At 2 o'clock at noon on May 17, 1941, the German north-south attack group officially met, and the Kursk area was completely surrounded by German troops, and the Soviet troops surrounded in the Kursk area numbered about 1.8 million people.

Hitler received Limer's order, it was surprise and anger, this Krupp kid is so capricious, now it's okay, the encircled Soviet army has to be eliminated, and the food sent to the door Hitler has to eat if he doesn't eat it, but the intelligence analysis sent by Britain and Britain at all, Britain and the United States are likely to land at some time this month, which is 2.88 million British and American troops, more than 10,000 tanks, more than 10,000 aircraft, and countless other heavy weapons.

What to do, now Hitler is in a dilemma, the Soviet army in the encirclement must be eliminated, and the French side must also guard against the landing operation of the British and American coalition forces, Hitler can't think of a way to crack it if he wants to break his head, as long as he calls Limer back to Berlin from the front line again.

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In the historical Battle of Kursk, we can see from the original plan of the German army that the German army pursued a limited offensive in the Soviet Union, and then achieved a quick and brilliant victory, in order to restore the reputation of the German army and the trust of other Axis powers. In this battle, although the Germans once defeated the Soviet army, which was four times their size, and although the balance of victory was once in favor of Germany, the final outcome was still dismal, and since then the initiative on the Soviet-German battlefield has been completely transferred to the Soviet army.

In general, there are many reasons for the failure of the historical Battle of Kursk, first of all, the German army did not consider the plan itself, and at the same time, the attack was delayed for too long and the opportunity for the battle was lost, so the final attack became meaningless. At the same time, based on the experience of the Battle of Stalingrad. No matter how strong the German army was, it would be unwise to attack a strong enemy with a well-defended position. The German High Command made the same mistake as it did in the summer of 1942 by ordering the last of its elite panzer units to storm Kursk, which had become the strongest fortress in the world at the time.

In both cases, the Germans lost the conditions to give full play to the characteristics of mobile warfare, and instead confronted the Soviets at the selected locations. The experience of the war in 1941 and 1942 had proven that the Germans were in fact invincible if they allowed their tank units to gallop across the vast expanse of the Soviet Union. And in 1943. Originally, the Germans were supposed to implement a strategic retreat. or carry out surprise attacks in some areas where victory is assured, so as to create conditions for mobile warfare.

But all this became impossible with the progress and failure of the Kursk offensive, and what was even more terrifying was that the German army, which had just completed the regrouping and re-equipment of the troops on the Eastern Front, suffered serious losses because of this offensive. And this was something that could not be replenished by the production of a year in 1943.

In fact, the German army's production of new tanks in Germany in 1943 was supposed to be used to create a mobile general reserve on the Western Front. in response to a possible future landing of the Allies. But for this time to prepare for a hasty offensive. The Germans, however, depleted the last of their strategic reserves.

If we carefully analyze the performance of the German army before and after the Battle of Kursk, we can see that the reasons for the defeat of Germany throughout 1943 were in fact the same as the reasons for their defeat in 1942. Still: insufficient armament, especially motorcycles and fuel; Hitler still stubbornly pursued a strategy of exclusive defense, and the German army lost both the strategic and tactical initiative.

So what kind of strategy will the Germans adopt if they do not carry out the offensive plan of the "Bastion"? Here the author believes that it is still possible for the German army to follow a mobile defensive strategy. During 1943, the Germans suffered heavy losses in troops, especially among junior officers with combat experience.

However, this loss was by no means fatal, and Germany suffered much smaller losses as a percentage of the population than the Soviet Union. The Soviets in 1943 were no longer able to sustain the same huge losses as they had at the beginning of the war, and it can be said that their human resources were close to the limit by this time. Therefore, in order to shorten the front and strengthen the reserves, the Germans should immediately withdraw from the Kursk region, and then withdraw their troops to the Dnieper and Smolensk lines.

Then adopt a mobile defensive strategy, try to maintain the campaign and tactical initiative, wear down the opponent's vital forces through limited campaign actions, and finally make the Soviets feel unbearable, then Germany can still make the war on the Eastern Front a draw. Eventually, however, the involvement of Britain and the United States on the European continent is likely to be an important factor in determining Germany's fate.

Strategically speaking, the original intention of the Battle of Kursk was feasible, and it was a relatively feasible route chosen by the German army under a suitable condition, but the development of the war situation could not give the German army such a chance. To a certain extent, the German army did win the Battle of Kursk at the tactical and even partial campaign level, but due to the huge superiority of the Soviet army in military strength and material reserves, it was difficult for the German army to achieve a complete victory in the campaign, especially in strategy.

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Although the Soviet army organized a large number of rescue troops and wanted to break through the encirclement of the German army, how could Li Mo let the Soviet army get his wish, and the task of annihilation temporarily became the task of consolidating the encirclement, so the war was not so urgent, but do not think that the more than one million Soviet troops who were surrounded had no combat effectiveness.

That is absolutely wrong, this million Soviet troops did not suffer much losses, before the war Stalin gave them sufficient supplies, weapons, ammunition and food and so on, especially the number of artillery they have is very large, conservative estimates are no less than 30,000 guns, like the elimination of these trapped Soviet troops, the German army has to pay a considerable price.

This time, the place where Hitler received Limer had become the Wolf's Den, which was equivalent to Hitler's operational headquarters, and even the High Command was relocated to the Wolf's Den with Hitler.

Hitler's words when he met Limer were:

"Marshal Li Mo, thank you for all you have done for Germany."

This undoubtedly reassured Li Mo a lot, although he said that he disobeyed Hitler's order, but he was not punished, and he said that it was not the end of Hitler's order to retreat.

"Hey! Hitler, this is all what I should do, all for Germany. ”

"Well, Marshal Li Mo, according to conclusive intelligence analysis, Britain and the United States are about to launch a landing operation, they have gathered 2.88 million troops, countless tanks and aircraft, and a huge amount of materials, and we have a total of 760,000 people in 59 divisions in France, the Netherlands, and Belgium, of which only 33 coastal defense divisions, have to defend thousands of kilometers of coastal defense lines, so we can't stop the British and American landings no matter what, I don't know if my Marshal Li Mo has any clever tactical arrangements that can smash the British and American landing operations?"

"My marshal, I need to see the defense map."

…… (To be continued......)