Rasputin of the East

＜ Episode 181 >

Elbe River. frontmost line.

“Cover!”

bombs are falling

Hundreds of attack planes bombarded the soldiers’ hard-built defenses, and some of the attack planes modified for anti-tank use fired shells.

Immediately, the anti-aircraft guns fired frantically, the interceptors scrambled to target the enemy attack planes, and the enemy planes stopped them again.

During the battle, the artillery didn’t just sit idle. Thousands of artillery fire hit the trenches.

The Russian artillery, which tracked down the enemy artillery with a reconnaissance machine, fired artillery fire to silence the enemy’s artillery, but the enemy’s size was too large to silence them all.

“The enemies are coming!”

A blast of machine guns was fired at the enemy infantry who crossed the river and approached. Mortar shells flew through the sky, and grenades flew in.

Crossing is when your forces are most vulnerable.

To compensate for this, the British and German forces tried to penetrate the defense line by firing artillery, anti-aircraft guns and anti-tank guns directly into the Russian trenches, but the fact that the enemy is within the range of the friendly means that the allies are also within the range of the enemy.

If large anti-aircraft guns and artillery guns were already on the front line, there was no expectation of concealment. The artillery, which almost drew Russian fire, had to make great sacrifices.

– Kwaang!

A gun grenade went over the trench and exploded.

“Damn! Enemy down there! grenade!”

It was more convenient to throw a grenade than to shoot by sticking your upper body over the trench, and that’s how it happened.

Although tanks were made to break through trenches, and Britain developed its own tanks in a different way from Russia, anyway, ‘Doha’ was still a very difficult range for tanks.

And the Elbe River, if it is natural, is natural, but the width is inconsistent. At least, it is not wide enough to cross with the tanks of this era.

Therefore, the British offensive had no choice but to focus on infantry, and they had no choice but to become machine guns for well-established trench ships in the highlands.

In addition, as soon as the Russian army received the forecast information about the offensive, not only did they build minefields in areas judged to be the main offensive axis, but there were all kinds of obstacles such as barbed wire, and Russian aircraft and artillery sniped the British and German artillery. The removal of obstacles was not sufficient in the situation of Haedae.

It was a good tactic to charge the soldiers while bombarding them, saying that they used mobile barrage tactics in their own way, but it was practically ineffective due to problems such as running out of time in the middle of Doha.

“They are retreating!”

“No, that’s not retreat, it’s regrouping!”

In fact, it was more than expected for the British and German troops.

Naturally, the British and German forces decided that once the Russians had stabilized the occupied territories, they would launch another offensive and try to trample the whole of Germany. In fact, the British army was currently putting manpower and materials into the repair of the Maginot Line.

This was in case the Russian army commanded all of Germany and attacked France.

And while exhausting Russia’s offensive capabilities, the preemptive strike was carried out under the judgment that the Russian army would have diverted its supplies and troops considerably for the offensive.

In a situation where the whole of Prussia was being trampled by Russian forces, the Junkers, who were the mainstay of the German army, were also in a state of chaos.

However, contrary to expectations, the Russian army dug a proper trench and poured fire on the British and German forces. There were some units that somehow crossed the Elbe River while doing their best to build the pontoon bridge and bridge, but behind the front line, Russian armored forces were standing by to perform mobile defense, and the infantry who were not covered by the armor were annihilated in an instant. suffered

The bridges of the Elbe River were of course the top priority, and the Russian army destroyed the floating bridges and bridges by any means possible, so there were no armored vehicles that had successfully crossed the road in the first place. It must have been true that the British had no prospect of winning an armored war against Russia in the first place.

Thus, only three days after the start of the offensive, the Axis offensive was put on hold.

***

Bonn, the temporary capital of the German Empire.

The German Empire lost its Elbe movement at the beginning of the war.

The Junkers were outraged, but the Chief of Staff determined that the real value of East Prussia, except for its symbolism, was in its food supply, and that it would not be difficult as long as Britain was an ally and occupied France.

Of course, that would require starving millions of people in the Low Countries, France and India, but when did the Nazis care about that?

And since Hitler’s recent defeat occurred while the main troops and generals were all stationary to reorganize and clean up the whole of France, after the Germans in France and Switzerland completed the reorganization, they allied with the Italians to recapture Berlin. To try ordered.

And the result is what you see now.

Defeat.

Of course, calling it a complete defeat might be an understatement. There were a lot of casualties and quite a bit of equipment loss, but the main armored forces were intact.

The number of heads is reduced enough to fill the gap when the troops that cleared up Spain join and the British troops are deployed in earnest.

However, the atmosphere of the staff headquarters, realizing the technological gap with Russia, was buried in the deep sea below the bottom.

“It became clear from the failure of this offensive that the longer the war, the more disadvantageous it would be to us. The Russian army was obviously less skilled than us, but they overpowered our equipment in armor, artillery, infantry, and aviation. You will lose all your tactical superiority once you start production and start gaining proficiency.”

“The development of new weapons must be accelerated. At least….”

“New weapons are also new weapons, but we have to be aware of reality. Counter-attacking against the Elbe River movement is difficult. The Russians have already fortified the Elbe River.”

Breaking through the Elbe River itself was possible even with great sacrifices, but the units that had crossed were destroyed individually, and the Russian army, which controlled the front while occupying a key point, summoned artillery or aircraft, or even cavalry, whether it was a floating bridge or a bridge. It was thoroughly destroyed while mobilizing even direct fire power such as anti-tank guns.

Anti-tank guns, minefields, and machine-gun positions are terribly laid out at each Doha point, and as soon as there is a signal that the Germans have crossed, artillery and airstrikes come in. thoroughly crushed

“The quality gap in armored forces was the worst problem. A 5cm prisoner is no match at all, we have to hurry up to mass-produce the VK.30.01…”

“I contacted both Henschel and Porsche, but both said that they could deliver the first products next year at the earliest.”

“Damn it.”

Other than division artillery and 8,8 cm anti-aircraft guns, reliable weapons are rare.

The development priority of the 7,5cm anti-tank gun was greatly increased due to the performance of the Russian army tank, which was higher than expected, but it was not possible to mass-produce it. They were struggling to cope with armored-to-armored guns in the field while trying to mount them on the turret or removing the turrets of captured French tanks or No. 2 tanks and putting a modified anti-tank gun on top of them to make their own anti-tank self-propelled guns.

It was a lesson learned while still being beaten to operate weapons with a caliber of at least 75mm, and even bunker-destroying self-propelled artillery and tank destroyers that were used to break through the Maginot Line were driven to the front line to perform anti-tank missions.

New anti-tank guns, tank guns, as well as tanks and anti-tank self-propelled guns, etc., have been on the priority list for development, but there has been no meaningful mass-produced equipment so far, and they will thoroughly utilize the gap until the Russian army deploys equipment to contain them.

And they didn’t have that many cards.

***

Tokyo, Empire of Japan.

A bleak wind was blowing in Tokyo, the capital of the Japanese Empire.

The collapse of the bubble, the Great Kanto Earthquake, the Showa Financial Crisis, and the Great Depression.

After the army challenged the naval shogunate to rule for a long time, the naval shogunate was pushed back little by little.

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Moreover, in China, a victory streak had been reported, but in the meantime, a huge portion of the national budget had to be poured into the Chinese front.

Looking at the world situation, the United States was the only Western power capable of taking care of Japan at present.

The Russian Empire, suffering from multiple fronts, and Germany, which is struggling to defeat the Russian Empire suffering from the multiple fronts, and the UK, which hastily implemented a conscription system to support Germany and wants to reinforce a large-scale force beyond the existing ones, has collapsed. France, the Netherlands also busy with war, Spain occupied by Germany, although vaguely a great power, and Italy, also busy with wars in Europe.

From the general point of view of the Japanese Empire, this was the right time to devour mainland China whole. Of course, I had no intention of accumulating in places that the Russian Empire had incorporated, such as Uyghurs, Mongolia, and Northern Manchuria, but it was not important because it was the midfield that Japan coveted in the first place.

But it was the United States that put the brakes on it.

The US Congress voted to ban the export of strategic goods to Japan, which resulted in a halt in oil supplies.

Among the reasons for the oil cut, there was a high suspicion that oil exported to Japan was flowing into Britain and Germany and used for war. It was also unacceptable for him.

Although it was widely agreed that war was inevitable even if it was literally isolationism for isolationism and expansionism for expansionism, it was clear that war preparations took time.

In other words, the US government could not be serious about negotiations with Japan.

Because it was already prepared for war in the first place.

However, the story was different for Japan.

“At the end of the day, American doctors have been exposed to the public. They never intended to negotiate with the Empire!”

As one person spoke, voices blaming the United States came from all over.

In a situation in which the Sino-Japanese War could no longer be resolved as easily as in the past due to an oil shortage, and when the people’s dissatisfaction was barely suppressed by an external victory, if China cannot be conquered, the only way left for the military, regardless of the army and navy, is to be overthrown. it was

“In the Russo-Japanese War, our empire against Japan could not have won, but it did win. The war is not something we want to do, it is just a preemptive measure to prevent an attack from the United States.”

Will you attack the US or give up the regime?

I had to choose between the two.

And the Japanese military had absolutely no intention of letting go of power.

It was like a person who, after releasing the jewel he was holding, grabbed the lifeboat and refused to survive, just drowning holding the gold and jewels to the end.