With the passage of time, the second contest between the Allies and the Entente after World War 1 was about to begin in Iran. 1920+15 years. The war preparations of both sides are no longer disguised. The Germans moved the main forces of the 1st, 5th, and 6th Heavy Panzer Divisions to the southern part of the Two Rivers Valley, accompanied by four other infantry divisions and some logistics units. In just a few months, the number of German troops in the area grew from 30,000 to around 150,000 (including logistics units)! Although some of the heavy equipment has not yet been put in place, anyone with a discerning eye knows that the war has entered the countdown.

The three armored divisions had about 600 tanks of all kinds that could fight. Combined with the accompanying tank destroyers and assault guns, the energy of the first wave of the German Army's attack was already considerable. There are a total of 7 divisions, and the number of troops that can be dispatched is also about 100,000. Compared with the US and British forces defending southern Iran, the latter's strength is much worse, so far, the total number of troops promised by the United States and Britain is only about 80,000, and about 500 tanks and armored vehicles. In terms of scale, it is less than half of the Germans, and in terms of combat effectiveness, I am afraid that it is only about thirty percent Z Xu Jie In his opinion, it is certain that he will be defeated, and the key is how long it can be delayed!

The Germans did not intend to go all out at the outset, and the Germans planned to devote two panzer divisions and two infantry divisions as the main force first, while the remaining forces would be used as the general reserve for the entire theater of operations. It is not that the Germans underestimated the combat effectiveness of the American and British armies. But I am very worried about the Turkish Austro-Hungarian * team on the northern front! If the southern route is dominated by the Allies, then the northern route is dominated by China and Iran. At least judging from the number, the combined forces of China and Iran on the northern front have a total of 4 armored divisions, of which 2 are Iranians, and the other 2 are genuine Chinese first-line armored forces!

"According to reliable intelligence, the size of the Huaxia armored division is somewhat larger than ours. There are about 250 tanks, tank destroyers and assault guns in one division. Just counting the total strength of 2 armored divisions, it is already about the same as the troops we have deployed in the front line. If we take into account the difference in the quality of equipment, then even if we have a head-to-head battle with our opponents. The war situation will also be very unoptimistic. I also think that the two Austro-Hungarian inferior panzer divisions and the Turkish forces will be able to block the overwhelming blow of the Xia and Iranian forces head-on. Their target is Kirkuk. This oil field is critical. There must be no slip-ups, so I would like to see either new troops from the mainland to consolidate the defenses of the Northern Front, or an armored division as a general reserve. At an internal meeting of the Army, Manstein said without worry.

Manstein's words were a wake-up call to the German Army's top brass, but they later discovered that the transfer of reinforcements was not an overnight thing. It is very difficult to transport 200 tanks and thousands of trucks, plus a large number of self-propelled guns and other heavy equipment for an armored division, and the cost is enormous. If one more panzer division were to be added, it would be a major challenge for the current stocks of fuel and ammunition on the German front. At the same time, the Germans are worried that over time, China and Iran will also be more prepared. Time is not necessarily on the side of the Germans.

☆ In the end, the German General Staff made a compromise decision to draw a separate armored division as the general reserve. At the same time, in order to cope with the possible shortage of armored forces on the southern front, the German Army decided to send several separate armored battalions after the outbreak of war to make up for the lack of armored forces. A certain amount of wheeled armored vehicles is present in these separate armored battalions. And it's not equipped with ranged support firepower, so it can save a lot of supply units. In the eyes of the Germans, although this combination of half tracked combat vehicles and half wheeled combat vehicles is a bit nondescript, it is absolutely impossible to meet the real armored forces of Chinese Germany. But it was enough to fight the weak American and British forces. This can be regarded as a convenient and quick way to improve combat effectiveness. …

Eventually, Germany and Turkey, as well as Austria-Hungary, reached an agreement to attack from both directions, west and south. The German Army will break the US-British forces on the flank of China as soon as possible in a short period of time, while the Turkish and Austro-Hungarian armies will contain the Chinese and Iranian armies and prevent the other side from uniting together to deal with the German Army. According to the plan of the Germans, the German Army, with the cooperation of the Air Force, would crush the American-British forces in 2 weeks, and then detour to the flanks and rear of the Chinese and Iranian armies and form a pincer offensive with the Turkish and Austro-Hungarian armies.

As for the other possibility. Huaxia launched a direct attack on Turkey at the beginning stage, and the Allies also made arrangements, and that armored division was the last fuse to protect Kirkuk. According to the estimates of the Germans. Even if they could not finally contain the offensive of the Huaxia Army, they could at least delay it for a while, and the Huaxia troops attacking with all their might would naturally not be able to support the United States and Britain. Then the German assault on the southern front would have gone much smoother.

And on the Air Force. A huge cluster of nearly 2,500 aircraft of the four air armies, including the Reich Air Force, the Griffon Air Force, the Frederick the Great Air Force and the Condor Air Force of the Luftwaffe, began to enter the valley of the two rivers and Asia Minor. A semicircular encirclement network is formed. Together with the front-line troops invested by Turkey and Austria-Hungary, the entire Allied air force in the Middle East has reached about 4,000 aircraft! As an adversary, the aviation forces of Huaxia and the Entente countries have only deployed more than 2,200 aircraft in Iran. Among them, the Huaxia Air Force has about 900 aircraft, and the Iranian air force is about 500. The rest are the United States and the United Kingdom. Compared to the Allied air force, it was a balanced mix of fighters, night fighters, and bombers. The aviation forces of the Chinese and Entente countries are mainly defensive, and the proportion of fighters accounts for the vast majority, although there are also attack aircraft, but they are all single-engine. Only a limited number of ground attack missions can be performed. Although Huaxia and the Entente are still trying to replenish the number of aircraft, judging by the current situation. It seems that due to Iran's fragile ground handling and maintenance capabilities, there is not much room for upside.

Just in terms of quantity. The Luftwaffe is full of good cards, but the only thing that makes the Germans feel more depressed. The range of the BF109 fighter is really sad. Even with auxiliary fuel tanks, their combat radius generally does not exceed 500km. If you consider getting the enemy in advance and throwing away the auxiliary fuel tanks, then the voyage will be more miserable. So on the first day of fighting, there were some real difficulties in striking at targets in Iranian depth. Unless the Luftwaffe is willing to take greater risks and losses.

In response to this situation, Goering's proposal was to carry out night bombing, although the accuracy would be relatively low. But it's better than nothing. The veteran Grim suggested an attack on Iran's air bases first, and the heavy losses in Italy made the bomber commander very afraid of the Allied interceptors. In his view, the primary combat target of the air force is the opponent's air force, and let's solve this problem first and then talk about ground support. And on the issue of the choice of targets for strike. The Red Baron, who was the boss of the Air Force, did not give clear instructions. On the one hand, because he was more in agreement with Grim's suggestion, but on the other hand, under pressure from the staff. He must also take into account the requirements of the Army. So I put on an attitude that you do it, don't go too far, and I pretend not to know. And the little Richthofen, who was in charge of making the plan (the Luftwaffe general of the 2 war in history, was related to the Red Baron. And Kesselring naturally understood.

The Allied Air Force and Army were prepared, and the Navy, naturally, would not be idle. Two twin aircraft carrier formations of the German Navy have already left the Mediterranean Sea and entered the Red Sea. And the Turkish Empire and Austria-Hungary each sent a medium fleet aircraft carrier. In this way, the naval force of the Allied Powers deployed in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea has reached the standard of 6 aircraft carriers, which is definitely quite formidable in history. 3 heavy armored aircraft carriers and 3 lightly protected medium fleet aircraft carriers, this is the lineup of the Japanese air raid on Pearl Harbor in history! However, such a lineup may not be so abundant for the opponents to face. …

First of all, they must keep an eye on the "Iranian fleet", which may appear at any time. The other side has two fleet carriers, so for the sake of safety, the allies need to draw at least 3 fleet aircraft carriers to have a relatively large chance of winning. This divides nearly half of the forces. Besides. The German fleet must also be responsible for maritime security along the line from the Arabian Sea to the Persian Gulf. This makes them have to distinguish themselves from the British land-based aviation deployed in southeastern Iran, after all, people have gone to great lengths to build airfields and deploy a large number of air forces, but it is necessary to see the real thing! Three aircraft carriers are only 300 aircraft at full strength, and an endless tug-of-war with land-based airfields is certainly not possible, but unfortunately, the lack of long-range heavy bombers in the Navy's air force makes it difficult to deal a devastating blow to the British air base in southeastern Iran.

So what seems to be a formidable fleet force is actually in some extreme cases even beyond its means. For example, when the Iranian fleet is discovered in the Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean Fleet of the Central Powers will have to allocate half of its forces to deal with the Iranian fleet, and even if it wins, the three aircraft carriers will probably be lost. Even if you are lucky. Not a single aircraft carrier has sunk, so the loss of carrier-based aircraft and materials is enough for these aircraft carriers to temporarily withdraw from the front line. And the remaining three aircraft carriers will be knocked out within a week in the face of British land-based aviation. Follow the lessons of the Italian war. It is quite normal to lose more than 300 aircraft in a week of fierce air battles. Even if this number were reduced to a third, it would be enough for the German Navy. According to European military standards, the loss of a third of the force is already incapacitating for this unit. If one more aircraft carrier is lost, I am afraid that the remaining German Navy will have to consider withdrawing from the battlefield.

Faced with this situation, the German navy responded by establishing an air base along the southern coast of the Persian Gulf to counter the land-based air force with a land-based air force, and at the same time, in order to ensure the fleet's continuous combat capability, the dispatched fleet and the fleet deployed in the Mediterranean Sea carried out a round battle. When a fleet shows signs of exhaustion. I decisively pulled it back and corrected it. Replenish it with another fleet. In this way, the entire fleet of the Central Powers was completely mobilized, and even the two medium fleet aircraft carriers of the Spaniards were "requisitioned". Although they will not enter the front-line battlefield. However, it was also used as an escort warship and aircraft transport ship to undertake second-line missions. At this point, the war machine of the entire Central Powers was finally mobilized.

When the Allies sharpened their knives. Naturally, China and the Entente will not be idle. While the Allies were consolidating their forces, China and the Entente were also calculating the capital in their hands to decide what role each country should play in the future war.

"On the whole, the gap between our army and the other side is not too big, although the other side will have a greater advantage in numbers, but a considerable part of them are the Austro-Hungarian* army and the Turkish army, the former can only be regarded as a second-rate in Europe, and the latter is not even a second-rate in Europe. The real threat was the German troops on the Southern Front. In order to reduce the pressure on your country and the British * team on the southern front. At the beginning of the war, the Chinese Army could launch an attack in the direction of Kirkuk to contain the opponent's forces. But we do this on the premise that in addition to the British air force in southeastern Iran, the remaining air forces must have a unified command. "In the face of the American envoy Marshall and the British envoy Churchill. Xu Jie opened his own price code.

Xu Jie's pledge was not just to share the pressure of the United States and Britain, but was based on China's strategic purpose in Iran. All of China's actions in Iran are centered on the preservation of the northern part of Iran. Then there was only one way to make the Germans bow their heads. That is to hurt the other party and make the other party realize that this is a hard bone! Iran's territory is too large, and the number of troops in China and Iran is too small, so it is impossible to fortify it everywhere. Passive defense will eventually be dragged down by a highly mobile opponent, so Huaxia must take the initiative, and this blow must hit the Germans where it hurts! It wasn't the troop losses that really hurt the Germans, even if those few panzer divisions eventually ran out. It's not too big a deal for the German Army, it's the oil fields in Kirkuk that really hit Germany! This is one of the most important energy bases for the future German offensive in South Asia. There must be no mistakes, and only after Huaxia has demonstrated its ability to threaten this important energy base will the Germans consider backing down. …

Again, in order to achieve this goal, what China lacked most was not enough ground troops, but enough air force, or in other words, to weaken the intensity of the enemy's bombing as much as possible. That's where there are enough planes! There are nearly 4,000 aircraft, which is less than the number of German Barbarossa projects in history. Although the Turkish and Austro-Hungarian air forces have somewhat mixed the forces of this air force with some moisture. But the superiority of the opposing air force is beyond doubt. If the air forces of various countries are allowed to fight independently, then the final result will be that everyone will be completely dragged down by superior opponents. No one can live.

Neither Churchill nor Marshall were stupid, they knew that this so-called unified command organization must be in China's final say. But this condition is not something they can easily refuse. There are two main reasons for this, the first of which is naturally the weakness of the US and British armies. Whenever Marshall thought of the German Army, which had at least four divisions of the US Army in front of him, he couldn't help but shudder. Unlike the Navy, the U.S. Army never seemed to have defeated the Allies in a head-to-head battle from the beginning of World War 1. Britain and the United States found themselves in a great deviation from their plans and reality. Originally, it was thought that the Germans would concentrate their forces on the northern front and defeat Huaxia first. But who knew that the Germans concentrated their main forces on the southern front, so that the United States and Britain would face the sharpest swords of the Allies. And in the previous plan, the saddest idea of the United States and Britain was only a partial division in the face of the Germans. Therefore, the United States and Britain can only stabilize the front with the support of China, otherwise it is better to retreat directly and neatly.

The second reason is the situation. The Allied air force was strong, and at the same time, the supply speed was faster than that of the United States and Britain, which were thousands of miles away. In the Iran war, the only way to contain the allies' formidable air superiority was to centralize fighter jets and ground command systems. Concentrate superior forces on certain important directions to strike at the Allied air forces. If the other party hurts, it will make them restrain themselves.

Although the beginning of the Chinese will definitely concentrate aviation forces on the northern front. But the impact on the American and British armies was not too great. First of all, the US and British troops were relatively far from the border. That is, the German single-engine dive bombers were not a big threat. Except for the latest JU88, twin-engine aircraft can only bomb horizontally or shallow dives. Accuracy is limited. Secondly, the American and British troops, who were in a state of static defense, were protected by bunkers and anti-aircraft guns, and their need for fighters was much smaller than that of the Huaxia, which was preparing to take the initiative.

"Mere promises will not compensate for our shortcomings, if your country's attack does not attract the attention of the Germans. What are we going to do? Churchill asked. We need a tangible guarantee. Strong support is needed. Although they agreed with Huaxia's opinion in principle, the British still had to fight for the specific details! And the Americans hold the same view. After all, there is no evidence.

"What about the 2 Chinese armored battalions and the Russian units? They will serve as a reserve for the British and American armies. Peng Yi on the side said. This kind of thing doesn't need Xu Jie to ask about it personally, the army has arranged it by itself. "I think everyone understands what the latter means. Together, these two units have nearly 200 tanks and other armored vehicles. Enough should be enough. ”

If you look at the number alone, 200 tanks can completely make up for the gap in armored units on the American and British side. But taking into account the fact that the equipment of the Russian troops was completely impossible to be comparable to the regular Chinese army. Some vehicles with only a cannon cover and a semi-open fighting compartment can be called armored units in the eyes of the Russians. So the actual combat effectiveness will definitely be discounted. Although they are still at a disadvantage in a head-to-head battle, after some consideration, it seems that accepting the other party's opinion is the best choice. After all, this time it was Huaxia who took the lead, and the United States and Britain naturally couldn't get much say if they didn't want to pay. And they know it. This was already the biggest concession that China could make, and there was also a French force ready to go to war, but unfortunately they were being trained in Central Asia. The battle at the beginning of the war had nothing to do with them. It would be nice if the French could join the battlefield 2 months after the start of the war. …

After the arrangements for the army and air force were completed, all that remained was the "Iranian fleet" under the joint control of the three countries. Unexpectedly. The fleet did not return to Iran after it was formed, but has been training and cruising in Southeast Asian waters, and has conducted several exercises with the Chinese fleet. As if the war was about to break out had nothing to do with them. But a small number of core personnel knew that the fleet was going to the United States before the war. And their battlefield will not be the Indian Ocean battlefield as the Germans presupposed, but the Atlantic! Most of the Allied navies were already in the Middle East. And the task of Su Mo and the others is to stab the other party in a few weak directions!

All deployments have entered the final stage, and the war has entered an irreversible process. Ground troops have been deployed to pre-arranged departure positions. Everything is waiting for the final moment. As the supreme commander of the Iranian Air Force stationed in China, Qin Yue finally obtained the command of most of the air forces in the entire Iranian theater. This Chinese lieutenant general will be the first commander in China's military history to command several air forces in actual combat, and his deeds will certainly leave a heavy mark in history!

Gaining unity of command is only the first step. All that's left is how to integrate this force. Qin Yue looked at the dense compilation table in his hand, and there were mainly 3 types of single-engine fighters he had, namely the Huaxia Shicha Falcon fighter (Huaxia version of P51), which had quite good performance. (Well, although the aircraft still didn't reach the level of the P51B because of the engines, the just 1,000 hp liquid-cooled engine and excellent aerodynamic layout gave him some advantages over the early BF109.) After all, the db601 in the early days of the latter was just like that. ) is the main force of the Chinese and Iranian air forces. There are about 700 of these new aircraft.

Then there were the American P40 fighters and the British Spitfires, both of which had their own advantages and disadvantages. The former has average air combat performance, but the range is relatively long. And the latter is very good in air combat performance, and even surpasses the Ishifera Falcon in some performance. But the short voyage can be described as a tragedy. So much so that it was jokingly called a special fighter for airport defense. Combined, the number of these two aircraft is only about 500.

In addition to single-engine fighters. Qin Yue also had about 200 Tiger Cat fighters in his hands, and the only twin-engine light aircraft in China that was heavily equipped existed as light bombers and heavy fighters. But judging by the current situation. Or is it more reliable as a heavy fighter. These fighters were intended specifically for German strategic bombers. A JU88-class bomber with 2 20mm cannons and 2 machine guns was enough to hand over the Cascha Falcon, and the formidable Sispano cannon and the thin-shelled bullets stolen from the Traverser were enough to teach these guys to be human again.

But if you want to run into the Lancer Strategic Bomber Wing that once wreaked havoc over Italy, I am afraid that these heavy armor will still be needed. Heavy fighters loaded with a large number of 30mm guns went into battle. However, compared with their predecessors who used blood to create brilliant results on the battlefield in Italy, in addition to large-caliber aerial guns, they also have one thing that all bombers are afraid of, that is, air-launched rockets! Huaxia did not choose a large-caliber rocket similar to the Germans in the early stage, but chose a 5-inch medium-caliber rocket, a Tiger Cat can be hung on 12 5-inch high-speed rockets, the higher speed and more quantity make it more efficient than a single large-caliber rocket! The other is the Foxbat fighter, which is closer to a fighter than a bomber, with a lot of armor removed and increased engine power. The combat effectiveness of the Flying Fox is already close to that of the P38 fighter of the early part of history!

"Everything is ready, only the east wind is owed, but I don't know how this war will begin?" Qin Yue looked at the city of Tehran. Said faintly.

Thank you for the tips of hukaikaka and zhouyu1976~~. (Pending renewals of recommended votes and monthly passes.) )