A camouflaged 88mm anti-aircraft gun was placed in a bush. The messy branches made him look integrated with the surroundings. The artillerymen struggled to shake the high and low aircraft. The experienced sergeant was lying in the snow pile and observed the approximate distance of the Russian tanks opposite with a telescope. When the other party drove near a destroyed Opel truck, he suddenly ordered: "Rubber 1,250 meters, tungsten core armor-piercing bomb!"

The wreckage of this truck was abandoned in the distance a few days ago. The sergeant commander deliberately measured the distance as a reference for quickly calibrating the distance in battle. He did not expect it to come in handy so quickly.

With a "clang", a shell was quickly pushed into the chamber and then fired out.

The artillerymen didn't even see if they hit it, and stuffed an armor-piercing bomb again. The second order came immediately: "4 meters left!"

With a "clang", another shell was fired, "On the right 1 meter!" The sergeant shouted, asking them to quickly fire the third shell, because he found that the other party had noticed the existence of the party. The 85mm tank gun was spinning, and there was a possibility of firing the next second.

With a "boom", the third shell hit the vehicle accurately and destroyed the I-1 tank. The Red Army infantry following behind the tank caused a stir. Just as the gunners celebrated successfully, the sergeant commander with a drastic change suddenly shouted the "Lying down" command and was the first to lay his head in the whole snow pile. Everyone lay down nearby, no matter whether it was a snow pile, mud pile or something else, even if it was a soaked horse manure.

With a "boom", a grenade exploded behind them. The scattered shrapnel made the 88mm anti-aircraft gun "clang" sound, but the personnel had no problem. Everyone smiled gratefully at the sergeant commander, but found that he had already rushed to another preset position more than 200 meters away. There was also an 88mm anti-aircraft gun! Everyone followed immediately.

Yesterday evening, they had a total of 2 artillery groups, responsible for two anti-aircraft guns. After destroying more than 10 tanks and self-propelled artillery, there was a reduction in personnel in the enemy's revenge. In the end, the two artillery combination was two into one to form a hybrid artillery group, but they continued to be responsible for two artillery groups. Relying on such a tenacious combat method, they continued to guard the portal of the frontier positions.

This is just a simple epitome of the fierce firefighting in the Central Asian front. Starting from early December, a total of nearly 500,000 troops from the Red Army Front began to pour in towards Central Asia. General Scherner built a fortress tactic rooted in the Central Asian oasis zone based on the pre-developed strategies.

In that cold winter of 1941, the German army that failed to attack Moscow encountered a large counterattack by the Soviet army at the time of heavy snow. The Soviet tanks and cavalry units relied on their own power to advance westward and deviated to the retreating German flanks to form encirclements. When the Soviet army built the encirclement, they had a great appetite, and often accommodated several divisions and even the first-level German main forces. In order to prevent a full collapse and repeat the past of Napoleon's retreat, Hitler had no choice but to order the soldiers not to take a step back and turn to resist on the spot, and allocate the troops to some strategic areas and towns to form hedgehog-like "fortresses".

The most famous successful use of the fortress tactics was the two encirclements of Demiyanskbao and Holm. The former lasted for more than 4 months, while the latter lasted for more than 3 months, and finally supported the reinforcements from their own side to rescue the encirclement. Of course, there were also failed use. In history, the 300,000 troops of the Sixth Army in the Stalingrad encirclement failed to defend and ended up completely, and finally the Third Reich was completely finished.

The fortress tactics is the same as Hitler's "no step back" strategy of "no step back" that has been controversial in history, but in Hoffman's eyes, it is biased to simply affirm or deny it. The troops that implement this tactics will definitely be surrounded, but due to internal combat, they can often restrain the Soviet army several times, which is much better than letting the troops fall into a retreat in the severe cold and superior enemy pursuit, and can also cover the troops retreating to the rear for rest and make them come back. Hoffman believes that whether this tactic is good or bad depends on whether the encirclement can be kept or how big a blow it can be given to the Red Army.

However, this Central Asia encirclement is obviously different from the previous few times. As early as November, senior commanders, including Rommel, reminded the troops of the risk of siege. The General Staff proposed several solutions to transfer plans, increase troops, retreat plans, etc., but Hoffman finally chose the plan to stick to the spot. Not only that, he also used the guise of the "Seal Plan" to hook Rommel and replaced the commander of the Central Army with Scherner.

What made everyone fall into glasses was that, except for some personnel to the Central Asian Army, the head of state did not agree to join the other reinforcements, but only emphasized the need to hoard materials and build a defense line, as if it was believed that the Central Asian Army's 100,000 troops would definitely win. Everyone was worried about the decision, and even turned around to persuade Scherna to try to get more reinforcements. What was even more surprising happened immediately. Scherna used the return transport plane to transfer the paratroopers of one division and one brigade (barbaric) from the encirclement and deployed them in the relatively safer eastern coast of the Caspian Sea. After this adjustment, the 100,000 troops in the core belt of the Central Asian Oasis dropped to only more than 85,000.

Then under Hoffman's order, all transport aircraft were driving at full capacity to transport supplies and supplies, and stockpiled enough for 4 months according to the standard of 100,000 people. Scherner was afraid that this would not be enough, so he bought a large amount of livestock and agricultural products from the independent forces of Central Asia, and urgently recruited Central Asian people to help the troops build a line of defense.

Scherner really plans to stay in the Central Asia encirclement for 4 months? Everyone has put a lot of questions on this, but now the prestige of the head of state is at its peak, and the front-line commander looks like this, so everyone can only hope that the strategy will be effective. Forced by helplessness, Zeitzler went to communicate with the commander of the Eastern Front, Manstein, hoping that the latter could persuade the head of state to change this risky strategy, but the other party actually suggested: "I don't think it's necessary for the time being. I suggest mobilizing 2 armored divisions, 1 armored grenade division and enough ships on the west coast of the Caspian Sea..."

"You are going to let them form an emergency battle group to launch reinforcements at a critical moment?"

"No, I hope these troops can act as a deterrent, and I think the Russians' goal is not just 890,000 people in the encirclement."

"Well, I hope your judgment is right."

Of course, Hoffmann was not doing it willful. Not only did he study in-depth the success or failure of the battles in the Demiyansk encirclement and the Holm encirclement, he now has power, and can call all official information, which is more reliable than he could only rely on archives and memories of the parties involved in his later generations. He also has his own unique insights into the final destruction of the Sixth Army under Stalingrad.

He believed that if Paulus, the general in the office, commanded the troops and unilaterally carried out Hitler's orders, the Sixth Army would not have been destroyed so quickly; and if the surrounded German army was not 300,000, assuming that 100,000 was surrounded and 200,000 escaped the encirclement, Germany would still have the chance to fight back in 1943 in history. The success of the previous encirclement battles gave Hitler blind confidence, and Goring was hyping the air force's ability, which made him think that Paulus could hold on. In fact, Germany's air transport power was limited, and the supply of about 100,000 troops was the limit of 300,000 troops after being surrounded, and they could only get 100,000 people for supplies. What would be the better outcome in the ice and snow? The whole battle was broken by the German army's weak logistics capabilities and blind confidence.

When Scherner first heard Hoffman's high argument, he was surprised that Hoffman could not use the Battle of Stalingrad to give him an example, but he could learn and use the experience of the Demiyansk encirclement. He thought about it carefully and found that it made sense: if one person's supplies were allocated to two people, no one would survive, and the overall combat effectiveness was not as good as one person; if the supplies were given to two people, the three people could be given to two people, it could fully support the Red Army to dry up the blood with the Red Army. What's more, the overall situation of the German army is now dominant, and the reason why it is not suitable to send troops to Central Asia is not because there is no soldiers to send, but because of the terrain and climate. You should know that the SS Armored Army, which is the most capable SS Panzer Army, is still leisurely resting in the rear, there are 5 1943 armored divisions and 2 armored grenadier divisions.

"The reason why I want to fight such an arduous defensive battle in Central Asia is the root of the exchange tactics. Now the Soviet army has given up the attempt to engage in large-scale field battles with our army in the vast wilderness. The middle-road propulsion cannot find the enemy's heavy army group, and our army cannot really advance without any effort. The feeling of disconnection from front and back is very uncomfortable. Moreover, the faster the advancement, the sparse the regional military density, and the easier it is for the Soviet army to fight back. Therefore, the advancement of the middle-road area can only be carried out in a stable manner...

Forcibly attacking large cities with strong fortresses and fighting street battles is also an unbearable high cost. Neither Moscow nor Stalingrad can be attacked for the time being. At most, I can find a way to solve the small and medium-sized cities in the central battlefield. After comprehensively combining the pros and cons, I chose you to command such a defensive battle, hoping to use this magnet to continuously attract the Red Army to die, exhaust their last mobile forces, and create conditions for the spring full-line attack."

"As you wish, Head, I will stick to the last shot and shot." Scherner respectfully saluted, "Let them come."

"I will provide you with sufficient air support." Hoffman paused. "You are free to choose the defensive front and maneuvering method you think is suitable. I will not interfere with your specific tactical command, nor do I have to stick to it."

"clear."
Chapter completed!