"Comrade Chief of Staff, Commander Feiguaninski sent a telegram to find a large number of German tanks in the Liuban area southwest of Leningrad. He felt that the German army was likely to launch an attack..."

"Observe?" Zhukov took a breath, "How many tanks have been discovered? Where is our tank army currently?"

Lieutenant General Kokopev, the Operations Director of the General Staff of the Red Army, replied: "According to the reconnaissance of the guerrillas and the air force, the German armored troops appearing in the Liuban area should be at the level of the army. The 4th Tank Army and the 6th Tank Army of our army are currently on standby near the Great Novgorod city and can be maneuvered at any time."

The Soviet Red Army tank troops who lost the battle in the junction were considered to have suffered heavy losses. The number of tanks/strike artillery lost on all battlefields on the Eastern Front was almost over 6,000!

Moreover, Kharkov, one of the four major tank manufacturing centers in the Soviet Union, has been attacked by the German army, and the factories in the city are being transferred urgently. The Kirov factory in Leningrad was basically stopped after being surrounded by Leningrad last year. So now two of the four major tank manufacturing centers in the Soviet Union are temporarily paralyzed. The production of tanks/strike artillery has been greatly reduced, and the speed of replenishment has also slowed down.

In addition, it is not possible to have tanks but not tank crews or tank repair technicians. Soviet tanks are not easy to control (only they can be driven by racers' standards), and there are many faults and require high-level technicians to repair. It is probably more difficult to make up for the loss of vehicles and mechanics in the short term than replenishing tanks.

So I really don’t know when the losses of these more than 6,000 tanks/strike artillery will be compensated? And the Supreme Command of the Soviet Red Army has now tasted the lack of tank troops!

In order to fight the Fourth Battle of Leningrad, the Supreme Command made a lot of effort to put together a 6th Tank Army for the Kalinin Front and also added some additional tank Army.

The two armies now have about 1,700 tanks/strike artillery, which is almost the same as the "army-level" armored cluster according to the German standards.

However, after the battle between the junction, the Soviet army knew about the fact that the Soviet tank troops were far from the enemy of the German armored troops!

Moreover, the JS-2 heavy tanks that Zhukov has high hopes for have not been built, so it is impossible to go into battle.

After listening to Kokopev's report, Zhukov's face was unstable and he was thinking. After a while, he asked Marshal Pavlov: "What do you think of this battle?"

Marshal Pavlov is now the first deputy National Defense People's Committee, theoretically Zhukov's superior (about half of the level), but in actual work, he was unknowingly influenced by Zhukov, as if he had become Zhukov's chief of staff.

Hearing Zhukov's inquiry, he thought and replied: "The Germans cannot be allowed to launch an attack first... Now, except for the Leningrad siege front, neither side has a complete front, so whoever concentrates the armored troops to attack first is the first move."

Zhukov nodded. He and Pavlov had the same view on this issue... But Stalin had to wait for Leningrad to complete rectification and form combat effectiveness of the new JS-2 tanks, which delayed some time. Otherwise, the Kalinin Front would have probably started attacking now.

"It's still time!" said Pavlov. "You can let the 4th Tanks and the 6th Tanks attack immediately and attack the city of Pskov."

Zhukov shook his head, and Pavlov's suggestion made him look down on the old guy a little.

If you lose it first, you will lose it. You can’t catch it back by chasing it!

If Pavlov's method is used to fight Pskov, there will be more than 200 kilometers on the road, and I will definitely not be able to walk during the day, otherwise the tank cluster will be bombed by the German plane. If you have to stay in the daytime and walk at night, you will walk for at least 2 nights. Tonight and tomorrow night, you will be able to attack as soon as the night after tomorrow. When the Germans rushed into Kalininzhou, what else can you fight?

"It's too late," Zhukov whispered, "the plan of proactive attack must be abandoned and instead switched to mobile defense."

"Mobile defense? How to defend?" Pavlov asked.

Zhukov has been thinking about this issue since the defeat of the Battle of Gomel. The biggest problem that arose in the Battle of Gomel is actually that the Soviet tank troops could not defeat the German armored cluster.

If you can't beat it, you will have to attack with no chance, and the losses will of course be heavy!

However, the 13th collective farm battle at the same time showed that the Soviet tank cluster could still withstand the German superior forces in defensive operations. In this battle, the Soviet tank 5th Army resisted the opponent's fierce attack for more than 20 days. In the end, although the entire army was wiped out, even Commander General Lu Jin was captured.

But the value of this battle is still huge. It taught the Red Army commander like Zhukov how to use tank clusters to maneuver quickly and then put into the most critical areas for defense operations.

"Tonight, let the 4th Tank Army and the 18th Tank Army go to Little Visherah to make a defense," Zhukov thought for a while and said, "The two armies should form a combined cluster, command in a unified manner, and arrange defense lines with the Tank Brigade and the Mechanized Brigade as the core."

The 18th Army was originally appointed to the Southwest Front, and participated in the fierce battle of Ukraine on the right bank in the winter of 1942. When the Soviet-German War broke out again in May 1943, the Army was replenishing near Moscow. It was only recently completed and transferred to the Kalinin Front.

The 18th Army is the so-called "synthesis army", which is a mobile cluster that combines motorized infantry, cavalry, mechanized troops and motorized artillery. It is of the same nature as the five assault armies, all of which can follow the tank cluster to operate mobile operations.

In the late stage of the "joint battle", the Soviet commander department had realized the value of this coordinated operation of the synthetic army and the tank army in the strategic defense stage, so it became the target of key development.

According to Zhukov's ideas, since the Soviet-German battlefield was too vast, the Red Army could not form a long and solid defense line. It could only use highly motorized synthetic clusters to conduct defense-oriented combat in the field without strong fortifications. This style of play is called "mobile defense" by Zhukov. Although it cannot guarantee victory, it can at least obtain a relatively ideal exchange ratio.

Zhukov thought for a while and then said: "The 6th Tank Army continued to be on standby in the Great Novgorod area, and after the 4th Tank Army and the 18th Tank Army fully consumed the German armor cluster, they would then go to the counterattack."

"So should the left wing of the Kalinin Front retreat?" Pavlov asked the left wing of the Kalinin Front again, and where the troops between Leningrad and Daluki were going.

According to the original plan, these troops were originally intended to be used to assault in the Polo state, but now the Germans have to take action first, so there is no need for such bluffing assault.

"Can't withdraw." Zhukov shook his head, "Someone must be blocked there, otherwise the German armored troops on the front line of Smolensk will easily move north to Pskov and even enter the battlefield near Leningrad..."

"Enter the battlefield near Leningrad?" Pavlov frowned deeply, "Are you worried that they will surround Leningrad again?"

"Yes!" Zhukov nodded, "If the Kalinin Front is defeated, the Germans may probably surround Leningrad again... Our second capital of the Soviet Union is a big bargaining chip! Moreover, it is impossible to rule out that the German army really wants to capture Leningrad.

Therefore, Leningrad must also be prepared to be surrounded and defend the city again!"

...

The instructions of the Supreme Command of the Red Army soon caused a chain reaction in Leningrad. The old revolutionary Kaminsky, who participated in the Red Army in 1918, was promoted from deputy battalion commander of the captain to major battalion commander, while his friend and superior Voscoponico became the commander of the 644th Regiment of the Infantry Regiment, and was still Kaminsky's superior.

The 344th Infantry Regiment belongs to the newly formed 347th Infantry Division, which was formed on the basis of Leningrad's anti-GM family soldiers, Siberian labor reformers and a small number of original regular troops. There are 3 infantry regiments under its jurisdiction, two of which are mixed with Leningrad's anti-GM family soldiers and Siberian labor reformers, and the other is the regular Red Army troops from other places.

Of course, whether it is the Leningrad anti-GM family soldiers or the Siberian labor reform soldiers, the organization is the Red Army of Workers and Peasants led by the Bolshevik Party. Like the troops with the title of guard, they are all revolutionary troops built into the company with political deputy positions (grassroots political workers).

In addition, in addition to the unreliable troops like the 347th Division (there are 30 such divisions in Leningrad), there are 15 more reliable divisions in Leningrad City, including 5 inner guard infantry divisions, including the 1st, 20th, 21st, 22nd and 23rd.

The so-called Inner Guard Infantry Division is an infantry division composed of border guards, domestic security forces and other units controlled by the People's Committee of the Internal Affairs Department (there were as many as hundreds of thousands before the outbreak of the war). It is a particularly loyal and reliable force. It has some in all front-line combat troops, and is usually deployed 10-20 kilometers behind the front-line combat troops as reserves and supervising troops.

In Leningrad, five inner guard infantry divisions guarded the most core area of ​​the city. On their periphery were 10 ordinary Red Army infantry divisions (neither the Leningrads nor from Siberia), defending most of the urban areas of Leningrad.
Chapter completed!