Chapter 630 Airborne Troops (2)

When it comes to airborne troops, the entire German army becomes nervous, because in the eyes of the German army, airborne troops are elite troops with extremely strong combat effectiveness, at least the German airborne troops are like this.

And Manstein and Qin Chuan both know one thing: if the Soviet Union launches an airborne operation against Baku, it is entirely possible to recapture Baku or even annihilate the two German divisions in Baku.

The reason is that the German army is too weak compared to the Soviet army. It has to guard one line of defense here and another line of defense there. Once the airborne troops are airborne to the rear, it may lead to the collapse of the entire German army.

On the other hand, the airborne troops have a strong initiative, that is, before they are airborne, no one knows where these airborne troops will land or attack.

In response, Manstein immediately took action and did a few things.

The first is to drive the people of Baku out of their houses and gather them in the refinery.

This is not to say that the people are used as a shield for the refinery, but once the airborne division lands directly in Baku and gets help from the people, it will be difficult for the German army to win the war.

Then, Manstein pulled out a regiment from the 1st Mountain Division to garrison Baku. Only by occupying the commanding heights and key points in the city can the Soviet airborne troops have no chance to take advantage.

Finally, Manstein withdrew the 1st Infantry Regiment from the defense line as a mobile force.

It is well known that it is very important to deal with the mobile force of the airborne troops.

The reason is that it is not known in advance where the enemy will land, and a fast mobile force can rush to the enemy's landing site in the shortest time and annihilate them before they are ready.

Of course, this mobile force must be the 1st Infantry Division.

So the 1st Infantry Division immediately got busy.

Mobile forces are not as easy as imagined. Just equip a few more cars or sidecars.

There are many other problems, such as ammunition supply, estimating where the enemy will land, and what kind of combat plan is there for possible landing sites, etc.

The most prominent problem was the supply problem... The 1st Infantry Regiment's MP43 was running out of ammunition.

But this problem was not difficult to solve. Manstein sent a telegram to the army group commander von Bock.

Of course, von Bock also knew the importance of defending the Baku oil field. Without saying a word, he dispatched ten Junkers 52 transport planes to deliver ammunition to Baku overnight.

As mentioned before, the sturdy landing gear of the Junkers 52 transport plane enabled it to take off and land roughly in the wild. At this time, there was no need to worry about being intercepted by Soviet fighter planes at night... So the supplies were quickly delivered to the 1st Infantry Regiment.

Then Colonel Slaine sent people to organize Soviet people to repair the roads leading to several directions in Baku, which was the basis for the rapid mobility of the mobile forces.

Another thing was to divide the battalion into three groups to familiarize themselves with three directions.

In short, everyone from top to bottom dared not be careless, for fear of accidentally losing the fat meat in their mouths... In fact, this is still secondary. If Baku cannot be defended, the German army fighting deep behind enemy lines will have nowhere to escape.

In other words, this is a matter of life and death for the German army.

But in fact, these worries of the German army are completely unnecessary.

Just when the German army was making various preparations in full swing, the 4th Guards Airborne Army that received the order was actually in chaos.

This was caused by two aspects.

On the one hand, the airborne troops lacked capable and qualified officers.

This should be said not only for the airborne troops, but also for the entire Soviet army, because for a long time, the officers who could rise in the Soviet army were politically correct rather than capable officers.

So when Lieutenant General Peterkov, commander of the 4th Guards Airborne Army, received the emergency airborne operation in Baku, he did not formulate a complete and unified combat plan at all. He just briefly convened a meeting of generals and stipulated that they must rush to Baku and implement the airborne operation before dawn, and then let his troops go to prepare.

It makes sense to stipulate that we must rush to Baku and implement airborne operations before dawn, because once dawn comes, the German BF and FW fighters will simply enter the unmanned area and massacre the Soviet transport planes... As mentioned before, the Soviet fighters are completely behind the Germans in the Caucasus region. They can only rely on the complex terrain of the Caucasus to deal with the German fighters. If they want to cover the Soviet transport planes, they will just watch and stare at the target being slaughtered.

On the other hand, there is the problem of transport planes.

At this time, the Soviet army used the Li-2 transport plane. (Note: This transport plane was exported to China in 1949, which is the transport plane pattern on the two-cent RMB)

This transport plane is actually not a military transport plane. Its production and positioning are both civilian transport planes (imitation of the DC3 transport plane imported from the United States).

But because the Soviet-German War broke out, the Soviet Union did not have a suitable transport plane, so it urgently requisitioned a large number of such civilian transport planes for transportation and parachute aircraft.

In this regard, the Soviet Union was indeed a bit wrong.

Because the Soviet Union was the first country in the world to have paratroopers and parachute tactics...

In 1933, the Soviet Union held an air show in Moscow, and 10,000 spectators watched in silence as 46 paratroopers jumped out of two large bombers - a world record at the time. The Soviets also used a large parachute to drop a small combat tank. Although the tank could not be started after landing and had to be dragged out of the training ground, it left a deep impression on foreign observers watching on the scene. Inspired by this, European and American countries have established their own airborne troops.

But now, the Soviet airborne forces are far behind other countries, and even the transport planes for parachuting use civilian transport planes.

The biggest disadvantage of the Li-2 transport plane is its slow speed... The cruising speed is only 240 kilometers per hour.

Stalin's plan is feasible.

The 4th Guards Airborne Army has three brigades with a total of 10,000 people. Stalin plans to gather 250 Li-2 transport planes... Each Li-2 transport plane can carry 20 paratroopers, so that 250 transport planes can deliver all 10,000 people to Baku in two batches.

Then the airborne troops and the Transcaucasian Front will work together, and retaking Baku will not be a big problem.

But war is never based on imagination.

The reality is that Stalin did not take into account the problem that the Li-2 has a speed of only 240 kilometers, and not all the Li-2s needed are in Stalingrad... There are only 50 in Stalingrad, and the other 200 need to be transferred from other airports.

Then after calculation, only 30 can reach Stalingrad within the specified time.

But the Soviet army can't wait, because if it's any later, it may not be able to implement the airdrop before dawn, so Peterkov can only order 80 sorties to implement the airdrop in batches.