Gibraltese Stalingrad

[mailinutile2]

The one thing that has always intrigued me about WWII was how few times the Germans managed to fully penetrate a prepared and manned defensive position that they couldn't go around.

IIRC Sevastopol is it, and that took them way longer than it should have.

Manstein got a lot of credit just for achieving to do so.
Obviouisly his memories are biased, but the difficulties in doing so were really great: doing so in 9 months while patrolling crimea, rebuffing kerch attack and keeping the 11th army as an effective combat unit was a great result in my opinion.
Also we have probably the first sea landing operation of this sort here.

What would be a reasonable time schedule in your opinion?

 

[Larrikin]

Manstein got a lot of credit just for achieving to do so.
Obviouisly his memories are biased, but the difficulties in doing so were really great: doing so in 9 months while patrolling crimea, rebuffing kerch attack and keeping the 11th army as an effective combat unit was a great result in my opinion.
Also we have probably the first sea landing operation of this sort here.

What would be a reasonable time schedule in your opinion?

About 4 months is all it should take you to crack the toughest nut if you are going to do it. At the other end of the line the never managed to fully crack the defenses around Leningrad, and that failure cost them big.

 

[sloreck]

In order for "the Axis takes Gibraltar" to work the POD needs to be Franco wins the Civil War in less than a year. By the end of the Civil War Spain's economy and infrastructure, which was backward even before the war, was in terrible shape. Just transporting and keeping supplied the German forces listed in an earlier post would be difficult if not impossible and certainly would take some time giving the Brits plenty of notice. This gives them the opportunity to act preemptively and hot areas of concentration of the artillery and transportation systems. Because of the limits of the Gib airfield these might be shuttle runs, and won't last long but will make life difficult for the Axis. Also because the preparations will be so transparent the Brits will be able to evacuate many non-combatants & bring in supplies.

Even if the Civil War is very short, and Spain not devastated, essentially all oil for Spain was imported, much from the US - join the Axis & that stops.

BTW in terms of the Canaries, the Germans could have transported a division or 2 there as well as some Luftwaffe assets covertly or semi so in Spanish flagged vessels before the attack on Gibraltar. With decent troops, some air support in the Canaries, the Brits can stage a naval raid but an amphibious landing in 1940 is very very iffy. The Kriegsmarine would have loved owning the Canaries as an advanced base for subs and recon a/c.

However, the only way Franco would join Hitler would be if he had won very rapidly in the Civil War and therefore Spain was in decent shape AND he thought Hitler was going to win AND he was offered Gibraltar & choices bits of the French Empire.

After the meeting at Hendaye in 1940 or 1941, Hitler described dealing with Franco as being like going to the dentist.

 

[tez]

About 4 months is all it should take you to crack the toughest nut if you are going to do it. At the other end of the line the never managed to fully crack the defenses around Leningrad, and that failure cost them big.

I seem to recall that they never wanted to take Leningrad, at least not with live people still in there.

 

[Grimm Reaper]

This idea of Spain wanting more of North Africa shows an alarming lack of awareness of the Rif War which lasted five years and took 300,000 French and Spanish troops to finish. Now the natives can count on British support...

As for the extreme unlikelihood of Germany being able to sneak divisions(!) of troops to the Canaries without the British noticing, this is far more likely to see most of the Spanish merchant marine(and navy?) being destroyed by the British along with the German troops, if Franco was lucky.

As for French territory, I'll assume this means Hitler has decidedly to utterly alienate Vichy France in return for an immediate and substantial burden of an ally.

 

[mailinutile2]

the Rif War which lasted five years and took 300,000 French and Spanish troops to finish.

Which also mean that they wanted that, so bad that they were willing go pour a lot of blood to have it

As for the extreme unlikelihood of Germany being able to sneak divisions(!) of troops to the Canaries without the British noticing, this is far more likely to see most of the Spanish merchant marine(and navy?) being destroyed by the British along with the German troops, if Franco was lucky.

Agree.
The Canaries are to be lost and the navy has to stay in habour for the whole conflict.

As for French territory, I'll assume this means Hitler has decidedly to utterly alienate Vichy France in return for an immediate and substantial burden of an ally.

Not necessarily. Northwestern france is basque territory and could more or less be traded without any serious ripercussions.
France would not smile at loosing western algeria, but the french fleet destruction by the allies is a sore wound, and petain is keeping things calm

 

[Larrikin]

I seem to recall that they never wanted to take Leningrad, at least not with live people still in there.

I'm not sure where you got that from. Leningrad was not only the spiritual home of the Glorious Communist Revolution, but an important strategic target.

Not only does eliminating the Leningrad enclave shorten the German front, it also provides a major port to take a load off the railways supplying the northern part of the front. It solves a major transportation problem. It also enables a serious thrust to cut off Arkangelsk etc.

 

[mailinutile2]

The germans wanted badly to get Leningrad.
They wanted it so much that they transferred there their most expert general in siege warfare.
who was ...
Manstein, who acquired the fame with the siege of Sebastopol.

Only, when he arrived the northern wing of the red army had the german pushed away from the city and no siege was possible.
Manstein blocked the russian initiative and stabilized the northern ffont, and then was transferred south again

 

[Larrikin]

The germans wanted badly to get Leningrad.
They wanted it so much that they transferred there their most expert general in siege warfare.
who was ...
Manstein, who acquired the fame with the siege of Sebastopol.

Only, when he arrived the northern wing of the red army had the german pushed away from the city and no siege was possible.
Manstein blocked the russian initiative and stabilized the northern ffont, and then was transferred south again

Exactly the point I'm making, aside from Sevastopol the Germans failed every time the were faced with properly manned fixed defences. If they couldn't go around a problem they didn't do real good with Plan B.

 

[mailinutile2]

Exactly the point I'm making, aside from Sevastopol the Germans failed every time the were faced with properly manned fixed defences. If they couldn't go around a problem they didn't do real good with Plan B.

Belgium, Holland

.

 

[tez]

I'm not sure where you got that from. Leningrad was not only the spiritual home of the Glorious Communist Revolution, but an important strategic target.

Not only does eliminating the Leningrad enclave shorten the German front, it also provides a major port to take a load off the railways supplying the northern part of the front. It solves a major transportation problem. It also enables a serious thrust to cut off Arkangelsk etc.

What I was getting at was that they did not to my knowledge attempt to actually overwhelm the defenses, unlike for example at Stalingrad, because they preferred to wait until everyone inside had starved.

 

[jlckansas]

2 points on this one:

1. Britain doesn't have to win they just don't have to loose/last as long as they can with Gibralter. This is a classic hold on as long as you can till we can reinforce or take as many down with you as you can. Meat grinder effect in other words.

2. Sevastapol. Germany had to bring in the heavy guns. Basically the new 12" and heavier RR guns to destroy the defenses there. Things like the 600mm mortars and the 800mm RR gun Carl Gustav were used because the Aircraft bombs were incapable of destroying the emplacements. In the case of the Gib if they can hold off the initial ground assault with the guns and infantry there the Germans would have to bring those types of weapons to bear on them. They did not have the 600mm mortars and Carl Gustav available at that time, they did have many 12" and larger RR guns available at the time. How this would play out with them having to range against the RN ships/aircraft and RAF aircraft would not be known.

 

[danwild6]

What we need here is a France fights on scenario. Spanish Morocco would probably get overrun pretty quickly and with airfields just across the straight Gibraltar's defense becomes much easier and with the French Fleet backing up the RN helps a lot to.

 

[Larrikin]

Belgium, Holland

.

Fully manned? I think not. Eban Email, for example, was only at about 1/4 strength and on peace time rosters.

 

[Larrikin]

What I was getting at was that they did not to my knowledge attempt to actually overwhelm the defenses, unlike for example at Stalingrad, because they preferred to wait until everyone inside had starved.

Oh, they tried, they just failed. And then they tried again, and failed, and then again. Then they tried to starve them out, which is a bit hard to do when the place has an open supply line behind it.

 

[mailinutile2]

Fully manned? I think not. Eban Email, for example, was only at about 1/4 strength and on peace time rosters.

Brest Litovsk, if you prefer

 

[BlairWitch749]

The Strait of Kerch is the other side of the Crimean Peninsular to Sevastopol, the Soviets very definitely didn't supply it from there. They did launch a counter offensive across it in the winter of 41/42 but it didn't make it as far as Sevastopol and was then thrown back.

Manstein didn;t clear out everything except Sevastapol for several months (and it required a major offensive which tired out his army) during that time before operation Buzzard cleared them out, they where supplied over the strait, once the garison was isolated, then they relied on the fortress's organic resources or night shipments (via batumi, tuapse and other ports, which where so close to sevastapol that they could go and come back in the hours of darkness if the ship had the appropriate speed)

Gibraltar involves a 500 mile plus supply line where for at least two days worth of daylight comming and going, British ships would be in danger of land based bombers, and during the actual offloading they would be smothered by artillery. The Russians where indifferent to losses, (Hans Rudel alone sank 70 transports and landing craft), where the British would be very sensitive to warships and transports lost, because it has implications in the battle of the atlantic

Once Spain joins their camp, the British would be wise to destroy as much of the installation as possible and then cut their losses... a worse strategic battle than Crete wouldn't be good for them

 

[BlairWitch749]

About 4 months is all it should take you to crack the toughest nut if you are going to do it. At the other end of the line the never managed to fully crack the defenses around Leningrad, and that failure cost them big.

The 11th army had NO panzer divisions during 95 percent of the siege. They recieved the raw 22nd panzer division in the closing stages, which had the strength of perhaps a battalion. Half of their divisions where Romanian, its not easy to conduct major offensive against a blooded enemy when half of your army doesn't speak your language, have your tactical doctrines, and their equipment sucks. Also, the 11th Army didn't have any elite infantry divisions of the sort you would want in a city busting/fortress cracking operations. They had regular line infantry, not skilled veterans like Grossdeuchland or the Leibstandarte or the 1st East Prussian Wolfhounds.

The overwhelming committment of airpower, and artillery power took several months to build up, and the 11th army was for the most part numerically inferior to their opponents... not to mention that even after Buzzard cleared the rest of the Crimea Manstein constantly had to leave two corps to guard his flanks against renewed landings, thus only leaving him two to conduct his pressure operations against Sevastopol, he was lucky to even capture the fortress at all IMO

 

[BlairWitch749]

Oh, they tried, they just failed. And then they tried again, and failed, and then again. Then they tried to starve them out, which is a bit hard to do when the place has an open supply line behind it.

They took Kiev which had a big army defending it (after successfully surrounding it) Stalingrad and Leningrad where failures because the cities where not cut off.

They took Tobruk which had more defenders than the entire africa corps (albiet the failed at their attempts the year before)

Gibraltar is impossible to resupply in the face of axis artillery and airpower so even if the battle was bloody (which I am sure it would be) inevitably the British run out of ammo, water or men who can fight pretty quickly. They would be able to emplace guns a mere mile or two from the harbor itself... and with air superiority, feisler storch aircraft can spot the fall of the rounds over the rock itself into the harbor, making unloading a nightmare

Even if the British hole up in the rock itself expecting to tie the axis up for a couple of weeks or months, the water casemate areas are on the lower gallery level, and exceedingly vulnerable to german jaegers or brandenergers working their way towards them, placing shaped charges on them and destroying them. With the water casemates gone, resistance ends almost immediately because the men inside would be limited to what is in their canteens in a hot humid cave complex

 

[Larrikin]

They took Kiev which had a big army defending it (after successfully surrounding it) Stalingrad and Leningrad where failures because the cities where not cut off.

They took Tobruk which had more defenders than the entire africa corps (albiet the failed at their attempts the year before)

They went around Kiev, they didn't attack it.

Tobruk in 1942 was not Tobruk in 1941. In 1942 it's defenses had been stripped to provide for the Gazala line, which the German's went around.