Iron Cross

Rommel was well aware of this and knew that he played a small role in this matter. The key was the determination of the head of state. Of course, it cannot be said to be completely unrelated - he submitted a report on the combat effectiveness of the Iranian army to the Supreme Command. , through observing the battles in the past few days, he spoke highly of the Iranian army's fearlessness and death, and believed that its combat effectiveness and fighting will were much stronger than those of the Italians, and it was worth cultivating.

The High Command has a secret evaluation system for the armies of the Axis countries. The idea was originally proposed by Hoffman - before time travel, he was a member of the expert team for the Hearts of Iron game. It was originally just a rough evaluation standard, but in the Supreme Command, which has strict logical thinking and likes to be precise in everything, through the analysis and interpretation of previous combat cases, the evaluation system has turned into a set of huge and complicated things. In standard operations, Under the premise that the equipment is consistent, the average level of the Italian Army is the Axis Army's benchmark score - 50 points. The evaluation results for Croats, Egyptians, and Iraqis are 75 points, the Slovaks, Romanians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians are 80 points, the Hungarians and the three Baltic countries are 90 points, the Finns and the Russian Liberation Army are 100 points, and Germany is My own evaluation is 150 points. Rommel gave the Iranians a score of 85, placing them between the Romanians and the Hungarians.

It is said that the Italians are expected to get rid of the bottom situation soon, because the Spaniards are coming - Berlin only set 45 points for the Spaniards. The only thing that the Supreme Command finds difficult to grasp is the Japanese Army. From the perspective of its fighting will and basic individual combat capabilities, it can score 120 points, but from the perspective of mastering mechanized and modern warfare, it can only score 75 points at most. Yodel, who presided over the evaluation work, simply gave no score in the end and only gave the Japanese a label - the best World War I army in the world!

This quantitative evaluation system is also applicable to the assessment of the combat effectiveness of the Allied forces. The Supreme Command set a score of 90 for the British Territorial Army. The evaluation of the British Colonial Army is much more complicated. The Indian Army alone has 3 standard scores: Pure India Soldiers commanded by a small number of senior British officers scored 55 points; those commanded by a large number of mid- to high-level British officers scored 70 points; those that included a large number of Gorkha soldiers and had a large number of mid- to high-level British officers scored 110 points - higher than the mainland army. The Australian and New Zealand troops both scored 120 points, while the South African troops only scored 75 points. The general troops of the Soviet Red Army scored 85 points, and the Guards troops scored 115 points. Since he has not yet fought against the U.S. Army and has few battles in the past, Yoder gave the U.S. Army a tentative score of 90 points.

In addition to the base score, the war chess game also introduces a variety of dazzling score bonuses: for example, if Romanian and Hungarian troops have a large number of German officers to intervene and command, they can get a command bonus of 20%. The American troops have a 20% logistics bonus, the Red Army Guards and Waffen SS have an ideology bonus of 10%, and so on.

Rommel was originally a little skeptical about the gradually improving system, and he specifically used the Iran campaign to evaluate it. He sent Berlin all the enemy's and our own troops, rough equipment levels, strategies and battle progress, but did not tell them the final results and casualty ratio. As a result, the results simulated by the Supreme Command shocked him: the number of Red Army killed and wounded prisoners was 3.9 0,000, the total casualties of Rommel's troops were approximately 5,000. The actual battle statistics show that the Red Army suffered 43,000 casualties and prisoners, and the actual total number of German casualties was more than 3,700. A large part of the difference was because Rommel received support from some Iranian troops.

Rommel's interest in this greatly increased. He wanted to make another assessment of the upcoming Battle of Tabriz after the introduction of Iranian troops: at the end of January, the 150,000-strong Red Army Persian Army faced off against the less than 100,000-strong German Middle East Army. After more than half a month, the situation became that the 100,000-strong Red Army Persian Army was facing off against the nearly 150,000 German and Iranian coalition forces. He wanted to know how different the assessment results would be from actual combat.

When the news that the Persian Army had lost Tehran reached Moscow, and that Iran had joined the Axis camp and declared war on itself, Stalin was extremely angry and almost took Mezov directly and sent him to the Gulag. It was Zhukov and Hua Xi Levsky teamed up to dissuade him. The two believed that from a purely military perspective, it was impossible to hold both Tabriz and Tehran while maintaining a fragile supply line without air superiority. Mezov is responsible but not the biggest.

Although Stalin let Mezov go, he was worried about the situation in Persia and ordered the Persian Army to hold Tabriz and not take a step back - further back would be the Transcaucasus and Baku oil fields. The General Staff of the Red Army also highly recognized this point. Zhukov and Vasilevsky went to the Caucasus Front together and asked the commander of the Front Army Tyulenev to mobilize elite troops and generals to strengthen the Persian Army no matter what.

Tyulenev was also bitter about this. Although the Caucasus Army had a clear advantage over the German army in terms of military strength, the transportation conditions from Transcaucasus to northern Persia were not ideal, even to Tabriz, which had been greatly shortened. It is still very difficult to maintain a supply line with more than 200,000 troops. Not to mention that after Iran clearly declared war on the Soviet Union, guerrillas resisting the Red Army were active in many places, including Tabriz. The limited troops had to be deployed in the security war, which was even more frustrating.

"Comrade Tyulenev, Comrade Stalin knows the difficulties you are facing, so we have brought reinforcements. In addition to three fighter flight regiments, there are also members of the base camp reserve - the most elite 11th Guards Independent Heavy Tank Brigade. Zhukov's expression was serious, "They are all equipped with the latest KV-3 tanks, with a number of up to 60. We hope that under your command, they can effectively curb the arrogance of the enemy's Tiger heavy armor battalion."

There is one thing Zhukov did not say: He believes that under the current circumstances, Tabriz may not be able to hold it. The Red Army must shorten the front line as soon as possible and prepare to defend the Transcaucasus. However, Stalin still cannot listen to this. He and Vasil Lieutenant General Even Fitzgerald did not dare to promote it for fear of being labeled as capitulationist or conservatism. Due to the recent setbacks in the British and American military operations, Stalin wanted to fight a few good battles to improve his status among the allies. So Zhukov could only follow his instructions and play the ace card of the 11th Guards Independent Heavy Tank Brigade. He hinted to Tyulenev that if he could defeat the Tiger Heavy Armored Battalion, even if he lost Tabriz, he believed that he would be able to defeat the Tiger Heavy Armored Battalion. Comrade Stalin also had a decent explanation. If it didn't work, the General Staff would speak for him.

Tyulenev understood the subtext behind the two people's cryptic words, was moved to tears, and expressed his gratitude repeatedly.

The KV-3 tank is not a historical product, but an emergency product of the Soviet Union's response to the Tiger tank crisis under the time-travel effect. It was developed on the basis of the development of the KV-13 tank. Due to the T-34's inability to face the Tiger tank, Coupled with the slow advancement of the T-34/85 program, under the strict orders of Stalin and Voroshilov, the Red Army combined members of the KV-13 and T-43 project teams in an attempt to concentrate their efforts and integrate the T-34/85 program. The mobility and flexibility of the -34 tank and the heavy defense characteristics of the KV series create a new tank.

The total weight of the KV-3 tank is about 37 tons. It is equipped with an 85mm tank main gun. The maximum armor thickness of the front of the body is 120mm, while the turret is 105mm. It uses a 600-horsepower V-2K engine and has a maximum speed of 46 kilometers per hour. , but the crew is still 4 people. Because it was an urgently developed product, there was no time to design a new chassis. The KV-3 was upgraded based on the T-34 tank chassis, and components including tracks, road wheels, etc. were all taken from the KV series. The tank uses an improved cooling device, which is very effective in increasing air introduction. The steering mechanism uses a "two-stage planetary steering gear" designed by A.I. Balagnalavov. On the premise of maintaining the inheritance of the general structure, many details have been innovated and improved.

Soviet designers carefully studied the Tiger tank and related combat cases, and believed that the Tiger's maneuverability was slightly poor, so they made targeted improvements to the KV-3. Generally speaking, the KV-3 can be regarded as a heavy-duty medium-sized tank. Although the Soviet Union’s technological capabilities and mechanical manufacturing level are not as good as those of the United Kingdom and the United States, its design concepts and ideas are much more advanced than the latter. The short-term emergency product KV-3 It is far stronger than the new Comet tank developed by the British.

In addition to the emergency solution KV-3, the Red Army has also prepared a real heavy tank solution-the 45-ton IS-1. However, the development speed of the latter is relatively slow and it is unlikely to be put into service before at least this autumn. In fact, it is also common for the KV-3 to have unreliable mechanical performance in a hurry, but Stalin really couldn't wait any longer. He could not just watch the Tiger become the overwhelming protagonist on the battlefield. Since the new tank was successfully manufactured, it must be accepted immediately. Actual combat.

Stalin originally considered deploying it on the Don River battlefield in the direction of Rostov, but intelligence showed that Manstein had at least four heavy armored battalions, and the German anti-tank firepower and air firepower were quite intensive. Zhukov considered it again and thought that the new equipment He could not rush into such a severe battlefield. Since the German army in Iran only had one Tiger heavy armor battalion, he urged the reinforced 11th Guards Independent Heavy Tank Brigade equipped with 60 brand-new KV-3 tanks to be deployed in Taburi. The defense line of the enemy was trying to get off to a good start and at the same time curb the momentum of the German offensive in the direction of Iran. After consideration, Stalin accepted this suggestion.

Unfortunately, Zhukov never dreamed that on February 18, Rommel received a new 508th heavy armored battalion. Now the Middle East Army has not one but two heavy armored battalions.