Iron Cross

The fact that the German tanks were only 700 kilometers away from Baku, not only the Turks knew what the consequences would be, but the Russians also understood their dangerous situation. From a purely military perspective, it might only take 10 days to cross these 700 kilometers, or it might never be able to cross them. The key depends on the determination of both sides.

On this point, Stalin did not dare to doubt the Germans' determination: in order to open up the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, the German army did not hesitate to abandon the situation that Stalingrad was already under siege, and resolutely transferred its main force into North Africa. At the beginning, it was unanimously recognized by the Red Army and even the world's military public opinion as a stupid move, but now it seems to be a good move. At the beginning, the Red Army was also surprised by the Germans' various actions of abandoning the salient, flattening the front line, and withdrawing to the Don River area. Now, everyone can understand the German head of state's shocking gamble. What's more, the Germans won the gamble.

The situation was very bad for the Red Army:

From the progress of the war on the Eastern Front, the Red Army did not seize the favorable opportunity of the transfer of part of the German army's forces. In the Stalingrad-Don Campaign, the Red Army, which had 5 fronts with a total of more than 2.5 million troops, fought very badly against the 1.6 million German Southern Army Group. Not only did it fail to play its own advantages of strong forces and mastering the initiative, but it was beaten by the Germans to a loss. Manstein and Hoth seized the opportunity to kill nearly 600,000 Red Army soldiers in one breath through the use of reasonable tactics, and their own losses were only 80,000. Even when the temperature dropped sharply and winter was coming, they still fought a hearty annihilation battle in the Great River Bend of the Don River, eating up two army groups under the eyes of more than 1 million Red Army soldiers, and slapping Zhukov and Vasilevsky's faces.

After the Battle of the Great River Bend, the Red Army did not get any advantage in the tug-of-war on the Don River for more than a month. Although the Red Army's heavy troops learned the lessons of the previous stage of the battle and advanced in a group without large-scale battles, the battles at the division level have been ongoing. The Stalingrad Front crossed the Don River when the lower reaches of the Don River were frozen, and launched rounds of exploratory attacks in coordination with the other two fronts, trying to find a gap in the German defense system. However, under Heinrich's careful dispatch, the German army used mobile defense, short assaults, and reverse attacks to defeat the Red Army, which suffered repeated casualties in front of the defense line, forcing Zhukov and Vasilevsky to turn their main attack target to the Hoth Group again.

Due to the cold weather, it was inconvenient for both sides to deploy infantry. The task of attacking the Hoth Group was mainly carried out by the armored forces of Bryansk and the Southwestern Front. Unfortunately, the Red Army tanks encountered the German armored division and Tiger heavy armored battalion, which had just been fully replaced and composed of the No. 4G. Although the battle of a tank brigade was only an isolated case, there were many battles in which the armored forces suffered serious setbacks. The T-34/76 could still fight against the No. 4G, but it was a meal when it encountered the Tiger. Of course, as the battle deepened, the exchange ratio between the Tiger and the T-34 began to return to normal. It was 17:1 at first, and then slowly became 14:1, and by early January it became 12:1. The Red Army lost nearly 300 tanks in one go during this process, while Hoth's loss was less than 60. Behind Hoth, the Eastern Front Logistics Department had already been ready and the new No. 4H tanks were waiting for the troops to receive them.

On January 7, the Red Army tried its best and spared no expense to seize the wreckage of a Tiger tank that was hit by a Red Army bomb. It was immediately sent to the rear for research. When faced with the front configuration of the 100mm/50-degree inclined armor, all tank experts took a deep breath - now they finally understood why the poor anti-tank gun of the T-34/76 could hardly penetrate the enemy. Obviously, the Red Army must develop more powerful tanks to compete with the Tiger. In addition to the longer-term T-34/85 project, the emergency KV-85 tank was accelerated again. According to Stalin's direct order, at least 50 tanks must be produced before February 1. At the same time, based on the data and performance judgment obtained from the study of the Tiger, the designers proposed to continue the research of new projects based on the KV-85. The report was clearly approved just two days after it was submitted, requiring the production of a prototype before the end of September of that year, and the project code was changed from KV-13 to IS-1.

During the more than 40 days of seesaw battle, the Red Army also suffered heavy losses. The four fronts lost nearly 200,000 troops one after another, while Germany lost less than 25,000 during the same period. Even if the losses of Romanians and Italians were included, it was only 30,000. The Red Army lost more than 500 tanks, while the German army lost just over 150.

When the situation on the southern wing could not be improved, the Red Army tried to transfer the Bryansk Front to the north, preparing to launch an attack on the Central Army Group's defense line and trying to lure Hoth's Group to the north. As a result, it ran into Model's defense line and also fought fiercely. However, Hoth's Group did not follow the north as the Red Army General Staff had expected. Instead, it seized the opportunity to cooperate with Manstein's 16th Armored Division and the Guards Armored Division to attack the Southwestern Front. Under the siege of up to 1,000 tanks, Vatutin was forced to request assistance. The Bryansk Front that was transferred had to return to the southern wing for coordinated defense, and Hoth and Manstein also stopped while they were ahead and gave up the attempt to attack the Southwestern Front.

In addition to ground combat, the Red Army also suffered in air combat. When more and more grassroots pilots reported that they encountered new German aircraft, the situation was already terrible. Now the main fighters of the Red Army are La-5 and Yak-7, with only a very small number of Yak-9. Whether it is La-5 or Yak-7, they are always defeated when encountering the combination of Fw-190 and Bf-219. If you fly high, there are Fw-190 waiting to beat you. If you fly low, the dogfighting level of Bf-219 is chilling. If it is an escort battle, it is even more dangerous, which means being beaten as a target. What's more deadly is that it is not enough to beat the enemy aircraft, but the range is not as good as the German army. Many planes are often tracked by Bf-219 all the way to the airport and shot down. Even if the Red Army pilots fight to the death and run out of fuel, the Bf-219 driven by the Germans still has enough fuel to fly back. When low-altitude attack aircraft such as Il-2 encounter Bf-219, they can only rely on their strong enough bodies to resist.

Coupled with the difference in combat experience between the two sides, the Red Army fighter unit had a single combat loss rate of up to 25%. A large number of novice pilots were shot down in five flight missions. Now the evaluation standard for an ace in the German flying wing has quietly risen from 5 to 50. If there are no dozens of shot-down marks on the plane, it is embarrassing to say hello to others.