The Bagration operations of the Soviet-German War are classics in every way studied. Some netizens asked why Modell, who is known as the master of German defense, did not defend Minsk after taking over as the commander of Army Group Center? Speaking of which, he really can't be blamed for this, if it weren't for the fact that the former Marshal Busch had half-exhausted the defensive forces, Modell wouldn't have lost so badly when he took over. Let's take a look at what the situation on the battlefield was like when Modell took over command of Army Group Center.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="2" > First of all, Operation Bagration, the Soviet army's tactics of concealing the sky and crossing the sea were done seamlessly. </h1>
To ask where the most successful operation of Bagration was, it was not that the Soviet army was several times stronger than the German army, nor how perfect the pincer attack plan proposed by Rokossovsky was, but that the Soviet army's tactics of concealing the sea were too good, not only blinding the German command, but even a defensive genius like Modell was deceived into deploying the German armored heavy troops in the Ukrainian area.
Before the Palgradian operation began, the Soviet army also went through several back-and-forth discussions, some suggested a breakthrough from Leningrad, others suggested attacking the Baltic Sea first, and more people tended to attack in the direction of Ukraine, because this was not only the key defensive area of the German Army Group South, but also the place where the German armored forces were deployed the most. However, after weighing the pros and cons, the Soviet high command still intended to focus its offensive on the Belarusian region, first, it was the defensive area of Army Group Center, and destroying this force was equivalent to destroying the german army's greatest support on the Eastern Front; second, the German army launched Operation Barbarossa here to achieve two major victories in Minsk and Smolensk, and solving the problem of Army Group Center first was conducive to boosting morale and more conducive to cutting off the connection between the three German army groups.
However, in order to achieve the effect of concealing the sky and crossing the sea, the Soviet army needed to mobilize 2.4 million troops in a relatively short period of time, hundreds of thousands of tons of ammunition and hundreds of thousands of tons of grain and grass, as well as countless artillery and armored units, which was very difficult for the German army on the southern front to find. To this end, the Soviet army took four hidden measures, one was the frequent mobilization of tanks and armored troops on the southern front, so that Konev launched a strategic attack in the Lviv area, so that the German army mistakenly believed that the focus of the Soviet army's operations in the summer of 1944 was still on the southern front; the second was that the Soviet army on the central front did not send armored troops to the Vitebsk area, because there was the German Reinhardt's 3rd Panzer Army, so that he could safely defend the city; third, the Soviet army participating in the battle all marched to the predetermined area through the swamps and jungles. In addition to the large equipment transported by train, other machine guns and mortars passed through the swamp through small rafts and wooden boats. Moreover, all the troops were silent in communication and traveled toward the night; the fourth was to blatantly transport supplies by train, and as many as 1,000 transport trains per day drove from south to north from east to west, so that German reconnaissance aircraft mistakenly believed that the southern front was the focus of operations.
Of course, there is also a very important link, that is, the Soviet army's demining and demining work is very good, under the careful deployment of Rokossovsky, the Soviet army not only innovated the mine-sweeping tanks, but also let the sappers clear the 34,000 mine fuses deployed by the Soviet army itself in the departure front in two nights, and when the battle began, the Soviet minesweeper tank regiment took the lead, and the attacking troops followed closely behind, and quickly came to the German position.
In this sense, it was the Soviet army's tactics of concealing the sky and crossing the sea that were so well concealed that the German high command did not take operation Bagration seriously, and by the time the German army came back to prepare for the retreat from Vitebsk, it was too late, and in just half a month, the Soviet army was under the city and prepared to retake Minsk, the capital of Belarus.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="17" > Secondly, losing Minsk is a big regret for Modell, but it is also excusable. </h1>
On June 28, 1944, Modell, who was fighting on the southern ukrainian front, received an order to quickly move north to replace Busch as commander of Army Group Center, less than four months after his promotion to marshal, and exactly three months after he became commander of Army Group Ukraine. When he came to the combat command room, the two most embarrassing things were on the table, one was that he commanded the 3rd Panzer Division to occupy Minsk in just one week, achieving the first great victory of the German blitzkrieg against the Soviet Union, and the other was that his 9th Army was now surrounded by Soviet troops, so that he could succeed Busch and also have the mission to rescuse the old troops, after all, when he won the title of Defense Master, the 9th Army was very high.
In fact, before Modell came to the central line, the Soviet 4 fronts had already launched a siege of Minsk, and the 3rd Panzer Army, the armored unit that remained in army group Center as a German army, was no longer an armored unit, even before the Bagration operation began, the Soviet army prepared more than 5,000 tanks, while Reinhardt had less than 600, and lacked heavy armor such as the Tiger, and by the time the Soviets attacked Minsk, the Germans had no tank support.
What most embarrassed Modell was not only that Minsk could not be defended, nor that the 9th Army was about to be eaten, but that the armored troops he brought from Ukraine had only 18 left from 159 vehicles, and this was already the most important tank force of the German army on the southern front, and the defenders who remained in minsk were only more than 2,000 people. Therefore, on the way of the German retreat, the Soviet army was chased by armored tanks, while the German army was driving a carriage and ox cart, and some were still leading horses to push the artillery cart to retreat.
To make matters worse, when Zhukov came to Rokossovsky's troops, he brought 1400 Il-2 fighters and 900 bombers with him, while Modell only had 40 aircraft to call, and the Soviets put aside the collapsed German army and did not fight, specifically provoking the german in-depth attack, and launching air strikes against the German heavy artillery positions and artillery depots.
Through the above analysis, it can be seen that the Bagration operation, not to mention one Modell, is also a white ride, because the gap in combat strength between the two sides is too large, and the German military first has no defense against the Soviet attack. And letting Moder take over the command of Army Group Center is also a temporary emergency measure, and the battle has reached this point, where there is any technical content, the big one in the gun. After just over a month, Modell's re-established defensive line on the Eastern Front was unstable, and he was sent to a new post on the Western Front, and the Defensive Master became a firefighting captain again.
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