readx; In the southeast city of Ankara, the capital of Turkey, in the headquarters of the European Expeditionary Force of the Allied Forces, officers of all colors are hurrying in and out; in the hall of the joint command room on the second floor, dozens of communications non-commissioned officers are constantly answering and making all kinds of phone calls; in the conference room outside the hall, a group of coalition generals are pointing around a huge map on the table. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

Four of these generals were generals from China, including General Song Junpeng, commander-in-chief of the coalition forces, General Cheng Zixian, chief of staff of the coalition forces, Lieutenant General Lin Pingquan, deputy commander of the Fourth Air Force of the Chinese Air Force, and Lieutenant General Qin Laiqian, director of the Middle East Department of the Army Logistics Department, who was also the head of the Logistics Department of the European Expeditionary Force of the coalition forces and was responsible for the logistics supply of the entire coalition forces. The remaining three are from Turkey and Iran, namely General Andrews, Chief of Staff of the Turkish Army, General Hende, Commander of the Second Turkish Army, and Lieutenant General Alexander, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iranian Army.

These seven generals are the highest-ranking commanders of the European Expeditionary Force of the Allied Forces.

In addition to the above seven generals, there are also several senior combat staff officers!

At this time, Colonel Yang Hanan, a senior staff officer of the General Staff Office of the Allied Forces General Headquarters, held the command list in his hand and explained the current battle situation while pointing on the map: "In the Greek direction, the 2nd Armored Division of the 4th Panzer Corps of our army has captured the southeastern city of Thessaloniki after three days of hard fighting. ”

"In order to cooperate with the operations of the Second Armored Division, in addition to the three artillery battalions of the 16th Artillery Brigade, which have already been commissioned, it is expected that the 423rd Artillery Battalion of the 16th Artillery Battalion will also arrive and put into operation this afternoon, and the 425th Artillery Battalion will also be able to arrive tomorrow. At that time, the main artillery of the 16th Artillery Brigade of our army will complete the assembly and give the 2nd Panzer Division maximum artillery support. ”

"In addition, because in the past few days, although the German air force has avoided fighting during the day, it has made frequent sorties and bombed our troops at night, and the field air defense tasks of the troops are relatively tight, so the Fourth Panzer Army has transferred an air defense battalion to Thessaloniki to support the comfortable air defense battalion of the Second Panzer Division!"

"In order to further accelerate the pace of the attack on Thessaloniki, the Fourth Panzer Army also put the 32nd Special Operations Battalion in Thessaloniki in Ming Ming.

After integrating the above forces, the Fourth Panzer Corps judged that according to the strength of both the enemy and us, it was expected that within three to five days, they would be able to break up the enemy forces in the city, and then disperse and clear them in about three days! ”

When Yang Hanan said this, the command list in his hand paused slightly, and pointed to the west of Thessaloniki: "In order to cooperate with the 2nd Armored Division and the 16th Artillery Brigade and other troops to attack Thessaloniki, the 4th Armored Army also sent the 67th Division to bypass Thessaloniki and force the Vardar River, first blitzed Polycastelon to obtain the supply channel, and then went south to capture Alexandria yesterday afternoon, and completely cut off the connection between the enemy forces in the city of Thessaloniki and the enemy forces in the western region!" ”

"However, it is worth noting that after several days of continuous strong attacks, our 67th Division consumed relatively large ammunition, and the supply speed could not keep up with the consumption of the 67th Division for the time being, and according to the intelligence from the air force reconnaissance in the morning, the German army sent a considerable number of enemy troops from Thessaloniki, Katerini and other areas, and the enemy army was initially divided into two directions, one direction was to attack Policastron in the north, and the number of enemy troops in this part was about 4,000 people, and there was only one infantry battalion in defense there, The situation is more dangerous. In the south, the number of enemy troops attacking Alexandria from the direction of Katerini is preliminarily estimated at about 10,000, and at the same time, the enemy troops returning in the direction of Thessaloniki are also about 4,000 people, and this part of the enemy army has a considerable number of armored vehicles, which should not be underestimated. ”

Listening to Yang Hanan's report, Song Junpeng's eyebrows wrinkled slightly: "What about the third division, where is it now?" ”

Yang Hanan said: "The Third Division is currently in German, and the day before yesterday and yesterday they were ordered to support the Seventh Army, so there was some delay!" ”

At this time, Andrews, the Turkish chief of staff sitting next to him, showed a trace of embarrassment on his face, because the Seventh Army in Yang Hanan's mouth was talking about the Seventh Army of the Turkish Army, which belonged to the First Army of the Turkish Army, and after the war, the Turkish First Army was responsible for attacking Bulgaria, and its Seventh Army was mainly responsible for the left flank offensive. Ren Jiu can only be regarded as second-rate, and compared with the armies of several major participating countries, there is a relatively large gap in terms of equipment and officer quality.

Although the main opponent of the Turkish First Army's attack on Bulgaria was the Bulgarian Army, there were still a small number of German troops there, and the Seventh Army encountered a German resistance when attacking, not only did the attack fail for several days, but even a small counterattack by the German army, resulting in a heavy loss of an infantry division, forcing the Allied Command to urgently order the Third Division of the Chinese Army on the flank of the Seventh Army to send troops north to support.

As a result, the original battle plan of the 3rd Division was delayed, and the 3rd Division was delayed for two days before it was able to reach the Thessaloniki battlefield.

Although the European Expeditionary Force of the entire Chinese Army is responsible for the attack on Greece, in the early battle plan, only three divisions can be transferred to participate in the offensive, that is, the 2nd Armored Division that is currently attacking Thessaloniki and the 67th Division that is capturing Alexandria, while the 3rd Division is the latter step, which will send troops to support the 67th Division's westward advance, cover the logistics channel of the 67th Division, and at the same time send troops to support the offensive operations of the 2nd Armored Division.

In general, the 3rd Division was tasked with acting as a reserve for the 4th Panzer Corps.

Now the two main divisions of the Fourth Panzer Army have been put into operation one after another, but the Third Division, which is a follow-up support, has been slow for several days to catch up, which has led to the 67th Division falling into a relatively embarrassing situation.

In the face of the disadvantage of friendly forces, Song Junpeng was also a little helpless, although when the coalition headquarters made tactical arrangements before the war, it had fully considered that the combat effectiveness of the Turkish army would not be too high, and basically used a Turkish army as a division of the Chinese army. But even so, Song Junpeng overestimated the combat effectiveness of the Turkish Army.

In the face of the defeat of the Seventh Army of the Turkish Army, Song Junpeng even muttered psychologically that the combat effectiveness of the Turkish Army may not even reach the level of the end of World War I of the armies of the great powers. It is impossible to expect anything from such allies to fight against them.

In order to avoid being held back by the Turkish Army, Song Junpeng thought for a moment and then said to Andrews beside him: "Now the strength of the First Army is still a little insufficient, see if you want to reinforce another army!" ”

Although the coalition command ostensibly has the command of all coalition forces, the Turkish Army is not the Chinese Army after all, and Song Junpeng is still more cautious to ask Andrews's opinion first.

After hearing this, Andrews also sighed a little in his heart, before the war he was full of confidence in his own army, thinking that although today's Turkish army can not be compared with the armies of the great powers, but it should not be far behind, after all, the Turkish army is not short of all kinds of guns and artillery, there are thousands of tanks, and hundreds of thousands of troops are also considered to be a hegemon in the Middle East. But after really fighting, I realized that the difference between our own army and the armies of the great powers is not a small difference, but a difference that cannot be crossed.

"Yes, now that the Thirteenth Army has been mobilized, it can now leave for Bulgaria!"

Song Junpeng nodded and then turned to the others: "The battle of Thessaloniki is related to the overall Greek and Balkan strategy of our army, and there is no room for failure!" The chief of staff made a note, first: immediately ordered the 13th Army to rush to Bulgaria and accept the command of the 1st Army. Second: 3rd Division, let them send a battle group to Polycaronster, and another battle group to the north of Thessaloniki, and cooperate with the 2nd Panzer Division to attack! Thirdly: order the 16th Panzer Division to arrive in Istanbul within three days! ”

After saying this, he said to Lieutenant General Qin Laiqian, director of the Logistics Department: "The mobilization of troops and the supply of materials will have to bother Brother Qin!" ”

Qin Laiqian said: "Yes, I will make corresponding adjustments when I go and mobilize wagons for transportation!" ”

Song Junpeng said: "As for the current shortage of supplies for the 67th Division, it is difficult to meet the road passage for a while, and I am afraid that we will need more support from the air force for this matter!" ”

Lieutenant General Lin Pingquan, deputy commander of the Fourth Air Army, said: "This problem is not big, we have already seized air supremacy over the theater of operations, and we still have several brigades of transport planes on the Iranian and Turkish sides, and we will be able to carry out airdrop and replenishment operations on the 67th Division from the afternoon." ”

After the joint operations meeting, various orders were quickly conveyed through various channels, and the hundreds of thousands of troops of the coalition forces immediately adjusted various tactical arrangements, not to mention the Bulgarian side, while on the Greek side, China's European expeditionary force was already fully mobilized.

Even the 16th Panzer Division was ordered to arrive within three days to support the operation, while the last main force of the expeditionary force, the 2nd Division, had already arrived in Turkey yesterday, and it was expected that after a short rest and waiting for the arrival of heavy equipment, it would be ready for operation.

At that time, the Chinese Army will commit two armored divisions and three mechanized infantry divisions in the Balkan Peninsula. Don't look at the fact that there are only five divisions, which is more than half less than half compared with the dozen or so Turkish infantry divisions that participated in the battle, but in fact there is not a lot of troops, because in addition to these five main divisions, there are also a large number of reading troops, including the 16th Artillery Brigade, several reading engineering regiments, boat bridge regiments, etc., transport troops, etc.

As a fully mechanized heavy army, there are very few people on the front line to fight, but there are very many people who serve as auxiliary tasks.

On April 19, the Thessaloniki side was still in fierce fighting, although the 2nd Panzer Division was attacking relatively quickly, but because it was a street battle and the commander was more concerned about his own casualties, the tactics of fighting were relatively stable, and this led to a relatively slow progress.

In fact, it is no longer the 2nd Panzer Division that will decide the outcome of the battle, but the 67th Division.

When the 67th Division captured Alexandria yesterday, the Germans immediately organized a counteroffensive with a large number of troops, and it was a counteroffensive in both the east and west directions at the same time.

The most important difficulty is not that the opponent has too many troops, but that the consumption of ammunition is very large, but the amount of logistical supplies is relatively small.

In addition, the Germans were still attacking Polycastron, which further reduced the logistical supply of the 67th Division.

In order to meet the needs of the 67th Division's combat material consumption, the Chinese Air Force organized a large number of transport planes at the beginning of the 19th, carrying a large amount of supplies under the escort of many fighters, and then went to Alexandria for empty supplies.

On the 19th alone, the Air Force airdropped more than 200 tons of supplies to the 67th Division, thus greatly alleviating the 67th Division's consumption of combat materials.

However, it is obvious that this problem cannot be solved by airdrops alone, and if the 67th Division is to obtain sufficient supplies, it is necessary to pin the hope that the 3rd Division will be able to reinforce Polycastron in time, as long as a part of the 3rd Division arrives to reinforce a battalion of the 67th Division defending the place, then not only can the supply channel of the 67th Division be secured, but also the troops can be heavily placed in the north to form a complete encirclement of Thessaloniki.

However, if the 3rd Division is unable to complete this task in time, then the 67th Division will be in a dangerous situation of fighting alone and running out of supplies.

It's a big win or a big defeat! ――

During the Spring Festival these days, there are a lot of things, so I can only have one chapter a day!

Again, I wish you a happy Spring Festival in advance, and fame and fortune in the Year of the Horse!