On June 8, 1943, when the first morning light was just above the horizon, the German Army Group North, which had been in a state of contraction defense since mid-May, suddenly began a counterattack. Since the beginning of the Purple Plan operation www.biquge.info the third large-scale German offensive (the first two against the Belarusian salient and the Ukrainian attack on the left bank) has finally begun.

And this time, the goal will be Leningrad, the second capital of the Soviet Union!

The Lyuban battlefield, located along the Red October railway line southeast of Leningrad, was covered by fierce and unusual artillery fire from the early morning of the 8th, followed by overwhelming air raids by warplanes and the crushing of tanks.

The offensive on the 8th went very smoothly, and only half a day after the start of the battle, the German Tipersky group (equivalent to an armored army) broke through the Soviet defense line on all fronts, and in the main direction of the attack, on both sides of the Red October railway line, on the plain area about 50 kilometers wide, the Soviet troops in front of them collapsed like an avalanche.

At noon on 9 June, after only a day and a half of the battle, the German 21st Panzer Division, which was at the vanguard of the Tiperski cluster, surrounded Chudovo, 35 km southeast of Lyuban. By the evening of the same day, the 1st Panzer Division had advanced to the area along the Volkhov River, less than 8 kilometers southeast of the city of Chudovo.

Although the speed of such an advance was exciting, General Tiperskich and the commander of the 48th Panzer Corps, Mandolfir, could not be excited at all.

Because they found a "collective farm No. 13" in the city of Chudovo - the expected battle of the tank group in the open plain did not appear, and the Soviets seemed to have used tank units and infantry to defend the city.

And by the evening of the same day, the German Panzergrenadiers, who had crossed the Volkhov River for fire reconnaissance, made a new discovery. They were attacked by an unknown number of Soviet tanks on the south bank of the Volkhov River!

It is clear that the tank units of the Soviet army are advancing! Having summed up the lessons of the Battle of the Junction and the Battle of the Desna River, they will no longer easily engage the Germans with tank clusters...... Unless they got tanks that could fight the German Tiger tanks.

"The Soviets are getting smarter and smarter!"

Having studied the reports sent by Army Group North, Marshal Guderian quickly came to conclusions.

"The same situation was encountered by the 1st Panzer Army on the Kharkiv battlefield, where the Soviets used a combination of tank/assault artillery and infantry for defense, using them as pillars of defense."

At the same time as the fighting on the Leningrad front began, the fighting in Ukraine on the left bank was also very fierce. Konev, the commander of the Red Army's Southwestern Front, was obviously not an easy guy to deal with, and like Zhukov, he learned the lessons of the "Battle of the Junction" and the "Battle of the Desna River", no longer fighting against the Germans, and also adopted the tactics of combining tank/assault artillery and infantry for defense.

Although this tactic could not defeat the powerful German army, it was much better than the above, and the delay was relatively long.

Therefore, although Army Group South (including the 1st Panzer Army) has surrounded many Soviet troops, the war of annihilation is not easy. The city of Chernihiv, defended by two army groups (9th and 12th), was not largely conquered until 7 June, although sporadic resistance in the city continued.

And at Pavlograd, the gateway to the Donetsk (Stalinno Oblast) industrial zone (belonging to the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, which is also the center of the coal mining industry), the remnants of the four Soviet armies withdrawn from the Dnieper defense line of about 200,000 men were surrounded by the German 2nd Panzer Army (attached to Army Group South).

There were also several tank/mechanized corps in the encircled troops, which also adopted defensive tactics with tanks/assault artillery as the core. The 2nd Panzer Army tried to attack, but found that it was difficult to deal with, so it had to change to a siege and wait for the follow-up infantry and artillery to go up before attacking the fortification.

In addition, Army Group South also discovered that a large number of Soviet troops were retreating towards the Crimean peninsula, which was a very dangerous terrain and would have to be taken in a bloody battle.

Hersman looked at the focus areas on the map where a large number of troops were piled up, shook his head, and said: "On the left-bank Ukrainian side, there are three major battles to be fought in Kharkiv, Pavlograd and Crimea; In the middle of the road, there were four major battles in Minsk, Smolensk, Bryansk (encirclement and annihilation of the 48th Army of the Red Army), Truchevsk (encirclement and annihilation of the 30th and 40th armies of the Red Army), and there was also a Warsaw battlefield; Now it looks like there will be another big war on the northern front, and there is probably a fierce battle along the Pskov-Velikiye Luki railway, and there is the Leningrad ......"

Fierce battles are one after another!

And it's not the first year of the Soviet-German war, and the Soviet Red Army is also somewhat trained, so it's not very easy to destroy them.

"We can always win," Guderian said with a smile, "Now the initiative on the middle and southern fronts is completely mine, and the northern route is fighting a decisive battle, and it will definitely be able to win, and the Tiperski cluster has the strength to win, and the French 1st Mechanized Army is almost in place." ”

Hersmann nodded, Tipelskich's group would most likely be able to defeat the Red Army along the Holwolf River, and he didn't have much hope for the French 1st Mechanized Army. Although the corps had three reserve divisions similar to those of the Germans, the French armoured divisions had not been on the battlefield since the 40-year armistice (Franco-German armistice). When I met the veterans of the Soviet Red Army, I was afraid that I would not be able to bargain much.

Therefore, if the battlefield near Leningrad on the northern road is really foolproof, it is still necessary to transfer a few armored divisions and panzergrenadier divisions from the battlefield on the southern front, where the overall situation has been decided......

When Hersmann was about to discuss with Guderian about transferring armored units from the Southern Front to Army Group North, General Zeitzler, chief of operations of the General Staff, walked in in a hurry.

Seeing his hurried appearance, Guderian asked, "Kurt, what happened?" ”

"The report of the South American Front," Zeitzler said with a frown, "that the Air Force Command of the South American Front detected a fairly large American fleet protruding from the Caribbean Sea into the Atlantic!" ”

"The American fleet?" Hersman was also stunned, "Did you send planes to bomb?" ”

"Sent," Zeitzler said, "sent 36 JU288s and 32 HE219s from the Air Force's Cayenne base...... But the air raid group was intercepted by a high-altitude fighter that could have been improved from the Spitfire, and 8 JU288s were shot down, 7 were wounded, and 2 HE219s were shot down! The air raid operation was a complete failure, not a single American ship was sunk or damaged......"

"What?"

Hersman and Guderian exclaimed at the same time, the air strikes launched by the JU288 and HE219 had not been intercepted by American carrier-based high-altitude fighters in the past, but they had never suffered such heavy losses and achieved nothing.

This shows that the advantages of the JU288 and HE219, as well as remote-controlled gliding bombs, which constitute the air German air anti-ship means, have been seriously weakened.

Now, the U.S. Navy can return to the Atlantic theater!

……

"There are two things that can be determined now, one is that the Americans have developed a carrier-based high-altitude interceptor with relatively superior performance...... Most are disposable aircraft; The second is that there is a fairly large American fleet that broke through our blockade and entered the Atlantic, and we do not yet know what its purpose is? ”

Less than an hour after receiving the urgent report from the South American Front Command, the leaders of the German Navy and Air Force had already gathered in the conference room of the General Staff in Tsosen to begin an emergency meeting to discuss countermeasures.

The Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Field Marshal Raeder, first reported what he had learned, and then said to Hersmann: "But we need not worry too much, because our combined European fleet is strong enough to defeat the American Atlantic Fleet!" ”

The European Combined Fleet is now considered to be strong, and there are 11 cutting-edge battleships that can be used to fight a decisive battle with the Americans, including 2 Hindenburg-class, 2 Bismarck-class, 4 Veneto-class, and 3 Richelieu-class. In addition, 1 Barbarossa-class, 1 Scharnhorst-class and 2 Dunkirk-class are also capable of fighting.

And the European Combined Fleet has a significant number of fleet carriers, and the large fleet aircraft carriers alone now have 2 Zeppelin-class and 3 Prussia-class (E ships).

In addition, after the conquest of the British mainland, the European Community's shipbuilding capacity was further enhanced, and the shipbuilding program was expanded.

At present, there are three French "Alsace" class, three Italian "Duke Alexander" class, and four "Schleicher" class, which are under construction in Britain -- in fact, the British Lion class, which is now purchased by Germany and named "Schleicher," "Hersmann," "Hamestein," and "Rundstead."

All 10 super-battleships were to be completed and commissioned by the end of 1945!

And at the same time as the construction of battleships, the German Navy did not forget to start the construction of aircraft carriers.

Among them, the "Zeppelin" class was regarded as a German "dumpling ship" and started construction, in addition to the 2 ships already in service, there are as many as 8 ships under construction.

The "Prussia" class large fleet aircraft carrier (that is, the 70,000-ton class aircraft carrier), which was rebuilt from the hull of the H41-class battleship, has also started construction of 4 ships, and it will be completed and put into service by the end of 45.

In addition, the "Kesselring" class (15,000-ton light fleet aircraft carrier), which was improved from the "Sedelitz" class, has started construction of 10 ships in one go, and it also has a great tendency to make dumplings! (To be continued.) )