It makes sense that the Transcaucasus Front would be the weakest among all troops. The Transcaucasus is located behind the front... If the Don defense line is the main defense line, it belongs to the rear.

In this way, if the enemy wants to attack the Transcaucasus, they must fight from the Don River defense line to the North Caucasus and then to the Transcaucasus. Even if the Soviet army fails, the defeated soldiers will retreat one by one, and the source of troops will no longer be a problem when they attack the Transcaucasus.

The problem was that the German army did not take the ordinary road at this time. They did not attack from the Don River as planned, but landed from the Kerch Strait through the Taman Peninsula and then went straight to the Transcaucasus along the Black Sea coast. This completely exposed the rear of the Transcaucasus to the German army.

But although the Transcaucasus was the weakness of the Soviet army in the rear, its military strength was far greater than that of the German army:

The 43rd Army, which is affiliated to the Transcaucasus Front, has a total of 9 divisions, plus an infantry division and a tank brigade directly under the front, with a total force of 200,000.

If the German army ignored the Air Force, it would only have 60,000 troops, and its strength was less than one-third of that of the Soviet front.

This is also one of the reasons why General Chulenev proposed to take the initiative.

However, General Chulenev did not consider one thing: most of the 200,000 people in the Transcaucasus Front were newly recruited new recruits, naval infantry and engineering auxiliary troops.

Engineering auxiliary troops, such as the 51st Forging Area.

The Soviet army had a very distinctive military service, which was the fortification area, which was used to build complete fortifications, such as the fortifications in the Sevastopol Fortress.

The Transcaucasus also built some fortifications, but most of these fortifications were built on the north-facing fortifications above the Caucasus Mountains. At this time, the German army bypassed the Caucasus Mountains from the left wing, which completely lost its function.

For example, there is the 63rd Cavalry Division, which was basically useless during this period... There is a certain reason why the cavalry division was not eliminated in the Soviet Union, because in the winter of the Soviet Union, cavalry is often more reliable than cars and tanks, but at other times these war horses are the best targets for machine guns.

Therefore, the 200,000 troops of the Transcaucasian Front can have the power of fighting in one battle, in fact, only three divisions and one brigade, the 9th and 20th Mountain Divisions, as well as the 417th Infantry Division and the 52nd Tank Brigade of the Direct Front.

General Chulenev sent out the 9th and 20th Mountain Divisions, and was accompanied by the 389th Infantry and the 63rd Cavalry Division.

General Chulenezh's idea was very simple, and he pushed the troops to the Novorossiysk area to station, where the right wing was the Caucasus Mountains and the left wing was the Black Sea. After building a defense line with a mountain division, he could make himself invincible. Then he used two divisions to cooperate with the Northern Caucasus Front to attack Solione and use the cavalry division as a mobile unit.

The idea was very good, but the German army would not fight this battle according to his ideas.

At about 9 o'clock that night, just before dark (it was dark at around 8 o'clock in May of the Soviet Union), the German troops set out from Solione Airport to attack Novorossiysk.

There is no reason why Novorossiysk became a battlefield. It is an important port city of the Soviet army. The British military aid transported from Egypt to the Soviet Union was here and then transported to the Soviet Union and other places through northbound railways. Occupy not only means cutting off this supply line, but also means occupying the mountain pass to the Transcaucasus region.

It took more than 70 kilometers of distance, and the German vanguard took more than three hours to arrive at the twelve o'clock.

The reason why it is so slow is that it is very difficult for tanks to march at night, especially those who are joining the army to march in the mixed-match tanks of so many countries in the Soviet, British, American, German, and Czech Republic, which is simply a hodgepodge.

This inconsistent equipment made the German army look a bit like a mob, but it seemed like one thing, but it was another to fight... Although the tanks were very chaotic, the tanks were all veterans who had experienced battles.

On the contrary, the Soviet army's troops, even the elite troops called the Mountain Division, were soldiers with no combat experience.

"The Soviets set the defense line three kilometers outside the city!" Manstein pointed to the map sent by the reconnaissance troops and said: "The defense line is from the Black Sea to the Caucasus Mountains, five kilometers long and one kilometer deep, and the cavalry division is arranged at the end!"

"What is the specific deployment of troops?" Colonel Slain asked.

"We don't know!" Manstein replied.

Then he added: "Because the Soviets themselves don't know either!"

At first, the officers did not understand what Manstein said, but after explanation, they realized... It turned out that the German scouts captured several prisoners and wanted to ask for information from them, but they were all confused and even contradictory.

The German scouts were unwilling to give up and captured a few more prisoners.

Later, the scouts realized that this was not because the Soviet prisoners deceived them, but that the Soviet soldiers themselves were not sure where their troops were responsible for garrisoning... The Soviet army's orders were issued relatively hasty. They usually resolved the conflicts by verbal instructions, and did not issue detailed written plans and timetables for the troops, which directly caused chaos in the Soviet army's defense line in the Novorossiysk.

For example, the three divisions used for the attack believed that they would set off to attack Solione tomorrow, so they tried their best to transport their supplies and equipment into the defense line of the 20th Mountain Division, which was responsible for the defense. The 20th Mountain Division found that the subsequent troops entered their defense line and doubted whether they had built fortifications in the wrong place, so some troops moved the defense line forward. In the end, even the Soviet soldiers themselves were a little confused.

In the end, the German scouts had to give up... because they couldn't figure out what even the Soviet soldiers didn't figure out.

This of course added some jokes to the German officers.

"That is," Manstein pointed to the map and said: "The troops of their four divisions are crowded within three kilometers of the defense line to Novorossiysk, and they have not found us here at least so far!"

This seems a bit difficult to understand, because the German army had more than 100 tanks at this time, and they were quite moving on the march. Just arrange a few teams of scouts between Solione and Novorossiysk to discover the German army.

But the Soviet army just did not do this because they received the order to launch an attack on Solione, and they did not expect the Germans to launch a counterattack.
Chapter completed!