Chapter 223
The meeting ultimately did not reach a conclusion, mainly because Comrade Stalin did not give his final statement.
Judging from his attitude, Rokossovsky's proposal had a high chance of being approved, but the problem was how to fill the gap between the right wing of the Central Front and the left wing of the Western Front. Considering the scale of the battle and the strength of the German army, a front must be added to this gap.
Of course, Rokossovsky's suggestion at the meeting was also feasible, that is, to redeploy the three current fronts, and to redivide and reorganize the subordinate troops according to the campaign plan. Following the method of the previous Ukrainian campaign, one to three campaign strategic corps were formed to launch and complete the Belarusian campaign.
In order to strengthen the mobility and breakthrough power of the Belarusian regional combat corps, Rokossovsky even proposed to mobilize the Mamonov combat group deployed in Birobidzhan.
The Mamonov combat group is actually the so-called 15th Army, which is stationed in Birobidzhan on the Amur River. It is a semi-mechanized infantry army. It was previously mainly responsible for border defense work in Birobidzhan in the Far East. The imaginary enemy is the Japanese Kwantung Army that invaded Northeast China.
If it were two years ago, Rokossovsky would not have dared to propose mobilizing this force, but now, the Japanese were being beaten back repeatedly by the Americans on the Pacific battlefield, and were stuck in the quagmire on the Chinese battlefield, unable to extricate themselves. They had no energy or ability to launch an attack on the Soviet Union in the Far East.
The most important thing is that, after more than two years of adjustment and development, the Soviet Union's permanent forces in the Far East are huge. Even if the Japanese Kwantung Army is fully deployed, it will be difficult to pose a major threat to the Soviet Army in the Far East in a short period of time.
At this time, Rokossovsky believed that withdrawing another army-sized force would not put too much pressure on the defense of the Far East.
Faced with Rokossovsky's proposal, Stalin did not express his opinion immediately, but he did not object either. Among the several main generals participating in the meeting, at least Yuri, Voroshilov, Budyonny and Baghramyan agreed with this plan.
After the meeting was dismissed, Yuri did not leave with everyone else. He stayed with Vasilevsky because he still needed to report on the situation of the 4th Ukrainian Front. At the same time, he had not received any definite news on whether he would be relieved of his post in the front.
When everyone left the office, Stalin walked to the window that Poskrebyshev had opened before, reached out and closed it. When he turned around, he glanced at Yuri, who was still frowning at the map table, and asked, "Comrade Yuri Arkipovich, if I arrange for you to work in Belarus, would you accept it?"
"I am willing to accept any assignment from the headquarters," Yuri was mentally prepared and had no reason to object. What's more, what he cared about was not whether he could command the battle in the Crimean Peninsula, but whether he could command the battle on the front line.
To some extent, the importance of the Belarusian Campaign is obviously far greater than the annihilation campaign in the Crimean Peninsula. In terms of the nature of the operations, the Belarusian Campaign was the initiation, while the Crimean Peninsula Campaign was the conclusion.
"Do you think Comrade Konstantin Konstantinovich's suggestion is feasible?" Stalin walked to the map table with a pipe in his mouth, took a look at the map and asked.
The tobacco in his pipe had gone out, and he was just holding it in his mouth out of habit.
"Why?" Stalin looked at him and asked, "This campaign must be launched before April. We only have three months to redeploy. Can such a complicated task be completed in three months?"
Yuri stared at the map for a while, his brows furrowed.
Vasilevsky was watching him from the side and felt that he had been silent for a long time. He could not help but cough lightly to remind him not to think too long as Comrade Stalin was still waiting for his reply.
Stalin did not seem impatient. He walked to his desk, took out some tobacco from the tobacco bag, put it back into the pipe, lit it with his lighter, then turned around and just looked at Yuri, waiting for his reply.
Yuri did not notice Vasilevsky's reminder, he was thinking about the deployment of troops.
When explaining the plan, Rokossovsky and Chernyakhovsky mentioned the locations of the Central Front and the Western Front, respectively, while Zhukov mentioned the locations of several army groups in the headquarters reserve. Yuri listened very carefully at the time. After working as the Chief of Operations for a period of time, he was very sensitive to the issue of troop locations and had his own set of memory methods.
When it comes to the redeployment of troops, there are three most critical issues: first, the location of the troops to be deployed; second, the predetermined target location; and third, logistical support issues.
Every minute on the battlefield is very important. In addition, the movement of large military groups requires a lot of consumption almost every day, especially the movement of mechanized troops. Unless there are railways for transportation along the way, the farther the deployment location, the greater the fuel consumption, and the greater the pressure on logistics.
At the beginning of the war, Soviet commanders were not good at dealing with this problem. After the armored forces were mobilized over long distances, the logistics support could not keep up. When the troops finally arrived at the assembly area, the tanks could not be put into battle due to lack of fuel supplies... The 5th Guards Tank Army commanded by Rotmistrov suffered twice in this regard.
Therefore, efficient redeployment must take into account issues of mobilization distance and logistical support.
The operations of several fronts, that is, the operations of troops at the strategic level of a campaign, cannot be like a company or a regiment. At the beginning of the campaign, the troops attack, and then at the end of the campaign, the troops will not stray too far from the scheduled battle line. A front is a very large combat corps with tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of troops. Often after a stage of the campaign ends, some troops under the front will stray a certain distance from the scheduled combat direction.
At the same time, in a battle, it is impossible for all the troops of the entire front to rush forward at once, after all, there are reserve troops. The positions of the front-line combat troops and the reserve troops may be far apart.
It is also because of this that after every large-scale battle, the troops will be redeployed, and the priority at this time is often the reserve troops in the rear.
Take the Central Front for example. Currently, Rokossovsky's headquarters is in Gomel, and his frontline troops are mainly concentrated in the Bobruisk front and deployed along the Sozh River. In addition, some troops have moved forward to the Turov direction. In addition, his reserve troops are dragged behind, with some resting in the Novgorod area and some deployed in the Novozybkov area.
As for the Western Front, their troops were more dispersed. Their front-line troops were deployed on the Dnieper River line, along the Vitebsk, Orsha, and Mogilev line, and its reserve troops were still on the Western Dvina River line.
In addition to these two fronts, there was also Bagramyan's 2nd Baltic Front.
The three fronts together had a total of 19 combined arms armies, 2 tank armies, and 5 air force armies, with a total strength of nearly 1.4 million, nearly 30,000 artillery pieces of various types, nearly 5,000 tanks, and more than 4,700 combat aircraft. It can be said that it was a super-large combat corps.
Now, what Yuri needs to do is to redivide this huge combat corps and redeploy them into four fronts based on the principles of proximity and convenient transportation.
For example, the reserve troops originally belonging to the Western Front are still on the Western Dvina River line. If they continue to move westward and deploy to the Vitebsk area, they will need to travel more than 400 kilometers, and the transportation is inconvenient, which will be a heavy burden on the troops. But if they are transferred to Velikiye Luki, they can board the train there and go to Rzhev via the Velikiye Luki-Moscow railway, and then be transported by train to Smolensk via Vyazma, and finally arrive in the Mogilev area.
Although the distance is longer and the time is longer, the fuel consumed is very little and will not put too much pressure on logistics supplies.
Why is war a comprehensive subject? This is the reason. It requires consideration of many issues. Without the ability to coordinate deployment, one cannot be qualified for the position of Chief of Operations.
"I can come up with a plan in the afternoon." After thinking for nearly five minutes, Yuri finally nodded and said, "Comrade Stalin, I need some time."
"Very good," Stalin nodded with satisfaction, pointed at Yuri with the hand holding the pipe, and said, "Comrade Yuri Arisipovich, hurry up and do it. I will give you a special office."
After saying this, he looked at Vasilevsky again and continued: "If it is feasible, I will consider Comrade Konstantin Konstantinovich's plan. I plan to name the several operational strategic corps participating in this battle as the Belarusian Front, just like the Ukrainian campaign."
He took a puff of his pipe and remained silent for a moment, then continued, "Comrade Yuri Arkipovich, I hope you can put aside the affairs of the Crimean Peninsula and go to the Belarusian direction to coordinate the actions of several fronts as a representative of the headquarters."
