Chapter 525 Castle (2)
ps: I wish all readers a happy National Day and a happy family!
Although it was clear at the strategic level that the attack on Moscow was just a false target, the Central Army Group spared no effort in tactical deception. The real goals and content of the Castle Battle were only communicated to the division level, while the armies of the Eastern countries were only communicated to the army level.
It’s not that the commanders of the Eastern countries are not trusted, but relatively speaking, there is a greater possibility of spies mixed in with them - whether in terms of race, historical heritage or mutual relationship, the difficulty of mixing in this group of troops is completely different from that of mixing in pure German troops. Even the Eastern countries themselves have acknowledged this. In addition to the Gestapo, the army group also stationed members of the anti-counterrevolutionary agencies independently established by various countries. Facts have proved that this preventive measure is not groundless. From the first day of the establishment of the Eastern Divisions, espionage cases have always existed.
Although the Central Army Group was busy, Hoffman had no idea how successful this tactical deception would be. The reason was simple. The same trick had been used once: when Operation Blue began last summer, the Central Army Group sent maps of Moscow and surrounding cities to the regiment level, and also created a large number of false road signs pointing to the direction of attack, and finally successfully deceived Stalin and the General Staff of the Red Army.
Even though the Blue Plan and the campaign to the Caucasus had begun, Stalin still firmly believed that the German offensive target was Moscow, and had always maintained heavy troops in that direction. In the summer campaign, not only did he not send the most elite troops to the southern front, but he also rashly launched the famous Timoshenko Offensive (the first Battle of Kharkov) near Kharkov. As a result, not only was Timoshenko's offensive defeated, but the situation on the southern front also collapsed across the board. More than half a year later, he had to re-draw elite troops from the Moscow direction to fill the gap.
This time Model tried to repeat his old trick, and Hoffman thought it would be hard for the other side to be fooled. However, after looking at the overall strategic map of the Eastern Front and the distribution map of the enemy and our forces, he was full of confidence in victory.
If you don't look carefully, you will think that the situation on the Eastern Front seems to have returned to the situation before the German army took the initiative to withdraw in September 1942: the northern line continued to blockade Leningrad, the central line aimed at Moscow, and the southern line approached Stalingrad.
But if you look closely, you will find that the actual situation of the German army is much more favorable than 9 months ago: after Turkey joined the war, occupied Transcaucasus, and the entire Caucasus Plain fell into the hands of the Axis, Russia lost the famous Baku oil field, Stalingrad faced pressure from the south, west and north, and Manstein's troops reached Astrakhan; Iran joined the war, the Caspian Sea became a common battlefield between the Soviet Union and Germany, and the gates of Central Asian regions such as Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan were wide open, and the Soviet hinterland faced a major threat; the Arctic route and the southern route were completely interrupted, and only the Pacific route could import some aid materials. The amount of materials leased by the Red Army was less than 15% of the peak period; non-Russian ethnic countries became independent, established and consolidated their regimes, and the Russian Liberation Army continued to grow. In addition to maintaining order in the rear, the Eastern countries invested more than 500,000 troops in the front line to confront the Red Army, which greatly consolidated the Axis offensive power.
The contrast between the military strength and technical weapons hidden under the map situation is even more incomparable. Hoffman is much clearer than the marshals and generals under him:
Historically, the Soviet army lost about 7.9 million people (the total number of deaths, wounded and prisoners) in 1941, and about 7.4 million in 1942. From January to April 1943, a total of about 2.4 million were lost. In nearly two years, the Red Army lost about 14 million people in total (the reason why the sum of the years is greater than the total is that some of the wounded in the previous year suffered losses again after returning to the army twice or even more times); in contrast, the Axis Army lost nearly 3 million people in the same period, of which the German army lost about 2.4 million.
After Hoffman crossed, the situation changed significantly. The Red Army still lost nearly 14 million people. Although the Red Army suffered more heavy losses on the southern front (Caucasus and Volga River Basin), the historical defeats of Operation Mars and the Kharkov Counterattack were gone. With the increase and decrease of one, the number of losses was relatively close in the end. However, the losses of the Axis forces during the same period were greatly reduced, with a total loss of only about 1.8 million. The number of more than 1 million troops lost in the Battle of Stalingrad was greatly reduced, and the number of troops lost in Operation Mars was also sharply reduced. More importantly, the number of prisoners was very small - so far, the total number of Axis prisoners is only over 100,000 (most of them were captured in the Battle of Moscow), while historically, by May 1943, the total number of Axis prisoners was nearly 500,000, and German prisoners alone accounted for more than 300,000.
This means that the Axis has nearly 1.2 million more troops. Although Hoffman reduced the number of troops in Italy, Romania, and Hungary by nearly 250,000, added two armies in Africa by nearly 250,000, and allocated 100,000 troops to the Marine Corps, he also adopted the policy of demobilizing veterans over 40 years old and domestic military industrial workers to return one after another (involving about 300,000 people), the overall number of troops increased by 300,000.
After Turkey and Iran joined the war against the Soviet Union and an additional 500,000 auxiliary troops from Eastern countries were added, the total force fighting against Russia increased by 1.2 million. Therefore, the total force of the Axis on the Eastern Front exceeded 5.5 million for the first time - a number that had never been reached in history, and at most it was just over 5 million when Operation Barbarossa was first launched.
Compared to the 4.5 million VS 6.5 million troops in the autumn of 1942, the current troop strength on the Eastern Front has become 5.5 million VS 7.5 million. The Red Army was forced to reduce the troops in the Far East and Siberia to less than 1.5 million (nearly 2 million in history).
Although the combat effectiveness of the additional troops except the German army is not too strong, it is much stronger than the Red Army's hasty policy of conscripting soldiers to build the army. Hoffman has read the report submitted by Galen. Now, among the ordinary infantry divisions of the Red Army starting with 3XX numbers, more than 90% of the ordinary soldiers are reservists born before 1900 (over 43 years old), and among the infantry divisions starting with 1XX and 2XX numbers, more than 60% of the ordinary soldiers are over 40 years old or under 18 years old. Only the Guards, infantry divisions with numbers less than 100 and rebuilt earlier, and most armored units are mainly composed of young people (18-35 years old). In contrast, the German army had basically no ordinary soldiers over 40 years old (a very small number of them still strongly requested to stay and serve after multiple mobilizations).
Intelligence also showed that the Red Army was forming a female division (composed of pure female soldiers except officers and professional sergeants), with a total number of 500,000 to 600,000 people, and the male conscription age was further expanded to 16-61 years old. In order to rapidly increase the number of troops, the anxious Stalin no longer cared about the "public security" situation. All prisoners in prisons, regardless of their previous crimes, were released and incorporated into the army. Even the most dangerous "political dissidents" were not taken care of. The labor camps similar to the Gulag were directly shot by the internal security forces in front of others. All the survivors were incorporated into the army, and even the Polish prisoners of war (Katyn only shot Polish officers, and nearly 300,000 Polish soldiers were thrown into labor camps) were dispersed and incorporated into the army.
After solving the above-mentioned unstable factors, the internal security forces that were responsible for detention, monitoring and management further "freed up" personnel to join the front-line troops. Many people even fought side by side with the previously detained class enemies - the exciting scene was too exciting for Hoffman to imagine!
By exhausting all resources, Stalin once again forced the national army to exceed 10 million: in addition to the 7.5 million people confronting the Axis and the 1.5 million people on standby in the Far East and Siberia, there were less than 1 million troops left in the vast Soviet hinterland. Seeing this emptiness, Manstein proposed the grand "Central Asia Plan", hoping to use 500,000 mechanized troops to sweep across. Unfortunately, Hoffman did not dare to agree to him yet, and there was no supporter of any weight in the Supreme Command, the Army General Staff and other command centers. Even Marshal Rundstedt, who knew Manstein well and had an extraordinary relationship with him, could not believe that this plan was proposed by him after hearing it, thinking that "it was okay for the Führer to propose such a whimsical and unrealistic plan." When the news reached Hoffman's ears, he was so angry that he rolled his eyes.
Perhaps he also knew that similar strategic deceptions would be difficult to work again. In choosing the offensive path for the Castle Campaign, Model preferred the Tula plan for three reasons:
First, Orel, the starting point of the Tula plan, was closer to the front of the Southern Army Group. When a large-scale campaign was launched, it could be covered by the flank of the Hoth Group. When Kursk and Voronezh were in the hands of the German army, it was tactically safer to start from Orel;
Second, the Tula plan faced the Bryansk Front, which was weaker than the Western Front responsible for the defense of the west of Moscow;
Third, the battlefield faced by the Tula plan was more favorable than the battlefield of the Rzhev-Vyazma plan, with a wider offensive channel and more suitable for large-scale assaults by armored groups.
The biggest shortcoming of this plan is obvious - it is too close to the Southern Army Group and Stalingrad. Even if the Red Army's heavy troops are attracted as expected, once the southern wing battle starts and evolves into a decisive offensive, the attracted Red Army will soon rejoin the southern wing battlefield through mobile deployment, and the time will not exceed 15 days. This time is far from enough to achieve the goal of the third phase of the Spring Awakening Campaign - to eliminate 1-2 Red Army fronts and occupy Stalingrad.
So, a funny scene appeared: Manstein, who did not participate in the Castle Battle, insisted on choosing the Rzhev-Vyazma plan, while Model and Weichs, who participated in the Castle Battle, insisted on choosing the Tula plan.
The two sides argued about this for half a month during the truce period, and even Zeitzler, who was responsible for coordination, was undecided. Due to the late end of the rainy season, the offensive time of the campaign was first postponed from early May to May 17, and then from the 17th to the 25th...