Chapter 895

Kirilov and wittkov were both overjoyed when they learned that the German army was attacked by our army and ran away with a little resistance, but I had an unexpected premonition in my heart. What they see is how many miles our troops have advanced and occupied several towns or settlements; But what I can see is that the Germans are gradually shrinking their forces, and our supply lines are getting longer and longer with the rapid advance of the troops. Every time we occupy a place, we have to leave our troops behind to defend. In this way, our main force for tackling difficulties will inevitably be weakened.

Kirilov was very good at observing words and expressions. Seeing that I looked gloomy, he went to me and sat down. He asked with concern, "o'shanina, why do you look unhappy when you hear the report from Comrade Bantai leiev?"

I pushed the map in front of him, and then raised my head to greet Vitkov, who was still standing by: "chief of staff, please come here, too. I'll tell you what I'm worried about now."

After witkov was seated, I pointed to the map and said to them, "political commissar and chief of staff, although general bantailiev's progress is very fast, it worries me because they only annihilated a small part of the German troops in the battle of seizing the three towns. What do these small battles tell us about the paltry results? " Seeing that neither of them spoke, I asked and answered myself“ My superficial conclusion is that since Paulus' troops were annihilated in Stalingrad, the German army has become unable to fight. The morale of the soldiers is low, the morale of the soldiers is lax, and they have no intention to fight at all. That's why they are vulnerable in the battle. "

"Of course, we succeeded in encircling and annihilating the troops of Paulus, which greatly shocked the German officers and soldiers and made them understand that they can't do whatever they want in our territory." Wittkov misunderstood what I meant and said excitedly: "if we continue to move forward at the current speed, I think our troops will be able to occupy Kuban in a week and directly threaten the zaborosh area where the German command is located."

"Chief of staff," kirilov saw the apathy on my face when I was listening to wittkov's words. He guessed that I must not be satisfied with wittkov's statement, and kindly reminded the other party, "I think you may have misunderstood oshanina's meaning. Even if the German army lost the 6th group army of Polus, it would not be vulnerable immediately, I think there must be some unknown reason. "

"The commissar is absolutely right." I echoed kirilov's view in a timely manner: "if the enemy leaves at one touch every time, then our logistics supply line will be longer and longer, and we simply can't deploy enough troops to protect this long supply line. Once the German army implements a large-scale detour, our army may be cut off and surrounded by the German army. "

After hearing this, wittkov scratched the back of his head and said in an uncertain tone: "Comrade commander, the situation is not as bad as you think. You know, our army currently has three front armies in Ukraine, and its strength is several times more than that of the German army. Even if Manstein is a famous commander of the German army, but his strength and equipment are absolutely inferior, do you think he still has the possibility to win? "

"You see," I didn't entangle with wittkov on specific issues, but analyzed them with my finger on the map: "according to the intelligence, the main forces of Voronezh front army and southwest front army are on our north side. After the battle of Rostov, general Malinowski's southern army successfully recovered Rostov and will successfully cross the MIUs river. At present, their main force is stationed in Taganrog, and the closest to our army is the second group army of the guards, which has successfully occupied Mariupol in Ukraine. "

Wittkov and kirilov looked at each other and exchanged a meaningful look. Then he asked, "Comrade commander, we can see everything you said from the war report provided to us by the group army command. But I can't think of any connection between this and your feeling of German abnormality? "

"Very simple, my chief of staff." I couldn't laugh or cry about his stubbornness, so I had to point to the map and analyze it to him and say, "take a good look at the map. There is a gap between the southwest front army and the southern front army, which is hundreds of kilometers wide. The reason why our army was transferred here from the 62nd group army is probably to plug this gap. At present, the war situation is extremely favorable for our army. I believe that both the front army command and the group army command want to make a quick decision, push the troops to the Dnieper River as soon as possible, and cut off the links between the German army and the friendly forces in Ukraine. " Speaking of this, I hesitated for a moment and looked around. In addition to the three of us, there were two telephone operators sitting near the wall. However, they were all wearing earphones. They should not be able to hear our conversation, so I boldly analyzed: "the two wings of our army are very far away from the friendly army. Once we move forward quickly, It's very easy to be cut off by the circuitous forces of the German army and fall into a tight encirclement. "

"However, comrade commander" vetkov, though patiently listening to my analysis, still insisted on his own opinion“ Under the attack of our three front forces, the German army is rapidly retreating. Under such circumstances, I can't think of any place from which the German army can draw forces to carry out a circuitous encirclement of our army? "

I went on to analyze: "according to the report of general bandeleev, maybe tomorrow, they will be able to capture Fleda. Next, the group army headquarters will give us a series of offensive tasks when we see the smooth progress of our attack. If we continue to move forward at the current speed, we will soon be alone. The Germans are not stupid either. Once they find that we are separated from the main force of the front army, they will concentrate their forces on us. Now the supply line behind us is only one or two hundred kilometers. When the supply line reaches more than 400 kilometers, do you think the guard troops we left behind can block the fierce attack of the enemy? "

Wittkov listened to me and thought about it. Then he shook his head and said, "if our supply line exceeds 400 kilometers, there will be only a few defenders per kilometer. No matter what, we can't stop the enemy's attack."

"That's right." I saw that he agreed with me and continued to persuade him patiently: "Comrade chief of staff, don't feel that the enemy has no combat effectiveness just because you see the German army leaving their positions and fleeing under our attack. It's not necessary to belittle the enemy. When the enemy retreated, it may be that Manstein was adjusting his deployment. He achieved the purpose of shrinking his forces by giving up some irrelevant settlements, small towns, and even small cities. After our army recovered these places, we had to mobilize a considerable part of our troops to guard them. When Manstein feels that our main logistics supply line is too long and our flanks are very weak, he may seize the opportunity to catch us unprepared. This is probably the "space for time" tactics he learned from us

When I finished speaking, vetkov raised his hand and wiped the sweat on his forehead. His voice became hoarse because of excitement: "Comrade commander, what should we do if the situation you analyzed really happens?"

"Comrade o'shanina, if things really develop as you have analyzed, it would be too dangerous." Kirilov, who has been listening in, also expressed his opinion at the moment: "I think we should call the commander of the group army, comrade haridonov, to wake him up and avoid such a tragedy."

As for kirilov's proposal, I nodded, and then told wittkov: "Comrade chief of staff, since the political commissar also thinks so, please call commander haridonov and report the analysis results to him."

Looking at wittkov who was on the phone, kirilov asked me quietly, "Comrade oshanina, do you think the commander of the group army will believe your analysis?"

If the army I am staying in is still in the front of the Don river, then I am 80% sure that I can make rokosovsky believe my judgment; In the 62nd army, I have at least 50% confidence that I can speak of trakov. However, in the Sixth Army of haridonov, I had a gambling mentality and asked Vitkov to give it a try. But according to my hunch, vetkov is 90% doomed.

Sure enough, after a while, wittkov came over with a sad face. Kirilov asked in advance, "Comrade chief of staff, how did commander haridonov reply after listening to your report?"

Kirilov replied with a bitter smile: "the commander's answer is very simple: absurd!" Then he asked me, "Comrade commander, what should we do in the future?"

I had been prepared for haridonov's reaction for a long time. I was the commander of the group army. When I saw that the army was in full swing, suddenly a subordinate called me and said that the enemy might attack our weak flank. It was estimated that I would curse him. At this moment, hearing wittkov's inquiry, I said my plan: "Comrade chief of staff, we can't control other troops, but our army must take a steady approach to the West. As I said before, the Bantai leyev division, strengthened by the tank brigade and artillery regiment, was the main attacker, while the 308th and 171st divisions were responsible for protecting the two wings of the division, and necessary fortifications had to be built. "

"O'shanina, if we do this, our army's advance will be greatly slowed down." Kirilov asked with some misgivings: "maybe you will be criticized by your superiors for this."

"Comrades of political commissars, even if they are criticized, there is nothing they can do about it." I sighed, and then said, "these two days, there is always a voice in my mind that reminds me that although we have won the battle of Stalingrad and wiped out hundreds of thousands of German troops and their servants, the strength of the German army has not been greatly reduced. They will certainly not be reconciled to the failure they suffered some time ago. They must still be planning to get back. "

Seeing that wittkov recorded what I said in his notebook, I went on to say: "besides, we can't rely on the information provided by the group army headquarters for the enemy's intelligence. We should send our own reconnaissance troops to the enemy's defense area to investigate and master the first-hand information."

"Yes, comrade commander." Vetkov nodded his head and said, "I'll give captain travkin an order in a moment, and let him lead the team and bring the radio station to sneak into the enemy's rear for reconnaissance."

"Also," I suddenly thought of some former German officers like Grimes and gretka, who had been snowed by me again, and specially emphasized, "some defecting German officers and soldiers will be transferred from the guard camp to cooperate with our scouts to complete the reconnaissance task."

"Defecting German officers and men?" After repeating what I said, vetkov asked in surprise, "let them join our reconnaissance team, won't anything happen?"“ Chief of staff, you don't have to worry about that. " Kirilov said with a smile: "as early as when we were defending the mamayev post, we used the joint reconnaissance team composed of defectors and our commanders and fighters for many times. They provided us with a lot of valuable information, which is of great help to our next war plan." The task of reconnoitering behind the enemy lines was soon assigned by wittkov to travkin. After receiving the order, travkin formed seven ten person reconnaissance teams, each group consisted of half of the defectors and half of our officers and men, carrying the necessary communication tools to feed back the information in time. In order to speed up the March, vetkov also equipped each reconnaissance team with motorcycles, so as to ensure that they can get behind the enemy as soon as possible. As soon as it was dawn, travkin's first reconnaissance report came back. "We attacked a German company command post in a small town and seized a lot of documents," he said in the report. After the identification documents of the former German officers and soldiers of the group and our interrogation of the German prisoners, we learned that. They have all received an order from the commander at a higher level that when they are attacked by our troops, in addition to leaving a small number of troops to be cut off, the rest of the troops should immediately move to the rear and rush to large-scale strongholds or cities for assembly. " After reading the telegram, vetkov slapped it on the table and said to me in a loud voice, "Comrade commander, it seems that your analysis is completely correct. The reason why the Germans were so easily defeated was not that their morale was low and their morale was lax, but that they deliberately gave up their strongholds and towns to induce us to disperse our forces. This is a big conspiracy against our army. "