artillery arc

Chapter 607 "I miss you every day when you leave"

Wang Zhong played with the children for a while before reluctantly returning to the door of the manor's main building. Nellie was already waiting there.

When Nellie saw Wang Zhong, she first looked him up and down, then her eyes fixed on his feet.

Wang Zhong looked down and found a lot of mud on his trouser legs when he was playing with the children just now, so he explained: "I just played with those war orphans for a while, and... this weather is right?"

The muddy season is almost over. As the temperature rises, the moisture of the soil has decreased significantly, but it is not yet so wet that it will not stain your trouser legs.

Nellie: "Why are you making excuses like a child? I'm not blaming you."

"Uh..." Wang Zhong held it in for a few seconds and forced a change of subject. "How do your eyes feel? Are they still itchy?"

Maybe the weather was too humid a few days ago, Nellie kept saying that her fake eyes were itchy, so it was reasonable for Wang Zhong to show concern.

Nellie: "It doesn't itch much anymore. Please change your clothes quickly so I can wash your pants."

"Okay." Wang Zhong nodded, "Where is Liu Xia?"

"In the nursery."

After Lyudmila came back, she stayed in the nursery every day. Even though the "little lion" of the Rokossov family was almost ready to be weaned, she still insisted on breastfeeding.

It's like trying to make up for the milk that was missed before.

Wang Zhong: "I'll go take a look..."

"Wait a minute!" Nellie grabbed Wang Zhong's belt and said word by word, "Change your clothes first! Don't wear muddy pants into the nursery!"

Wang Zhong sighed: "Okay, change your clothes right away."

Suddenly, he felt a little emotional. When Nellie was not around, no one would control his daily life.

So he said to Nellie: "It's so nice, this familiar feeling. I miss you every day when you left."

Nellie was stunned, but this dull expression only lasted for a moment, and then turned into a fierce face like the big sister of Balalaika: "Go change your clothes and take a shower. You are not allowed to enter the nursery until you finish."

Wang Zhong: “Yes.”

----

April 4, Yeburg, Ante Supreme Command.

As soon as Wang Zhong entered the conference room, he saw General Gorky and General Ivan Stepanovich chatting quietly in the corner.

So he leaned over and asked, "Any news?"

The two generals were both smoking. When they saw Wang Zhong, who didn't smoke, coming over, they put out their cigarettes tacitly and threw them into the trash can next to them.

General Gorky: "The latest aerial reconnaissance has basically confirmed your prediction about the summer campaign. The enemy is heading for you and is not hiding their intentions at all."

Ivan Stepanovich added: "Because it is too obvious, the High Command is wondering if they are conducting a deception operation."

General Gorky: "After all, the enemy has been deceived by you so many times, and it is very likely that they have learned something."

Wang Zhong: "But they have no other places to attack except the southern line. The central and northern lines are even more difficult to attack. Especially the northern line, they have besieged Fort St. Andrew for three years and still can't take it down, and they have been pushed back a lot."

General Gorky: "The swamp was a great help."

Gorky spent some time in the first year of the war organizing defensive operations on the St. Andrews Front and apparently had a good understanding of the jungle and swamp terrain in the north.

General Ivan Stepanovich: "As for the central part, we can give it a try, but the front line has been stable for so long. The enemy has strong permanent fortifications, and we have them too. In addition, there are a series of cities in the central part. It is hard to imagine that after suffering so much loss in the Abavakhan urban agglomeration last year, the enemy will continue to fight against the urban agglomeration."

Wang Zhong: "So only the grasslands of Khazaria are left. The enemy may also feel that such an open conspiracy to deceive the enemy is meaningless, so they blatantly assembled troops. So how many people did they gather?"

General Gorky: "The High Command Intelligence Bureau interpreted the photos and believed that the enemy has sent 300,000 reinforcements to your front, concentrated in the vast plains on both wings of Oril."

Wang Zhong: "He's preparing to throw a left hook at me. Are there any signs of the enemy's marines landing from the sea?"

"No, maybe the enemy doesn't know that the United States' carrier-based aviation group has returned home." Admiral Gorky shrugged.

Wang Zhong smiled and said, "That's because the guys from the United States left their planes behind. The Front Air Force would occasionally let these United States carrier-based planes go out for a spin, so the Prosen people thought they were still there."

The United States said that the pilots would return to replace the F4U and SB2C, so they kept the F6F and SBD aircraft of the VF and VB squadrons. And although the TBF was a cutting-edge torpedo plane, the United States, with its deep pockets, didn't want these dozens of aircraft, so it kept them as well.

So now the Ante pilots fly these planes around the sea every day, scaring the Plossen ships into not daring to go out, and they all hide within the combat radius of the Air Force.

Of course, even if Proson knew that the United States carrier-based pilots had returned home, organizing a landing operation was a complicated matter and could not be completed in a few months. During the Battle of Barras last year, the Ante Army faced the weak Barras Army and prepared for such a long time.

General Gorky: "It looks like you just need to do your best to block this left hook. It's easier than you thought."

Wang Zhong: "Indeed. My troops have been repairing fortifications since March. Before I returned to Yebao, they had used thousands of tons of concrete, and they will use more now."

General Gorky laughed: "The Prosons probably didn't expect to encounter concrete fortifications on the grassland!"

Wang Zhong: "We also used steel bars, because many of our troops were originally engaged in engineering work."

At this time, General Turgenev and a group of senior officers from the headquarters opened the door and came in.

Wang Zhong and others heard the noise and looked towards the gate together, then turned around and walked towards their own positions.

Others who had been chatting throughout the room returned to their seats.

General Turgenev did not sit directly in the main seat, but asked the orderly to bring another chair and sat on the right side of the main seat. Then the Chief of the General Staff, who had been recuperating at home due to illness, also showed up and temporarily added a chair to sit opposite Turgenev.

Soon, the voice of the court etiquette officer came from outside the door: "Tsarina Olga Nikolaevna Antonovna is here!"

All the generals stood up together.

The door opened, and Olga walked in with a dignified step, walked to the main seat and sat down: "Everyone, please take a seat!"

Only then did Wang Zhong sit down.

Olga: "General Turgenev, please tell us about the current situation."

Turgenev stood up and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, the war has entered its third year. In the first two years, we have achieved brilliant victories. Last year, we wiped out a total of 1.7 million Prosen troops, and captured 700,000 prisoners alone, most of whom were contributed by General Rokossov."

Wang Zhong leaned forward slightly and nodded to everyone present.

Turgenev continued: "But we must also remember that in the past year, 160 million of our soldiers were killed, 100 million were missing, and million were wounded and could not return to the army."

The so-called inability to return to the army due to injury means that one is disabled due to injury and can no longer fight.

Olga's expression became extremely sad when she heard the data, but Turgenev kept a straight face, as if he was reading a string of simple numbers: "This data has improved significantly compared to last year. We have effectively preserved our manpower. Because of this, the pressure of conscription in various places has dropped sharply, and we can also give new recruits more training time.

“In addition, based on the suggestions made by General Rokossov after his visit to the United States, we have established a mechanism for the rotation of veterans, whereby veterans who have been on the front line for four months are transferred back to serve as instructors in the new recruit training camps in various places. They can only return to the front line after teaching for half a year.

"The effectiveness of this mechanism still needs to be examined. Some troops on the front line have complained that the withdrawal of key combat personnel will affect their combat effectiveness.

"We have also established a frontline rotation system, hoping that each unit will be able to return to the rear for rest after serving on the front line for four months."

Wang Zhong was very happy to hear this number, because the casualties of Ante were indeed much less than those of the Russians on Earth. During the counterattack last year, he felt that the growth rate of Ante's troops was faster than that of the Russians, and the combat effectiveness of a group of troops with the title of Guards was very reliable.

Maybe this world's war of patriotism can be ended ahead of time.

Turgenev took a sip of water, turned the page of the document in his hand, and continued to read: "Our total military strength has reached 13 million, of which 2 million are deployed in the Far East to prevent sudden attacks from the Fuso Empire.

"The remaining 11 million are basically deployed on the Eastern Front, of which 5.7 million are on the front line and 4.3 million are resting and training."

As soon as he finished speaking, driven by an electric motor, a complete map of the Eastern Front unfolded behind Turgenev. He put down the documents, picked up a map stick that looked like a knight's lance, and began to gesture on the map.

“There are five fronts from north to south: the St. Andrew Front, the Belix Front, the Western Front, the Shepetovka Front, and Rokossov’s First Khazaria Front.

"Each of our fronts has more troops than the enemy, and after two years of fighting, our troops' quality has gradually caught up with the enemy. Currently, only in the armored forces, there is still a big gap in the quality of the troops on both sides.

"This is because the enemy's armored units rarely suffer devastating blows. Their tanks have large interiors, so even if they are destroyed, half of the crew members often survive. However, our tank units always suffer huge losses, and experienced tank crews often die with their tanks."

Turgenev stopped and looked at Wang Zhong: "Only General Rokossov's tank unit has a high survival rate for tank crews, but even Rokossov's troops had an example of the 51st Tank Army being completely wiped out last year.

"The good news is that thanks to the efforts of General Rokossov, Chairman of the Equipment Committee, our shortcomings in military equipment are about to be resolved. We have now completely stopped production of the defective T34 two-person turret model. Starting from February this year, all the new tanks the troops received were the T2W model with a three-person turret.

"And the new tanks will soon be put into use. I can predict that in 916, the situation between the enemy and us will be fundamentally reversed, and our army will completely switch from the strategic defense stage to the strategic offensive stage!"

As soon as she finished speaking, Olga led the applause, and the entire conference hall burst into thunderous applause.

Because Olga was clapping and looking at Wang Zhong at the same time, everyone turned their heads to look at Wang Zhong.

Wang Zhong thought about it and decided to stand up and salute everyone.

Then the applause became even louder, as if it was going to overturn the ceiling.

(End of this chapter)