The decisive battle against the Third Reich

It makes sense that the Transcaucasus Front would be the weakest among all the troops. The Transcaucasus is located at the rear of the battle line...if the Don River defense line is the main defense line, it belongs to the rear.

In this way, if the enemy wants to attack the Transcaucasus, he must attack from the Don River defense line to the North Caucasus and then to the Transcaucasus. Even if the Soviet army fails, the defeated troops will retreat in waves and attack the outer Caucasus. The source of troops is no longer a problem in the Caucasus.

The problem is that the German army at this time did not take the usual path. They did not attack from the Don River step by step. Instead, they landed from the Kerch Strait, passed through the Taman Peninsula, and then along the Black Sea coast and penetrated into the Transcaucasus. The rear area of ​​Transcaucasia was exposed to the Germans.

But even though Transcaucasus was the Soviet army's weak point in the rear, its military strength still far exceeded that of the German army:

The 43rd Group Army, which is affiliated with the Transcaucasus Front, has 9 divisions. Together with an infantry division and a tank brigade directly under the front, the total strength reaches 200,000.

Excluding the air force, the German army only had 60,000 men, which was less than one-third of the strength of a Soviet front.

This is one of the reasons why General Tyulenev proposed to take the initiative.

However, General Tyulenev did not consider one thing: the vast majority of the 200,000 people in the Transcaucasus Front were newly recruited recruits, naval infantry, and engineering auxiliary units.

Engineering auxiliary arms such as the 51st fortification area.

The Soviet army has a very distinctive unit, which is the fortification area. They are used to build complete fortifications, such as the previous fortifications in Sevastopol Fortress.

There are also some fortifications built in Transcaucasus, but most of these fortifications are north-facing fortifications built on the Caucasus Mountains. At this time, the German army bypassed the Caucasus Mountains from the left wing, rendering these fortifications completely useless.

Another example is the 63rd Cavalry Division, which was basically useless during this period... There is a certain reason why the Cavalry Division has not been eliminated in the Soviet Union, because in the winter in the Soviet Union, cavalry is often more reliable than cars and tanks, but at other times these War horses are the best targets for machine guns.

Therefore, among the 200,000 people of the Transcaucasian Front, there are actually only three divisions and one brigade, the 9th and 20th Mountain Divisions, as well as the 417th Infantry Division and the 52nd Tank Brigade directly under the Front.

General Tyulenev sent the 9th and 20th Mountain Divisions, plus the 389th Infantry Division and the 63rd Cavalry Division.

General Tyulenezh's idea is very simple. Push the troops to station in the Novorossiysk area, where the Caucasus Mountains are on the right and the Black Sea is on the left. After using a mountain division to build a defense line, you can make yourself invincible. Then two divisions were used to cooperate with the North Caucasus Front to attack Soglione, and the cavalry division was used as a mobile force.

The idea is good, but the German army will not fight this battle according to his ideas.

At nine o'clock that night, shortly after it got dark (it got dark around eight o'clock in May in the Soviet Union), the German troops set off from Soglione Airport and headed straight for Novorossiysk.

There is a reason why Novorossiysk became a battlefield. It was an important port city for the Soviet army. British military aid shipped from Egypt to the Soviet Union was disembarked here and then transported to the Soviet Union and other places via the northbound railway. Occupying this place not only means cutting off this supply line, but also means occupying the mountain passes leading to the Transcaucasus region.

For a distance of more than seventy kilometers, it took the German vanguard more than three hours to arrive at twelve o'clock.

The reason why it is so slow is that it is very difficult for tanks to march at night, especially when the troops marching are a mix of tanks from the Soviet Union, Britain, the United States, Germany, and the Czech Republic. It is simply a hodgepodge.

This kind of non-uniform equipment makes the German army look a bit like a mob, but it looks like one thing, but fighting is another matter... Although the tanks are very chaotic, the people who drive the tanks are all experienced in battles. of veterans.

On the contrary, the Soviet troops, even the elite troops called mountain divisions, were soldiers with no combat experience.

"The Soviets set up a defense line three kilometers outside the city!" Manstein pointed to the map sent by the reconnaissance force and said: "The defense line stretches from the Black Sea to the Caucasus Mountains, five kilometers long and one kilometer deep, with the cavalry division at the end. !”

"What is the specific troop deployment?" Colonel Slaine asked.

"We don't know!" Manstein replied.

Then he added: "Because the Soviets themselves don't know!"

At first, the officers did not understand what Manstein said, but after explanation, they realized... It turned out that the German scouts captured a few prisoners and wanted to get information from them, but what they got was chaos and even suicide. Conflicting information.

The German scouts were not reconciled and captured a few more prisoners, but the situation remained the same.

Later, the scouts realized that this was not because the Soviet prisoners deceived them, but because the Soviet soldiers themselves were not sure which position their troops were responsible for stationing... The Soviet army's orders were relatively hasty, and they usually gave verbal instructions. There was no detailed written plan and timetable issued to the troops, which directly caused chaos in the Soviet defense line in Novorossiysk.

For example, the three offensive divisions thought that they would set off to attack Soglione tomorrow morning, so they moved their supplies and equipment as far forward as possible into the defense line of the 20th Mountain Division, which was responsible for the defense. The 20th Mountain Division discovered that When the follow-up troops entered their own defense lines, they doubted whether they had built fortifications at the wrong location, so some troops moved the defense lines forward. In the end, even the Soviet soldiers themselves were a little confused.

In the end, the German scouts had no choice but to give up... because they couldn't figure out what even the Soviet soldiers didn't figure out.

This, of course, added some laughter to the German officers.

"That is to say!" Manstein pointed to the map and said: "The troops of their four divisions are crowded within three kilometers from the defense line to Novorossiysk, and at least so far they have not noticed that we are coming!"

This seems a bit difficult to understand, because at this time the German army had more than a hundred tanks, and they made a lot of noise on the march. The German army could be discovered by just placing a few groups of scouts between Soglione and Novorossiysk. .

But the Soviet army just did not do this job, because they were ordered to attack Soglione, and they did not expect that the Germans would launch a counterattack.

"Annihilate these troops!" Manstein said at last: "I said annihilate rather than defeat, because if we just defeat them... they will escape back to the Transcaucasus and become our new trouble!"