PS: Thank you for the book friend "Wangyun Mountain People" for your re-reward, and continue to ask for recommendation votes ^_^

This small setback made the mustache who had been proud of his previous victories somewhat sober, and then he remembered a suggestion made by Hu Weidong at the beginning, so he immediately asked the Turks to use the same faith to go to Grozny and other places to incite the people who had always been anti-Russian there to rise up and cooperate with the German army, which really caused a lot of trouble to the Soviet army. Although the Soviet army suppressed it, it also suffered a lot of losses, and Stalin's order to remove all the local ethnic groups as punishment out of anger was a wrong move that deepened the hatred but did not eradicate the roots, and left a security risk that was difficult to solve for the Soviet Union in the future

The victory in the defense of the Caucasus gave great encouragement to the Soviet military and civilians, and also shattered the myth of the invincibility of the German army, but it did not have the same great impact as the Battle of Moscow in history, and then the Soviet Union even ushered in the most difficult stage of the Soviet-German war in this time and space, for the simple reason that there was not enough oil

It turned out that seeing that it was impossible to capture Baku from land, the mustache decided to simply destroy Baku, anyway, now the Luftwaffe has an absolute advantage, and the oil production and refining facilities are the most unbombed, as long as Baku's oil production capacity is blown up, then even if it cannot be occupied for the time being, the purpose of the mustache to cut off the lifeblood of the Soviet Union can be regarded as basically achieved. And compared to the Army, the planes are far less affected by the cold winter, and it is even less problematic to take off from relatively warm Turkish airfields.

Stalin, of course, knew the importance of Baku and the natural weakness of the oil fields for fear of air raids, but after successive defeats. The air force and air defense units that the Soviet high command could draw on were quite limited, and it was really difficult to compete with the powerful Luftwaffe. What is particularly fatal is that in order to replenish the large amount of weapons and equipment lost at the front as soon as possible, the Soviet government's demand for "quantity" in military production completely overwhelmed "quality." The phenomenon of shoddy manufacturing in major arsenals has become increasingly common, and the quality of products has begun to plummet. As a result, the indispensable artillery sighting radar for air defense frequently malfunctioned, and the proximity fuse often failed, which greatly reduced the combat efficiency of air defense artillery. And the gyroscopic sights, which were capable of increasing the hit rate of aircraft and small-caliber anti-aircraft guns, also lost their due role due to the general poor quality.

More crucial, however, was the Soviet Air Force's archaic and outdated tactics and outdated formations, which became more apparent after the loss of several new fighters produced by the Soviet Union before the war. Just half a month after the start of the air battle in Baku. The Soviet Air Force alone shot down and destroyed more than 1,100 aircraft. The Germans' losses were only 266 aircraft, of which less than 100 were shot down by Soviet aircraft, and the ratio of air combat between the two armies reached an astonishing 1:12

At this time, Stalin finally remembered Pokryshkin and the air force that aided China, who had made great achievements in China. As a result, when asked, it became clear that Pokryshkin did not die in the rout in the early stage of the war. In fact, he has not participated in the war at all until now. He has been serving as the principal of an aviation school in the rear, and the other ace pilots of the aviation team that originally aided China are basically serving as instructors in various aviation schools at this time. Very few people were given the opportunity to go to war.

Stalin immediately understood that they had been ostracized, but instead of an immediate attack, he simply issued an order for Pokryshkin to go to the Caucasus Military District as a division commander and commissar of a flying division. Stalin did this because Pokryshkin had certainly had a brilliant record, but it was only achieved in the battle with the Japanese, and several years had passed, and it was not possible to convince the public if he was promoted to a high position at once, so it was better to let him make achievements in the post of commander and political commissar of the flight division first.

It is said that if before the Soviet-German war, with Stalin's prestige, he wanted to vigorously promote an air force ace who had twice become a "Hero of the Soviet Union", which was just a matter of words, but the fiasco in the early stage of the Soviet-German war made Stalin's prestige in the party drop significantly, if it were not for him, no one else dared to stand up and shoulder the heavy responsibility at this time, Stalin was now afraid that he would have been ousted from power long ago, so he who has always been known for his iron fist now has to be cautious in his words and deeds

Along with Pokryshkin, who was named by Stalin to report to the Caucasus Military District, there were also hundreds of outstanding pilots who had also participated in the air force to aid China, such as Kozhdub. Although it was inevitable that the boss would make trouble, he was driving the La-3 fighter (mass production began in 1940, with an all-wooden fuselage, which was already a relatively backward model at the end of 1942). Pokryshkin proved himself to be a good starter on the first day of fighting, shooting down a German FW190C fighter and leading his newly formed flying division to an unprecedented one-day air combat ratio of 18:35 (18 Soviets were shot down and 35 Germans were shot down.) And these were achieved in an unfavorable situation where the performance of the aircraft was inferior to that of the enemy

Stalin, who had been following this flying division for a long time, was very happy when he learned of it, and at the same time he hated the leaders of the Air Force who were so angry and jealous, and immediately ordered the commander of the Air Force of the Leningrad Military District, the most performant of the air force units of the major military districts, Novikov, Alexander Brown. Aleksandrovich appointed Deputy People's Commissar of Defense to put him in charge of the Air Force and vigorously reorganize it, and at the same time promoted Pokryshkin to the post of commander of the Air Force of the Caucasus Military District, and specifically asked the military-industrial department to give priority to the supply of the most advanced aircraft to the Caucasus Military District.

After being promoted to commander, Pokryshkin's leadership skills were fully developed, and the unfavorable situation in the air battle in Baku was gradually reversed. In addition to the command work, Pokryshkin, who was transferred to the strongest fighter of the Soviet Union at present, the La-5, also often took the lead in the front-line air battles, although the number of downs was not very large, but he picked out a powerful opponent to make a move, and successively killed 11 German ace pilots (more than 20 downs), and he was not shot down by the enemy once, and the Germans fearfully called him "Ace-killer", that is, "ace killer"

But when Stalin learned about it, he was very worried about Pokryshkin's accident, after all, no matter how powerful the ace was, it was inevitable that there would be a miss, so he was strictly ordered not to fly the plane in person, and Pokryshkin's record for the number of crashes stopped being refreshed (to be continued......