Chapter 222
In the Senate, in Stalin's private office.
Light blue smoke floated quietly above the huge office, making it look like it was on fire.
Poskrebyshev walked in quietly from the half-open door, carefully pushed open a window, and then walked out quietly without disturbing the people gathered around the large map table.
Stalin, who had changed into casual clothes, stood right in front of the table with his arms folded across his chest. His right thumb, index finger and middle finger were holding his old pipe. His thick eyebrows were tightly furrowed and his eyes were fixed on the huge map on the table.
On Stalin's left stood Timoshenko, who had just returned to Moscow, and on his right stood Voroshilov.
To the left of Timoshenko is Zhukov, and to the right of Voroshilov is Budyonny. As for Yuri, he is a little further away, to the right of Budyonny, and opposite him is Rokossovsky.
Next to Rokossovsky, there were three other people standing. The first was Ivan Khristoforovich Baghramyan, who had a good-natured appearance and had just been promoted to commander of the First Baltic Front. The second was Ivan Danilovich Chernyakhovsky, who was currently the commander of the Western Front. As for the third person, he wore a different uniform from everyone else present. This person was Alexander Yevgenyevich Golovanov, commander of the Soviet long-range aviation.
Every one of the people present was a smoker, and Stalin himself did not restrict others from smoking in his office. In fact, since the outbreak of the war, every time he convened a meeting of senior commanders, Stalin would specially prepare one or two packs of cigarettes to prevent these smokers from getting addicted to smoking.
The map on the table is a map of the current situation of the entire Soviet front battlefield and a map of the German defense deployment obtained by the intelligence department.
The meeting was actually a meeting to study the deployment of the Belarusian campaign. There were three operational plans for this campaign, proposed by Zhukov, Rokossovsky and Yuri. However, it was not the time to discuss which plan was feasible , because Rokossovsky, the commander of the Central Front, was introducing the deployment of the front's troops.
At present, the main force of the Central Front is located just below the corner of the German "┚" defense line. Rokossovsky has obviously been planning the Belarusian campaign for a long time. His heavy troops have been moving the front line toward the center, that is, toward the Pripyat River, in order to threaten the right wing of the German Army Group Center.
In the previous battle, the 3rd, 50th and 63rd Armies of the Central Front successfully crossed the Sozh River while pursuing the retreating German troops, and established several landing sites on the opposite bank of the river, posing a direct threat to the German troops in the direction of Bobruisk and Mogilev.
In addition, the Central Front also established close ties with the guerrillas active behind enemy lines in the vast area from Turov to Baranovichi , posing a huge threat to the German army's rear.
After Rokossovsky introduced the situation of the Central Front, Baghramyan and Chernyakhovsky also introduced the situation of their troops respectively.
In general, although the three fronts currently occupy favorable conditions in terms of deployment positions, because the battles in the previous stage were relatively brutal, each front suffered relatively heavy losses in both weapons and equipment and manpower, so redeployment is very necessary.
Then, starting with Zhukov's plan, everyone present studied the three existing battle plans .
The first plan to be ruled out was the one submitted by Yuri before. This is not to say that the plan he proposed was so bad. The reason why it was ruled out first was that his plan was proposed a few months ago, and during this period, many conditions have changed, so this plan can no longer be implemented.
To give a simple example, Yuri's original plan was to seize Kovel and take this direction as an active direction, but now Kovel was taken back by a German counterattack two days ago. Rokossovsky believed that it was not appropriate to seize Kovel before launching a new large-scale battle.
The combat plan proposed by Zhukov was to use Mogilev and Vitebsk as the main attack directions, striving to first encircle and annihilate the German heavy forces in the Orsha area, and then advance towards Vilnius and Minsk.
This combat plan aimed to advance steadily, gradually compress the German army's defense space, and force the German army to engage in a decisive battle with the Soviet army on the Neman River line.
The proposal of this plan is closely related to Zhukov's command style. He is a person who does not like to take risks. When the war is at a disadvantage, he is accustomed to using deep defense to drag down the enemy. When the war is at an advantageous position, he likes to use this steady and steady approach to compress the enemy's living space and strive to find opportunities to fight during the enemy's retreat.
Fundamentally speaking, Zhukov's combat plan still has many advantages. The first is that this plan is relatively simple and easy in terms of redeployment of troops. At the same time, the steady and solid combat approach is also relatively safe.
As for the disadvantages, it was that it could not destroy the German army's manpower to the greatest extent and it was difficult to encircle and annihilate the German army's heavy troops. It was also because of this that although his plan would not arouse Stalin's opposition, it was not easy to get Stalin's approval.
What Comrade Stalin needs most now is, of course, to liberate the entire Belarus as soon as possible, so as to completely eliminate the Germans from the Soviet territory. However, on the premise of achieving this combat goal, he does not need to simply repel the German army, but to achieve a big victory as much as possible and annihilate the German heavy forces to the greatest extent possible.
Over the past two years, a series of defeats had made Stalin lose all face. Now, the war situation has reversed and the Soviet army has gained an advantageous advantage. Of course, he wants to avenge his defeat and regain all the face he had lost.
It was also because of this that he found Yuri at the previous celebration party and asked him about the battle plan for the Belarusian Campaign - he liked the plan submitted by Yuri at the time, even though that plan was a bit outdated.
However, it doesn't matter that the plan is outdated, because Rokossovsky has now submitted a plan that is completely different from Zhukov's.
According to Rokossovsky's combat plan, the main attack direction of this battle will not be the west of the German "┚"-shaped defense line, but below this defense line, that is, the right wing of the German army, in the direction of Bobruisk.
Once the battle is launched, the main force of the Central Front will launch an attack from the Gomel direction and directly attack the rear of the German Central Front's defense.
At the same time, the Western Front will launch another major offensive from the Mogilev direction. If a breakthrough can be achieved, it will quickly advance into the depth of the German defense and attack Minsk. If a breakthrough cannot be achieved, it will tie down the German heavy forces in the Orsha and Mogilev directions, thus creating an opportunity for the Central Front to encircle the German army.
Rokossovsky's plan also has advantages and disadvantages. The strong point is that once it is successfully implemented, there will be a chance to put the entire German Army Group Center into the pocket, leaving them with nowhere to escape, thus creating the most favorable conditions for subsequent battles.
Its shortcomings are also obvious: first of all, the risk of failure is very high. Once the Western Front's battle is unfavorable, the main force of the entire Central Front will be surrounded by the German army.
In addition, the implementation of this plan requires the Soviet army to redeploy its troops in the entire Belarus direction. In this process, in addition to the large amount of resources required for the mobilization of troops, it may also arouse the vigilance of the German army.
Why do I say so? The reason is actually very simple.
Take the Central Front for example. If the Central Front deployed its main forces in the Gomel direction and quickly attacked in the Bobruisk direction after the battle was launched, then a heavy force group of the campaign level would be needed between it and the Western Front to provide cover. This heavy force group could contain the German forces in the Dnieper River direction and cover the right wing of the Central Front, and on the other hand, it could cover the right wing of the Western Front.
To redeploy a campaign-level heavy troop group on the front line is equivalent to reorganizing a front. This is obviously not a simple task, and the resources that need to be mobilized are astonishing.
The most important thing is, where will the troops come from to mobilize so many troops in a short period of time?
As the Chief of the Operations Department of the General Staff, Yuri learned about the situation of the headquarters reserve. Now, there are only five army groups directly controlled by the headquarters reserve. Three of them were transferred from the Far North Caucasus Front after its dissolution, and the troops are still resting.
Among these five armies, only one is a combined army of various arms. In other words, they lack mobility. If there is no army with strong mobility and assault capabilities in a front, it will not be able to form a strong combat effectiveness.
This means that while deploying troops, the headquarters must also find a way to mobilize one or two combined arms groups or mechanized groups from other directions.
So the question is, where do these troops come from? Even if there are these two mechanized armies, can we take out all the armies of the five base camp reserves at once? This is obviously unrealistic.
