Chapter 1012

After listening to me, Stalin asked with great interest, "Rita, how do you judge that the German army is not capable of launching a large-scale campaign? We should know that they have just defeated hundreds of thousands of our troops, and their morale is high. Even if they do not have new soldiers and weapons, they can continue to push forward our defense in depth. "

As for Stalin's question, after a little reflection, I replied: "Comrade Stalin, after a long battle, not only the officers and men of the German army were very tired, but also all kinds of military materials needed for the battle were extremely scarce. In this case, they have to stop the pace of attack to consolidate the existing defensive zone and carry out short-term rest

My answer obviously did not satisfy Stalin. He got up, walked slowly around the room with his pipe in his mouth, and seemed to be thinking about something. And I dare not take it lightly. My eyes stay on him all the time and move with him.

When I saw him stop and turn slowly towards me, I guessed that he might have something to ask me, so I quickly stood up. He turned to see me get up from my seat and pointed to me with his pipe hand, ready to ask me questions.

Just then the door rang. Stalin and I both looked in the direction of the voice, and Percival klebshev stood upright by the open door. Seeing that we had noticed him, he quickly said, "Comrade Stalin, general rokosovsky is here!"

"Ask him in!" After Stalin had said this, he went to the door.

Not long after boskelebeshev left the door, rokosovsky, dressed in military uniform, came in. As soon as he entered the door, he raised his hand and saluted Stalin, who appeared in front of him. At the same time, he politely said, "Hello, comrade Stalin, I have been ordered to report to you and wait for your order. Please give me instructions!"

Stalin changed his pipe to his left hand, then pulled rokosovsky's hand down from his forehead with his right hand, held it tightly, shook it vigorously, and said warmly, "welcome, comrade rokosovsky."

Seeing rokosovsky and Stalin walking towards me side by side, I quickly smile, raised my hand, saluted him and said, "Hello, comrade commander of the front army."

He gave me a salute, then came up to me, took my hand and said friendly, "Hello, Rita. I heard that you are in hospital. I'm going to see you in two days. I didn't expect to meet you here today. "

"Well, comrade rokosovsky, when you have time later, you two can talk about the past." Stalin interrupted our conversation and urged: "first, let's talk about the situation of the central front army."

On hearing what Stalin said, rokosovsky straightened up and respectfully reported: "Comrade Stalin, the central front army launched an offensive campaign in the direction of shefsk from February 25 to today, advanced 30 to 60 kilometers, successfully approached shefsk and cut off the railway line of Bryansk + konotop..."

During the more than half a month since I was hospitalized with surgery, although biezikov occasionally came to tell me some of the latest war reports, most of the time I was isolated from the world. At this moment, when I heard that rokosovsky was reporting the war report to Stalin, I focused on listening carefully to every word he said.

After listening to his report, Stalin asked: "Comrade rokosovsky, do you think that under the current circumstances, we can concentrate the strength of several front forces to carry out a counterattack against the German army that just occupied Kharkov?"

As soon as his voice fell, rokosovsky shook his head like a rattle: "no, comrade Stalin, it's not the right time for us to attack now after all. It can only weaken our strength in vain." He said, pausing for a moment, and then, as if with great courage, he said, "before I came here, I received instructions from the base camp: immediately send the 21st army to the oboyani area under the command of the commander of voronesh front army. It turned out that a large number of enemy troops had broken through in the direction of Kharkov and Belgorod, posing a threat to Kursk.

Comrade Stalin, here I have to report to you that our situation is going from bad to worse, that the combat units and logistics departments of the front army have not arrived, that the problem of material supply has not been solved, that the enemy has greatly strengthened its military strength against our front army, and that the transfer of the 21st group army has made the balance of forces completely unfavourable to me. "

Stalin did not immediately express his position after listening to rokosovsky's words. He turned to me and asked, "Rita, if you are allowed to make a decision, what are you going to do?"

As for Stalin's abrupt problem, I didn't panic at all. Instead, I said with confidence: "Comrade Stalin, I think the current task of the central front army should be to turn to defense immediately." In order to be more accurate, I looked at the map spread out on the table and read the place names on it, "the defensive areas are gorokieche, little Arkhangelsk, trosna, liujiege and kolenevo. At the same time, the central front army should be supplemented with the 48th army of general romanenko, the 13th army of puzhenfu transferred from the front army of Bryansk and the area occupied by it, and the 60th army of chernyahovsky transferred from the front army of Voronezh and the area occupied by it. "

Although the place in front of me was not marked with the assigned positions of the troops, I still cleverly described the deployment of the Soviet troops before the Kursk war according to my own memory.

As soon as I finished, Stalin asked rokosovsky with a smile: "dear comrade rokosovsky, do you have anything else to add?"

Rokosovsky first looked at me in surprise and then replied, "Comrade Stalin, we must build a defense that the enemy can't break. The defense should be arranged in echelons of depth. First of all, it should be able to defend against enemy tanks. We know clearly from the painful lessons of previous battles that the enemy will use a lot of tanks when launching attacks. Therefore, first of all, we should be prepared to deal with enemy tanks.

Also, the reason why we lost Kharkov and Belgorod so quickly. I think the reason for our failure is that we didn't pay attention to forming the reserve team in time. When the enemy attacked, our strength was exhausted, and the front line was drawn a long line away from the rear base. Another reason is that our campaign strategic reconnaissance is too poor. In this way, it is possible for the enemy to form a large-scale army group and carry out a sudden counter attack while retreating, while we have no strength to repel its attack. We have no campaign reserve in the depth of our defense, so that the enemy can break through our front in a narrow area and complete the encirclement of our army almost without any resistance. "

Stalin put his pipe in his mouth and said with admiration, "yes, comrade rokosovsky, you have considered the problem very comprehensively. At present, there is a 200 kilometer arc in the middle of the enemy's defensive zone. I intend to give the task of defending this arc to your central front army and the Voronezh front army of vatukin. And in your rear, I will deploy a newly formed reserve force, a unit of the front army. "

"And tanks, comrade Stalin." As soon as Stalin and rokosovsky finished, they could not wait to say: "the German army is equipped with a new type of tank. Even if our anti tank guns are at a distance of 400 meters, the armor piercing projectiles fired by them can not penetrate the armor of this kind of tank."

After listening to what rokosovsky said, I knew in my heart that his troops must have met German Tiger tanks. He quickly turned his eyes to Stalin to see what he would say next.

"Comrade rokosovsky, you don't have to worry about this new type of German tank." Stalin took his pipe out of his mouth, held it in his hand, and said slowly: "as early as the battle to break through the blockade of Leningrad was still going on, Zhukov had reported to me that our artillery had destroyed a German tank. From the appearance of this tank, it is not the same as the tank type we are familiar with. Moreover, after the tank was destroyed, Hitler's bandits tried every means to drag it away from the destroyed position.

We are very interested in this report. We ordered a special detachment composed of an infantry platoon and four tanks to capture the enemy tanks and drag them to our army for detailed study. In order to ensure the success of the operation, we also prepared strong artillery fire to provide fire cover for the small unit.

The detachment, led by Captain kosalev, began to carry out this combat mission after dark. The enemy kept firing at the site of the destroyed tank. However, the tank was towed back. Even the broken tracks of the tank were picked up from the snow. The construction of tanks is really unusual. It was found that it was a test sample of a new type of heavy tank of "tiger-i" type, and it was sent by Hitler's headquarters to the front line of warhoff for testing.

Our experts made a comprehensive study of the captured tank and found out its vulnerable parts by means of experiments. The research results have just been sent to me two days ago, and will soon be transmitted to all our troops. In this way, our tankers and Gunners will dare to fight against it alone in future battles. "

When I heard Stalin say about the process of seizing the German Tiger tank, I can't help but think of the t-62 whose track was broken by anti tank mines on a small island in the East. In order to prevent this new tank from being robbed, the Soviet Army unfortunately covered the area where the tank was located with artillery fire until the wreckage of the tank sank into the water.

"Rita! Rita! " I thought so much that Stalin called me twice before I heard him. Seeing that I was a little absent-minded, he said with some dissatisfaction: "you have been to the secret Research Institute, and tell Comrade rokosovsky what you know about tanks and anti tank weapons."

I promised, and then introduced to rokosovsky the top secret information I knew: "Comrade commander of the front army, I'd like to introduce to you some new weapons developed by the Institute. The first one is assault rifle, which is a light weapon for infantry. I think you have seen it for a long time? "

I have a reason to ask this question, because after he launched this weapon, he sent it to the 16th and 20th army at that time and let a few commanders and fighters try this new gun. So when he introduced the new weapons, he first heard the assault rifle, so that rokosovsky could have a perceptual understanding of the new weapons mentioned later.

Sure enough, after listening to me, rokosovsky nodded and said with certainty, "yes, I've seen this kind of assault rifle. It combines the advantages of both the moxingan rifle and the bobosha submachine gun. However, I don't understand one point. Since this kind of weapon has been developed for a long time, why hasn't it been installed in the army after more than a year? "

"The reason for the delay in loading troops is the problem of ammunition." I saw rokosovsky's blank expression and explained to him, "this kind of assault rifle uses a kind of short cartridge bullet. With our existing military production technology, it can't be produced on a large scale for the time being. Therefore, this kind of assault rifle can't be loaded into the army."“ When can we train troops? " Asked rokosovsky impatiently“ At present, the Institute has set up a production line for short cartridge, "I said gently." if there is no accident, it will be two or three months before the troops can be loaded on a large scale. " As soon as I finished, rokosovsky asked, "besides assault rifles, are there any new weapons?"“ Yes I went on to introduce: "among the anti tank weapons, a new type of anti tank rocket launcher is introduced, which is not only smaller than the bazuka rocket launcher of the United States, easy to carry, but also powerful. It can penetrate the front armor of German tanks at a distance of 200 meters." Seeing the excitement on rokosovsky's face when he heard this information, I threw another "heavy bomb": "in addition, the Institute has developed a new type of tank. Compared with the German Tiger, it has thicker armor and stronger firepower. According to the testers, the existing six tanks can easily be used against a German tank battalion. But I don't think what they said is true. " "What's the matter?" he asked nervously? Can't you fight at all? " When I looked at Stalin and saw that he was smoking a pipe with a smile on his face, I knew that he knew something about the power of the new tank. The only one in the room who didn't know was rokosovsky“ It's not that they can't beat them, but that these researchers have underestimated the power of the new tanks. Not to mention a tank battalion, even a tank regiment, our six tanks can still win. "