The fact that German tanks are located only 700 km from Baku is clear not only to the Turks what the consequences will be, but also to the Russians who understand their own dangerous situation. From a purely military point of view, it may only take 10 days to cross the 700 kilometers, or it may never be crossed, depending on the determination of both sides.

In this respect, Stalin did not dare to doubt the determination of the Germans: 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 in which Stalingrad was already under the city, and resolutely transferred the main force into North Africa. At first, the Red Army was amazed at the Germans' moves to abandon the salient, draw the battle line, and retract the Don region, but by now everyone can understand this shocking gamble of the German Führer. To make matters worse, the Germans won the bet.

The situation was very bad for the Red Army:

Judging from the course of the war on the Eastern Front, the Red Army did not seize the favorable opportunity of the transfer of part of the German troops, and in the Battle of Stalingrad-Don, the Red Army, which had a total of more than 2.5 million troops on six fronts, fought very badly in the face of the 1.6 million German Army Group South. Even at the moment when the temperature plummeted and winter came, a hearty battle of annihilation was still fought in the meanders of the Don River, eating two armies under the noses of more than 1 million Red Army, and swelling Zhukov and Vasilevsky's faces.

After the end of the Battle of Dahequbu, in the tug-of-war of the Don River for more than a month, the Red Army did not pick up the advantage. Although the Red Army's heavy army group had learned the lessons of the previous stage of the campaign, and had advanced tightly in a group without a large-scale battle, the fighting at the division level had been going on. The Stalingrad Front crossed the Don River by taking advantage of the favorable opportunity of the freezing of the lower reaches of the Don River, and launched round after round of exploratory attacks with the other two fronts, trying to find a gap in the German defense system, but under the careful management of Reinhardt, the German army was overwhelmed by mobile defense, short assault, reverse attack, etc., and lost troops in front of the defensive line one after another, forcing Zhukov and Vasilevsky to turn the main attack target to the Hoult cluster again.

Due to the cold weather, the infantry on both sides was inconvenient to deploy, and the task of attacking the Hoth cluster was mainly carried out by the armored forces of the Bryansk and Southwestern Fronts, but unfortunately, the Red Army tanks encountered the German armored division and the Tiger heavy armored battalion composed of the 4th G that had just been fully reloaded, similar to the case of a tank brigade being completely wiped out, although it was only an isolated case, but the armored forces were seriously frustrated in many battles, and the T-34/76 could still be entangled when it met the 4th G, and the Tiger was to deliver food. Of course, as the battle deepened, the exchange ratio of the Tiger to the T-34 began to return to normal values, starting at 17:1, slowly becoming 14:1, and by the beginning of January it became 12:1. The Red Army lost nearly 300 tanks in one fell swoop in the process, while Hort's losses were less than 60, and behind Hort was the logistics office of the Eastern Front, which had long been ready to go, and the new No. 4H tank was waiting for the troops to receive it.

On January 7, the Red Army tried their best to grab the wreckage of a Tiger that had been hit by a Red Army bomb at a great cost, and immediately sent it to the rear for study, and when faced with the frontal configuration of the 100mm/50-degree inclined armor, all the tank experts gasped - and now they finally understood why the poor anti-tank gun of the T-34/76 could hardly penetrate the enemy. It was clear that the Red Army had to 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 again accelerated, and according to Stalin's direct order, the production of at least 50 tanks had to be completed by February 1. At the same time, based on the data and performance judgment obtained from the research of the Tiger style, the designers proposed to continue the research of the new project on the basis of the KV-85. The report was clearly approved only two days after it was submitted, requiring the production of prototype vehicles by the end of September of that year, and the project code was changed from KV-13 to IS-1.

In the tug-of-war of more than 40 days, the losses of the Red Army troops were also not small, the four front armies lost nearly 200,000 horses one after another, and the German losses in the same period were less than 25,000, even if the Romanians and Italians were added, it was only 30,000. The cumulative losses of the Red Army tanks exceeded 500 units, while the German losses were just over 150.

In the case that the southern flank could not open the situation, the Red Army tried to transfer the Bryansk Front to the north, preparing to launch an offensive on the defense line of Army Group Center and trying to lure the Hoth cluster north, but as a result, it ran headlong into Moder's defense line, and the same fight was inextricable, but the Hult cluster did not follow the north as expected by the General Staff of the Red Army, but seized the opportunity to cooperate with the 16th Panzer Division and the Guards Banner Panzer Division under Manstein to attack the Southwestern Front, under the siege of up to 1,000 tanks. Forcing Vatutin to ask for help, the Bryansk Front, which had been transferred, had to return to the southern flank to coordinate the defense, while Hort and Manstein also took advantage of it and abandoned their attempts to attack the Southwestern Front.

In addition to ground fighting, the Red Army also suffered from aerial engagements, and the situation was so bad that by the increasing number of pilots at the rank and file that they had encountered new German aircraft. Now the main fighters of the Red Army are the La-5 and Yak-7, and there are only a very small number of Yak-9, whether it is the La-5 or the Yak-7, when it comes to the situation that the Fw-190 and the Bf-219 join forces, they always can't beat it, fly to a high altitude, there are Fw-190s waiting to beat you, and fly to a low altitude, the level of the Bf-219's dog fight makes people shudder. If it is an escort battle, it is more dangerous, it means being beaten by someone as a target, and what is even worse is that it can't beat the enemy plane, and the range is not as good as the German army, many planes are often tracked all the way by the Bf-219 to the airport and hit down, even if the Red Army pilots desperately consume until the fuel runs out, the Bf-219 piloted by the Germans still has enough fuel to fly back, and the low-altitude attack aircraft such as the Il-2 can only rely on their strong enough body to resist when they encounter the Bf-219.

Coupled with the difference in the level of combat experience of the pilots of the two sides, the Red Army's fighter units suffered losses of up to 25 percent in a single battle. A large number of novice pilots were shot down in five flight missions, and now the evaluation standard of aces in the German flight wing has quietly risen from 5 to 50, and the plane is embarrassed to go out to greet people without dozens of crash signs. (To be continued.) )