The Rise of the Third Reich

"A line of defense?" Adolf Hitler was a little confused. "I remember that no line of defense was held during this war. Even fortresses like Gibraltar will soon be occupied by us."

The offensive and defensive battle against the Fortress of Gibraltar began in June and has been going on for nearly two months. However, the battle in Gibraltar was not intense, it was just a heavy artillery siege mode. Marshal Kesselring mobilized the 800mm "Gustav" train gun and "Dora" train gun, 600mm "Karl" mortar, 420mm "Big Bertha" howitzer and 280mm K8 train gun, as well as many others Large-caliber heavy artillery launched a continuous bombardment of the Fortress of Gibraltar. Before July 10, all British artillery positions at the western foot of Fengmo Platform were completely destroyed. Subsequently, a German infantry division launched an attack and captured the rocky high ground at the northern end of the Windmill Mesa. Immediately afterwards, six "Karl" mortars were transported to the foot of Fengmo Platform. Under the cover of the platform, heavy concrete armor-piercing projectiles weighing 2.17 tons were fired nearby.

Because the "Karl" mortars have a very large firing angle, they can hit every corner of the Gibraltar Peninsula after they are deployed at the foot of the Windmill Mesa. The 2.17-ton heavy concrete armor-piercing projectile was almost indestructible, so the British forts distributed across the peninsula were quickly destroyed one by one. By August 7, the entire Fengmo Terrace and the port area of ​​Gibraltar Fortress were occupied by the German army, and the British army retreated to the Europa Terrace at the southernmost tip of the peninsula to survive.

The British fleet did nothing except transport and support their ground forces to seize the Canary Islands and lay mines near the Strait of Gibraltar. It was obviously unable to rescue the Gibraltar Peninsula.

In addition, the British troops in the Tobruk Fortress, which had been besieged for several months, surrendered to the German and Italian coalition forces on August 2, thus ending the North African campaign. On the island of Crete, due to the surrender of the Kingdom of Greece, the German and Italian troops also successfully landed in July. It took less than seven days to completely crush the British resistance and occupy the entire island.

Now as long as Gibraltar is finally captured, the entire Mediterranean will completely turn into a lake for Germany and Italy.

After completely solving the Mediterranean, Germany should solve the British mainland step by step. As long as it captures the British mainland, Germany will be considered invincible in this war. Because without Britain as a springboard, the United States would neither be able to land in Europe nor engage in strategic bombing. The entire Europe, except for the territory of the Soviet Union, was completely controlled by Germany. Moreover, Germany continues to obtain oil and non-ferrous metals from the Middle East and Africa, which can ensure that its war machine is fully powerful.

With most of Europe's manpower and industrial resources used to deal with the Soviet Union, it is hard to say whether the Soviet Union can be destroyed. But no matter how bad the fight is, it will not be defeated by the Soviet Union. At most, it will be the same as the situation during World War I, fighting on the Eastern Front. into a stalemate. But now Germany still has a super trump card in its hand - the atomic bomb! As long as Germany can be the first in the world to build an atomic bomb, the Soviet Union will only be defeated no matter how hard it tries.

However, the Soviet Union most likely will not watch Germany successfully take over the British mainland. Stalin will most likely start a war with Germany when Germany lands on the British mainland. This would leave Germany facing the dilemma of starting a war on two fronts before defeating Britain. Therefore, the General Staff led by Hersmann planned to establish a defense line on the Eastern Front to ensure that Germany could hold the Eastern Front before occupying the British mainland.

"Leader, there is no defense line that cannot be defended since the war started. That is because the attacking side is composed of the most elite German soldiers." Hessmann said, "If we are allowed to defend, then there will be no defense line that cannot be defended."

"Is there no defense line that cannot be defended?" Hitler frowned, "We have to defend from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. Even if we don't take into account the Soviet-Finnish border, this defense line will be 2,000 kilometers long, right?"

"Yes," Hessmann nodded and said, "Now the General Staff is planning to build a defense line code-named 'Barbarossa' in the eastern area bordering the Soviet Union. The total length of the defense line will be more than 2,000 kilometers. However, we will not deploy strict defenses across the entire line, but will adopt a defense method that combines focused defense, defense in depth and mobile defense.”

It is impossible and impossible to defend the 2,000-kilometer long front with tight defenses across the entire front. If a division is deployed according to the standard of 10 kilometers of defense, at least 200 divisions must be invested in a 2,000-kilometer defense line, and mobile troops must be prepared to counterattack and exploit loopholes. No 300-350 divisions will be enough in any case. The current total strength of the German Wehrmacht Army is not that large, so it can only adopt a combination of focused defense, depth defense and mobile defense.

"What is the key defense?" Hitler asked. "What are defense in depth and mobile defense?"

Hersmann stood up, nodded at Hitler and Schleicher, and then walked to the map table in the conference room. Hitler, Schleicher and other senior figures attending the meeting also followed them to the map table.

There is a map of the European situation spread out on the map table. The areas "ruled" by Germany are in blue, the Soviet Union is in red, and the United Kingdom is in dim gray.

Hessmann picked up a baton and first clicked on the Baltic Sea coast area on the map. He said: "The Baltic states need to be defended. They are on the Courland Peninsula, around the Gulf of Riga, and in the densely forested Estonia. The terrain is relatively easy to defend, and we have been operating there for many years and have very complete defense facilities in the border area.”

Although Soviet-German relations have been relatively good over the past two decades, the Baltic Republics and now the Baltic States have always been wary of the Soviet Union. Of course, it will not destroy the "ecological environment" in the Soviet-German border area, so the Soviet-German border in the Baltic region is still covered by large forests, which is more beneficial to the defense side. The railways and roads that enter Soviet territory through forest areas are guarded by fortress-level defense facilities.

Moreover, Germany has also built a large number of military airports in the coastal areas of the Baltic states, where it can deploy medium and long-range bombers to threaten Leningrad, and even send aircraft from there to bomb the Soviet capital Moscow.

In addition, as long as Germany holds the Baltic states, the Soviet Red Army must heavily guard Belarus and Leningrad to prevent the German army from launching a major counterattack from the Baltic states.

"In addition to the Baltic states, Western Ukraine and the Carpathian Mountains also need to be defended. This includes part of the territory of the Grand Duchy of Galicia and Western Ukraine, the territory of the Kingdom of Romania, part of the territory of the Kingdom of Hungary and Croatia and Poland. Carpathian Voivodeship and Lesser Poland Voivodeship. Similar to the situation in the Baltic States, the terrain of the Western Ukraine-Carpathian region is also conducive to defense. Moreover, our country's coal, iron ore, oil and non-ferrous metals are there. The important collection areas must be protected at all costs.”

Having said this, Hersman then pointed his baton at central and northern Poland and southern Lithuania.

He said: "While we are focusing on the Baltic states on the northern line and the Western Ukraine-Carpathians on the southern line, we are deploying large-depth and deep defenses on the approximately 700-kilometer-long defense line in the flat middle area of ​​the Barbarossa line. Mobile defense...that is, only deploying the Polish Defense Force and the Lithuanian Defense Force on the front line relying on the fortifications left over from the original Piłsudski Line, and at the same time turning Vilnius, Warsaw, Bialystok, Lublin and Warsaw into fortresses , deploying elite Wehrmacht forces. And powerful armored groups are deployed in the first line of defense and in the rear of Vilnius, Warsaw, Bialystok, Lublin and Warsaw for counterattack."

"A large U-shaped encirclement?" Hitler stared at the map, listening carefully to Hersmann's plan. Finally, he raised his head and asked, "Marshal Reich, are you going to use a super U-shaped encirclement to encircle Stalin's millions of Red Army troops?" Put them all in?”

Hessmann nodded and replied with a smile: "If Stalin really sends his millions of Red Army troops to attack us, then we will definitely wipe them all out."

"And then attack the Soviet Union?" Hitler immediately asked.

Hersmann knew that Hitler was a guy with an immortal "heart to destroy the Soviet Union"! But now I can only follow his wishes.

He nodded and said: "Yes, we will wipe out the best part of the Soviet Red Army in Poland, and then counterattack! I estimate that Stalin will either not attack, or he will definitely want to quickly pass through the Polish plains and march directly to Berlin. We Fighting them decisively on Polish soil is more certain than breaking into the Soviet Union and fighting the Red Army in the depths of the Soviet Union."

Hitler suddenly hesitated again, "But...Stalin has 20,000-25,000 tanks. Can we defeat so many Soviet tanks on the Polish plains?"

The Soviet Union now has the largest armored forces and air force in the world, with the number of tanks exceeding 20,000 in 1940. If the Soviet-German war broke out in 1942, Stalin would definitely have more than 25,000 tanks at that time, and there would be a huge improvement in quality. There would be a large number of advanced T-34 tanks, KV-1 tanks and KV-2 tanks. Equip the troops. In addition, the Soviet Union may also receive massive amounts of trucks and aircraft engines aided by the United States, thereby greatly improving the mechanized combat capabilities of the Soviet Red Army by several levels.

Hessmann nodded and answered very definitely: "Leader, we will defeat the Russians. No matter how many tanks they have, they will be reduced to steel wreckage in front of the powerful German armored forces and the Luftwaffe. Because there are already several extremely An effective anti-tank weapon!”