25,900 trucks would be required, not including wastage. In comparison, 600,000 were assembled for Barbarossa.
Hitler has a "smarter" 1941
- Thread starter goodguy777
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25,900 trucks would be required, not including wastage. In comparison, 600,000 were assembled for Barbarossa.
One might as well say: "For the purposes of the discussion, the dissolution of the Soviet Union will be based on the planning assumption that Moscow is captured in 1941."
A planning assumption like that needs at least some semblance of reality for there to be a meaningful discussion, no?
A planning assumption like that needs at least some semblance of reality for there to be a meaningful discussion, no?
You're right of course. Field Marshall Haig smashed the combined French and Spanish fleets under the combined leadership of 58-star General Charles De Gaulle and Speedy Gonzales. The battle showed the power of the Royal Navy's nuclear powered 104 gun First Rates.
You asked why I think the British could be hard pressed to hold Egypt if Germany cancels Barbarossa and goes all-out in the Med. I told you. As near as I can tell, you completely overlooked the impact in Egypt of the Axis taking Tunisia and Marsailles. How you could possibly claim to be a logistics 'expert' then fail to properly reckon for the capture of Bizerte and Tunis by the Axis in 1940, I leave for you to explain. Do you think the Italians didn't want to invade and annex Tunis in July 1940? I assure you, they were quite up for it. Do you think Franco was too much a fan of FDR not to want to annex more of Morocco? I think Spanish Algiers might have had quite a ring to it in Madrid.
Whether you think the French resistance or Spanish partisans would be a serious strategic concern, or whether by 1944 a large scale insurgency was raging in Spain - these are irrelevent to the question of a 1940-1941 Axis ME offensive. I dismiss these as serious impediments to capturing Vichy North Africa, Marsailles, and controlling Iberia - the preconditions that I think are necessary for an offensive in sufficient strength to have a good chance to take Alexandria.
In terms of the position in Iberia, this forces more RN strength into the Atlantic. The problem is that if too much RN strength is sapped away, then the Axis fleets might undertake sea invasions into the ME area, if remaining RN strength is insufficient.
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My planning assumptions are -
1. With the cancellation of Barbarossa, the Axis can support a major offensive in the Med, and that the fuel not spent in Russia is sufficient for a naval war against Britain.
2. The Axis can control Iberia and maintain communications sufficient to support a major fleet there.
3. The occupation of Iberia and the fall of Gibraltar would weaken the RN in the Med, and that Malta will fall.
4. The Axis can move shipping from the Atlantic to ease the shipping problems in the Med, and use Marsailles to enhance overstrained Italian shipping facilities.
5. The Tunisian deep water ports provide the extra 'umpf' necessary for North African logistics.
6. That the Axis transferring barges and such to the Med to create over-the-beach logistics are not to be part of our discussion
7. The French fleet may or may not be captured, but the occupation of all Vichy ports gives access to more shipping and some warships may be captured or repairable after scuttling.
8. Crete can be transformed into a forward offensive air and sea base using captured Greek resources.
9. That if Germany and the USSR agree to partition Turkey, the British will lose the entire Middle East.
10. That even if the British were to lose the ME, the British would not yet be defeated in the war.
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thaddeus
Donor
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the purpose of eliminating the Soviet fleet is to move German ships within range to bombard Leningrad.
same in the Black Sea, move the subs there in 1941 than were not moved til 1942 OTL, eliminate the Soviet fleet, expands your options greatly.
btw, my scenario is implicitly disagreeing with invading N.Africa with the exceptions of seizing Malta (basically for political victory and cover their a__ on supply route) and seizing Tunisia as an alternate first step of Case Anton occupation of all Vichy France.
Saphroneth
Banned
1) Right. Assuming they've got the sealift, at least.
2) Define "control".
3) Well, that'd take at least six months if they turned up in front of Gibralter instantly. With the time taken to essentially subdue a still-very-militarized country with crap logistics and lots of rifles? With the Nationalists hating your communist allies, the Republicans hating you, and both sides hating the Germans? I'd say eight months to a year from the start of the invasion.
4) They can dash through a couple of warships, once. General ship movement is literally asking for the Royal Navy to sink it. BTW, the Germans didn't have much shipping either.
5) The Tunisian deep water ports are still thousands of miles away from the front line. Most of it will need lorries, and because you need to account for the fuel those lorries burn - and French tiralleurs - it might not help all that much.
6) Because it'd be impossible anyway. So the small German fleet of large steamers is the logistical boost... right. Easy targets for the RN, I'd say.
7) Why would occupation of ports necessarily give more shipping? Most of the fleets of surrendered powers went straight into the Allied pool, not the Axis one. And the warships may well be TCL - Total Constructive Loss - meaning that it's cheaper and easier to break them up for scrap and build a new one. As I believe they were OTL.
8) Crete has awful logistics, and supplying it exposes your ships to the RN.
9) Turkey won't agree to partition Turkey! You're now tied down in a second guerilla war with terrible logistics - there ain't many train lines there - and all your mountain troops are already engaged in the Pyrenees. And the Atlases. Meanwhile, the British Indian Army is deploying through Persia to the Middle East, thus hinging the unhinged flank. (OTL, the deployment of troops here was relatively sparse, because the area wasn't much threatened. That changes here, and the B.I.A can number several million, all volunteers.) This means that you need large numbers of trucks to:
Carry supplies from and to rail heads
Carry supplies over the Pyrenees when you're attacking through them
Carry supplies for your invasion of Turkey - and through Turkey
Carry supplies in Africa
And carry supplies through the Middle East
And those six million trucks are going to evaporate surprisingly fast, because a LOT of them are captured French/British/Dutch/Belgian/Polish/Czech/Whoever, and as such your repairs logistics is going to be both complicated and nigh incomprehensible.
Partisans are going to be ambushing and destroying the trucks wherever they can (it only takes a log in the road and a rifle, and then you've shot the driver and can steal or wreck the truck plus supplies).
10) That I can agree with.
Question. If you seem to think that it's entirely doable to use only trucks to supply a force of ~15-20 divisions, then why is it that logistics is highlighted as the reason every advance in the war petered out? And why is it that trucks are very much
(Heck. Your truck supply route from Tunis has to carry 4,400 km worth of fuel per truck load round trip, which amounts according to your numbers to 1,320 litres of fuel per truckload. Which is 3,000 lb of fuel. Yes, your trucks are over half full of fuel. THIS kind of thing is why supply runs aren't very useful over that kind of distance - you end up spending most of your supply capacity just carrying fuel.)
http://www.almc.army.mil/alog/issues/JanFeb01/MS610.htm
cites that for one motorized division, for 300 miles away from the point of supply, it was estimated that 39 columns each of 30 2-ton trucks would be needed over and above the divisional transport. That's essentially 1,200 trucks, for one division, for 300 miles.
"Considering the size of the forces in the theater and the unavailability, on average, of 35 percent of his vehicles because of mechanical problems, Rommel would have needed over 5,000 trucks dedicated to supplying his three divisions over a 300-mile line of communication."
And remember, it takes more than double the trucks for double the transport distance, because you have to move the fuel.
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The American and British people had largely (not entirely, but largely) forgotten about the Nazi-Soviet pact existed by 1941. So long as the Red Army remains relatively inactive, that will probably continue to be the case. Needless to say, neither the US or Britain is going to declare war on the Soviet Union unless Stalin invades, say, Turkey. And he knows it. Which is, incidentally, why he won't be invading Turkey.
The issue was never the amount of fuel available. The issue was always transporting said fuel first to Tripoli, overcoming both British interdiction and the ports shipping bottleneck, and then across the North African desert.
Oh, so the British are never going to lose the Middle East then.
Also, the political consequences of enacting Case Anton for no bloody reason probably see both the Vichy French navy and the French forces in North Africa promptly join the Free French.
Sealift capacity being (1) the port of embarkation (2) the characteristics and numbers of the transport ships themselves (3) the method of debarkation (4) the capacity of the enemy to interdict the system.
“Control” is defined as sufficient communications for the Axis to maintain its position in Iberia. The easiest (and safest) method would be to attack Vichy France to annex its territories. Since no insurgency has ever managed to cut the communications of a Great Power in field operations, I think it’s totally ASB to wank that happening in this case.
Once Gibraltar is under siege it for all intents and purposes will have been neutralized and no longer matters in terms of the outcome in the Med. So, within a month of the Axis movement into Vichy North Africa and Spain’s joining the Axis Powers, Gibraltar is neutralized. Only later would it fall, at which point the Spanish would annex it.
The RN’s capacity to attrite enemy fleets and merchant ships seems no different whether these were on war operations or moving from point A to point B, so this observation looks to be a wash.
I provided the planning assumptions for the Tunisian ports. Address them directly.
Once Gibraltar is neutralized and Malta has fallen, the nearest British base is almost a thousand miles from the communication route to Tripoli, and the route to Tunis would be next to impossible to interdict.
In terms of barge transportation, you should be very careful before making glib assumptions. Barges capable of over-the-beach logistics (ie, making any point along the coastal road a port) might move on the open sea at 4kt or so. The Japanese in the Pacific were highly successful in this, because barges are cheap to mass produce quickly, and can carry significant payloads in calm waters – it’s a bitch on this one, because the Med so happens to be a calm sea most of the time.
The barge routes, in comparison to Axis airfields would mean that RN warships would come under air attack just to try and interdict the routes. At 4kt, the barge transit times are –
Sicily to Tunis – about 35 hours
Malta to Tripoli – about 44 hours
Crete to Tobruk – about 44 hours
From Alexandria at 20kt, the time for the RN to get to the routes are –
Tunis 1000nm = 50 hours.
Tripoli 800nm = 40 hours
Crete 300nm = 12 hours (at 25kt)
Only on the Crete run could warships at Alexandria reliably intercept barges enroute. But look at the map - casualties to air attack even on the Crete-Tobruk run would be considerable. Does Germany have more barges than the British have cruisers and destroyers?
Because civilians don’t scuttle their merchant ships in response to "new landlords". They rent them to the new landlords.
Could be. Either way, it doesn’t exactly take a genius to figure out that if you are invading Vichy France and intend to have Spain and Italy annex all of its North African territories, it’s probably a good idea to finish the French fleet one way or another, right?
1. The RN operating in the Aegean after Crete falls would lead to far too many losses to air attack.
2. The logistics of Crete are sufficient to serve as an air and barge transportation base.
I wasn’t’ aware that Turkey's permission was required? Did the Turks have the ignition keys to Russian and German tanks, or is this another one of those Anatolian peasants with a 1914 carbine are going to stop the Red Army type observations?
I see you are assuming Spain fights when it seems obvious that Spain would make a deal to annex Gibraltar and Algiers - try not to let wishful thinking cloud your judgment. As for partisans, same as above – partisans can degrade communications, but they cannot cut communications. If Turkey is partitioned by Germany and the USSR, the game is up – Britain will be ejected from the Middle East.
600,000 not 6 million.
The issue of the fuel the Italian fleet needing being diverted to the Eastern Front had a *enormous* impact on the Italian navy's ability to project power by 1941/1942.
Either way, the Axis will take Tunisia for the drive on Alexandria and Vichy North Africa will be annexed by Italy and Spain.
Saphroneth
Banned
The Italian navy's ships were also fuel-hungry and didn't have much tankage (i.e. fuel capacity)
Here's a comparison. Littorio-class are listed as having ~5000 knots range. Nelson-class are listed at over 15,000 knots range...
Also, I'd just like to point out at least one factually incorrect thing you mention in the prior post. I can't go through the lot because I'm strapped for time, but "Because civilians don’t scuttle their merchant ships in response to "new landlords". They rent them to the new landlords."
That's historically false, specifically in WW2. When their country is invaded, civilians in port or at sea just defect to the Allies - it happened with every country in Europe that got invaded. The Belgian, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Polish and French Merchant Marines all sailed off to the Allied powers - as I believe did most of the Greek one, though I'm less certain on that, and the Yugoslav one.
More generally, your blithe dismissal of partisans is at odds with the last two centuries of history. Partisans may not have cut great power operation lines, but only because the great powers allocated several divisions' worth of troops to reducing the harm they caused! The garrison of Poland in 1942 was enormous.
I think that it's reasonable to expect that if Hitler made it a strategic priority, Spain would join the Axis. In the unlikely situation Spain refuses to cooperate, the huge forces allocated for Barbarossa would have been more than enough to take Spain, close the straights of Gibraltar, and hold down any insurgency. From there, Malta falls. I don't know if the benefits of "unifying" the Italian and German fleets are very worthwhile, because Britain would gain airbases in the Azores and Canaries. The Italian Navy was not meant to fight in the Atlantic, and it makes no difference to the Royal Navy whether they're fighting the Italians in the Mediterranean or the Atlantic.
Turkey being invaded/divided by the Axis doesn't make Britain's situation any better, but it doesn't improve Germany's much either. It's a long, torturous way from Istanbul to Baghdad, as well as from Istanbul to Cairo.
The only objective that matters is the Suez Canal, and the Axis faces a significant bottleneck getting there. Sure, without trying to conduct the largest invasion of history, the Axis has more resources to play with, and they can "increase the pressure" on one side of the bottleneck and it will presumably give some results. But those results will be governed by the laws of diminishing returns. If the North African campaign was a close thing decided by a coin flip, the extra trickle of forces might have been decisive. However, I thought the British always had decisive control of the main goal: control of Suez.
If Suez does fall somehow, that is a devastating defeat for the British, and the Axis has plenty new troublesome options. But all Britain has to do is hang on until Pearl Harbor.
Turkey being invaded/divided by the Axis doesn't make Britain's situation any better, but it doesn't improve Germany's much either. It's a long, torturous way from Istanbul to Baghdad, as well as from Istanbul to Cairo.
The only objective that matters is the Suez Canal, and the Axis faces a significant bottleneck getting there. Sure, without trying to conduct the largest invasion of history, the Axis has more resources to play with, and they can "increase the pressure" on one side of the bottleneck and it will presumably give some results. But those results will be governed by the laws of diminishing returns. If the North African campaign was a close thing decided by a coin flip, the extra trickle of forces might have been decisive. However, I thought the British always had decisive control of the main goal: control of Suez.
If Suez does fall somehow, that is a devastating defeat for the British, and the Axis has plenty new troublesome options. But all Britain has to do is hang on until Pearl Harbor.
How much does Suez matter? Politically, it's a big deal, losing Suez may be enough to bring down the Government, while loss of the bits of Eighth Army that couldn't be evacuated would be another serious blow.
But militarily? The Med has already been closed at Sicily, while there are further choke points at Massawa and Aden to block the Axis from the Indian Ocean. What does taking Suez give the Axis? It's a base from which to attack into the Gulf, but the terrain and logistics are terrible and without neutralising Aden you're not getting any oil home. North Africa just looks like a strategic dead end to me.
But militarily? The Med has already been closed at Sicily, while there are further choke points at Massawa and Aden to block the Axis from the Indian Ocean. What does taking Suez give the Axis? It's a base from which to attack into the Gulf, but the terrain and logistics are terrible and without neutralising Aden you're not getting any oil home. North Africa just looks like a strategic dead end to me.
Mill Pond Med
Got quite a few issues with this ....... A couple of searches quickly turn up the following
1/. The Med is not a calm sea. Today for example wave heights vary from 0.1m to 3.5m
Last updated: Mo, 05 May, 00:41 BST
These charts are for guidance only, actually gusts and wave heights may be considerably higher than those shown.
2/. 10m waves have damaged cruise ships link to article (sorry it's the Daily Mail)
3/. There are currents in the Med see here form 1.5 to 3.5 knots and even a two knot current passing along Suez Canal
4/. Lastly your transit times, the RN all at Alexandria waiting to set sail to intercept the convoys..... James Somerville, Andrew Cunningham or any other RN commander are just not going to do this.
Got quite a few issues with this ....... A couple of searches quickly turn up the following
1/. The Med is not a calm sea. Today for example wave heights vary from 0.1m to 3.5m
Last updated: Mo, 05 May, 00:41 BST
These charts are for guidance only, actually gusts and wave heights may be considerably higher than those shown.
2/. 10m waves have damaged cruise ships link to article (sorry it's the Daily Mail)
3/. There are currents in the Med see here form 1.5 to 3.5 knots and even a two knot current passing along Suez Canal
4/. Lastly your transit times, the RN all at Alexandria waiting to set sail to intercept the convoys..... James Somerville, Andrew Cunningham or any other RN commander are just not going to do this.
He was STILL harping on about "Appeals to Reason" and agreements with the British, once Russia was out the way (of course, Himmler still felt it was possible in April 1945, which would be hilarious were the implications not so disturbing, given who he was and what he did!)
Basically, a smart Hitler in '41 defeats Russia. No Yugoslav nightmare (focus Italy and allies there, continue with May plan) no delay, no diverting AGC troops southwards to the Kiev pocket... some or all of which means the Moscow attack occurs before allllll the eastern defence Soviet defence troops are diverted from a pre-Pearl Harbour Japan that looked like an extremely threatening neighbour to Moscow (from Manchuria!) leaving Moscow far more vulnerable.
No war with the USA probably follows, and I'm sure peace feelers would at least seem more amenable to Britain, even if GB would never consider an armistice against an 'everywhere triumphant' Germany and no prospect of Russian alliance.
WWII would become a lot more convoluted, with Anglo-America, Germany and minor Axis powers, and Japan all separate powers.
*Assuming Pearl Harbour still happens, Japan meets the same fate, being unable to hold down so much Asian territory, fight a war in China (!) and still hold off the Anglo-Americans.
*Britain and Germany remain in hostile stalemate, or - less likely - reach a conditional peace.
*If Hitler declares war on USA after Pearl Harbour, he has a similar problem to Imperial Japan - a LOT of land to occupy, inc. Russia and Baltics, and having to deal with British bombing campaigns, US Navy joining the RN at sea and the eventual Overlord scenario... things work out similar to RL WWII, only with Russia being liberated, as opposed to "liberators", and in the ascendency.
*If ^ it goes that way, no Cold War. Anglo-America, NATO powers or just America by itself (by virtue of British war debt and damage, plus the decline of the Empire) as the sole remaining world superpower.
~
But short term - I guess a smart 1941 takes Russia out of the game, and Hitler and the Axis have a longer, less damaging (sans nukes of course!) and less Soviet slant to their ultimate defeat, due to continued logistical impossibilities and the comparative ability to produce and rearm of the US/UK alliance.
Saphroneth
Banned
It's arguable if the USSR that actually existed in 1941 could be taken out in one year. They came close, thanks to a combination of skill and luck, but they'd already picked pretty much the perfect strike time and managed to avoid overextending their spearheads. If they'd pushed much further at any point, they would have.
And by 1942, there's large transfers of forces west and the Nazis have to pick their targets carefully, as the Red Army rebuilds staggeringly fast.
If the USSR had politically collapsed 1917-style (as the Nazis expected), they might have won. But it didn't.
And by 1942, there's large transfers of forces west and the Nazis have to pick their targets carefully, as the Red Army rebuilds staggeringly fast.
If the USSR had politically collapsed 1917-style (as the Nazis expected), they might have won. But it didn't.
Look, I'm a total newbie in the forum but... there sufficient lift capacity to ship all these trucks into NA? How long would it take to load 26K trucks, how many ships would it take, how many convoys, how much naval and air assets for escort and coverage, how much supplies and fuel needed just to ship the things (and feed the people involved), port capacity in NA sufficient to handle the shipping, enough facilities to house, maintain and repair the trucks and would this also involve the RN drinking tea and eating scones while all of the above is happening.
Assuming the Spanish roll-over, what would stop the RN from blockading or simply blowing up Spanish ships in port. I am being generous here by assuming no Spaniard will either try to a) sabotage/ scuttle the ships or simply sailing off.
Assuming the Spanish don't roll over and assuming that the Panzer divisions also double up as mountain troops and can climb mountain ranges, what would stop the Spanish navy and merchant marine from scuttling or simple sailing off?
I won't even mention the political fall-out (which others have already pointed out) which shows everyone (esp the two Uncles Joe and Sam) how much Hiltler likes to gobble up those around him.