Chapter 490 Barbarossa Line

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

The offensive and defensive battle for the Gibraltar fortress has been going on for nearly two months since June. However, the battle in Gibraltar was not fierce, just a heavy artillery siege. Marshal Kesselring mobilized 800mm "Gustav" railway guns and "Dora" railway guns, 600mm "Karl" mortars, 420mm "Big Bertha" howitzers and 280mm K8 railway guns, as well as many other large-caliber heavy artillery, to continuously bombard the Gibraltar fortress. Before July 10, all British artillery positions on the western foot of the Windmill Terrace were completely destroyed. Subsequently, a German infantry division launched an attack and captured the rocky heights at the northern end of the Windmill Terrace. Then, six "Karl" mortars were transported to the foot of the Windmill Terrace, and under the cover of the terrace, they fired heavy concrete armor-piercing shells weighing 2.17 tons nearby.

Because the "Karl" mortars have a large firing angle, they can hit every corner of the Gibraltar Peninsula after being deployed at the foot of the Windmill Terrace. And the 2.17-ton heavy concrete armor-piercing shells are almost indestructible, so the British artillery positions distributed throughout the peninsula were quickly destroyed one by one. By August 7, the entire Windmill Terrace and the port area of ​​the 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, in addition to transporting and supporting their ground forces to capture the Canary Islands and laying mines near the Strait of Gibraltar, did nothing else, and was obviously unable to rescue the Gibraltar Peninsula.

In addition, the British troops in the Tobruk Fortress, which had been besieged for several months, also surrendered to the German-Italian coalition on August 2, and the North African campaign was completely over. 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 7 days to completely crush the resistance of the British army and occupy the entire island.

Now as long as Gibraltar is finally taken, the entire Mediterranean will completely become an inland lake of Germany and Italy.

After completely solving the Mediterranean, Germany should solve the British mainland step by step. And as long as the British mainland is taken, Germany will be invincible in this war. Because without the British springboard, the United States can neither land in Europe nor carry out any strategic bombing. The whole of Europe, except for the Soviet territory, is completely controlled by Germany. Moreover, Germany can continuously obtain oil and non-ferrous metals from the Middle East and Africa, which can ensure that its war machine is full of horsepower.

And it is hard to say whether it can destroy the Soviet Union with the manpower and industrial resources of most of Europe to deal with the Soviet Union, but no matter how badly it fights, it will not be defeated by the Soviet Union. At most, it will be the same as the situation in World War I, and it will be a stalemate on the Eastern Front. But now Germany still has a super trump card in its hand-the atomic bomb! As long as Germany could be the first in the world to produce an atomic bomb, the Soviet Union would be defeated no matter how hard it tried.

However, the Soviet Union would most likely not watch Germany successfully take over the British mainland. Stalin would most likely declare war on Germany when Germany landed on the British mainland. This would put Germany in the dilemma of fighting on two fronts before defeating Britain. Therefore, the General Staff led by Hessmann planned to establish a line of defense on the Eastern Front to ensure that Germany could hold the Eastern Front before occupying the British mainland.

"Leader, there has been no undefended line of defense since the war began, because the attacking side is composed of the most elite German soldiers." Hessmann said, "If we are the ones defending, then there will be no undefended line of defense."

"There is no undefended line of defense?" Hitler frowned, "We have to defend from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. Even if we don't consider the Soviet-Finnish border, this line of defense will be 2,000 kilometers long, right?"

"Yes," Hessmann nodded and said, "The General Staff is now planning to build a line of defense code-named "Barbarossa" in the eastern region bordering the Soviet Union. The total length of the line of defense will exceed 2,000 kilometers, but we will not deploy tight defenses along the entire line, but will adopt a combination of key defense, defense in depth and mobile defense."

It is impossible to deploy tight defenses along the 2,000-kilometer long front, and it is also impossible to defend. If the standard deployment is that one division defends 10 kilometers, at least 200 divisions must be deployed for the 2,000-kilometer defense line, and mobile forces must be prepared to counterattack and bet on loopholes. Without 300-350 divisions, it will not be enough. The total strength of the German Wehrmacht Army is not that much now, so it can only adopt a combination of key defense, deep defense and mobile defense.

"What is key defense?" Hitler asked. "What are deep defense 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 to the map table.

There was a map of the European situation on the map table. The areas "ruled" by Germany were blue, the Soviet Union was red, and the United Kingdom was dull 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 Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union.

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 of Defense. 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 straight 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 a large number 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!”