Red Moscow

Sokov turned to Sameko: "Comrade Chief of Staff, which troops are training today?"

"Report to Comrade Commander," although Sameko and Sokov usually spoke casually, but today in front of Zhukov, he straightened his back and said respectfully: "Major General Fomenko's 84th Infantry Division 268 The regiment is conducting exercises two kilometers away from the headquarters."

"Drill?" Zhukov immediately became interested, and he asked Sameko, "How about a drill?"

Sameko glanced at Sokov and continued to answer: "Comrade Marshal, according to the commander's order, while the troops are conducting basic military training, they should also conduct offensive or defensive training at the appropriate time and place. According to the commander According to the arrangement of the Ministry, today happens to be the day when the 268th Infantry Regiment attacks and plays."

Knowing that offensive performances can be seen here, Zhukov couldn't sit still any longer. He stood up and said to Sokov and others, "Come on, let's go and see."

On the way to the exercise ground, Zhukov asked Sokov who was sitting next to him: "Misha, I want to hear how your offensive exercises are carried out?"

"The order I gave to the troops was to let them attack the fortifications of an imaginary enemy. In the battle, the soldiers used real guns and live ammunition. Through this kind of training, let those new soldiers who have never fired a gun experience the experience of the enemy. The feeling of the battlefield." Sokov explained to Zhukov: "In order to avoid unnecessary casualties, the defensive positions were empty..."

"What, there is no one on the defensive position?" Zhukov couldn't help but frowned, and said with some displeasure, "Let the soldiers attack an empty position. What's the point of your exercises?"

Facing Zhukov's questioning, Sokov was not at all flustered. Instead, he replied confidently: "The purpose of doing this is twofold. One is to make the new fighters courageous, and the other is to test the cooperation of the troops during the attack..."

Before Sokov could finish his sentence, there was the roar of artillery fire outside. Hearing this sound, the adjutant sitting in the co-pilot's seat was frightened out of his wits. He thought he had encountered the enemy, so he quickly pulled out the pistol at his waist and stared nervously out the window to see if there would be any enemies coming from the forest on the side of the road. come out.

"Don't worry, Comrade Adjutant." Sokov naturally knew what was going on with the sound of artillery outside, so he comforted the adjutant and said, "It's my troops who are engaging in offensive drama. This is artillery preparation before the attack."

"Preparation for artillery fire before the attack?" Zhukov listened to the sound of the artillery outside, and said dissatisfiedly: "Judging from the sound of the artillery, you are using mortars. — 20 rounds per minute. Even if you only use 20 mortars and fire them for five minutes, you will consume 2,000 rounds of shells, don’t you know that our current supply situation is still very difficult?”

"I understand, Comrade Marshal." Sokov considered the consumption of ammunition when formulating the training syllabus, but he felt that as long as it could improve the combat effectiveness of the troops, it would be completely worthwhile to consume a batch of shells: "But only in this way Only by doing it can the actual combat effect be achieved in the exercise.”

Hearing what Sokov said, Zhukov stopped talking. He felt that what Sokov said was very reasonable. As long as this kind of training can improve the combat effectiveness of the troops, then consuming some ammunition is nothing. Anyway, judging from the current situation, there will be no major battles for the time being, and the ammunition consumed can be replenished slowly.

The convoy drove forward for a while, and was blocked by a checkpoint. A lieutenant wearing a red armband stopped in front of the car and said loudly: "I'm sorry, there is a military exercise ahead, please detour."

Sokov opened the door and got out of the car, walked straight to the lieutenant, and said to him: "I am Major General Sokov, the commander of the army group. Immediately notify your supreme commander to come here to see me."

Although the lieutenant had never met Sokov, he did not dare to be negligent when he heard that the other party claimed to be the commander of the group army. He hurried back to the sentry box to call his superiors and report the situation here.

A few minutes later, a jeep rushed over like lightning. Before the car stopped, the door opened, and a general and two colonels jumped out from inside. Sokov recognized at a glance that the general was the division commander, Major General Fomenko, and the colonel beside him was Colonel Manokhin, the political commissar.

The three of them came to Sokov, and when they were about to raise their hands to salute, they unexpectedly saw Zhukov standing beside Sokov. They were dumbfounded and didn't know who to report first. Still seeing their embarrassment, Zhukov said, "Report to your army commander, I followed him here to have a look."

Fomenko quickly saluted Sokov: "Comrade Commander, Major General Fomenko, Commander of the 84th Infantry Division, reports to you that our 268th Regiment is attacking and acting, please give instructions!"

Sokov raised his hand in return and said, "Marshal Zhukov and I are here to watch the show, so hurry up and take us there."

"Okay, Comrade Commander." After accepting Sokov's order, Fomenko introduced the colonel next to him: "Comrade Commander, let me introduce you, this is the 268th Regiment Colonel Russoff."

"Hello, Colonel Rusuf." Sokov briefly greeted the other party and asked, "Do you have a place where you can observe the exercise?"

"You can go to my regiment command post, where you can see the entire process of the exercise." After answering Sokov's question, Rusuf said with some embarrassment: "But the space there is limited and cannot accommodate too many people. "

"Just me and your commander." Fortunately, Zhukov rescued him in time: "The rest of the people will stay here and wait for us to come back."

In this way, Sokov accompanied Zhukov to the regiment command post of the 268th Regiment. The two stood in front of the lookout, observing the performance outside through binoculars or gun mirrors.

After shelling the imaginary enemy's position for a quarter of an hour, the artillery stopped shelling. After another minute or two, Sokov heard whistles coming from outside one after another, and then saw groups of commanders and fighters emerging from their hiding places. The commanders and fighters who appeared did not launch an attack immediately, but lined up in front of the position. When they took a few minutes to complete the formation, lined up in skirmish formation, and walked towards the imaginary enemy's position with big strides, Sokov Can't help frowning.

But in order not to affect the exercise, Sokov did not speak, but continued to observe the marching troops with a telescope. The soldiers strode at first, but as they got closer to the enemy's position, they changed from striding to trotting. At a place about 100 meters away from the position, the soldiers stopped and walked towards the enemy's position. Crackling and firing a burst of guns, and continued to charge forward. As more and more commanders and fighters jumped into the imaginary enemy's position, a red flag was raised soon, indicating that the position had been occupied by one's own side.

Seeing the red flag in the distance, Fomenko said excitedly to Sokov: "Comrade commander, you have seen that the red flag raised in the enemy's position means that our army has successfully occupied the enemy's position."

Sokov put down the binoculars and turned to look at Fomenko, but he didn't speak, he could only hum softly. Zhukov also looked away from the gun mirror, stood up straight and said to Sokov, "Misha, your exercise is over, do you want to say something to these commanders?"

"Yes, Comrade Marshal." In fact, even if Zhukov didn't say this, Sokov also planned to comment on it to Fomenko and others. Since Zhukov wanted to hear his opinion on this exercise, he planned to tell the truth. : "I'll summarize this exercise to them right away."

After several commanders gathered around, Sokov sternly said, "Three commanders, I want to ask you, are you doing a drill today, or are you acting?"

Hearing Sokov's question, Fomenko asked a little puzzled: "Comrade Commander, didn't our troops successfully occupy the enemy's position?"

"Well, that's right, your fighters have indeed occupied the enemy's position, and it's still an empty position." Sokov said bluntly: "If the commanders and fighters of the 268th Regiment behaved like this on the battlefield, I would When the battle is over, the regiment can basically be dismantled."

Rusuf heard Sokov say that his regiment would be revoked after the real battle was over, so he asked unconvinced: "Comrade commander, why do you say that?"

"It seems that you are still very unconvinced, aren't you?" Sokov said with a sneer, "Then let me tell you, my son, a series of problems in this acting."

"Tell me, Misha." Zhukov found a seat and sat down, then said calmly, "I also want to hear about the various problems that this troupe has in acting."

"After the shelling ended, your troops did not charge immediately, but lined up on the ground. Do you think that you are afraid that the Germans will not be able to defeat you, so you deliberately let the soldiers stand there as targets?" Sokov was angry. He said rushingly: "Do you know that it is precisely because you did not attack in time that you missed a good opportunity, so that the enemy who was bombarded could have enough time to repair those positions that were blown up by the artillery fire. In this way, when you approach the positions At that time, we will be able to rely on perfect fortifications to resist your attacks."

"Secondly, when your troops were a hundred meters away from the enemy's position, I didn't see you setting up machine gun positions, suppressing the firepower points on the enemy's position, and covering the troops' attack. Charged into the enemy's position. If it was really on the battlefield, the enemy hidden in the fortifications would have already taken your soldiers as targets. Tell me, according to today's style of fighting, when the battle is over, you Can the regiment cancel the establishment?"

As soon as Sokov finished speaking, Zhukov went on to say: "Commanders, as far as I know, German soldiers don't raise their guns and fight indiscriminately. Instead, they look for shooting opportunities very patiently and try to hit them as accurately as possible. The target. And your fighters are crowded in everything, rushing forward regardless of each other, this is purely for the enemy to use as a target."

"Comrade Marshal," Sokov added: "This is probably the difference between veterans who have experienced many battles and new recruits who have no experience."

"That's right." Zhukov nodded, looked at Sokov and said, "Misha, I think this kind of exercise you conducted is very necessary. Problem. Otherwise, even if such troops go to the battlefield, they can only die in vain."

What Sokov and Zhukov said, the head of the regiment, Rusuf, kept firmly in his heart. After the two of them finished speaking, he quickly stated: "Comrade Marshal, Comrade Commander, I will remember what you said. In the next training, I will definitely find a way to overcome the existing problems in the regiment." The problem."

"Comrade Colonel, you are not trying to overcome it, but you must overcome it." Sokov said with a serious expression: "During the exercise, not only do you make mistakes, but you can make up for them. But if the same problem occurs on the battlefield, It may cause you to fail completely. Got it?"

"Understood, Comrade Commander." Rusuf hurriedly replied: "I will strengthen the daily training of the troops to ensure that the combat effectiveness of the troops will be improved as soon as possible."

After commenting on the problems encountered by the troops during the exercise, Sokov asked again: "How much ammunition did you consume this time?"

"Report to Comrade Commander!" Hearing Sukov's question, division commander Fomenko hurriedly stepped forward and replied: "We used twenty mortars, each of which fired a base number of shells; Soldiers are also equipped with a basic ammunition..."

When he heard the series of data reported by Fomenko, Sokov's heart was bleeding. He was a prodigal son. He wasted so much ammunition and the exercises he produced were nondescript. After finally waiting for Fomenko to finish speaking, he said weakly: "General Fomenko, in the next two months, the main task of your division is to seize the time to train, improve the technical and tactical level of commanders and fighters, and improve The combat effectiveness of the troops. How, can it be done?"

"Don't worry, Comrade Commander, we can do it!" replied Fomenko loudly.

"Very good!" After Sokov replied, he turned around and asked Zhukov, "Comrade Marshal, since the exercise is over, shouldn't we go to another unit to see?"

"Well, it's still early today anyway." Zhukov replied straightforwardly, "I just happened to see the current situation of the troops belonging to your army group, so as to arrange the next work for you."

Sokov doesn't care what job Zhukov will arrange for himself next. What he thought was that as long as his troops were not allowed to carry picks and shovels to repair fortifications every day, so that when the Battle of Kursk broke out, his men would have an elite force that could compete with the Germans.