Yes please on the article. :-)

They don't have to introduce new aircraft. 90% of the high performance aircraft they have built since 1939 was designed to run on 87 octane or higher fuel ( Migs, Yak etc. ). Unfortunately the Refineries they ordered to fuel them were cancelled by the Americans the moment they invaded Poland and Finland. They cut back the amount of training flights after that and they did have some capacity installed before then but it was one of the biggest issues for the Russians up to when they were attacked and a very well kept secret. It is also one of the reasons they kept the I-15 and I-16 in frontline service as long as they did as it could run on what the Russians could make. Now some of the aircraft that used engines based on the DB601 that the Russians got under license were tuned to use 81 Octane but there performance and engine life were very poor ( less than 24 hours ). Within 10 days of the German's attacking Russia, the first Tankers from the US and Dutch east indies began to arrive in Vladivostok. The first set of tankers delivered half a year of Russian AVGAS production.

As for the infastructure in the Black Sea area. Its still extremely vulnerable.

The Convoys to Murmansk the US joined, they made there own to the Persian Gulf and the Soviet Artic ( through the Bering Sea ) and Black Sea.

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BTW, I'm not sure the Turks would appreciate mines in the Bosphorus ...


They dealt with them in oTL on the Black Sea side all the time. As long as it didn't disrupt there shipping they were ok.

Russ / Roller007