Читать книгу Prohibition of Interference. Book 5. Steel-colored Moon - Макс Глебов - Страница 4

“Now, Erich, you and I are real state criminals,” said Richtengden softly as von Tresckow left the room, carefully placing the bundle handed to him in his briefcase.

“Wasn't it like that before?” Schliemann wondered.

“Before that there were words, but now the real thing has begun.”

“I don't think the Gestapo could see much difference,” grinned the Major.

“That's right,” Richtengden didn't argue.

“Von Tresckow turned out to be a valuable acquisition for us, don't you think?”

“Quite valuable,” the Colonel agreed, “and also enterprising, which is just as important. It would not have occurred to me to disguise our goods as liquor bottles.”

“You're just not a connoisseur of this drink,” Schliemann smiled.

“A week later Hitler flies to Poltava to the headquarters of Army Group South. If all goes well…”

“Heinrich, let's not get ahead of ourselves. For our part, we did everything we could. There are competent people in the second division of the Abwehr, so I'm not worried about the technical side. Everything now depends on von Tresckow's equanimity and his ability to convince his acquaintance in Hitler's entourage to bring a package for General Gersdorf on the plane.”

“He will convince. I haven't met such an eloquent man as von Tresckow in a long time. But you're right, let's not get ahead of ourselves; we don't have long to wait.”

* * *

We didn't have time to complete our preparations. The German offensive was only days away, and the front's readiness for defense was still unsatisfactory. Lieutenant General Kozlov turned out to be quite a competent commander, but, like many other members of the Red Army high command, he lacked initiative, besides, he was completely incapable of arguing with his superiors. But he proved to be quite good as the executor of clear and unambiguous orders.

Letra pointed out to me the two main problems of the Crimean Front. First, the terrain allowed the Germans to use their air superiority effectively. The open steppes, crossed in some places by long, gentle hills, made it easier for enemy aviation to operate and prevented Soviet troops from taking cover from dive-bombers and attack planes.

Richthofen's pilots were considered the best specialists in the Luftwaffe in supporting the ground offensive, which was what Manstein needed now. The aviation of the Crimean Front and Kudryavtsev's separate air regiment could not be compared with the German 4th Air Fleet, which had 700 aircraft, in number and pilot training.

The dramatic jump in the effectiveness of German anti-tank weapons was the second problem. It seemed that the enemy had decided to concentrate all the innovations in this area right here, in Crimea. Not only the tanks of the 22nd Panzer Division, but also the assault artillery of infantry units received new long-barrel guns. Another dangerous German innovation was the anti-tank gun with a conical barrel. It would seem that its rather modest caliber of 28 millimeters should not have frightened the Soviet tank crews. However, the design of the gun and the tungsten-core projectile allowed this relatively light gun to penetrate armor up to 100 millimeters thick. And the final touch to this unsightly picture were the Henschel Hs 129 attack aircraft, designed to fight tanks, which had been sent to Manstein in considerable numbers before the offensive began.

Taken together, these anti-tank weapons drastically reduced the survivability of Soviet tanks in combat, and Red Army commanders had not yet realized the danger of this qualitative leap in the level of enemy anti-tank weapons; they were counting on the T-34 and KV's ability to relatively easily repel the intended attack.

Despite all the parallels I drew between the situation in Crimea and near Leningrad, there were significant differences. In Leningrad, in addition to the guns of the battleships Marat and October Revolution, I also had at my disposal the most powerful air defense system in the city, which consisted of many hundreds of anti-aircraft guns, searchlights, and balloons. Under the cover of these forces, warships could feel relatively safe and could fire their major caliber guns in relative peace.

Here the battleship Paris Commune had to operate from the open sea, and in case of enemy air raids it could rely only on its own air defense facilities and on the antiaircraft guns of the escort ships, which was fraught with great problems and a high risk of losing the Black Sea Fleet's only major battleship. Consequently, I could only use heavy ships at night, and this significantly reduced the ability to support ground troops with shipboard artillery.

Letra looked at the prospects of the Crimean front without any enthusiasm. I used the Moonbase computer at the limit of its design power, forcing it to analyze many thousands of scenarios, but if we set aside the unlikely options associated with fatal bad luck for the Germans and spectacular luck for the Red Army, the picture was bleak.

We were going to lose Feodosia in any event. Only the date of its fall varied, but in any case it had to happen no later than a week after the start of the German offensive. Even in the best-case scenarios, we would only have been able to delay the advance of the Germans to Kerch. We could have succeeded in stopping the enemy at least on the Isthmus of Parpachia in the very rare and rather exotic branches of the forecast, related to mistakes and miscalculations of the German command, which, of course, happened regularly, but it would be strange to count on them in the basic scenario.

In the end, I came to the conclusion that it made no sense to seek a solution by limiting myself to the means of the Crimean Front alone, and gave Letra a new assignment. Now I was looking at a map of the entire Soviet-German front. In the time remaining before the German strike, almost nothing could be changed, with one very important exception, and that exception was the planes.

The giant front, which drew an intricate line across the country from north to south, stood in unsteady equilibrium, somewhere mired in the mud, somewhere stabilized by the complete exhaustion of the parties, and somewhere, as in the Crimea, frozen for a while before exploding into a whirlwind of fire and steel. We clearly should not have expected significant events anytime soon everywhere, and I gave Letra the task of calculating how much and from what places it would be possible to take off air power without causing critical damage to the stability of the respective defense sites.

In the evening I used the authority of a representative of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command to send a long telegram to Moscow, stating my view of the situation in the Crimea. Judging by the fact that Mekhlis did not touch me during the day, having gone to his moral and political affairs somewhere in the army headquarters, Stalin had not yet reacted in any way to his cries about my arbitrariness, and I could only guess what the Chief would do after receiving both our telegrams. The Supreme Commander trusted Mekhlis, if not unconditionally, then very much, but I had never failed to live up to his expectations. In any case, I had only to wait.

I haven't seen Lena in almost 24 hours. She went to Vice-Admiral Oktyabrsky in company with Lieutenant General Zashikhin. After learning what I needed people and equipment for, the commander of the Leningrad Air Defense Corps asked me a simple question:

“Comrade Major General, in the Crimea do you personally plan to organize a unified system of fire in the image and likeness of what was done in Leningrad?”

I thought for a few seconds, quickly figuring out what the Lieutenant General was getting at. Lena, of course, knew very well what had to be done, but her low rank would hardly have allowed her to negotiate properly with the Black Sea Fleet command.

“I planned to take part in this case only at the initial stage, and then counted on your people and Senior Lieutenant of State Security Nagulina.”

“Uh-huh,” Zashikhin nodded, “and they will rest on the first technical or organizational problem that requires someone at the top of the command staff to solve. I assure you, there will be a ton of these problems in setting up non-standard interactions between the Army and the Navy. You know it very well yourself – you've seen it before.”

“I think you're right, Gavriil Savelyevich,” I nodded, looking with interest at the Lieutenant General, who received a new rank for our joint operation.

“I need to fly with you,” Zashikhin stated categorically. “That's when we'll get things up and running quickly and without problems. And we should definitely take someone from Admiral Tributs' staff – it will be easier for the sailors to agree with each other. Will you be able to get the approval of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command?”

* * *

Stalin sat at his desk, sucking on the mouthpiece of an unlit pipe, and thoughtfully looked over the documents in front of him. On top of the other papers were two telegrams. One came early in the morning from Mekhlis, and another, signed by Nagulin, arrived late in the evening.

The proven communist Mekhlis, whose unquestionable loyalty and honesty aroused no doubts in the Chief's mind, behaved quite predictably. Stalin did not doubt for a second that he and Nagulin would not work together, but he believed that their competition and the mutual dislike that quickly arose would serve as additional incentives to solve the complex tangle of problems that the situation in the Crimea increasingly resembled.

Mekhlis branded the command of the Crimean Front with bad words, especially pointing to the complete inconsistency of Lieutenant General Kozlov and his Chief of Staff, Tolbukhin, to their positions. He claimed that they perceived trips to the troops as punishment, and led the front from afar, preferring to sit out most of the time on the other side of the Kerch Strait. He also demanded an urgent reinforcement of the front with infantry and tanks, since many equipment and personnel had been lost in the botched offensives undertaken by the Crimean Front in recent weeks. According to Mekhlis, Kozlov completely failed in his preparations for a decisive offensive, and he was in principle incapable of organizing it effectively.

He naturally criticized Nagulin as well. Mekhlis accused him of arbitrariness and total disregard for the task set by the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, and, finally, of direct sabotage of offensive preparations, which was expressed in an order to the troops to switch to defense and limit themselves to imitation actions, aimed at misleading the enemy about the allegedly being prepared for an attack in the north of the peninsula.

Stalin frowned involuntarily. In the morning, immediately after reading the first telegram, this order of the young representative of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, unexpected and not coordinated with anyone, caused him indignation, which, apparently, Mekhlis hoped for. Nevertheless, the Commander-in-Chief remembered that the advisability of Nagulin's actions had been questioned more than once in a variety of situations, and almost always these doubts proved unfounded. Therefore, he preferred to wait a while and not make hasty decisions. In the end, this approach turned out to be correct.

Nagulin explained his position in detail in his telegram of the evening, and his arguments, at the very least, deserved careful consideration and raised a number of serious concerns.

The only thing in which Mekhlis and Nagulin did not contradict each other was the need for the urgent transfer of reinforcements to the Kerch Peninsula. Only the first of them asked for infantry and tanks, and the second for fighters. In principle, Nagulin probably would not have objected to ground troops either, but, in his opinion, the moment had already passed and there was simply no time left to get them into Crimea.

“Comrade Stalin, Marshals Shaposhnikov and Budyonny and Generals Zhukov and Zhigarev have arrived,” reported the Chief's personal aide, Poskrebyshev.

Stalin nodded silently, and left the table to meet the top military leaders of the USSR entering the cabinet. All four invitees had already seen copies of the telegrams from the Crimean Front, so Stalin did not have to bring them up to speed.

“Let's start with you, Boris Mikhailovich,” the Supreme Commander-in-Chief addressed the Chief of the General Staff as the visitors seated themselves at the long conference table. “Comrade Mekhlis's position is very clear to me and needs no comment. What do you think of the telegram from Major General Nagulin?”

“This is very unpleasant information, Joseph Vissarionovich,” replied Shaposhnikov after a short pause. “Frankly, if I had received such a telegram from Lieutenant General Kozlov, I would have suspected him of panic or inadequate assessment of enemy forces. As for Comrade Nagulin, I can say that I have never yet noticed him showing any signs of unreasonable panic, and if, after personally conducting air reconnaissance, he claims that we cannot avoid a heavy defeat without immediately reinforcing the front with air power, I would, at the very least, listen very carefully to this opinion.”

Stalin nodded to Shaposhnikov, showing that he took note of his words and turned his gaze to Budyonny.

“And what will the commander-in-chief of the North Caucasus tell us on this issue? The supply of the Crimean front with everything necessary and control of General Kozlov's actions are in your charge, Comrade Marshal. What do you think about what Mekhlis and Nagulin said about the state of affairs on the Kerch Peninsula?”

“Until recently there was no reason for such harsh assessments, Comrade Stalin,” Budyonny answered clearly. “However, much of my understanding of the situation in the Crimea was based on General Kozlov's reports, which in turn were based on front-line intelligence. I see no reason not to believe Comrade Mekhlis's assessment, especially since, according to my own impressions, Lieutenant General Kozlov is not showing his best side as a front commander.”

“Let's leave Comrade Kozlov alone for now,” Stalin winced slightly, “I understand your desire to have someone like Hindenburg in his place, but you can't help knowing that we have no Hindenburgs in reserve. In general your position is clear to me, although I had hoped to hear from you a more specific answer.”

Stalin put the pipe on the table and looked around at the assembled officers.

“Who else has something to say, comrades?”

Zhukov took the floor.

“In my opinion, Lev Zakharovich paints the devil blacker than he really is. I am not talking now about the situation in Crimea, but about the actions of Major General Nagulin. This man would not sound the alarm in vain. I saw how he acted near Leningrad. Any other commander in his position would have long ago cried out for reinforcements and reserves, but Nagulin solved the problem with the forces available, although even I had the feeling for a moment that he would not make it. When such a commander speaks of the urgent need to go on the defensive and demands that the air force be transferred to him immediately, I have an irresistible urge to give him twice as many planes as he asks for.”

“I totally agree,” Shaposhnikov supported Zhukov.

“ Is that so?” Stalin grinned, “This is a commendable unanimity, but I would like to remind you, comrades, that if we had the ability to immediately send twice as many tanks, planes, and artillery to each front commander or Headquarters of the Supreme High Command representative than he asks for, we would already be having tea in Berlin, or even on the shore of the English Channel.

Comrade Zhigarev, Major General Nagulin's telegram gives justification for the number of planes we can send him without critical damage to other sections of the front. The Headquarters of the Supreme High Command is interested in your opinion as to whether we can really remove and redeploy to the Crimea some of the fighters from these frontal air groups and not have irreparable consequences for ground troops as a result.”

Zhigarev didn't answer right away. The commander of the Red Army Air Forces gave everyone at the meeting an attentive look and said softly:

“Comrades, don't you think that Major General Nagulin, who recently received a high rank and was first sent by the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command to one of the fronts, knows too much about the size of our Air Force, its structure and distribution across fronts and armies? Honestly, judging by his telegram, he knows as much as I do.”

There was a pause. No one was in a hurry to respond to what the Air Force Commander had said.

“This is really an important question, Comrade Zhigarev,” Stalin said slowly at last, “and we will come back to it later, but right now the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command is not interested in Major General Nagulin's knowledge of the Air Force's affairs, but in your opinion about the feasibility of his proposals. Your honest and objective opinion.”

* * *

Like most German generals, Wolfram von Richthofen was not optimistic about events on the Eastern Front. Only a month ago he had been appointed commander of the 4th Air Fleet that supported Army Group South, but to his own surprise, the Colonel-General felt no satisfaction from the promotion.

During the Polish campaign he commanded a special-purpose air unit and then the 8th Luftwaffe Air Corps. His corps supported ground troops in the war with France, took part in the Battle of Britain, the Balkan operation and the capture of Crete. Not everything and not always went smoothly, but these were the normal realities of warfare against strong or not-so-strong opponents.

Here in Russia, at first everything was going just fine. It was not without losses, of course, but from the first day of the invasion of the USSR the Luftwaffe firmly held dominance in the air, and the combat score of the best German pilots was growing rapidly, reaching three-digit numbers. Bialystok, Minsk, Vitebsk, Lepel, Smolensk… The Russians retreated, losing many hundreds of thousands of soldiers killed and captured, abandoning their equipment, burning their many tanks in unprepared and poorly coordinated counterattacks. He acknowledged that sometimes the Russians did get something right, and when the Wehrmacht's ground units started to stall, his corps would step in, solving problems for the tankers and infantrymen from the air.

Support for the offensive on Leningrad… Here things became more complicated, losses increased, but all this was still quite in line with Richthofen's ideas, how the campaign in the east should go. And then, in October 1941, his air corps was transferred to Moscow, and here a completely different war began. On this frozen ground he learned what it was like to lose dozens of planes in a single flight.

A certain colonel from the Abwehr told him about a Russian spotter, capable of shooting at aerial targets with murderous precision, at one of the meetings at the headquarters of Army Group Center. Richthofen found it hard to believe what he heard, but soon he was personally convinced that the Abwehrman was not exaggerating.

The catastrophe at Moscow had undermined the Luftwaffe's forces. The operation to supply the encircled armies with transport planes began well, but it ended quite unexpectedly with the defeat of the air bridge and the failure of all attempts to suppress the Russian air defense position areas, which inflicted heavy losses on the air convoys that tried to break into the Moscow Pocket.

And then… Then there was a massive raid on Leningrad, the memories of which each time spoiled the Colonel-General's mood for a long time. He was not in command of the operation, but 50 bombers were taken from his corps for it, with the promise that they would soon return. They did not. Richthofen knew to whom the Luftwaffe owed the complete failure of the "chemical" raid on the city, clenched by the ring of blockade, and now, planning his actions to support Manstein's troops in the Crimea, he had no doubt what, or rather who, he would have to deal with.

Then, at Moscow, Richthofen remembered well the words of Colonel Richtengden, and subsequent events did not let him forget them. Upon learning of the impending attack in the Crimea, the Colonel General sent a request to the Abwehr. Richtengden could not fly to Crimea at once. He needed to finish some urgent business in Berlin, but eventually he did arrive in Simferopol, and he was soon to reach the headquarters of the commander of the 4th Air Fleet.

* * *

An urgent business trip to the Crimea was a complete surprise to Richtengden, and not a very pleasant one at that. He absolutely did not want to let control over the preparation of von Tresckow's operation out of his hands. Nevertheless, upon learning of the reason for the summons, Richtengden left matters to Major Schliemann and flew to Simferopol.

Colonel General Richthofen looked tired and tense. Preparations for the counterattack on Feodosia and Kerch required full commitment from the commander of the 4th Air Fleet, so he seemed to sleep four hours a day. Richthofen valued time and got right to the point.

“Colonel, as far as I know, you've been working on the Russian spotter for six months now?”

“Yes, Herr Colonel General,” confirmed Richtengden, “and, unfortunately, I can't boast of much success in this case.”

“I'm aware of that,” the General nodded, “If it were otherwise, our conversation would make no sense. I am interested in your opinion as to how likely it is that this Russian will be in the Crimea when our offensive begins.”

“I think he's already here,” Richtengden answered calmly.

“Is this just a guess, or do you have specific information?”

“This is an assumption, but I estimate its credibility as very high. Crimea is now the most tense part of the Eastern Front. From here the Russians can threaten the entire southern flank of our troops, as well as raid the oil fields in Romanian Ploiesti. As far as I know Major General Nagulin, such places attract him like a magnet.”

“Major General?”

“Well, at any rate, our employee met him with those insignia a couple of months ago. However, six months earlier he had seen Nagulin in a junior lieutenant's uniform, so it is difficult to be completely sure about this matter.”

“Did your man meet this Russian twice? And why is Nagulin still alive?”

“It is difficult to kill an enemy general while being a prisoner, Herr Colonel General,” replied Richtengden softly.

“I see,” Richthofen turned his gaze to the steppe landscape outside the window. “In any case, you, Colonel, know this man best, and I need to have at least a rough idea of what unpleasant surprises my pilots should be prepared for.”

“Unfortunately, I don't know him as well as I'd like to,” Richtengden replied with a note of annoyance in his voice. “I used to think I could read him like an open book, but as it turns out, Nagulin is capable of unexpected improvisations. No one can tell you exactly what he'll come up with now, but one thing I'm a hundred percent sure of: he almost never gives up the techniques that have brought him success in the past. I would recommend that you carefully study the experience of the failed raid on Leningrad, Herr Colonel General. You are likely to encounter something similar here.”

“A barrage of the major caliber shrapnel shells of a Russian battleship?”

“That too.”

“What else?”

“According to our information, Nagulin has a serious air unit in his personal subordination. From 50 to a hundred planes armed with the latest higher kill power bombs. He prefers to operate at night. His favorite targets are headquarters, communications centers, ammunition depots, and, most unpleasant for you, airfields. At the same time, his pilots demonstrate a bombing accuracy completely impossible for a night attack.”

“That's too bad. I have almost no night fighters.”

“They still fail, Herr Colonel General. Attempts to stop the Russian marksman with Dorniers and Bf 110s equipped with radars and night sights have been made more than once. Some success was achieved, but there was still no way to stop him. I think you know that yourself.”

“Of course I do. Don't take this as a reproof, Colonel, but I didn't summon you from Berlin to listen to information I've known for a long time. I need specific recommendations. I don't want my planes to burn on Crimean soil. From what I hear, you have made a number of attempts to destroy the Russian marksman. Yes, none of them led to the desired result, but several times you were close to success, and twice Nagulin managed to survive literally by miracle. Perhaps then you were just unlucky, or the direct performers lacked skill and professionalism. I want that chance, too, and you can be sure I won't miss it.”

Richtengden looked at the commander of the 4th Air Fleet with interest for several seconds, all signs of fatigue disappeared from his face at the latest words, and the fire of combat excitement rekindled in the eyes of the elderly pilot, who had won eight air victories back in World War I.

“Well, Herr Colonel General,” Richtengden finally said with a slight chuckle, “you will have that chance. Let's just leave the headquarters building, get into the covered back of the first truck we see, and order the driver to take us out of town. I'll tell you all about it on the road.”

“I don't understand,” Richthofen's right eyebrow went up. “Explain yourself, Colonel. Do you suspect treason…”

“No way,” Richtengden stopped the General softly but firmly. “But neither I nor my colleagues in counterintelligence know all the capabilities of this man and the services that ensure his work. According to circumstantial data…”

“You don't have to go on, Colonel,” said Richthofen, standing up. “In these matters I trust the Abwehr completely. I can tolerate a couple of hours of shaking in the back of a Bussing for the sake of this case.”

* * *

All night the army, corps, and division staffs of the Crimean Front were in chaos. My orders ripped them from their familiar spots and forced them to change their deployment. Naturally, this led to a first-rate mess, it slowed the response of the command to reports from combat units, and in some places it caused a complete loss of communication with the troops.

Having not yet received any response from Stalin to his unveiling telegram, Mekhlis slightly calmed his ardor, but seeing this chaos, he nevertheless could not stand it.

“Comrade Nagulin! Don't you see what your orders lead to?! If according to your own words the Germans are preparing an attack, then why did you arrange this overnight move? Instead of running the troops, the staffs get in their cars and go somewhere. Until they arrive at the new locations and get the wired connection up again, the troops will be without proper control. This is sabotage, to say the least!”

“And you tell it like it is, Comrade Army Commissar 1st Rank,” I turned to Mekhlis and looked intently into his eyes. “Why be shy? We are not in the Institute for Noble Maidens. Here is the front, and having said "A," one should also say "B." Are you accusing me of treason? Of deliberately disorganizing the control of the troops on the eve of the German offensive? Do I understand you correctly?”

Mekhlis was obviously not yet ready to accuse me of crimes for which I was to be shot, but it was not in his character to retreat either. The Commissar looked at me with hatred, and the generals and colonels beside us quietly diverged, not wanting to be drawn into the conflict of the plenipotentiary representatives of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. I did not wait for Mekhlis to find the right words and spoke again myself:

“It was possible, of course, to leave everything as it was, and the headquarters would continue to work quietly for another day, maybe even two days. Except then the Richthofen pilots and heavy howitzer shells will fly in, and there will be no one to control the troops. Knowing about the threat of a strike on the headquarters and doing nothing – isn't it a treason?”

“You should not confuse "knowing" and "assuming," Major General,” said Mekhlis in a lower tone. “Maybe you have a captured German general who told you about the Luftwaffe's plans during interrogation? Or did some front-line intelligence hero sneak into Manstein's headquarters and steal a secret directive? Well, no! You only have your speculations about how you would act if you were the German commander, and, on the basis of these visions inspired by your own inflamed imagination, you disrupt the execution of the order to put the front on the defensive, which you yourself gave, recklessly breaking the entire front control structure for many hours!”

Mekhlis was not a stupid idiot. He was overly harsh, unbalanced, capable of "swinging his sword" without really understanding the problem, he was even, sometimes, inadequate, but not stupid. There was certainly logic in what he was saying. And, most hurtful of all, he genuinely cared about the situation and thought his actions were the only right thing to do under the circumstances. Nervousness, agitation, and bigotry are a scary mix. Why did Stalin send him to the front? This type could come in handy on the home front, somewhere where one has to "hold and not let go". His strong point is to criticize, break down, destroy what someone else has done, but he is not able to create something of his own. Such people should not be allowed to work in the army, in complex production, in science… However, no one offered me a choice, and I had to work with what I had, that is, with Lev Zakharovitch.

“I could be wrong, Comrade Army Commissar 1st Rank, but at least I have a clear plan of action, and what do you suggest? I'm not talking about personnel reshuffles now, but about a specific case.”

“The Headquarters of the Supreme High Command have set us a clear and precise task, Comrade Nagulin, and this task is an offensive, a breakthrough deep into Crimea and the unblocking of Sevastopol. The front should be doing just that, not frantically relocating headquarters, digging trenches, and deepening anti-tank ditches! I reported your arbitrariness to the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. I'm sure we'll get an answer from Moscow soon, and then it will become clear, which of us understands the orders correctly!”