Chapter 1561

Stalin and Zhukov shook hands and said politely, "Comrade Zhukov, welcome back from the front line!" He raised his hand and pointed to the vacant seat at the conference table, "you sit down for a while, and when Comrade Antonov comes, our conference can begin."

After Antonov was seated, Stalin, who presided over the meeting, took a look at bosklebshev, who was sitting next to him in charge of recording. Then he said slowly, "since everyone is here, let's have a meeting now. Comrade Zhukov, "he first looked at Zhukov," it's up to you to talk about the Ukrainian campaign. "

When Zhukov heard Stalin's order and nodded, he stood up, looked at konev sitting opposite and said, "the offensive campaign we launched in Ukraine, especially the progress in the direction of Lvov, is not as smooth as the commander of the front army and the Supreme Command expected.

Here, I would like to talk about reconnaissance, which is an extremely important factor in war. As we all know, reconnaissance intelligence and correct analysis of reconnaissance intelligence are the basis for judging the situation, making decisions and making campaign plans. If our reconnaissance fails to provide correct intelligence, or if we make mistakes in the analysis of intelligence, then the determination made by the leaders and headquarters at all levels will not be correct, and the result will be that the process of the campaign will not be as smooth as originally envisaged.

As far as I know, when preparing for the campaign in the direction of Lvov, the reconnaissance Department of the first front army of Ukraine failed to find out all the enemy's defense systems, and did not find the campaign reserve of the German command, especially its armored tank units. Therefore, the leaders of the front army did not anticipate that they might encounter the enemy's counter attack in the process of breaking through the enemy's defense.

Due to the lack of research on the enemy's firepower matching, the artillery preparation and aviation preparation plans have major shortcomings. As we all know, artillery and air forces can only ensure good results if they aim at the target accurately, rather than shooting and dropping bombs on the area or the target envisaged. Area shooting and area dropping can't destroy the enemy's defense system.

This is what happened in the direction of Lvov: a lot of shells were fired, but the results were not as good as they should have been. In order to recognize the mistakes made in the preparation for this campaign, we must also deal with an important issue, that is, the issue of tanks guiding infantry to launch attacks and attacks. As we all know, infantry are easy to be killed by the enemy's defensive firepower in attack. In our artillery preparation, the enemy's machine guns and artillery that have not been eliminated, the tanks hidden in the fortifications and the permanent firing points are enough to suppress our attacking infantry, so they can't move forward. In this case, the tank with infantry can play an important role. It can use its own firepower to suppress the enemy's fire weapons that have been preserved after artillery preparation. At that time, they did not give full consideration to all this

Although Zhukov's words were harsh, they accurately supported the problems exposed by our front army in the offensive campaign. For example, we made mistakes in the preparation for the campaign, that is, poor reconnaissance, wrong judgment, defective firepower preparation and the coordination between infantry and Tanzania. It was these problems that led to our defeat in Lvov at the beginning of the campaign. I have written down all of Zhukov's remarks in detail, so as to prevent similar mistakes in future offensive campaigns.

When he was criticized and criticized by Zhukov, konev's face was red and white. I'd like to defend myself, but I can only keep silent because I didn't get Stalin's permission. I secretly looked at the unnatural konev and thought, "if Stalin is not here, maybe he and Zhukov will have a rough argument."

After Zhukov finished, Stalin nodded and said with approval, "Comrade Zhukov's analysis is very reasonable." Then he turned his face and asked konev, "Comrade konev, do you have anything to add?"

"Yes, comrade Stalin," konev asked politely after hearing Stalin's question, "may I talk about my opinion?"

After getting Stalin's permission, he stood up, first explained the same views as Zhukov on how to use tanks, and proved his correct understanding of using tanks to support infantry by putting the 3rd group army of close guard tanks into a breakthrough and breaking through the German defense.

And he defended Zhukov's accusation that his front army command had made a mistake. He looked at Zhukov and said, "Comrade Zhukov, I don't agree with what you have just said. For example, the enemy's counter assault in the breakthrough area of the 38th group army is the result of the miscalculation of the head of the front army and the head of the group army, or a mistake in the campaign plan.

We should know that the general headquarters of the Communist Party of Germany adopted the usual practice of mobile reserves to carry out counter assault on the offensive units of our front army in an attempt to sabotage our attack. They had no other way. There were so many such examples in the first World War. This is the logic of war. "

I thought konev would freely admit his shortcomings at the beginning of the campaign, but he was quibbling, and what he said was so weak that I, the deputy commander of the front army, felt embarrassed and wanted to find a hole to get in.

Stalin raised his right hand, pressed down, motioned konev to sit down, then looked at me and said, "Rita, according to the information I have, the 18th guard infantry was the first to launch a counter attack against the 1st and 8th German armored divisions."

"Yes, comrade Stalin, you are right." Seeing Stalin talking to me, I quickly stood up from my seat and replied, "the main attack was the new division of the army. Their first counter attack successfully defeated two German armored regiments. After daybreak, marshal konev sent out the second group army of the air force, cooperated with general rebalko's close guard tank, and the third group army launched a comprehensive counterattack, which severely damaged the two armored divisions of the German army and saved the crisis. " After listening to my reply, Stalin nodded slightly, turned his eyes to konev again, and said to him with a smile: "Comrade konev, our troops originally deployed in the Carpathian Mountains accepted the task of sticking to the occupied area and preparing to attack in Stanislav. Now that we have gained an advantage in the direction of Lvov, do you think we should allow the troops in this area to fight as well? "