Chapter 473 Baku Oil Field

The next day, Yannick called Kesselring and Richthofen and issued an order.

"Develop a combat plan to bomb the Baku oil fields."

Baku is located on the Apsheron Peninsula on the west coast of the Caspian Sea, with an area of ​​about 2,200 square kilometers. It is a very old city with its earliest history dating back to the 5th century. It became the capital of the Baku Khanate in the 18th century. It was incorporated into Russia in 1806 and became the capital of the Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan in 1920. Until the beginning of the 20th century, Baku was still a backward city with no trees and smoke and dust all over the streets.

The Russian government abolished the state monopoly in the early 1870s, and private enterprises achieved explosive development. The first drilling rig started construction between 1871 and 1872. By 1873, there were more than 20 small refineries in operation. Before 1873, most of Russia's oil market (kerosene) was occupied by the United States.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Baku oil field became the world's highest-producing oil field, and became the industrial center of the South Caucasus and the Russian oil base. Since then, Baku has been known as the "Oil City".

In 1940, the original time and space, Baku's oil production reached its peak, accounting for 5% of the total output of the Soviet Union at that time (expanding the scope to the vicinity of the Caucasus Mountains, the oil produced here accounted for 90% of the Soviet Union's national output). After that, Baku's crude oil production began to decline, but until 1950 it was still the Soviet Union's largest oil field, and its oil production accounted for 2% of the Soviet Union's total production (after the 1950s, due to the increasing decline in reserves, by the 1980s, its proportion was less than 2%).

In the Soviet-German War, the Baku oil field became the key point of the war. Once the Soviet Union lost this oil field, the Soviet tanks and fighter planes became decorations. Once the German army occupied this oil field, there was no worry at all. The German high-level even believed that the strategic significance of taking the Baku oil field was even greater than Leningrad and Moscow.

The Soviet high-level officials naturally saw through the German intentions. Stalin warned the newly appointed deputy director of the oil industry that if the German army took Baku, he would give you a bullet. If necessary, the oil fields must be destroyed. But if you can't resume production in the first time, you will be given another bullet.

The German army targeted the Baku oil-producing area, and even frightened Britain and the United States. Britain considered bombing the oil fields in the Caucasus to prevent them from falling into the hands of the German army. Because the British knew that if the oil in the Caucasus was occupied by Germany, Germany could increase the oil production here several times in a short period of time; not only the Soviet Union, but also Britain was finished.

Britain suggested that the Soviet Union block all the Krasnodar wells north of Baku (there are nearly 1,300 oil wells here). We don't use them, and we can't let Germany use them. The British suggestion was not wrong. Assuming that neither the Soviet Union nor Germany used oil, Germany would eventually be the one that couldn't stand it, after all, it was a country with scarce resources. The Soviet Union didn't use oil, and there were other resources available. The area of ​​the Soviet Union was too large.

The Soviet Union brought in a large amount of cement and poured it into each oil well to create a giant cement plug about 20 meters deep. The German army was very far away from the oil-producing areas in the Caucasus. When they reached the Caucasus, they faced oil wells that did not produce oil at all.

Germany did not believe in evil and brought in many advanced oil drilling rigs. The top leaders issued an order: At all costs, the oil wells must be drilled through. "Unfortunately," the Germans worked in vain. None of the 1,300 oil wells could produce oil.

Before the German army entered, the Soviet Union had blown up the refinery, and Germany had no oil to use. The only way was to take the dumbest approach and drill new oil wells again, but the Soviet Union obviously would not let the German army dig oil leisurely and dig its own grave. Four Soviet Siberian divisions went south to stop the German plan.

At this time, Yannik no longer looked down on the Baku oil field and decided to take the initiative once the time was right; destroy the Baku oil field.

Kesselring asked. "Your Highness, can we go through Iran?"

Whether from Romania or Western Ukraine, the round-trip flight distance is more than 3,000 kilometers, and the HE-117 bomber can barely carry out it. But if it goes through Iran, it will be simple. Iran and Azerbaijan are adjacent; if you take off from Iran, the straight-line distance is no more than 300 kilometers, even the short-legged Stuka can participate.

Yannick thought about it and nodded. "It should be no problem. Also, by the way, make a plan to bomb the second Baku oil field."

After the "Second Five-Year Plan", the Soviet Union's coal group won a great victory in the "kerosene dispute", but Stalin did not abandon the established policy. Under Stalin's strong promotion, the oil exploration department has been looking for new oil fields in the hinterland of the Soviet Union, hoping to increase oil production and promote changes in the Soviet energy structure. At that time, the exploration team placed the exploration area in the Volga River and Ural River basins. At the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the resolution to "establish a new oil base between the Volga and the Urals-the second Baku" was finally passed.

Although there were obstructions and non-cooperation from interest groups at that time, the exploration and exploitation of new oil fields were still proceeding slowly. In order to show the high hopes for the new oil fields, the top leaders of the Soviet Communist Party at that time called the new oil fields in the Volga-Ural region the Second Baku - the oil-producing area finally explored here reached 700,000 square kilometers.

Of course, prospects are one thing, and reality is another. In the original time and space, until 1940 (the year before the outbreak of the Soviet-German War), only a dozen small oil fields were discovered in the Second Baku, and the output was only 1.8 million tons, accounting for 8% of the Soviet Union, which was far behind the Baku oil field.

On the one hand, the infrastructure of the entire Volga-Urals oil-producing area is still in its infancy; on the other hand, although the oil reserves here are very large - the Dumaz oil field with a reserve of 200 million tons was discovered in 1937, the main oil layers here are buried in the deeper Devonian strata - the oil layers of the Baku oil field are mainly distributed in the shallower Carboniferous strata, and the oil quality density here is large, the viscosity and sulfur content are high. Considering the economic cost alone, the short-term benefits are not significant. Therefore, it is obviously impossible to give priority to the development of the second Baku in the case of insufficient funds at that time.

As a result, the Soviet-German War broke out, and the German army moved south all the way. Azerbaijan was once occupied by Germany in 1942. The Soviet Union had to adopt a strategy of clearing the countryside and transferring all personnel and important instruments and equipment to the Volga-Urals region. Before evacuating, all the facilities in the Baku oil field were blown up to prevent the Germans from using the oil resources here.

And this move just greatly strengthened the power of the second Baku. During the war when all kinds of resources were the most scarce, Soviet engineers still carried out exploration and mining operations here. In 1944, the Mukhanov oil field was discovered in the Second Baku, with a reserve of 200 million tons. By 1945, the production of the new oil field had increased by 52% compared with 1942.

"Volga-Urals oil producing area?" Kesselring said with some difficulty. "Your Highness, this distance has exceeded the combat radius of the HE-117 bomber. Even for the Me-264, it would probably suffer considerable losses if it went deep into the Soviet hinterland at such a long distance."

The Me-264 can be said to be the Hans version of the B-29 bomber. Its design goal is very clear, that is, it can take off from Germany, cross the Atlantic, and bomb the US mainland. The aircraft made its first flight on December 23, 1942 (the B-29 bomber made its first flight on September 21, 1942, and the two are highly similar in appearance, with the biggest identifying feature being the single/double vertical tail), but due to the deterioration of the war situation in the later period and the shortage of resources, in order to allow Messerschmitt to concentrate resources on manufacturing fighters, the Me-264 plan was forced to be cancelled in 1944.

"That's right." Yannick nodded. "Then we should first deal with the Baku oil field. It will take time to expand the scale of production in the Urals oil-producing area, so it is not a big problem."