Chapter 826: Fight as Many Battles as You Can with as Much Oil as You Have (the Book Has Been Released, Please Subscribe)

Military enthusiasts in later generations always like to complain that Germany in World War II failed to mobilize in time, which caused the blond Aryan supermen to always face the Soviet Red Army, which had an advantage in numbers and paper power, on the Soviet-German battlefield. But they often ignore the fact that mechanized equipment needs sufficient fuel to be fed!

And the amount of fuel Germany has directly determines how many tanks and aircraft the "German supermen" can use.

Of course, in the later stages of the war, when Germany entered the passive defense stage, mechanized troops no longer needed to maneuver over long distances, and the logistics line was relatively shortened, they could use less fuel to support more mechanized equipment.

However, compared with the United States and the Soviet Union, two oil tycoons that have a total of 300 million tons of oil, Germany can support more armored forces and aircraft with only 10 million tons of various fuels.

Fortunately, under the guidance of Hessmann, Germany chose to take the Mediterranean and Middle East oil seas first... Although this gave the Soviet Union an extra year of war preparation and armed a stronger Red Army, it prevented Germany from launching a large-scale full-scale offensive in the first year of the Soviet-German war.

However, after taking the Middle East oil sea, Germany's oil bottleneck was greatly alleviated. Now the European Community has an expected annual oil production of 34 million tons (in 1943) and 8 million tons of synthetic fuels (including various fuels extracted from coal and oil shale). In addition, there are 15 synthetic fuel plants (coal-to-oil) to be built in the UK, and their production capacity is not included. If these plants are put into production, the European Community can get millions of tons of fuel a year.

However, the fuel production that has doubled several times compared with history cannot be fully converted into the advantages of German mechanized forces. Because in this time and space, in order to win over European countries, Germany had to use precious oil resources to maintain the normal operation of the economies of various countries.

According to the distribution plan in 1943, France, Rome (Italy), and the United Kingdom (mainland and India) received 250,000 tons of oil quotas each month, Germany (including Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia, Ukraine and Slovenia) received 300,000 tons, and the rest of the European Community received 250,000 tons. A total of 15.6 million tons of precious fuel was used for the training needs of the economies of various countries and domestic armed forces (the training oil of the German army was not included in the monthly quota of 400,000 tons).

About 42 million tons of oil minus 15.6 million tons, there are still 26.4 million tons left, which seems to be a lot. But Germany in this time and space has one more oil-consuming consumer than in history - the navy!

With the continuous entry of a large number of newly built ships, the scale of the European Combined Fleet has become increasingly large, and the current total tonnage has approached 3 million tons! It is 50% more than the total tonnage of the Japanese Combined Fleet, and the fuel consumption is naturally an astronomical figure.

If the fleet is deployed collectively, the fuel consumption per day will be at least 20,000 tons! This does not count the fuel consumption of the aircraft owned by the European Combined Fleet. Therefore, for the European Combined Fleet alone, the German Wehrmacht Fuel Reserve General Administration has arranged a quota of 4 million tons of heavy oil/diesel and 500,000 tons of aviation gasoline per year.

In addition to the European Combined Fleet, the European Combined Transport/Escort Command is also a large oil user.

This command controls cargo ships and tankers with a full load displacement of more than 15 million tons, and also has more than 150 escort ships, including 18 escort aircraft carriers. Therefore, the annual fuel quota (mainly diesel) is no less than 2 million tons (a considerable number of ships are coal-fired).

After deducting the 6.5 million tons of fuel quota for the Navy, the German Wehrmacht has only 19.9 million tons of fuel at its disposal.

And 1.9 million tons of this belongs to the "strategic reserve" and is reserved for emergencies. The remaining 18 million tons is the total amount of fuel that the German Air Force (including the Marine Corps), the Army, and all foreign troops operating under the command of the German Wehrmacht General Staff can use in 1943. It is more than double the year when the German Army had the most abundant fuel supply in history.

However, with twice as much oil, the German army, including the armies of various countries fighting for Germany, had at least twice as many aircraft, tanks and various vehicles in reserve!

Therefore, the German Wehrmacht had to continue to be frugal in terms of fuel.

"In the first half of 1942, almost all of the previous accumulation was spent, and from the second half of 1942, there was only some savings every month. In addition, before the armistice with Britain (mainland), the navy also seized many American tankers. Therefore, by the end of March, we had 1.496 million tons of reserves." The person who answered the question about fuel reserves was Edward Milch, the director of the Wehrmacht Reserve Bureau, who is now Air Force General.

He did not do as well in this time and space as in history, and served as the director of the Air Force Armament Bureau and the commander of the Air Force Transport Command. Now he has become the director of the Reserve Bureau, which is in charge of all strategic material reserves of the Wehrmacht, but such a position is very suitable for him.

"How much more can we have every month?" Hersman asked.

"About 200,000 tons," Milch said, "This is oil. If it is refined into gasoline, there will not be that much."

"Fight for 6 months," Hessman thought, "The offensive will start in May and end in November. That means about 1.5 million tons of reserves plus the surplus of 1.4 million tons from April to October, a total of 2.9 million tons." He thought for a moment and asked, "The Army and Air Force should still have some reserves, right?"

"Yes," Guderian replied, "I don't know about the situation of the Air Force. As for the Army...not counting the reserves of units below the army, there must be 1 million tons of oil products now. In addition, the oil products issued every month Approximately one-third of the total in Zhongdu is reserved for battle reserves.”

"The same goes for the Air Force," Milchi did some mental calculations and said, "With the reserves of the Air Force, Naval Aviation and Army, we will have up to 5 million tons of oil by the end of October this year, and there will be another 3.5 million tons of oil for the battles from April to October. Reserve, so the maximum is 8.5 million tons. "

Hessman touched his chin and said: "Leave another 300,000 tons in emergency reserves, 1 million tons for the South American and Indian battlefields, and the remaining 7.2 million tons should be used for the attack on the Soviet Union."

"Up to 1.2 million tons per month," Guderian shook his head. "Compared to our vehicles and aircraft, this number is not very rich!"

"Then... then let's fight at the gate of Moscow!" Hessman thought about it and said, "The straight-line distance from Nulves in Lithuania to Moscow is only 780 kilometers. We must have enough oil to fight Moscow. ?”

"Enough." Guderian nodded and said, "If we want to outflank Ukraine and then advance into Stalingrad, our oil supply will be very tight. But if we target Moscow, there will be no problem. But Moscow is not easy to defeat. ah……"

"There is no need to fight," Hersman shook his head. "We can have a decisive battle with the Soviet Western Front and Kalinin Front near Smolensk. After winning, we can approach Moscow and have a decisive battle with the Soviet Reserve Front. Finally, we can compete with mechanized equipment. The small number of light-armed troops went south to Kharkov and Donetsk, and fought all the way to the Sea of ​​Azov."

"Use light troops with less mechanized equipment to go south?" Guderian thought for a while and asked, "Marshal of the Empire, do you think that after we win outside Moscow, Stalin will mobilize the army from Ukraine to go north?"

"Definitely," Hessmann smiled, "Leningrad is under siege and Moscow is in danger...Stalin should know the consequences of the fall of these two cities!"

Now there is a legal court of the Russian Empire on the German side! If Empress Olga gets both Moscow and Petrograd, then the Bolshevik rule in Russia will undoubtedly come to an end.

Therefore, Stalin must fight against the city in Moscow!

"Of course, the great leader of the Bolsheviks, Stalin, may also accept the peace conditions we propose," Hessmann said with a smile, "in this case, the war will be won."

…

"Strengthen the Southwest Front and weaken the Reserve Front and Kalinin Front?" Joseph Stalin frowned deeply and looked at the outline of the battle plan just sent by Pavlov and Shalashnipov. “Can the weakened Kalinin Front complete the liberation of Leningrad?

And...what if the Germans focus their attack on the center? "

"Comrade General Secretary," Marshal Pavlov said, "we have already considered this. The second Leningrad siege relief battle will be postponed to June 1. Because by then, we will basically be able to determine whether the Germans What is the main target?”

Stalin smoked his pipe, thought for a moment, nodded and said: "They will definitely launch a major offensive this year, because their ally Japan is obviously difficult to sustain for a long time... If they cannot defeat us in 1943, then in 1944 they will only I can fight alone.”

"Yes," Golashnikov said, "and the climate of the Soviet Union determines that the best time for the Germans to attack is between May after the spring mud season and October or November when the autumn mud season arrives. They We must be defeated in just 6 months, so it is impossible to waste a whole month, so the time to launch the attack must be in May.”

"Yes, it must be May." Stalin also agreed with this judgment, because the Germans began preparations for rest in the late autumn of last year, and they had been resting for half a year in May. There was no problem of insufficient preparation.

"So... if their attack target is in the middle," Stalin asked again, "are we sure of defeating them?"

"Yes!" Pavlov said, "According to the plan, Comrade Zhukov will unified command the more than 2.5 million troops of the Kalinin Front, the Western Front and the Reserve Front to start a decisive battle with the Germans!"