Iron Cross

Soon after Stalin's telegram arrived, Vasilevsky's telegram also arrived. It was very long. The translator took a long time to hand over the long article to Zhukov. What surprised the latter was not that Vasilevsky and Stalin's opinions were very consistent, nor that he sent the telegram in his personal name, but the sadness revealed between the lines. Zhukov rarely saw such emotions in this old partner.

"... The US diplomatic note came. When ****** agreed to temporarily endure and accept the humiliating 40% transit fee, the US authorities rejected it. The reasons and excuses used are irrefutable:... As a democratic country, the United States cannot accept such blackmail, let alone watch the materials produced with the money of American taxpayers eventually fall into the hands of America's enemy, Japan. Once this news spreads, it not only means that the government's political prestige has been lost, but also means that the people's confidence in the war and victory has been fundamentally shaken. This is not a matter of losing tens of thousands of tons or a few ships, this is aiding the enemy. Same At that time, because the US Navy had suffered many setbacks and the Japanese Navy was in full swing, we were unable to provide armed escort.

... If the Soviet side cannot solve the current problems, this route will be forced to temporarily suspend, and the US will consider building a new air base in the Aleutian Islands to provide emergency air transport to the Soviet Union, which can probably reach a transportation scale of 10,000 tons/month. "

Zhukov knew that when calculating this year's material supply and combat support, the ****** and the General Staff included US aid materials in the statistics, with a standard of 300,000 tons/month. If 500,000 tons/month can be ensured, the situation will be more sufficient. But if there is only 10,000 tons/month, then except for some very urgent parts and medicines, the rest will basically be impossible to provide. Judging from the current situation, air transport can only be carried out after May, and heavy equipment will certainly not be transported. For a high-intensity war between a large country with a scale of five million, what use can a transportation scale of 10,000 tons/month be?

"...Comrades on the diplomatic front made arduous efforts and negotiations, and finally formed such a plan: the United States will transport materials and ships to the vicinity of the Aleutian Islands, and then we will send crew members to transport the last leg of the route and be responsible for responding to Japan's blackmail. This can formally avoid the situation of "the United States aiding the enemy." We have received private news that the US military command department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, agreed to the alternative plan, but their head of government refused to sign the executive decree. According to our secret news, Mr. Roosevelt, the US President who has always advocated friendly cooperation among allied countries and jointly fighting fascism, is seriously ill and hospitalized and unable to attend to affairs. Currently, Vice President Wallace is acting as the president. His refusal is his insistence.

This person is said to have no prestige in Washington, and he has an instinctive aversion to the Bolsheviks. At the same time, he has a little political cleanliness and silly idealism... He not only refused to provide us with material assistance, but also complained about the British aid bill, believing that "the sacrifice is too great, the effect is very low, and the significance is not great." The military attachés conveyed the senior military generals' opinions on us. Private sympathy and indignation at the current political situation!

At the ****** meeting, in view of the current situation, many comrades re-proposed the request to consider peace, believing that if we continue to delay, not only will there be no hope of victory in the war, but it may also lead to the complete destruction of the party and the country. Comrade Stalin was very anxious about this and could hardly sleep at night. After collecting and sorting out the intelligence information and data obtained from various aspects, I also couldn't sleep at night. I hope to give you a comprehensive, profound and realistic overall situation introduction. I hope you will not think that I am capitulationist or wavering. "

Then Vasilevsky listed a long list of numbers and situation introductions. In fact, he didn't need to say these contents. Zhukov also had a vague estimate in his mind, but when all were put together, the scene was very shocking:

By the beginning of 1944, the scale of the Soviet armed forces had been reduced due to the reduction of the controlled area, insufficient food supply and continuous failures on the central battlefield. After adding more than 800,000 female soldiers, the overall strength was barely more than 7 million, of which nearly 1 million were distributed in the Far East. With Japan already turning its back on the Red Army and the Kwantung Army ready to move, this part of the force could no longer be drawn, and the actual force available to fight against the Axis was only about 6 million.

The Supreme Command estimated that the total strength of the German army on the Eastern Front was between 4.2 and 4.3 million (actually 4.08 million), and the remaining troops provided by the Axis partners such as Finland, Italy, Romania, Hungary, and Turkey, plus the various armed forces of the Russian Liberation Army, Ukraine, Belarus, Central Asia, and the three Baltic countries, totaled nearly 2 million (actually about 1.75 million). This means that the Axis has not only greatly overwhelmed the Red Army in terms of military quality, but also basically maintained equality in terms of quantity. Now the Soviet army is full of 16-year-old or even 15-year-old child soldiers and grandfather soldiers in their 50s, while their opponents are basically concentrated in the age group of 18-40, and even the proportion of ordinary officers and soldiers in the age group of 35-40 in the German army has gradually decreased.

The comparison between the two sides in heavy equipment is also becoming increasingly unbalanced. The Supreme Command estimated that the Axis had more than 20,000 tanks and self-propelled artillery (actually about 15,000), while the Soviet army had only more than 13,000. The main land combat equipment - referring to armored vehicles above the Type 4 (T-34) level - was even more unbalanced, with a ratio of about 8,000 vs. 5,000, and Soviet products were obviously inferior to equivalent German products in quality.

Aviation equipment performed similarly, with the General Staff estimating the number of Axis aircraft at 25,000 (actually 19,000), while the Red Army itself had just over 15,000. In terms of aircraft performance, while the Red Army has been forced to use large amounts of steel and wood instead of aluminum alloys for aircraft construction, the quality and performance of the Axis aircraft are still improving steadily. Now the military industry is so embarrassed that it has to collect aircraft wreckage - whether it is for our own side or the enemy's to re-produce.

The comparison in equipment doesn't look completely unbalanced at least on the surface, but the difference in quality is almost disappointing. Since the Red Army lost the Baku oil field production area and cut off the two foreign aid channels of the North Atlantic and the Black Sea, the current oil production is only more than 10 million tons per year. In order to meet the needs of frontline operations, the rear area is pressed with oil again and again. During training It is no longer possible to guarantee it. At present, the training cycle for tank soldiers and pilots has been compressed to six weeks - it takes more than 40 days to train someone from a blank slate to a tank crew or pilot. 90% of the soldiers trained in this kind of crash training will not survive the first 20 combat hours.

Currently, the Red Army has less than 20% pilots with more than 200 flight hours, and less than 10% with more than 400 flight hours. The vast majority of pilots died after three sorties, and even when they were shot down I haven’t even mastered the skydiving skill yet. As it became increasingly difficult to find qualified pilots, the Red Army was forced to use a large number of female soldiers as pilots. Not only bombers, transport aircraft and even fighter jets also began to use female pilots on a large scale. The German army noticed signs of depletion of the Red Army's reserve force, and initially Some German pilots made a fuss after returning to the base: "I actually shot down a Russian girl today...". Later, the questions they asked each other became "How many Russian girls have you killed?", "Five? Eight? Hey, remember. Not sure."

If another 400,000 tons of aid per month are thrown away, the number of Soviet heavy equipment will soon be reduced by 20-25%, and it will even have a fundamental impact. For example, the reason why the IS-1 and T-43/85 have good combat effectiveness is that they use armor steel provided by the United States in key parts. If it is made in the Soviet Union, the defense level will be reduced by at least 2 levels. Without the high-grade aviation gasoline, aluminum alloys, copper ingots and other materials provided by the Americans, the attendance and productivity of many heavy equipment will be greatly reduced. On the contrary, the food gap is not that big after last year's cruel "reducing people and increasing food" measures.

Zhukov is basically clear about these figures, but after listing them all together, the impact is still huge.

Based on the above reasons, Vasilevsky’s next words are very logical.

"...At present, after you have withdrawn 1 million troops to form the Central Asian Special Front on the Central Front, the balance of strength between the enemy and ourselves is about 3:1. In some areas and locations, it is about 5:1. After considering the technical weapons and personnel quality, I think the balance between the enemy and us is about 3:1. The combat power ratio is 6:1. It is impossible to defend it. The difference lies in when we fail. I think the time point is probably in May - the most optimistic estimate is that the German army can take the Ural Industrial Zone in May. Therefore, I beg you, for the sake of the party and the country, for the sake of the common destiny of hundreds of millions of people and all the nations of the Soviet Union, make the decision as soon as possible!”

As for what the decision was, Vasilevsky did not say - maybe he thought there was no need to say it, Zhukov must understand.

The Ural Mountain Industrial Zone is the only large-scale heavy industrial zone left in the Soviet Union. Its industrial capacity and output value account for 75% of what the Soviet Union currently controls. The remaining 25% is distributed in a few places such as Moscow, Stalingrad, and Omsk. In the city, *** believed that once this industrial area was lost, the Soviet industrial capacity (mainly referring to the armaments industry) would drop to a level similar to that of Italy. In fact, due to the transfer of a lot of German armaments industry to Italy, the The strength of the Soviet Union is also growing steadily, and the Soviet Union has not yet reached it!

He closed his eyes and thought for a long time, then said to the staff beside him: "Please come to me, Comrades Chernyakhovsky and Chuikov, I want to discuss important matters with them."