The Rise of the Third Reich

"Ura! Ura!"

On a road not far from where Lieutenant Graf shot down an enemy plane for the first time (finally shot down an enemy plane), the soldiers of the 205th Division of the Soviet Red Army who were taking a break and having lunch cheered loudly. They all saw the air battle from afar, so they cheered for the victory of the Soviet Red Air Force - of course the plane shot down was a Nazi German plane. The Soviet Red Air Force was invincible, how could it be shot down by the enemy?

"Damn it, stop shouting Ura, the plane shot down was our plane!"

A middle-aged officer who looked like a reactionary suddenly shouted loudly, and everyone looked at him, and then looked at several comrades from the army counterintelligence department not far away. But the "Cheka fighters" were very calm, and there was no move to arrest anyone. It seemed that they wanted to play the long game to catch big fish.

Everyone knew it in their hearts, and said nothing, but stared at Comrade Yakov Djugashvili, the artillery director of the 9th Mechanized Army, who was passing by with contempt.

"Comrade Oktyabriski!" The next words of the "enemy agent" with the rank of captain surprised every Red Army soldier who was eating nearby. A captain officer actually spoke to a regimental political commissar in an imperative tone, "One of our pilots parachuted, send someone to rescue them!"

This is a rebellion!

Everyone was stunned and stopped eating black bread, just waiting to see the show.

"Okay, Comrade Djugashvili." Oktyabriski and Yakov Djugashvili were in the same army group, so of course he knew that the father of this great god was Stalin! Not to mention that he was a regimental political commissar, even the military commissar of the front, Ponomarenko, was smiling and acting cute when he saw him.

He immediately assigned a lieutenant who was eating black bread nearby to take half a company of soldiers to rescue people - he had to take so many people because there were guerrillas of Polish reactionaries and German SS cavalry near the road.

By the way, these SS cavalry belonged to the SS Polish Volunteer Cavalry Division and the SS Israeli Cavalry Division. The former were Polish Nazis, and the latter were mainly composed of Polish Jews. Because supporting Zionism to replace concentration camps became the core of the Third Reich's "anti-Jewish" policy, many Polish Jews were deceived into thinking Hitler was a good person. Therefore, there was the SS Israel Division...

The Polish Nazis and the Jews who had not yet immigrated to Israel have become the most opposed to Soviet liberation. The commander of the Central Army Group, Marshal Rundstedt, did not let them defend the ring fortress to death, but dispersed and maneuvered to delay the attack of the Soviet Red Army.

The rescue troops had just set out, and the air battle had already decided the final outcome. 6 of the 8 Yak-1 fighters were shot down, and 2 escaped. And 2 of the 12 Il-2 attack aircraft were shot down by the Fokker Zero, and the remaining 10 dropped their bombs and fled the battlefield.

Yakov Dzhugashvili, who witnessed the battle with a telescope, got on his GAZ-61 light off-road vehicle in a depressed mood and staggered back to the headquarters of the 9th Mechanized Army along the severely blocked and uneven road.

"Yakov, how is the situation?" Rokossovsky saw the depressed Yakov Dzhugashvili and asked with a smile, "Did the army headquarters agree to our request?"

"Agreed, the independent mortar battalion is on its way." Yakov Dzhugashvili replied.

His purpose of going to the army headquarters was to ask the army artillery director for an independent mortar battalion. The mortar battalion that could work Captain Dzhugashvili certainly would not really use mortars. In fact, this battalion was equipped with BM-13 rocket launchers, also known as Katyusha rocket launchers.

Although the German Wehrmacht knew that the Soviets had rocket launchers (the Germans also had them, and gave the rocket launcher unit a strange name of the smoke launcher regiment), the Soviet Red Army still regarded the Katyusha rocket launcher as a highly confidential secret weapon. The troops using rocket launchers were all named "independent mortar battalions", and there were no rocket launcher units at the division, brigade, and regiment levels. Even the number of rocket launcher battalions was not large. Only a few main army groups of the Western Front had a precious rocket launcher battalion, which was personally controlled by the army artillery director and could only be used at critical times. But Yakov Dzhugashvili had a big face, so of course he asked for 18 rocket launchers as soon as he asked.

However, Dzhugashvili's request was not unreasonable, because a BM-13 rocket launcher vehicle could only launch 1 rocket at a time, and a battalion usually had 18 rocket launchers, which could fire 288 132mm rockets in one salvo. However, it was more troublesome to reload, and the noise of launching rockets was very loud, which made it easy for the opponent to discover and be counterattacked by artillery, and basically they would run away after firing. Therefore, the power of a rocket launcher battalion is not much greater than that of a howitzer battalion, but rocket launchers are mounted on trucks and are more mobile, so they can replace self-propelled artillery.

And Rokossovsky wanted this "mortar battalion" to use it as a self-propelled artillery. Because although there are many tanks in his mechanized army, there is not a single self-propelled artillery to kill soft targets.

All the artillery in the hands of Yakov Dzhugashvili, the artillery director, are towed by trucks. Once an emergency occurs, it will take a long time to deploy artillery positions.

Therefore, after the 9th Mechanized Corps crossed the Bug River, it was blocked in front of a forest for several hours by an SS Polish cavalry battalion dragging a 50mm anti-tank gun and a 75mm mountain gun, and several tanks were damaged.

The same situation happened to the tank armies/mechanized armies advancing in several other directions. Although the German and Polish defense forces did not build a continuous line of defense, they adopted a combination of stronghold defense and mobile defense. 38 brigade-level circular positions were deployed on a frontal battlefield nearly 400 kilometers long and 150 kilometers wide on the Polish-Soviet border. 16 SS Cavalry Regiments and 3 Wehrmacht Cavalry Regiments were also deployed (the Wehrmacht Cavalry Regiment belonged to the 1st Cavalry Division of the Wehrmacht ).

"Comrade Commander, the 4th Infantry Army reports that they have completed the siege of the Trespol Ring Fortress." Major General Rimoschik, Chief of Staff of the Western Front, brought a message to the frowning General Pavlov. Good news. "Comrade Kosobutsky (Commander of the 4th Infantry Corps) reports that the troops will be ready for the attack early tomorrow morning."

The Trespol Ring Fortress was the most troublesome of all the ring defense fortresses because it was stuck on the chokepoint from Brest to Warsaw. Although Poland is just a large plain, people can leave anywhere. However, the Soviet Red Army Army is a heavy-duty force, and a large amount of heavy equipment and supplies need to be transported by rail and truck. The Trespol Ring Fortress blocked the most important railway and a key highway. In addition, the three important bridges across the Bug River were covered by the fortress artillery.

If the fortress had not been captured, the Soviet Red Army could have taken a detour, but because the road conditions in Poland were relatively poor, and there were other ring fortresses blocking the way, it was always not smooth, as if someone was going to the battlefield with a chokehold. Similar.

Therefore, in the "Thunderstorm Plan", the Western Front still had to pull out several ring fortresses to allow smooth traffic to Warsaw. Only in this way could Pavlov be sure to launch a major battle with the German army under the walls of Warsaw that would determine the future and destiny of Poland.

"Tell Comrade Kosobutsky," Pavlov said, "that he has 72 hours to capture Trespol, starting at 8 o'clock tomorrow morning."

It should be possible for a dignified infantry corps to capture a brigade-level position in 72 hours. Therefore, after Pavlov issued the order, he did not think about Trespol Fortress anymore, but asked about the situation of the Air Force.

"Has the report from the Air Force been sent in?" Pavlov asked, "How many results did this morning's air raid achieve? What were the losses?"

Although Pavlov was relatively unlucky in history, this does not mean that his military quality was low. It was normal for him to be unlucky because he encountered a German superman who cheated. General Pavlov, who has quite good military qualities and has a lot of research on the European battlefield, knows very well that air superiority is the key to the success of the "Thunderstorm Plan"!

If the Nazis could not be defeated in the sky, then the huge Soviet mechanized cluster on the ground would be a living target for German aircraft, and it would be impossible to win.

"Comrade Commander, the effect of the air strikes is very good." Major General Rimoskik replied with a smile, "51 of the 65 military airports and field military airports that have been identified in Poland have suffered devastating blows. , lost the ability to take off and land aircraft.”

Due to the active withdrawal of the German Air Force, airports in Poland suffered heavy losses in an air raid launched by the Soviet Red Air Force on the morning of June 1! At least 1,000 model aircraft were blown to the ground, and the runways and facilities of 51 minor airports were also blown up. There are only 14 important airports protected by the German air defense anti-aircraft artillery regiments (now the German army, navy and air force all have their own ground anti-aircraft artillery units, and the anti-aircraft artillery units responsible for the air defense of air force airports and rear facilities are all air defense units of the air force). , so the loss is not too big.

"However, the losses of the Red Air Force under the control of the front army are not small," Major General Rimosik's tone has become serious. "According to preliminary statistics, more than 260 of the aircraft dispatched this morning have not returned, accounting for 10% of the total dispatched sorties. About 8%.”

"260..." Pavlov nodded and said nothing. This number is not bad. It is within an acceptable range. I don't know the losses of other fronts.