had to use precious oil resources to maintain the normal operation of the economies of various countries.

According to the distribution plan in 1943, France, Rome (Italy), and the United Kingdom (mainland and India) received 250,000 tons of oil quotas each month, Germany (including Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia, Ukraine and Slovenia) received 300,000 tons, and the rest of the European Community received 250,000 tons. A total of 15.6 million tons of precious fuel is used for the training needs of the economies of various countries and domestic armed forces (the training fuel of the German army is not included in the monthly quota of 400,000 tons).

About 42 million tons of oil minus 15.6 million tons, there are still 26.4 million tons left, which seems to be a lot. But Germany in this time and space has one more oil-consuming country than in history - the navy!

With the continuous entry of a large number of newly built ships, the scale of the European Combined Fleet is becoming larger and larger, and the current total tonnage is close to 3 million tons! It is 50% more than the total tonnage of the Japanese Combined Fleet, and the fuel consumption is naturally an astronomical figure.

If the fleet is deployed collectively, the fuel consumption per day will be at least 20,000 tons! This does not include the fuel consumption of the aircraft owned by the European Combined Fleet. Therefore, for this European Combined Fleet alone, the German Wehrmacht Fuel Reserve General Administration has arranged a quota of 4 million tons of heavy oil/diesel and 500,000 tons of aviation gasoline per year.

In addition to the European Combined Fleet, the European Combined Transport/Escort Command is also a large oil consumer.

This command controls more than 15 million tons of cargo ships and tankers with a full load displacement, and also has more than 150 escort ships, including 18 escort aircraft carriers. Therefore, the annual fuel quota (mainly diesel) is no less than 2 million tons (a considerable number of ships are coal-fired).

After deducting the navy's 6.5 million tons of fuel quota, the German Wehrmacht has only 19.9 million tons of fuel at its disposal.

And 1.9 million tons of it belong to the "strategic reserve" and are reserved for emergencies. The remaining 18 million tons is the total amount of fuel that the German Air Force (including the Marine Corps), the Army, and all foreign troops fighting under the command of the German Wehrmacht General Staff can use in 1943. It is more than double the year in history when the German army had the most abundant fuel supply.

However, with twice as much oil, the German army, including the armies of various countries fighting for Germany, has at least twice as many aircraft, tanks and various vehicles in stock!

Therefore, the German Wehrmacht has to continue to be frugal in terms of fuel.

"In the first half of 1942, we spent almost all our previous accumulation. From the second half of 1942, we started to save some money every month. In addition, before the armistice with Britain (mainland), the navy also seized many American tankers. Therefore, by the end of March, we had 1.496 million tons of reserves." The person who answered the question about fuel reserves was Edward Milch, the director of the Wehrmacht Reserve Bureau, now Air Force General.

He did not do as well in this time and space as in history. He served as the director of the Air Force Armament Bureau and the commander of the Air Force Transport Command. Now he is the director of the Reserve Bureau in charge of all strategic material reserves of the Wehrmacht, but such a position is very suitable for him.

"How much surplus can be left each month?" Hersman asked.

"About 200,000 tons," Milch said, "This is oil. If it is refined into gasoline, there will be less."

"Fight for 6 months," Hersman said thoughtfully, "The offensive will start in May and end in November. That is about 1.5 million tons of reserves plus 1.4 million tons of surplus from April to October, a total of 2.9 million tons." He thought for a while and asked again: "The army and the air force should still have some reserves, right?"

"Yes," Guderian replied, "I don't know about the situation of the Air Force. As for the Army...not counting the reserves of units below the army, there must be 1 million tons of oil products now. In addition, the oil products issued every month Approximately one-third of the total in Zhongdu is reserved for battle reserves.”

"The same goes for the Air Force," Milchi did some mental calculations and said, "With the reserves of the Air Force, Naval Aviation and Army, we will have up to 5 million tons of oil by the end of October this year, and there will be another 3.5 million tons of oil for the battles from April to October. Reserve, so the maximum is 8.5 million tons.”

Hessman touched his chin and said: "Leave another 300,000 tons in emergency reserves, 1 million tons for the South American and Indian battlefields, and the remaining 7.2 million tons should be used for the attack on the Soviet Union."

"Up to 1.2 million tons per month," Guderian shook his head. "Compared to our vehicles and aircraft, this number is not very rich!"

"Then... then let's fight at the gate of Moscow!" Hessman thought about it and said, "The straight-line distance from Nulves in Lithuania to Moscow is only 780 kilometers. We must have enough oil to fight Moscow. ?”

"Enough." Guderian nodded and said, "If we want to outflank Ukraine and then advance into Stalingrad, our oil supply will be very tight. But if we target Moscow, there will be no problem. But Moscow is not easy to defeat. ah……"

"There is no need for a real fight," Hersman shook his head. "We can have a decisive battle with the Soviet Western Front and Kalinin Front near Smolensk. After winning, we can approach Moscow and have a decisive battle with the Soviet reserve front. Finally, we can compete with mechanized equipment. The small number of light-armed troops went south to Kharkov and Donetsk, and fought all the way to the Sea of ​​Azov.”

"Use light troops with less mechanized equipment to go south?" Guderian thought for a while and asked, "Marshal of the Empire, do you think that after we win outside Moscow, Stalin will mobilize the army from Ukraine to go north?"

"Definitely," Hessmann smiled, "Leningrad is under siege and Moscow is in danger...Stalin should know the consequences of the fall of these two cities!"

Now there is a legal court of the Russian Empire on the German side! If Empress Olga gets both Moscow and Petrograd, then the Bolshevik rule in Russia will undoubtedly come to an end.

Therefore, Stalin must fight against the city in Moscow!

"Of course, the great leader of the Bolsheviks, Stalin, may also accept the peace conditions we propose," Hessmann said with a smile, "in this case, the war will be won."

…

"Strengthen the Southwest Front and weaken the Reserve Front and Kalinin Front?" Joseph Stalin frowned deeply and looked at the outline of the battle plan just sent by Pavlov and Shalashnipov. “Can the weakened Kalinin Front complete the liberation of Leningrad?

And... what should we do if the Germans focus their attack on the center? "

"Comrade General Secretary," Marshal Pavlov said, "we have already considered this. The second Leningrad siege relief battle will be postponed to June 1. Because by then, we will basically be able to determine whether the Germans What is the main target?”

Stalin smoked his pipe, thought for a moment, nodded and said: "They will definitely launch a major offensive this year, because their ally Japan is obviously difficult to sustain for a long time... If they cannot defeat us in 1943, then in 1944 they will only I can fight alone.”

"Yes," Golashnikov said, "and the climate of the Soviet Union determines that the best time for the Germans to attack is between May after the spring mud season and October or November when the autumn mud season comes. They We must be defeated in just 6 months, so it is impossible to waste a whole month, so the time to launch the attack must be in May.”

"Yes, it must be May." Stalin also agreed with this judgment, because the Germans began preparations for rest in the late autumn of last year, and they had been resting for half a year in May. There was no problem of insufficient preparation.

"So... if their attack target is in the middle," Stalin asked again, "are we sure of defeating them?"

"Yes!" Pavlov said, "According to the plan, Comrade Zhukov will unified command the more than 2.5 million troops of the Kalinin Front, the Western Front and the Reserve Front to start a decisive battle with the Germans!"