Struggle in Soviet Russia

Area No. 5, 13 kilometers south of the exercise base camp.

Victor holding his record book, followed behind many commanders, climbed up a hill where blue flags had been planted, stood close to the top of the slope, and with the help of a telescope in his hand, he moved towards the exercise battlefield in the distance. Look.

In the scope of the telescope, the soldiers with blue ribbons on their right arms can be seen moving northward. Smoke and dust from the tanks are filled in the air, and explosion smoke is rising from the ground from time to time.

A few steps away from him on the side of the ramp, four or five middle-aged people gathered together, also looking at the battlefield in the distance with a telescope. A chubby general was looking and criticizing the red side’s defense loopholes. .

"What is the Red Army doing? Have you forgotten the defensive tactics and regulations?" This person has a cold face, and he is merciless when he scolds others. How wide should the defensive front of the infantry regiment be? Look at the defensive configuration of the No. 5 area. The defensive front of this infantry regiment has exceeded twice the ordinance. How can the battle formation form an echelon configuration?!"

"Furthermore, the entire defensive deployment does not distinguish between primary and secondary. Each defensive area divides the forces and weapons equally, everywhere is fortified, and everywhere is weak. All defensive forces are arranged in a line, there is no second echelon, and the depth of defense is short and shallow." The middle-aged general checked the map carefully. He muttered and didn’t know what he had cursed. He immediately criticized, “Obviously there is plenty of time to prepare, but he only dug a bunch of defensive positions. For the foxholes, if the firepower can be deployed reasonably and the gaps between the support points can be controlled by firepower, it is somewhat of command quality, but you can see, can the firepower density installed here support it? There are no connected trenches. There are no traffic trenches, the combat formation is completely isolated, and concealed maneuvers cannot be carried out. Also, the anti-tank trenches are dug to the rear of the position, but there is not enough defense force. Where did you learn this?"

The middle-aged general looked very angry, his voice was almost roaring, and the people who followed him on the left and right held their breath and did not dare to say a word.

Victor knew that this general who was roaring was Zhukov, the current commander of the Kiev Special Military Region. The general recommended by Timoshenko who came to Kiev to take the lead was definitely not a good-tempered person. After he came to the Kiev Special Military Region, he has already replaced many commanders.

However, in Victor's view, Zhukov's bad temper cannot be blamed. He was furious at the exercise site. In fact, the red side of the exercise was indeed a problem in the defense construction, and even made too many low-level mistakes.

In addition to the mistakes made by Zhukov just now, Victor also noticed that the red commanders were not up to the standard in the most basic command quality. For example, according to the staged combat targets submitted by the red team, they arranged artillery support in the No. 5 area. According to their own predictions, the defensive artillery should be able to bring percent to the offensive blue team. Thirty combat attrition, um, this is calculated based on the vitality of the defensive artillery and the blue's offensive width.

As a result, after this estimate was reported, the assessment team only gave the blue side a 15% attrition. In the defensive battle of the No. 5 area, the red side incorrectly estimated the blue side’s strength, which led to subsequent follow-ups. A series of errors.

Victor thought that even if the defense was handed over to him, he would probably not make a low-level mistake like the red side, because they did not consider the damage to their artillery, that is, they did not consider the blue side. Artillery will be used to provide support during the offensive.

This kind of low-level mistake shouldn't happen at all in military exercises like this one, but it just happened, and there is more than this one of the same low-level mistake.

At this level of the military exercise, Victor felt that one of the problems was obvious, that is, the grassroots commanders were not as difficult as they thought. After all, there are command orders in the army. Although it will not perform well, it will not perform too badly.

Nowadays, the command order used in the Soviet army system was issued in 1935. The content stipulated in it is very detailed, and even the maximum number of hours the infantry can travel on foot each day. In addition, regarding echelon defense, The use of the reserve team has made detailed classification regulations.

If you compare this order with the German skills and tactics in the Polish campaign, to be honest, Victor thinks this order has fallen behind, but no matter how backward, if the commander can fully grasp it, in such a military exercise, At least not to lose such a big face.

"You, Comrade Captain Security."

Just as Victor was thinking to himself, he suddenly heard Zhukov's voice coming from far away.

Almost subconsciously, Victor raised his head and glanced in the direction of the sound, but he happened to see Zhukov and several generals around him looking in his direction.

"It's you, I've noticed you for a long time," Zhukov raised his hand, pointed in his direction, and said, "Come to me, yes, it's you, Comrade Captain."

Only then did Victor know that the other party was calling himself, and he walked towards Zhukov's side with a bit of confusion.

In Victor’s previous life, among the leaders of various periods of the Soviet Union he knew, Zhukov was definitely one of the top ten famous. It stands to reason that after rebirth, he saw such historical figures appear in front of him. He should have a kind of, Well, the feeling of the mountain standing still. But the reality is that when he saw Zhukov for the first time, there was not much difference in his heart, perhaps because he had even seen Khrushchev.

"Comrade Security Captain, please tell me, why are you here?" Zhukov asked with a serious expression when Victor came to him.

"Report to Comrade Commander," Victor replied, standing up straight, giving a military salute, "I am here because I am very interested in military command, and, before that, I have already led my superiors. Hit the report and got permission."

"Then, tell me, what have you learned?" Zhukov was obviously dismissive of his statement. In fact, in the Soviet military system, there are absolutely few people who have a good opinion of the People's Committee of the Interior.

"Benefited a lot, Comrade Commander," Victor said in general, not knowing how to answer this question.

"To be more specific," Zhukov said in a dissatisfied tone.

After saying this, before Victor could speak, he went on to add another sentence: "For example, if you are to command the defense operations in Area 5, and you are also given a regiment of troops, how do you plan to deploy defenses?"

Victor's heart moved, and he subconsciously licked his lips. He realized that for himself, this might be a quiz, and the teacher of the scoring and judging was the famous Soviet Red God of War. This opportunity was for him. , It is really rare.

He doesn't worry about losing face. For him, compared to the improvement of command ability, everything else is secondary.

"Can I look at the map? Comrade Commander," Victor asked after thinking about it.

"Of course," Zhukov nodded, waving his hand to the orderly soldier next to him.

Soon, the order soldiers set up the map frame, and then spread the map on it. Finally, they took the military combat command ruler and a set of staff plotting tools.

Victor lowered his head and carefully looked at the topography of the No. 5 area. This is a hilly belt with 8 large and small highlands, and the two wings are the No. 6 area and the No. 4 area.

Staring at the map for a while, Victor found that the highest altitude among the eight highlands was No. 65.3. It was at the rear right of No. 43.7, which was at the forefront, at about four o'clock, and the one at No. 65.3. On the back left, at about eight o'clock, there is also a height of No. 54.9.

These three highlands form a ">" structure from south to north, or an erect triangular structure. The appearance of these three highlands gave Victor some inspiration. He bit his lip, took the military combat command ruler, began to measure on the map, and then coordinated with the plotting tool to plan the defensive position.

Originally, the orderly soldiers sent military combat command rulers and staff plotting tools only as decorations. No one expected a captain of the People's Committee of the Interior to be able to use this sufficiently professional thing. Therefore, when Victor really used these things, and they were still using them, the surrounding commanders murmured. Obviously, this surprised them enough.

"Are you planning to use these three highlands as the axis to set up the main defensive positions?" Zhukov understood his intentions just by looking at the line that Victor drew on the map. "If this is the case, the east and west sides of the 43.7 highland What about the 29.1 and 33.4 highlands? The blue side can take the lead in taking the two highlands with superior forces, and then launch an attack along the ridge line to outflank your rear. Moreover, where is your artillery position ready to be preset? What kind of role?"

"I plan to use the artillery as fire support in the defense," Victor said, still looking at the map. "As for the blue offensive situation you said, I am not worried. If the blue team uses a small force to attack along the ridgeline, Then I still have a blocking position on height 54.9, and I have a reserve team."

The tone paused, and he said again: "If the blue team uses more troops to attack the ridgeline, they will worry that I will outflank the back. The friendly forces in the area sought support."