Rasputin of the East

＜ Episode 220 >

Rome. Italian Army Headquarters.

“The Ariate division has been annihilated in Padua.”

General Kesseling, the commander of the German forces in Italy, smashed the desk.

“What did I say! You said it’s suicide to start an armored war against the Russians! Also, rather than sticking to the terrain, choose the battlefield to fight in one of the few plains in Italy? It would have been a miracle if Ariate’s division had retreated while maintaining its formation!”

“General Kesseling!”

“What we can do is simple, we must give up all the banks of the Po River and retreat to the mountains! Gathering large-scale artillery in the mountains and resisting, at least it won’t be unilaterally broken by the Russians!”

“We need a winning strategy, not a winning strategy! Even if Venice does, you want to give up Mantua, Milan, Turin, Bologna, etc., and stay in the mountains to defend yourself?”

“In Germany we were able to stop the advance of the Russians only if we had natural defenses, such as rivers! Even if we had the upper hand in numbers, the Russians overpowered us! Our attacks will not work against our enemies, and they will crush us as if they were ridiculed! Why are you trying to do something stupid again?”

“The area you want to abandon now is virtually the whole of northern Italy! Italy’s industrial capacity and economy is concentrated!”

“So there is another way!”

The difference of opinion between the German and Italian forces eventually led to a plosive sound.

***

“I heard Kesseling is struggling.”

“Yes, sir.”

“To be honest, I’m a little skeptical of Kesseling, isn’t he a Luftwaffe guy, I’m not sure how to lead a ground war, but I can’t send a model or Manstein to the Maginot line.”

German flanks, models and Manstein, this was Goebbels’ propaganda.

What the two have in common is that they are generals who ‘at least’ propagated against the Russian army.

In fact, there is a wide difference in the level of weapons, and the equipment that can be fought is a beggar-like reliability such as being eliminated halfway to the battlefield, and while receiving all kinds of interference such as the retreat ban from Jugashville, it is a huge thing.

There is still a possibility if the current Manstein and the Model face a decisive battle again, as Zugashvili withdraws from military operation and the new Tiger and Panther replace all existing tanks 1 to 4! This was public opinion within the Nazis. In practice, no one knows.

In any case, now that the generals like Gira Castle were defeated one after another, the number of those favored by Hitler was limited.

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Models and Mansteins who have proven their capabilities, Rommel, Brauchitch, and Lev, who served as staunch Hitler’s in the Defense Forces, and the armored Guderian who said that tank production could be paralyzed without him.

There were a number of talented but disdainful figures like Kleist, Busch, and Vlaskovitz, but none of the favored figures were at least incompetent.

The incompetent have already been divided by the Russian army.

“Then there is one blue.”

“Something?”

“Ask the British to accompany Captain Montgomery, he is defeated because the British left him without proper support, and he is a master enough.”

good to say In North Africa, in Persia, have you ever received even a drop of supply properly?

In Persia, they did not receive a single replenishment or a single bullet, and the Russian army, who sent in paratroopers and occupied the entire area of Tehran, dried up the British, who could not even drink enough water.

North Africa? How many tanks were self-destructed without using oil because of lack of oil, and how many British and German soldiers had to bite their belts because they were leather. No matter how many fighters and submarines were deployed, they certainly had control over them, but as the Russian army started a grand offensive in Europe, they had no supplies to provide, so they did not send a single bullet except for an order not to fight and retreat.

Even if you send Sir Arthur Wellesley from the Napoleonic Wars, if you tell him to fight and win without adequate supply of shells and sips of water, he will lie down.

“Montgomery is the brightest star in a British army full of shitholes. A lot of British troops are also sent to Italy, so if you send Montgomery, we can work with him and drive the Russians out of Italy with certainty.”

At Rommel’s rant, Hitler put on a serious expression.

“Can you really do it?”

“I heard that a large number of American troops were involved in the Italian offensive.”

The reason why the Russian army was reluctant to use the US military and turned to active deployment was simple.

At this point, the possibility that the US would step out further disappeared. No matter how many casualties they suffered, they were forced to hang the heads of Hitler and Hirohito in the White House.

Then the restrictions on the consumption of US troops as bullet bins had to be removed.

“It is easier to deal with the US military than against only the Russians. Your Excellency, have you not heard of what kind of chaos the U.S. ground forces are in the New World?”

A destructive ability, there was no other way to express it.

Although the commanders may have excellent abilities, the combat power of the units of the U.S. Army, which has grown rapidly, has weakened. In fact, there was an open opinion that it would have been impossible for the US military to occupy Canada even if the state of Canada had not been completely chaotic.

“If General Montgomery can hold out, hit and annihilate the Americans, you can flank the Russians.”

“Can General Montgomery hold on? General Rommel?”

“His abilities are clear. The British would never have lost Suez if the British had provided them with a drop of oil, at least shells and replenishment.”

“Okay, do as you please, let’s put a request in England.”

Hitler didn’t really have much interest in the Italian front. In any case, the final decisive battle is not only a thorough defense on the Maginot Line and a counterattack that will destroy the exhausted enemy’s main force and bring the enemy to the negotiating table.

Even if Italy collapses anyway, a thick line of defense has been built in that direction.

Rommel was his stalwart hound in the German military, full of proud Junkers…but Hitler judged that Rommel wouldn’t be of much help in a situation where he had to deal with the Russians.

So it was enough to push a hound of lesser value to a frontline that wasn’t very interesting.

And given the devotion he had made to him, Hitler felt good enough to be generous enough to grant him a request for an extra friend.

I didn’t hear the bad news in the first place, and I was thinking about how to shake hands at the end of the war meeting to end the war, and I was spending time writing the script of a speech to see how the main force would feel that Russia’s negotiation proposal, which had collapsed, would be felt generously. It was natural.

No one even pointed out that the Russian army is more likely to form a new main force rather than choosing to negotiate when the main force is destroyed.

However, there were some who expressed concern.

“Sir, the damage to the Royal Navy and our navy in the Azores is great. According to Admiral Donitz’s opinion, fortifying the coast in preparation for the enemy’s surprise amphibious operation…”

“Hey, landing! Who did it? Russia? America? Russia’s power is only shown on the ground, don’t you know what a sea of blood a landing without a single main ship creates? Russia has no ability to conduct an amphibious operation! Haven’t we all noticed how much blood was lost in the last Russian amphibious war across Scandanavia? If America landed, we would rather give up part of the coast to our enemies. What fool would want to partake of Europe that has been acquired by the United States? The Russians will be impatient, and will have to choose between attacking or negotiating, and if they do, they will only counterattack and break the dreadful offensive and bring them to the negotiating table! The US military is a bunch of idiots. If only the Russians were expelled, wouldn’t they be able to wipe out the chaotic US forces with just one arm of the SS without the entire army!”

“The US military is rapidly learning lessons and incorporating them into doctrine! In addition, various weapons were imported from Russia.”

What Russia sent in exchange for the various goods sent from the United States was as diverse as the goods sent by the United States. To take just one example, Russia has already delivered a large number of early T-32 turrets to the United States by cargo ships in exchange for Russian engineers and bureaucrats visiting American industrial facilities.

The T-32-100 was in the form of a new turret mounted on the T-32, and the old-fashioned form was no longer needed.

And the U.S. did not stop at tearing them apart, but urgently sent them to the front line.

The reason for this was simple. The US government realized that the M2, a 37mm tank in Canada, was far out of date. Most of the tank power has already gone to Europe, such as one Matilda company having one tank incapacitated, and the new attack aircraft have not been sent to the mainland with 75mm guns, rockets, and bombs. If it had not been destroyed at the beginning of the war, the offensive itself could have failed due to the gap in armored power and could have led to a total defeat in the war.

However, the U.S. military was behind the times, and it was unclear whether the U.S. could develop a 75mm-class turret with the current technology.

In the original history, the US military, facing the same dilemma, compromised by developing a tank with a 75mm in the hull and 37mm in the turret. He asked what he couldn’t buy and asked for the sale of the old 85mm turret.

Russia immediately dumped the 85mm turret, which was a bad stock, to the US military, and the US military adopted the M3, an alternative type of weapon with a Russian turret mounted on a domestic hull.

Of course, in the meantime, there was a commotion, such as overhauling the hull that the US had developed in-house due to problems such as the diameter of the turret ring did not match. It was the main force of the front and the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe.

In other words, even the German army cannot be underestimated as far as the equipment performance of the US military is concerned.

Hitler, however, shrugged off these concerns.

“In Dieppe most of the British armored vehicles fell into the water and most of the tank crew drowned! Do you know how easy it is to put tanks in an amphibious operation? No matter how good infantry weapons are, they cannot beat tanks! To be clear, the US military will never be able to build a bridgehead on the European continent on its own, so it’s just a useless worry! Victory will ultimately be decided by just one, one-on-one match at the Maginot!”