Chapter 8 Chapter 2 How many people know the cruelty of war (Soviet-German confrontation, the Soviet Union won the war initiative)

On June 22, 1941, Germany summoned Romania, Hungary, Italy and other Axis partners to launch Operation Barbarossa to attack the Soviet Union.In the first half of the year, the German offensive was relatively smooth and occupied a large area of ​​western Soviet Union.By the end of 1941, the Soviet army had lost 3.13 million troops, including 800,000 dead and 2.33 million captured and missing.In addition, the Soviet army lost 20,500 tanks and 17,900 combat aircraft.However, due to the vast territory of the Soviet Union, the German army's strategic plan for a quick victory fell through.Suffering a series of disastrous defeats, the Soviet army finally gained a firm foothold in the defense of Moscow at the end of 1941.At that time, the German army was over-consumed, but there was no stable supply line, and there was a serious lack of winter clothes. The Soviet army blocked it under the city of Moscow. The Soviet army took the opportunity to launch a counterattack in some areas.

However, the initiative on the Soviet-German battlefield at that time was still on the side of the German army.In fact, the Soviet Union did not have the strength to counterattack, not only because of the heavy loss of troops and equipment, but more importantly, the command level of the Soviet generals was not worth mentioning.When the Soviet army fought, apart from striving for victory at the cost of the lives of countless soldiers, its tactics were lackluster.Marshal Zhukov, who has been mythical after World War II, is simply too famous in the eyes of his colleagues.Marshal Yeremenko once mentioned in his memoirs that Zhukov's combat art is: he must have five or six times the enemy's strength, otherwise, he will not start fighting, and without the advantage in numbers, he will not fight at all , His current prominent status was obtained with the blood of countless warriors.

Yeremenko commented on Zhukov in this way, but what about him himself?Before the defense of Kiev, many generals, including Zhukov, believed that Kyiv could not be defended, and the flank of the Southwest Front was in danger of being encircled.Stalin found Yeremenko and asked: "If I assign the Central Front Army to you and give you some artillery reserves, can you stop Guderian and cover the flanks of the Southwest Front Army?" Confidently said: "I can not only stop that rascal Guderian, but also destroy that rascal." However, the facts proved that Yeremenko's self-confidence had no basis.His Bryansk Front Army came to a standstill after a dozen kilometers of assault, and only slightly pulled Guderian's thigh.However, Guderian's tank group went straight to the side of the Southwest Front Army, which led to the disastrous defeat of the Red Army in the Kyiv battle.

To give another example, in November 1941, Rokossovsky sent the 58th Tank Division to the city of Moscow. This division had just been transferred from the Far East, and it started fighting with the Germans before it was ready for battle.As a result, three quarters of the tanks and almost one third of the personnel were lost, but the enemy suffered no losses.At that time, Rokossovsky also organized the 17th and 44th Cavalry Divisions to launch an almost crazy attack, which resulted in almost annihilation of the army.Rokossovsky held the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union and Poland after the war, and was known as the "Marshal of Everlasting Victory", but he did not spare the lives of his subordinates on the battlefield!

Among the commanders of the Soviet army, there are many who are blindly confident and rely on crowd tactics to command indiscriminately. It is not surprising that ordinary soldiers were killed and injured.Among the orders of Supreme Commander Stalin, the most common sentence is: "At any cost!" This is how the Soviet marshal fought, but how did the officers below command him? In the memoirs of German soldiers and junior officers, we can always see scenes where the Soviet army sent soldiers to die for no reason.For example, in August 1941, the later Soviet rebel general Vlasov led the 37th Army to attack a highland occupied by the Germans in Kyiv. No damage, and then launched a wave of charges, and the charging soldiers fell in front of the German machine guns.One commander also tried to get his troops to launch another pointless attack, only to be killed by the Germans.The Soviet army launched an attack on this highland without any strategic significance, which lasted for 3 days and 3 nights.The Germans couldn't understand it at all. When one group of people fell down, the other group continued to come to die?The Germans would never be so stupid. If they can't beat a place, they just go around. Why are they fighting this place?The Soviets are such a stickler!

This kind of death attack made the Germans exhausted.A German soldier commented after the war that the most shocking and unbearable thing for me and my companions was the Soviet attack, with such blunt methods and such a grand scene.The Soviets invested so many troops in order to make a little progress. If the target was really important, how many troops would the Soviets invest and how often would they attack? In fact, the German military officers never thought that the reason why the Soviet army did this was very simple-they knew no other way of fighting, only engaged in crowd tactics.Compared with the German army, the American army, and the British army, the Soviet Red Army is an army that is behind the times and belongs to the era of the First World War.The technical and tactical level required by World War II was beyond the reach of most of the low-educated Soviet commanders and fighters.

One general is really incompetent, and thousands of troops are exhausted.