WI: Baku falls in a highly implausible scenario in WW2.

I'm only bringing this up because I weekly play a wargame called World in Flames, and I never even consciously considered the following until the guy playing Germany, pulled off a coup not 2 hours ago.

We're at the start of July, 1941, and Germany is ripping and tearing in all directions at the Soviet Union, so far, more or less historical. He started a bit earlier, he's got a bit more force (never went into Greece), but nothing too out of the ordinary.

Except he pulled off a diplo trick, and aligned Persia into the war on his side. And the Persians have 3 divisions of cavalry that can do an end run into Baku, and the Soviets don't have anything in that part of the world to stop them. Best guess is that the earliest Garry will be able to evict them is early to mid September, if nothing goes wrong. We had to end the session because it was getting late, but I'm 99% sure our German player's next move is to start having his Persians commit some atrocities, and try to wreck as much of the oil production as he can do before the Soviets silence his Persians.


So I realize, Persia joining the war is unlikely in the extreme, and the Soviets leaving the border completely unguarded (especially if Persia is showing pro-German leanings) is also unlikely, but let's pretend it happened somehow. Everything else is more or less as per normal history. The Persians put 3 divisions across the border, and are expected to hold Baku and its immediate environs for about 2 months. They're burning and pillaging and just trying to wreck the place. How much will this hurt Soviet oil production? How much will this, and the inability to send Lend-Lease through that part of the world for the foreseeable future, hurt the Soviet war effort?
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Soviet_invasion_of_Iran

The British depose the Shah the moment within 24 hours. Lend-lease is ultimately unaffected. Baku is a much more complicated issue. It's easy to get some kind of production out of it, just dig forty-meters down with Gulag labor. Okay, it's a little more complex then that, but unlike place like Maikop that actually does cover something like 80% of the work. Getting the quantities of oil out of it and the infrastructure for transporting it is something else. The Soviets kept a years worth of fuel stocked away for just such an eventuality, but whether that will be enough to last them is dependent on a bunch of things.
 
Euhhh, let me amend that: (Would it be better to edit the original post to reflect on such?) If we're going by the same logic that the game operates on, pro-German elements are at least in firm control of Tehran. I'm not sure whether Rezah Shah is in control anymore at this point (game's kind of silent on issues of minor alignments).

If the British want to knock out the regime, they're going to have to do it with real troops and really fight their way up the Zagros mountains. I don't doubt they can do it, either in game or in real life, but I should have taken the countercoup option off the table. If the British want the corridor open, they're going to have to do it the hard way.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Euhhh, let me amend that: (Would it be better to edit the original post to reflect on such?) If we're going by the same logic that the game operates on, pro-German elements are at least in firm control of Tehran. I'm not sure whether Rezah Shah is in control anymore at this point (game's kind of silent on issues of minor alignments).

If the British want to knock out the regime, they're going to have to do it with real troops and really fight their way up the Zagros mountains. I don't doubt they can do it, either in game or in real life, but I should have taken the countercoup option off the table. If the British want the corridor open, they're going to have to do it the hard way.

In that case, it becomes a cautionary tale about the problems with the assumptions taken in this game. Your question then becomes "if the whole of Iran has suddenly become firmly pro-German, and the Allies didn't notice until the declaration of war, what happens?"
Which is more like an ASB thing, really.

But anyway. One likely place for Allied reinforcements is that there were Brit garrison troops in the MidEast, and that there were also the troops of the British Indian Army just the other side of Afghanistan. Knock loose about 1/20 of that and you've got... call it four divisions? Five?
 

Derek Pullem

Kicked
Donor
I'm only bringing this up because I weekly play a wargame called World in Flames, and I never even consciously considered the following until the guy playing Germany, pulled off a coup not 2 hours ago.

We're at the start of July, 1941, and Germany is ripping and tearing in all directions at the Soviet Union, so far, more or less historical. He started a bit earlier, he's got a bit more force (never went into Greece), but nothing too out of the ordinary.

Except he pulled off a diplo trick, and aligned Persia into the war on his side. And the Persians have 3 divisions of cavalry that can do an end run into Baku, and the Soviets don't have anything in that part of the world to stop them. Best guess is that the earliest Garry will be able to evict them is early to mid September, if nothing goes wrong. We had to end the session because it was getting late, but I'm 99% sure our German player's next move is to start having his Persians commit some atrocities, and try to wreck as much of the oil production as he can do before the Soviets silence his Persians.


So I realize, Persia joining the war is unlikely in the extreme, and the Soviets leaving the border completely unguarded (especially if Persia is showing pro-German leanings) is also unlikely, but let's pretend it happened somehow. Everything else is more or less as per normal history. The Persians put 3 divisions across the border, and are expected to hold Baku and its immediate environs for about 2 months. They're burning and pillaging and just trying to wreck the place. How much will this hurt Soviet oil production? How much will this, and the inability to send Lend-Lease through that part of the world for the foreseeable future, hurt the Soviet war effort?

IOTL the Russian 47th Army http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/47th_Army was positioned exactly to prevent this from happening. Your Russian WIF player is a worse strategist than Stalin - you might like to remind him:D
 
Let's work with the OP here (weaker RUssia, stronger Germany, and something crazy happens like Iran/Turkey join war, German paratroops take the place by surprise, etc) the result is a hampering of the Russian war effort to conduct major offensives until the oil can be brought back up online. Russia had enough oil to defend themselves and they could chop down trees to heat themselves. By the time it has an effect, the tide of the war would already decidely be turned against Germany. Perhaps, the Germans capitulate to the western allies just as the Russians hit East Prussia.
 

Deleted member 9338

The Soviets and British had by 1914 divided Iran/Persia into two spheres. It All of Iran goes pro-German I find that very strange and unlikely, but a coup is possible and the 4 cavalry division could cause a lot of trouble for the Soviets in and around Baku.

These qusi-divisions are are more brigade in strength but in the spring of 1941 could cause trouble. But not for long.

They would have to live off the Soviets as there supply would be cut by the British advancing to Terran.

For the record, we tried something like this in Europa.
 
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