Some areas still had wooden derricks and used open air storage of crude. They would dam off one side of a valley, then fill it with crude. Pipelines leaked frequently
Much of the area was soaked to bedrock with spills. It would not take much to set all alight.
Allied bombing (bad accuracy, bad navigation,
Good points, but with more countries being invaded by the USSR who is more willing to work with the Axis, I don't think there will be much lend lease for said country once the Axis stab it in the back.Snip.
For the non-Soviet Allies sure, but again not much so for the USSR once the Germans and Italians turn their guns on the Soviets. As for the Turks, I don't know much info on their forces at the time but I will say that they weren't so well armed, quite poorly in fact. And as for the oil damage they may potentially suffer from, they can compensate by seizing the middle east but then again it'd be difficult as you pointed it out (for one the Red Army wasn't as mechanized as the Germans were at the time).Lend Lease passed in March, 1941
What makes you think that the Turks would be an easy pushover?
When Pike goes off, Baku would ruined, and the USSR now has a POL problem in being able to do logistics far from home.
As for the Turks, I don't know much info on their forces at the time but I will say that they weren't so well armed, quite poorly in fact. And as for the oil damage they may potentially suffer from, they can compensate by seizing the middle east but then again it'd be difficult as you pointed it out (for one the Red Army wasn't as mechanized as the Germans were at the time).
Baku is one of the few places on Earth that wouldn't be hard to find
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And thats without hundreds of flare pipes burning off the (then) unwanted natural gas
And the British bombers in 1940-41 proved quite unable to find plenty of places that fit that description. A place being supposedly easy to find is not necessarily enough to offset bad navigation skills, to say nothing of all the other problems. All these issues are now being compounded by the hasty launch of Pike described by the OP without any time for real preparations. Fundamentally, PMN1’s right: Baku’ll be scratched, but not remotely destroyed.
BC didn't have a problem finding Wilhelmshaven, Kiel Canal and Hamburg early in the war
And they didn't have activities this going onBaku did![]()
Any bombing mission done in 1940 is going to be conducted at night and the bomb sights used back then weren't very good in daytime and abysmal at night.
Which requires aircraft to navigate quite close before they can see it at a time when Bomber Command often wound up navigating over the wrong country.
What else looks like Baku by the Caspian? there's only one country on the West side with that distinctive beak