Transmigrated as the Crown Prince

Chapter 686: The German-Soviet War (30)

Washington.

In the presidential bedroom of the White House, the sudden ringing of a bell startled President Wilkie in his sleep. He reached out to turn on the bedside lamp and looked at the alarm clock on the bedside table. It was only one o'clock in the morning. "Damn it!" He couldn't help but curse inwardly. A call so late must be urgent, and it probably wouldn't be good news.

Picking up the phone, the caller was Secretary of War Henry Stimson. "Mr. President, the Germans are preparing to attack."

President Wilkie was so excited when he heard this that he suddenly fell asleep. "I'll be right over!" He put down the phone and hurriedly changed his clothes and rushed to the Pentagon. Most of the top military officials have gathered in the spacious combat conference room, and they are pointing around a huge sand table in the middle.

President Wilkie did not bother to greet everyone one by one and went straight to the topic. "Did the Germans attack?!"

Secretary of War Stimson shook his head. "Not yet, Mr. President. The Germans are shelling the Soviet defenses from all fronts."

"How long will the German shelling last?" According to the way the last war was fought, shelling like this would last for a week or two before the attack, and shooting would continue for several hours every day. In the famous Battle of the Somme, the British army's massive artillery bombardment lasted for seven days, tilting millions of artillery shells towards the German positions.

"The last time the German army attacked Poland, the shelling lasted for more than an hour. If the German army was serious this time, the shelling should not last more than two hours."

"How many troops have the Germans massed?"

"We don't know the specific numbers, but we estimate that the Germans assembled more than 150 divisions, 15,000 aircraft, 20,000 tanks, and 100,000 artillery pieces of various calibers; of course, the real number may be more."

Before the start of Operation Barbarossa in the original time and space, the German army assembled 4,900 aircraft, 3,700 tanks, and 47,000 artillery pieces. This time, because there were no ties to the Western Front and Germany entered the wartime system early, Yannick found almost all the resources he could find; the force deployed on the Eastern Front could be said to have doubled several times.

"Oh God! Is the Soviet Union ready?" President Wilkie felt bad just hearing these numbers. The last time Pavlov, the commander of the Soviet Western Front, was shot, and then Timoshenko defected. I hope this time Nothing will go wrong again.

"The commander-in-chief of the Western Front is Marshal Budyonny. I heard that he also deployed trap-like defensive positions based on previous lessons. Maybe this time he can wipe out hundreds of thousands of German troops."

"..." Destroy hundreds of thousands of German troops? It sounds easy, will it really go so smoothly? Although he was full of doubts, President Wilkie did not speak, smoking silently and waiting for new news.

After smoking an unknown number of cigarettes, the correspondent finally reported new news. "The German shelling has stopped!"

President Wilkie subconsciously glanced at the clock on the wall. The German shelling lasted for an hour and a half. Does stopping the shelling mean that the Germans were about to launch an attack? !

In less than half an hour, new news came.

"The German army has broken through the first line of defense of the Soviet army."

Everyone in the war room looked at each other. This must have been a semi-active move by the Soviet army, right? ! "It seems that the Soviet plan is going quite smoothly so far."

"I hope so." President Wilkie nodded secretly.

But in the next few hours, the German army broke through the Soviet second line of defense, the third line of defense, and headed straight for the fourth line of defense.

President Wilkie couldn't help but ask. "How many lines of defense did the Soviets have?"

Stimson's face looked quite ugly. "I heard that there are four lines in total, but the fourth line of defense is not complete yet and is just like a fake!" According to the Soviet defense plan, the Germans should be blocked on the third line of defense, but now even the third line of defense has been blocked. Breakthrough, what is this?

"Oh God!" President Wilkie understood immediately. "That means that the war situation has completely deviated from the Soviet plan. These defense lines were not voluntarily given up by the Soviets, but were torn apart by the German army!"

"It seems like this now. I didn't expect the German army to be so powerful."

"Damn it!" Douglas MacArthur, who was smoking his pipe silently, suddenly screamed. "Isn't this Tukhachevsky's great depth operation!"

Everyone was confused. "What Tukhachevsky? What big deep battle?"

MacArthur explained at a very fast pace. "It's the Soviet Marshal Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky who was shot by Stalin a few years ago! He previously wrote a book called "Some New Problems of War", which talks about the great depth The theory of warfare.”

The large-depth battle (battle) is the combat style of the battle legion (corps, unit). Its essence is to use anti-personnel weapons to simultaneously suppress the entire depth of the enemy's defense, break through its tactical territory in a selected direction, and then develop a victory echelon (tanks, motorized infantry, and cavalry) into the battle, and airborne paratroopers to achieve the predetermined goal as quickly as possible. , quickly developing tactical victory into battle victory.

The essential characteristics of large-depth campaigns (battles) can be summarized as the following three points:

Conduct a full-depth assault on the enemy's defense configuration. The main point is to abandon traditional line combat.

Immediately enter the reserve echelon after breaking through the tactical zone.

Tactical victory must be developed into battle victory, which is the purpose of investing in the reserve echelon, otherwise all the results of tactical breakthroughs will become dispensable, because the gap opened will soon be closed again.

In addition, the Soviet Union's large-depth theory is supported by a powerful air force, that is, "air and ground integration, roundabout interweaving". With the support of tactical air power, it uses mechanized troops to carry out rapid maneuvers and attacks at lightning speed, emphasizing the use of Firepower interception achieves the operational purpose of isolating enemy forces and cutting off contact between the enemy's front and rear, thereby creating advantageous conditions for ground forces. The key is: "initiative", "depth", "flexibility" and "coordination" of combat forces, which are also the four basic operational principles of the "air-land integrated battle" theory.

Once the use of large depth reaches a proficient level, after breaking through the enemy's main defensive line, you can easily divide, assault, and annihilate the enemy's troops on a front of tens to hundreds of kilometers and a depth of hundreds of kilometers. But the most critical part is still the tactical depth of quickly breaking through the enemy's defense line at the beginning of the battle, and the German army has now completed this tactical requirement.

After listening to MacArthur's explanation, everyone suddenly understood. "In other words, the Germans are using the Soviet combat theory to deal with the Soviets? The Soviets should be able to defend themselves."

MacArthur shook his head dejectedly. "One of the crimes for which Marshal Tukhachevsky was shot was 'rapidly building tank corps at the expense of reducing the number and cost of cavalry.' After he was shot, his books and theories were either destroyed or banned , who dares to mention his theory, I’m afraid it has been completely forgotten long ago.”

"These stupid guys!" President Wilkie couldn't help but curse. How many useful talents did this stupid Stalin kill? !"Are our soldiers deployed on the front lines?"

Stimson nodded. "There are 80,000 soldiers in Belarus and 70,000 soldiers in Ukraine."

"Can they evacuate immediately?!" President Wilkie was a little anxious. According to MacArthur's deep-depth operations, there may be countless encirclement circles throughout Belarus and Ukraine, and our own troops are also in danger of being surrounded.

"This..." Stimson was a little embarrassed. Although the US military retained the right to disobey orders, it seemed a bit unreasonable to run away before the fire was officially exchanged.

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