Iron Cross

In order from south to north, the Red Army deployed a total of four fronts on the southern wing of the battlefield:

The southernmost was the Stalingrad Front commanded by Yeremenko, relying on the Volga River, responsible for defending the front line of about 400 kilometers from Astrakhan to Stalingrad. He absorbed the main force of the Caucasus Front, with a total force of 750,000;

The second was the Don Front commanded by Rokossovsky, relying on a solid urban defense system to guard the Volga River, Don River, and Stalingrad triangle, with a front line of about 200 kilometers and a total force of 550,000;

Further north was the Southwestern Front commanded by Vatutin, relying on the right bank of the Don River to guard the flank of Stalingrad, with a front line of about 300 kilometers and a total force of 600,000;

Finally, the newly formed Central Front was responsible for connecting Tambov and the Southwestern Front. The core key was Borisoglebsk, which controlled the intersection of three railways. The front line was about 250 kilometers and the total force was 500,000.

In addition to the 2.3 million troops on the front line, Zhukov also held the theater reserve led by Malinovsky as the commander of an independent army group. Although it was called an army group, it actually had more than 250,000 troops. In addition, there were 150,000 troops scattered on the northern shore of the Caspian Sea.

The southern battlefield had a total of 2.8 million troops, but the total number of tanks and aircraft was only over 2,000 (Note: The relevant troop statistics include the air force and logistics forces assigned to the front defense zone, and the actual number of front-line land soldiers is less). Although there is no clear supreme commander above the four fronts, Zhukov was in command and coordination most of the time and was responsible for the southern front.

The central battlefield, with the defense of Moscow as the core, also had four fronts with a total force of about 2.65 million.

At the southern end is the Bryansk Front commanded by General Leiter, responsible for connecting the Central Front, with the core point of Tambov, with a front line of about 250 kilometers and a total force of 550,000;

Then is the Western Front commanded by General Meretskov, responsible for defending the semi-arc defense belt from Tula and Ryazan in the south to Rzhev and Klin in the north, with a front line of about 550 kilometers and a total force of 1.15 million;

Finally, the Kalinin Front commanded by General Purkayev is responsible for the defense of the line from Novgorod to Rzhev, covering the flank of the Western Front, with a front line of about 400 kilometers and a total force of 750,000.

The reserve of the headquarters was reorganized after being exhausted by the southern battlefield, but now it has only a nominal establishment of about 200,000, which is actually useless.

Although the total number of the Red Army in the central battlefield is slightly less than that of the southern wing, the number of tanks and aircraft exceeds 2,500, and the training is better, which can be regarded as a more combat-effective war zone.

The northern battlefield is centered on defending Leningrad. Although it also has the Volkhov, Leningrad, Northwestern, and Karelian fronts, the total force is only about 1.85 million, of which the Northwestern Front also serves as the strategic reserve of the Moscow Theater. Due to the relatively small size of the fronts, the headquarters once abolished the Volkhov Front, but due to the poor traffic and weather conditions on the northern front, a large front like the southern wing was not conducive to command. In the end, it was divided into four fronts, and the independent 7th Army Group took on the task of the theater reserve; the strength of each front was generally around 400,000-450,000, with a theater reserve of about 100,000. This theater has the least technical weapons, with only a little over 1,000 tanks and aircraft.

Among these troops confronting the axis on the front line, in addition to the supplementary soldiers collected by all means, the other arms also paid a heavy price. Take the navy as an example. Before the war, the Black Sea Fleet was an important part second only to the Baltic Fleet. After the fall of Sevastopol and the Black Sea coast, all officers and soldiers of the Black Sea Fleet, with very few exceptions, were transferred to the army on the spot. Generally, they served as infantry, those who could operate naval guns became artillery, and those who could drive torpedo boats became armored soldiers. Without the sea, there was no point in keeping the navy. The air force was also inevitably withdrawn. The number of pilots would definitely not decrease, but due to the reduction in the controlled area and the large-scale loss of airports and anti-aircraft guns, this group of garrison troops and anti-aircraft gun troops were also transferred to the army.

For Germany, a very favorable situation was that it finally caught up with its opponents in terms of the number of technical weapons. At the beginning of Barbarossa, the Axis had about 4,000 tanks in the offensive, while the Soviet Union had more than 23,000 tanks during the same period, with 14,000 concentrated in the western military districts. After nearly two years of fighting, the Axis destroyed and captured more than 40,000 Soviet tanks. While the number of its own tanks exceeded 5,000 (on the Eastern Front), the Red Army's tanks were reduced to just over 6,000 (there were more than 1,500 in the Far East and Siberia, and more than 1,000 in Central Asia and reserve training).

However, the Red Army still had more than 13,000 tanks in its hands, but more than 4,000 of them were sealed, which was an inevitable choice made under extreme helplessness. After losing the Baku oil field, the source of oil decreased sharply, and the overall supply of the Soviet Union was even less than that of Germany before it got the Middle East oil field, while Germany's crude oil production exceeded that of the Soviet Union in the same period last year - the crude oil production of the Soviet Union and Germany was unconsciously replaced.

The Soviet Union's coal resources were very insufficient, far less than Germany's, and there was no coal-to-oil project. Therefore, despite emergency measures such as increasing the exploitation of new oil fields, demanding more supplies, and reducing fuel consumption in other areas, the oil production gap could not be made up in the short term.

In addition, due to the continuous losses of the armored forces and the serious shortage of effective armored forces, under the strong suggestions of Zhukov and Vasilevsky, Stalin was forced to issue an order requiring all fronts to seal most of the light tanks in the troops. Light tanks such as BT-7\\T-26\\T-60\\T-70 were not only completely discontinued, but also forced to reduce the use of those that had been produced, so as to leave the most precious fuel and crews for trucks, T-34 series tanks and SU series tank destroyers.

After this reorganization, T-34\\T-43 accounted for more than 80% of the more than 6,000 tanks confronting the Axis, which was similar to the effect of Germany replacing No. 2 and No. 3 with No. 4. Due to the low popularity of light armored vehicles in the Soviet Union, a small number of light tanks were left to undertake reconnaissance, vigilance, liaison and other functions, but they were no longer used in armored warfare to avoid unnecessary losses.

A similar situation also occurred with aircraft. At the beginning of Barbarossa, the number of aircraft deployed by the Axis in the attack was about 3,500, while the number of Soviet aircraft in the same period exceeded 20,000, and more than 10,000 aircraft directly engaged with the Axis. After nearly two years of continuous combat, with the Axis' high exchange ratio of more than 1:7, the Soviet Union still had more than 6,000 relatively modern aircraft on the front line (nearly 2,000 in the Far East, and more than 1,000 in Central Asia and the hinterland).

Since the Soviet Union was more dependent on the supply of high-grade aviation fuel from Britain and the United States, the current cut-off of foreign aid would have a greater impact on the aviation force than on the armored force. No matter how reluctant it was, facing the increasingly scarce fuel supply, the Red Army Air Force could only respond by reducing its organization and reducing flight hours, and the latter would further cause the quality of pilots to decline.

The difference is that Germany has an absolute advantage in armored forces, but in the field of air force, Italy, Romania, Hungary, Finland and even Slovakia have a large number of pilots participating in the battle, and their performance is better than that of the ground forces. After Germany exported a large number of obsolete Bf-109 and Stuka to the Axis brothers, the Axis armies became more active, and the pressure on the Red Army pilots continued to increase.

Although the monthly oil production is less than that of Germany in the same period last year, fortunately, the Soviet Union does not need to maintain a large submarine fleet, nor does it need to aid its allies, and the number of cars is relatively small. Therefore, after the reorganization of armored and aviation forces, its monthly fuel consumption has dropped to a level that is basically the same as the output. However, what worries Zhukov is that the weather is gradually getting warmer and the demand for heating oil is basically non-existent. If the supply conditions cannot be significantly improved in winter, I am afraid that a lot of people will be frozen to death, but Comrade Stalin does not seem to care so much at the moment.

"After the Caucasus front fell in April, we managed to stabilize the situation along the Volga River in Astrakhan and Stalingrad, but the situation is very dangerous. The Caspian Sea has become a place for both the enemy and us to jointly control, and the defense is open." There is a sentence that Vasilevsky did not say, but everyone knows it very well. Fortunately, the Caspian Sea is a closed sea area. If it is directly connected to the Black Sea and can pass warships, I am afraid that the German and Italian fleets will have launched a large-scale landing, instead of fighting with aircraft and small warships of about 100 tons as they are now.

"In the past month, we have found three places where radio signals have surged." Vasilevsky pointed at the map with his pointer and said, "One is in the direction of Smolensk, where the enemy's Central Army Group is located; one is near Orel, where intelligence shows that the enemy's Eastern Army Group is gathering. This is a new army group formed this year, positioned as the strategic reserve on the Eastern Front, with a large number of rebels; the third is near Voronezh, where intelligence shows that Hoth's armored army is there. The rest of the situation is unknown. But the southern wing, especially the line south of Stalingrad, is relatively calm, and the calm is a bit unnatural. Chang."

"The General Staff has four possible directions for the enemy's attack. First, attacking from the Rzhev-Vyazma line to re-establish the salient, I think, is less likely; second, attacking from the Orel line, bypassing the Tula direction, and encircling Moscow from the south, this possibility exists, the probability is not small; third, starting from Voronezh to attack in depth, trying to encircle and annihilate our Bryansk Front, this possibility is greater, but it is not the main attack direction; fourth, relying on superior forces, using the method of encirclement on all sides to capture Stalingrad."

"Encirclement on all sides?" Everyone looked at each other.