Operation Countenance: Anglo-Soviet Invasion of Iran

[Diplomaticus]

From August 25 to September 17, 1941, Commonwealth and Red Army forces invaded and conquered then neutral, but Axis-leaning, Iran. Aside from securing the critical oil production, this operation opened a warm-weather route for Lend-Lease assistance to reach Russia.

The old AH game, Third Reich, incorporated this as a possibility, although handled in abstract terms--no actual combat. [3R buffs will remember the 25 BRP payment for opening up the Lend-Lease.]

CEAW seems to forbid this action. If I've got my facts right, the game does not allow the Allies to declare war on Persia. Can anybody comment on this odd, ahistorical choice?

[rkr1958]

I don't know about the vanilla game but in our mod (BJR) for CEaW v6 both Iraq and Kuwait join the Allies in 1941, which represent the historical outcome to which you refer.

[Redpossum]

I don't know about the vanilla game but in our mod (BJR) for CEaW v6 both Iraq and Kuwait join the Allies in 1941, which represent the historical outcome to which you refer.

No it doesn't.

You have to take Iran to open that connection from the Middle East to the USSR. Iraq alone won't do it, and unless you've moved Kuwait to Azerbaijan, that won't help out much either

Furthermore, Kuwait did not become an independent nation until 1961...

[rkr1958]

I don't know about the vanilla game but in our mod (BJR) for CEaW v6 both Iraq and Kuwait join the Allies in 1941, which represent the historical outcome to which you refer.

No it doesn't.

You have to take Iran to open that connection from the Middle East to the USSR. Iraq alone won't do it, and unless you've moved Kuwait to Azerbaijan, that won't help out much either

Furthermore, Kuwait did not become an independent nation until 1961...

My bad. I misread "Iran" as "Iraq". And, I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote the above response. I'm also an old AH 3rd Reich player and WW-II historical buff and knew darn well that Lend Lease went through Persia. In fact AH 3rd rules state that the 25 BRPs for a DOW and offensive action against Persia represented the cost of improving the infurstructure in Persia to support Lend Lease to Russia. I must have been tired when I wrote the above, so ignore most of what I wrote.

I can't recall if Persia is Axis leaning or not in our mod but one easy fix to address this issue raised by Diplomaticus in both the vanilla and in our mod (if not already address) is to change Persia from Allied-leaning neutral to neutral. Then either the Allies or the Axis would be able to invade and conquer Persia. This would be a very easy change to make to the vanilla game.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

It's possible to DoW Persia as the Allies in the BJR mod. Jim just did it against me when he was being the Allies. He wanted to get a chance to rail Allied units to southern Russia because I had the Russians on the run and captured Gorki, Stalingrad etc.

I gave him a nasty surprise by marching a Persian corps towards Baku. It captured an oilfield, Baku itself and depleted a Russian fighter at its airbase to 2 steps before the British captured Teheran. He eventually recaptured Baku and the oilfield, but he had to make an amphibious landing near Baku.

So in the BJR mod you can definitely DoW Persia. Whether it's a good idea or not remains to be seen. The Germans got 8 extra oil resources for some turns. That yields more than 32 extra oil per turn. It takes maybe 4 turns or more until the Allies can capture Teheran and force a Persian surrender. So you give 130+ extra oil to Germany by DoW'ing Persia.

[rkr1958]

It's possible to DoW Persia as the Allies in the BJR mod. Jim just did it against me when he was being the Allies. He wanted to get a chance to rail Allied units to southern Russia because I had the Russians on the run and captured Gorki, Stalingrad etc.

I gave him a nasty surprise by marching a Persian corps towards Baku. It captured an oilfield, Baku itself and depleted a Russian fighter at its airbase to 2 steps before the British captured Teheran. He eventually recaptured Baku and the oilfield, but he had to make an amphibious landing near Baku.

So in the BJR mod you can definitely DoW Persia. Whether it's a good idea or not remains to be seen. The Germans got 8 extra oil resources for some turns. That yields more than 32 extra oil per turn. It takes maybe 4 turns or more until the Allies can capture Teheran and force a Persian surrender. So you give 130+ extra oil to Germany by DoW'ing Persia.

That definitely sounds like Jim! He's always got a surprise or two up his sleeve.

[Redpossum]

I don't know about the vanilla game but in our mod (BJR) for CEaW v6 both Iraq and Kuwait join the Allies in 1941, which represent the historical outcome to which you refer.

No it doesn't.

You have to take Iran to open that connection from the Middle East to the USSR. Iraq alone won't do it, and unless you've moved Kuwait to Azerbaijan, that won't help out much either

Furthermore, Kuwait did not become an independent nation until 1961...

My bad. I misread "Iran" as "Iraq". And, I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote the above response. I'm also an old AH 3rd Reich player and WW-II historical buff and knew darn well that Lend Lease went through Persia. In fact AH 3rd rules state that the 25 BRPs for a DOW and offensive action against Persia represented the cost of improving the infurstructure in Persia to support Lend Lease to Russia. I must have been tired when I wrote the above, so ignore most of what I wrote.

I can't recall if Persia is Axis leaning or not in our mod but one easy fix to address this issue raised by Diplomaticus in both the vanilla and in our mod (if not already address) is to change Persia from Allied-leaning neutral to neutral. Then either the Allies or the Axis would be able to invade and conquer Persia. This would be a very easy change to make to the vanilla game.

Easy mistake to make.

To review things I'm sure you already know, that part of the world has changed enormously since WW2, and really hasn't been stable for almost a hundred years. Prior to 1915 most of what we today call the Middle East was part of the old Ottoman Turkish Empire. The Allies, mostly Great Britain, just sort of grabbed it by force majeure at the end of WW1, and it hadn't really been sorted out by the time WW2 started.

Of course there were political complications, like the Balfour Declaration. And the Seven Sisters, the oil companies, had known at least since the late 20's that there were huge oil deposits throughout much of the Middle East. Anyone capable of thinking ahead could see that control of those oil reserves would put the British Empire in a much better position.

As an amusing (and only tenuously related) aside, imagine how different the world would be today if the UK still controlled a portion of the oil resources of the Middle East. Britain could say bugger North Sea oil.