The Rise Of Australasia-Chapter 1243 - 920 Execution by Shooting_3

Chapter 1243: Chapter 920: Execution by Shooting_3

Chapter 1243 -920: Execution by Shooting_3

According to Timoshenko’s estimate, once all the military restructuring was complete, the Western Front Army would have the strength of four army groups, with the total number of personnel expanding from the original 650,000 to around 800,000.

However, this was not good news; compared to Pavlov’s Western Front Army, where new recruits made up the majority, Timoshenko’s Western Front Army could be said to consist almost entirely of new recruits.

When it came to the replenishment of tanks and airplanes, the situation had worsened generation after generation.

Under Pavlov’s command, there were still 300 airplanes and hundreds of tanks, but the Western Front Army now led by Timoshenko, even when at full strength, would have just over 100 airplanes, all of which were transferred from Moscow and other regions.

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The number of tanks was even fewer, with only a few dozen, and a significant portion of them were older-generation Russian tanks.

Taking into account the loss of heavy weapons and the overall decrease in soldier quality, it could be said that the fighting capability of the restructured Western Front Army was not as strong as the previous one.

Expecting these new recruits to stop the German advance, even though Timoshenko was already a marshal of the Russian army, still caused him a great deal of headache for a long time.

On the German side, the victory in the Polish Region clearly could not satisfy the Germans’ appetite. Since they had already waged war against Russia, the Germans’ ambition was definitely to invade Moscow, and carve up the vast land area and rich mining supplies of the Russians.

After encircling most of the Western Front Army, the German Army continued to advance eastward while occupying and controlling important urban cities like Białystok, and it took them less than two days to capture Baranovichi.

The city, being a gateway to the west of Minsk, was not supposed to be easy to conquer in theory.

But due to the deployment of Pavlov’s Western Front Army, Baranovichi was only defended by the forces of one division. Facing an attack by the German army numbering in the tens of thousands, this division’s forces naturally could not resist for very long.

By the time Pavlov successfully broke out and reached Moscow, the German army had officially captured Baranovichi, and their armored troops, serving as the vanguard, were already nearing Minsk, a frontier urban city in western Russia.

Minsk was also famous in Eastern Europe, with a history of nearly 900 years. The city had once belonged to the Kingdom of Lithuania and eventually became the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

After being occupied by Russia in 1793, it had always been Russia’s western frontier stronghold, a famous military town and fortress since the era of the Tsars.

The good news was that Minsk currently had four divisions stationed there, with more than 300 airplanes standing by.

The bad news was that these four divisions were the reserves of the once Western Front Army, which, in other words, also meant they were new recruits.

And those more than 300 airplanes had already suffered heavy damage in the German attacks, with the remaining planes incurring at least dozens of casualties while supporting the main forces of the Western Front Army.

At present, less than 70 airplanes in Minsk were capable of taking off, and only about half of them were truly combat-ready.

Counting on these four divisions of new recruits and thirty to forty combat-ready airplanes to hold this military stronghold was utterly a fool’s dream, with no hope whatsoever.

Even more fatal was the fact that these four divisions also belonged to the Western Front Army and had once been under Pavlov’s command.

After Pavlov broke through and fled to Moscow, these four divisions had been left leaderless, with no way to establish contact with the headquarters of the Western Front Army.

One must understand that according to the deployment and system of the Russian army, above a division there was a corps, above a corps there was an army group, and above an army group there was an army group cluster, equivalent to the Russian front army.

This also meant that these four divisions could not only fail to contact the headquarters of the Western Front Army but also could not establish contact with the rear headquarters.