Unity of Command II - Berlin 45. Hard Mode, Budapest (1/2) #17 скачать в хорошем качестве

Unity of Command II - Berlin 45. Hard Mode, Budapest (1/2) #17

By late October 1944, the mood at the Stavka was one of impatient aggression. Stalin was obsessed with taking Budapest before the Western Allies could make further gains in the Balkans or Italy. He famously ordered Marshal Rodion Malinovsky to take the city "in the shortest possible time, even days." What followed was a brutal, three-pronged struggle across the Hungarian puszta (plains) that culminated in the capture of Pécs and the encirclement of the "Queen of the Danube." Thus, the Budapest Strategic Offensive began on October 29. Malinovsky’s 2nd Ukrainian Front was ordered to strike from the south and east. The 2nd and 4th Guards Mechanized Corps were thrown into a headlong dash toward the city. The outer defense line (the Attila Line) was reached by November 2. However, the Soviets had underestimated the German resolve. Hitler had declared Budapest a Festung Platz. He moved four SS Panzer divisions to the sector, turning the suburban brickyards and garden districts into anti-tank traps. The offensive stalled just 15 kilometers from the Parliament building. Seeing the direct route blocked, the 3rd Ukrainian Front under Marshal Tolbukhin executed a brilliant, wide-flank maneuver to the south. The bloodbath at Batina allowed the 3rd Ukrainian Front to establish a bridgehead on the west bank of the Danube. Once across, Tolbukhin’s tanks raced toward the Mecsek Mountains. Pécs was a vital logistical hub and the gateway to the Austrian border. The capture of Pécs was a disaster for the German war machine because it sat on the edge of the Nagykanizsa oil fields,Hitler’s last reliable source of petroleum. By the end of November, Stavka realized Budapest would not fall to a simple charge. The strategy shifted to a "Double Envelopment" (the classic Soviet pincer). Malinovsky pushed through the Cserhát Mountains to reach the Danube north of the city while Tolbukhin surged from Pécs toward Lake Velence. By Christmas Eve, the two fronts would meet at Esztergom, trapping 70,000 German and Hungarian troops inside the city and starting a brutal, months-long siege.