"Whether it can break the game depends on the situation in 2 days!" Peng Yi looked at the documents sent by the intelligence officers and muttered to himself. So far, Peng Yi finally agreed to Xu Huaide's plan in principle, but he did not implement it immediately, and before handing over the general reserve to Xu Huaide, he must ensure a small victory on the northern front. At least the Germans will not be able to attack in a short period of time, and he will hand over the general reserve to Xu Huaide. So, he had to take the initiative to launch an attack.

The recessed layout of the Huaxia main line of defense was an important step in this plan, but the actual effect was very different from what Kruger had in mind. This seemingly trapped-up deployment is not a trap at all, for the simple reason that Huaxia did not deploy enough artillery and armor to launch an offensive in the shallow layers of the battle line. Maybe the Germans will find out about this problem, but they will definitely not believe it easily. So the Germans began to reach a dead end. It's like a person can see a paper tiger on the other side, but subconsciously remind themselves that the paper tiger on the other side is real! Then the Germans got tangled.

The purpose of this layout was to make the Germans suspicious. And the real backhand is outside the battle line! Peng Yi knows very well that there is no premise for fighting with the Germans in the daytime, except for the superior performance of the tanks, the Chinese side is all disadvantaged, whether you are attacking from the front or making a detour from the flanks, you will be hit by the superior firepower of the German army to collapse! And it was impossible for the Germans not to protect their flanks. Therefore, Peng Yi did not plan to do anything on the frontal battlefield at all. He focused on the outside of the battlefield!

In this operation, codenamed Hook, Huaxia will organize a special armored unit to be deployed on the periphery of the battle line and wait for an opportunity. Although the Germans were relatively well-armed, with 6 divisions, they concentrated a large number of troops on the front when attacking, allowing the attack spearhead to gain sufficient firepower and hardness while reducing the flank defenses. But the wings are not wide enough. However, this was not a problem under normal circumstances, and the German attack forces were constantly rotated, with reserves deployed in echelons behind the front-line troops. And the Germans have air supremacy, if the Chinese carry out a large-scale maneuver, the Luftwaffe will definitely be able to detect the armored clusters moving on the ground, and then draw a unit from the reserve behind to block it on the side, so under normal circumstances, this is not a thing!

"Is it certain that it will be cloudy in the next 3 days?" Peng Yi asked the officer in charge of meteorology beside him again. Although it succeeded in drawing the attention of the Germans to the defensive line, the key to the success of the operation, code-named uppercut, was whether God cooperated! The Germans' vision on land was limited by the defensive line, but the eye in the air was always there. If this eye had been useful, then the Chinese troops that had attacked from the flanks would definitely have been intercepted by the Germans!

Some people may ask whether the weather forecast at this time is reliable? The weather forecasts broadcast many times in later generations were not very accurate, but if you look at history, people will find that the weather forecasts were relatively accurate during World War II, and the straw boats borrowed arrows were just legends, but it was a real thing that the Allies took advantage of the time difference when the bad weather suddenly turned good when they landed in Normandy. The premise for the Allies to dare to carry out such a large-scale battle plan was accurate weather forecasts. Therefore, when the official in charge of weather intelligence told Peng Yi that the weather would change in a maximum of three days, or at least two days, Peng Yi decided to carry out this operation.

The entire detour from the left flank was probably more than 100 kilometers long. Peng Yi naturally can't pin all his hopes on the weather. Therefore, Peng Yi equipped all the tanks participating in this operation with active infrared night vision devices, using infrared headlights on other vehicles or tanks to provide infrared rays, which can theoretically see objects within 700 meters, but in fact there is also an effective night market distance of 500 meters. If you really can't do it, just march at night, and some breakdowns or losses are inevitable, so let's pay for teaching! If the weather is bad, I am afraid that at dawn on the third day, the Chinese troops participating in the hook will have to cover the last 20 kilometers under the attack of the Luftwaffe. Of course, in order to avoid this kind of thing from happening, after contacting Qin Yue, the latter said that he would provide limited air cover.

"According to intelligence, the Germans had limited flank defenses other than frontal attacking troops, and their forces consisted mainly of mechanized infantry and two infantry units conscripted from Austria-Hungary and Turkey, who may have had a lot of artillery, but were scattered and had no bunkers and adequate infantry protection. Together with our brethren in the Airborne Forces, we will attack with a life-or-death mission with one goal, and that is to take out more enemies before we are destroyed! Tao Zhenyu, who had fought with Zhou Xuan in Italy and Hubey, served as the commander of this armored unit.

The number of tanks in this unit is not very large, only more than 30, and most of the remaining vehicles are various infantry fighting vehicles and wheeled assault guns. This includes the Type 35 8*8 wheeled assault gun, which has just been installed for a short time, and this vehicle can be equipped with a 75MML30 howitzer or a 75MML48 anti-tank gun. Because of its large size, this vehicle also carries a large amount of ammunition, and the anti-tank version carries up to 30 rounds of ammunition. There are two fundamental reasons why a large number of armored vehicles are used to replace tanks, the first is the problem of travel, even if a diesel engine is used, the travel of a tracked vehicle is still not comparable to that of a wheeled vehicle. The second is the target attribute, in this plan of action to attack the opponent's depth, Tao Zhenyu was not prepared to fight with the opponent's armored forces at all. The Germans had only two armored divisions out of 6 divisions, and there would not be many hard-armored targets such as tanks in the rear of this assault.

Because this is an operation behind enemy lines, and theoretically there will not be too many offensives, the carrying capacity of rocket artillery and mortars, which have good fire suppression but waste ammunition, has been greatly reduced. The few remaining mortars were also dominated by rifled mortars with high accuracy. The main firepower was various machine guns and small and medium-caliber direct-fire guns, for example, the British had a large number of 6-pounder guns. This kind of artillery is enough to deal with a version of bunkers and has a certain armor-piercing ability, which is very popular with Chinese paratroopers and chariot units.

THE ENTIRE UNIT CONSISTS OF 45 TANKS, MORE THAN 50 ASSAULT GUNS OF VARIOUS CALIBERS EQUIPPED WITH 57 MM GUNS, MORE THAN 20 SELF-PROPELLED MORTARS AND ABOUT 30 INFANTRY FIGHTING VEHICLES OF VARIOUS KINDS. The infantry units were divided into more than 50 vehicles of various kinds to accompany the troops, not counting the tanks, which had almost transferred all the wheeled combat vehicles and infantry fighting vehicles that could be drawn from the northern line of China. It can be seen that Peng Yi attaches great importance to this operation.

After breaking through the cordon on the enemy's perimeter, some units will disperse into small formations to attack the enemy's rear facilities, in line with the principle of bypassing the hard ones and biting the soft ones. Destroy as many of the enemy's supply warehouses and support artillery as possible. On the contrary, the various transport vehicles came second, because the Germans were not far from the starting position, and their capacity redundancy was still very high. "This attack will no longer set a unified direction of pushback, and the participating troops can choose the appropriate time and route to retreat according to their own needs, and we will provide you with limited air cover in the agreed area at the agreed time, good luck to everyone." In Peng Yi's telegram to Tao Zhenyu, he finally left a glimmer of life for this force that broke through behind enemy lines. Do their best to obey the destiny of heaven, since they are not afraid of hardships and dangers to participate in this nine-life operation, then as the supreme commander, they should arrange a way back!

At the same time that the northern front was about to launch a counterattack, the southern front was in a much better situation than the northern front. Outwardly, the German offensive was not active. More often than not, they show their presence by constant shelling, but in reality, Brauchitsch on the southern front has been planning a big operation. Although the strength on paper on the southern front is only the average of the northern front, the strength of one armored division and two mechanized infantry divisions can be made up of these three divisions, and the mobility is absolutely first-class. The calculations of the German army on the southern front were similar to Peng Yi's idea of dealing with the German army on the northern front, that is, after attracting the opponent head-on, the main force would be outflanked from both flanks, and if the troops of Xu Huaide were encircled after outflanking or directly attacking Huanglong, it depended on the situation.

"Brauchitsch was not an honest man, or rather he was a very thoughtful officer, he did not stick to orders from above to make his own plans, he always tried to do better. On the bad side he is a difficult person to control, but on the good side he is extremely proactive. Ever since Operation Monsoon began, he has been plotting his own plans. He was not willing to carry out a task to contain the enemy army, thinking, he wanted to find an opportunity to eat Xu Huaide's department in one bite! In his post-war memoirs, Guderian said this about his old boss.

Brauchitsch did have this idea, but he did not immediately implement this plan, because he knew that in addition to the defensive troops on the eastern and western fronts, Huaxia also had at least one division in reserve! If he takes the lead in attacking, then the reserves of this division will be pulled to the southern front, and he will not be miserable? Since many of the air forces on the southern front were transferred to the northern front, his actions have become more and more cautious, he is waiting for a change on the northern front, he believes that judging from the current situation, Kruger's tactics are very successful, even if the Huaxia armored forces are superior, but the strength is too small, and the German army has a great advantage in other aspects, Huaxia will sooner or later pull this reserve division up. By the time the reserves left, Brauchitsch thought it would not be difficult for him to rely on the air force and outflanking to deal with Xu Huaide. If he succeeds, I am afraid that he will attack the rear of Huaxia earlier than Kruger.

Brauchitsch slowly hammered the Huaxia defensive positions with long-range artillery as he maneuvered his troops to the right flank. Although Xu Huaide could not rely on aerial reconnaissance to discover the other party's deployment, according to other intelligence, he could sense that the other party might outflank him. Both sides were waiting, waiting for their own reinforcements to arrive. However, from a formal point of view, Xu Huaide was at a disadvantage, because the Germans had air supremacy, and the Huaxia Air Force temporarily stopped fighting in order to accumulate strength. At least unless Peng Yi gave the order to attack on the southern front, Qin Yue's air force would not take the initiative to challenge the German aircraft group on the southern front. The Germans could detect the large-scale movement of troops in China during the day through aerial reconnaissance. However, Xu Huaide had no way to search for German intelligence through the fog of the battlefield.

In desperation, Xu Huaide could only send troops with night vision devices to conduct reconnaissance at night. This kind of reconnaissance is costly, and it is not uncommon to fall into an ambush at night or go the wrong way. And the results of the investigation are not satisfactory. Xu Huaide can only be sure that there is a German army in the southwest direction, as for the size and configuration are not clear, the lack of battlefield information makes Xu Huaide dare not rashly attack, even if Peng Yi hands over all the reserves to himself, the troops in Xu Huaide's hands will be on par with the opponent, the other side has air superiority, and it may be a bitter battle to kill one thousand enemies and lose eight hundred.

The two sides are at a critical moment in the game, the two sides are competing not only for time but also for timing, the German army that has the initiative in the battle has many choices to do, and if China wants to seize the initiative, it must do two things, the first is that the northern front must be able to resist, and the second is that the southern front must hit the opponent with a large advantage, even if it is a draw or repelling the opponent. Because if it is only repelled or defeated, then the situation on the southern front has not changed after Huaxia has invested all the reserves, and the hole cards in Huaxia's hand after using up the reserves are exhausted. The German forces on the southern and northern fronts could confidently and boldly continue to advance with the help of air superiority.

"Can we induce intelligence? For example, our roundabout outflanking on the northern front led the other side to think that we had used reserves, at least partially. And then before the operation on the northern front, the reserve division moved south in advance, and when the Brauchitsch group on the southern front took the initiative to attack, we figured out the direction of the opponent's main attack before attacking? This can at least be targeted. Xu Huaide then elaborated his views in a telegram. If you want to fight the Germans on the southern front, you have to let them attack, and if you want Brauchitsch to take the initiative, you have to make them feel safe. And the premise of security is to make the other party think that he understands the movements of all the troops in Huaxia!

"This is a way, I will fully cooperate with your actions, and I can even ask the Air Force to take the initiative when the time is right." In the callback, Peng Yi adopted the other party's suggestion, and all the deployments have been launched, it depends on whether the other party has taken the bait!

Thanks to the book friend zhouyu1976, autumn wind and fallen leaves 2014 for the reward~~~. (To be continued.) )