Afrika Korps: 6 Months Early! - Alternate History

hello everyone we have a very special video today over the years many people asked for an alternate history scenario from my channel and I always said I don't know enough and I think one person is definitely not enough and we need you need several specialists because there's so much going on if you want to do alternate history on a not shallow level and so we prepared we have talked in different on naval expert and military aviation is to Bismarck as the mullet is the aviation expert of course and we're gonna look at a situation where the Germans in 1940 go actually for a strategy in the Mediterranean a more proactive were so to keep it short the historical situation is basically similar until the Battle of Dunkirk but then in all situation Hitler recognizes that the British won't give in so easily as such he looks further and thinks ok we need to put the British out of the war how can we do it and it goes for more proactive stance in the Mediterranean now the historical situation was there's different fusionist most some say Hitler ignored the Mediterranean other say this was not the case the thing is that say that he didn't think know what he looked at was we need Frank LaRosa patan because this was their sphere of influence and we will go in this scenario basically that the purchase pushes further and that Mussolini and Frank want to tank go mostly with it so we won't discuss how he convinces them because like in at least October 1940 he suggested giving the Italians Panzer divisions but the talent channel stuff said no we want to do it on our own North Africa so we know at least that that happened so basically now we're gonna first with discussing the Chairman's strategy after the Battle of France and the first one is here how much we keep in France to defend it so for the army the Luftwaffe in the clicks Medina and then how much pressure the chairman still keep in France or in the Battle of Britain and I think so basically let's start with the neighbor side for the critical meaning what do we need in this situation so if you're going to go from Mediterranean focus a lot of the Kriegsmarine assets that are in France are obviously the u-boats trying to fight the Battle of the Atlantic now a lot of those obviously a type seven type nine u-boats they're not quite as useful in the Mediterranean as as they would be in the Atlantic so most of those are probably still going to stay committed to that and also you need to keep the pressure up on the British supply lines what the British found operating in the Mediterranean very quickly because they brought a lot of submarines back from the Far East where they've been training to hunt in the Pacific against the Japanese and it turns out the kind of large long-range submarines that you use to hunt in the notion when you take into a shallow confined waters like the Mediterranean they don't do very well they've got longer dive times they're much easier to spot from the air even if there are submerged in shallow water and so those submarines take quite a few losses so the most successful British submarine types in the Mediterranean the you class they're much smaller so although the type 7c which was like smaller variant of the type seven was relatively successful when it was deployed to the Mediterranean so Ark Royal and Barham about sunk by type seven seas you 81 and you 331 but they still have issues operating there so kriegsmarine assets in France probably aren't going to be depleted that much they may send a few seven seas over but they did historically so it's not a particulars roll down what I suspect they would probably do if they trying to focus more often would be the type twos because the type twos are historically small coastal submarines mostly used for training because outside of operating off the north sea coast they're not particularly useful but in the Mediterranean they're almost exactly what they would need you've got a small therefore they're hard to spot there faster dive the fact they only carry five torpedoes or most variants doesn't really matter that much and the short-range as well cuz you can just come back and reload and so they're going to have a much greater survivability in the Mediterranean than something like a large type nine and we know that they did via River and rail and road transport some of them to the Baltic topper against the Soviet Union so they are land transportable so I suspect you might have seen an increase in type two production with them being shipped down either to the former austro-hungarian pours like they used in World War one or two Italian ports and then used from there in terms of surface assets obviously the single big biggest problem is the Straits of Gibraltar it's even narrower than the channel and there's force H sitting right there so force H in mid 1940 is probably at one of its strongest points because there's been reinforced the British are worried at that point that the Italians are about to enter the war which obviously they they historically do so you've got hood is their valley in resolution Ark Royal and two two of the older cruisers admittedly and a destroyer flotilla so that's that's a fairly substantial force it's not something that the available kriegsmarine II units of the time Scharnhorst and Gneisenau are going to be able to realistically challenge on their own and there are ships swapping in and out as well when they when they try and make Malta convoy runs and things like that so occasionally there's like other capital ships will be there so to sum this up basically in Atlantic the pressure is more or less the same like a boss historically but in the Mediterranean we have a bit more pressure because we have coastal submarines yeah coastal submarines maybe a few type seven seas infiltrating through Gibraltar although they had historical issues doing that if the Germans want to deploy heavy surface units they're going to run into two problems one of us is about the Italians don't have that much oil for their own plate let alone more of theirs plus as I said getting past force H there are scenarios where they could do that but the kind of scenario where they'd have to do that in the timing involved with the Italian fleet and pull off a pincer is probably beyond the scope of what we're looking at in this which is obviously more more of a focus on the Mediterranean and not we're taking it kriegsmarine and giving them a Mediterranean holiday okay now for the Luftwaffe there's of course the big issue how much pressure is kept in Britain so that there's still more or less concerned about innovation and can't pull out too much stuff to the Mediterranean or other areas so what is your take on this is Marc so for the Luftwaffe we essentially have to take this stance that the order of battle that I had for the Battle of Britain would be our force we could then redeploy however just what rationale has already said is that there has to be a certain amount of pressure kept up on the actual home aisles in order to keep the raf engaged there and I would assume also the Royal Navy perhaps a force that we see if deployed for the Battle of Britain that's roughly 100 bummers and 900 fighters we can still draw away from that force but also to prevent the Aria from going more aggressive against German installations and also the German homeland we still need a reserve there to keep things relatively stable that say the assumption that I would also go is that the increasing collaboration that the Luftwaffe well I wouldn't call it collaboration because it was a little bit tricky but that they had with the clicks marina when it comes to hunting down the convoys in the Atlantic and the first sort of attempts that were made into what we eventually becomes the figure for Atlantic would be also captain that there are forces that were deployed to Norway and Denmark would also stay the same just you know to seal that area off essentially so if we look at the amount of planes that were actually deployed to the Mediterranean December 1940 in the historical scenario in the real scenario we are talking about the it's a the vehicle and that is roughly a hundred bombers 80 Stukas maybe 20 30 40 heavy fighters and real fighters for context the 10th ryuko is focused on engineer exactly and this is a problem actually for the for the Luftwaffe at this point because anti-shipping is something that you looked over has not invested a lot of time and now theoretically speaking we can take a couple of more complication rather formula but i at this point i think this would actually be doable and from also somos or maybe yucca that's why or something will be deployed at also two metering problem is the capacity of the de mediterranean airfields that we have that the italians have when the germans in the historic scenario go to Sicily the airfields in Sicily are not big enough to keep this rather limited force that was already the descent of legal core adequately based the airfields were overcrowded and there was a lack of supply now this redeployment can happen very quickly historico the Luftwaffe did it in roughly four days and the air transportation assets that it looked over house at this point it would be relatively enough to enable enough supplies to come in however like I said the actual pieces that the Italians half at this point as well as we have to look at the potential of actually basically some Luftwaffe assets already in the in Italian Africa so that would be Libya I have around Tripoli or Tobruk yeah we're talking about maybe an additional 100 bombers and then one one cup of water or something to cover them the problem is these are guys are not trained in ant shipping and this is what is going to be their major role in the scenario the only humph cascada that is really trained in a anti-shipping role at this point is caveat that would still be based in in the Atlantic and cog is excellence once in target sections once it's actually using torpedoes which have not yet been cleared for combat operations so they're using them but they're not yet clear because they keep having issues with them the story of the German aerial torpedo is quite a magnificent one I'm saying I can't go into it and right now suffice it to say they they had one success one specific success in Spain and they didn't see the potential in it and in the end they actually had to Italian hope he doesn't get some Italian know-how in there to make their real Tomatoes work so I think if we just look at the Luftwaffe and we can could potentially seal off just the north keep in a relatively defensive just a little bit of a stalemate try to keep the RAF contained if the art wants to be aggressive at this point I think they wouldn't do it immediately but they would maybe after a couple of months a catch on production of course would be moved up as well but what would be interesting to see is how much can the RAF actually redeploy to the Mediterranean at this point because the RAF is since 1949 slowly starting to ramp up their effort there they build up bases spare parts production even in Egypt and a theory in aircraft relatively quickly now the problem is the aircraft that they have to ferry in historically speaking they actually went more or less around Nigeria and then had to fly through the African continent all the way up to Egypt so there's gonna be a lot of wear and tear there's gonna be a lot of losses on the way at the first couple of flights they've lost you know horrendous number of planes on the way about half of the fighters arrived on the first flight first flight and maybe 20 to 30 percent of the actual bombers and and that we're talking about Blenheim is here we're not talking about Lancaster's or Halifax this is something we're talking about when ins I like the Blenheim but it was an ideal plane for for for that aspect so the big question is how much can the Luftwaffe very quickly established itself in Italy in Libya and how much capacity is there on the Italian side to actually accommodate them and I think this is a sticking point yeah because I don't see a scenario where we can really get the basis that the Luftwaffe would require to launch a consistent effort with less than what we have seen during the real war attrition one issue is of course logistics and I couldn't find it determined answer here because one problem is the the connections between Germany and Italy is rather thin on the river side and I know that Hitler mentioned to the Japanese ambassador that this rather a bottleneck the problem is I don't know if this was the truth or he just told the Japanese ambassador as an excuse for something but we also look now more on the army and I think for the most part we discussed this yesterday offhand a bit for the roof of the logistical side could be soft with with the circumference of the Zonda buffer vendôme which use transfer planes and fraud in some important stuff now for for an army I had to me I found some very interesting information for instance our historically around the 21st of August he actually looked at sending in a complete Corps ash Nellis course or basically a penser quarters certain degree to the Mediterranean and they assumed that would take six weeks to get it more or less ready but not completely combat effective so we know okay it takes about six weeks to redeploy it of course we're talking about let's say the the armistice in France or about everything would start to get in motion on the beginning of July so we have at least to adhere okay then we lose complete July and mid of August you could say okay we can ship now a complete Panzer Corps basically to the Mediterranean now the next thing is how to get it over because it also takes it was calculated for one division to about forty two days and I actually have the timeline how look it finally took it was the 5th light division which was not a complete Panzer Division but almost and basically it was misses the correct one yeah this the first shipping started on the 8th of February and to finish basically in early April but it seems on the 10th of March already the shift 9 out of 10 parts that was quite interesting because I don't know why it took the whole of March then to finish up from the tempt to prefer lift or something and I think it's related to actually delivering a lot of supplies so that the most part of the division but could be ships basically from in about yeah one one month it could shape the complete diversion there so you have one and a half month to get it ready or for at least but let's say for the division in this case so at best the first time we would have it over is in mid-september but I think we should add at least one month for licking the wounds of the Battle of France reorganization kind of Sigma said in the convention coming to the decision because the Chairman's actually in what what what happened in reality was basically when Hitler decided in early January they really did everything rather fast but this was related because in October 1940 they already considered sending it there and this act a very interesting because back then dissent a pencil General General from Tomah down there and he assessed that the Chairman's should use for Panzer divisions because this is the only thing was logistically possible and also soon that would achieve victory but also not to use any Italian troops and get them out because they would logistically were down because the main problem is basically the port capacity and after that to ship everything on land transport the very care you need trucks furnace and Germany was not particularly heavy on on trucks horses all the way yeah but you can't use the marine desert but let's assume now we have the shift we have one Panzer Division like now in mid-october would be arriving there and we have two redeployment in the Mediterranean and also some ships and now let's discuss how the British would react well we should also think about what are the Italians doing until that happens yeah that's that's a very good point this is this is why bringing several guys because so what we would assume let's say I mean I would I mean the best way probably work to convince the talents like okay we saw your performance against the French how you send your divisions your best divisions or something to Germany for training the problem is this might be a huge prestige issue yeah so the other way is to basically say okay we take care North Africa and in 1941 we help you and only are we the basically determines promise the Italians the Balkans which of course Hitler would usually he hated to give any concessions so this he would jump always Chado but for the book every if we take out the political side or when we discuss a bullet inside you're sitting here till five o'clock and nothing's gonna happen so we assume here more or less ideal scenario going along soon let's say that Italians get convinced more or less and not that they pour out all of their divisions but they don't attack the British before the Germans at the air and that they keep only a few of the best divisions there and keep them more aligned behind the lines and take everything you know everything Oh a story that's what essentially they did with the Air Force the Italian Air Force the most of their best pilots were based in Libya they lost them in the operations that they have because the RAF and very aggressive against the Italians just give you one example when the Italians declared war they didn't inform their Air Force which ended up being somewhat of a mistake and it's really because the British were ready they you know day days they knew the the Italians have more planes that the quality of the aircraft at this point between what the Brits have in the area and Italians have in the air is very relatively similar and they have to be that the RAF has to be aggressive because the Italians well this it goes into a little bit under two doctrine in interwar there was a little bit of a stagnation they didn't really design a concept on how they're going to use the Air Force which ended up in during the war then being extremely defensive and in Libya for example I mean we've talked about this before as well is that they have free choices every day they fly patrols over their harbour or they fly patrols over their own units or they fly patrols over their only on air force F airfields they flew patrols over their own troops which ended up being a problem because you know Navy or the the harbors got bombed and the airfields got bombed which means that the Italian Air Force then had to relocate to airfields that were further in the back and then these got bombed and then it got really bad and I don't really even want to mention it show PR because I was ya were single let's keep its way to complicated so what would they how would the British react to the certain scenario we have like now in mid-october the Panzer Division arrives and already in early summer they realize okay that the Germans also engage more in the Mediterranean on the air and on the neighbor side and also the kind of will get from the intelligence that the Germans are planning to shift something yeah yeah what would be an able reaction well historically the British in 1940 are playing fairly aggressively in the Mediterranean that they're obviously they need to keep Malta resupplied so they're running convoys to Malta once the Italians are involved they're also fairly confident in their ability to beat the Italians in a fleet engagement but they're also very conscious of that they need to beat the Italians relatively quickly um actually I forgot something yes when did when the Germans relocate the troops yes and their planes to Terra Mediterranean basically we could assume that would the British would declare war on Italy on Italy around soon well yeah well they're there they're at war with Germany so if German and military units are flying out battalion territory it's pretty much a done deal at that point that there is a war on I would think but say the thing is with because we mentioned force H has already three battleships and an aircraft carrier debates about whether Hood's battleship or not yeah but in the Mediterranean fleet which is based Alexandria at the other end of the Mediterranean they've also got more spite Malaya Rama Lee's and Royal Sovereign an eagle which is questionably valuable as an integral carrier but you've still talking to carriers seven capital ships which is actually half of the Royal Navy's fighting strength in capital ship numbers at that point that's significantly out out and outguns the Italian fleet in 1940 which is primarily their old World War 1 ships the Latoya's are only just beginning to come into service and the British know that Villa Tories are modern fast battleships so they would much rather face the Italians in a fleet battle on terms that have vastly savable to them than wait for Natori on Batory Veneto to show up at which point it becomes a lot more hit and run and obviously with the Germans move if they're moving significant numbers of troops over to Africa the easiest way of getting rid of those is to intercept them we're in well they're sailing from Africa from Italy down to Africa no yeah and so he's kind of in some ways it's a on the face of it it looks like the perfect scenario for the Royal Navy because they can attack when the Italian fleet can try and stand in their way but probably get steamrolled but the flipside is obviously as we were said that the Luftwaffe can redeploy a lot quicker and whilst the Italian air air force was not the world's greatest threat to the Royal Navy in most cases largely because a lot of its aircraft fairly obsolete there are a few the Royal Navy's I would use radar and it's carrier-based fighters and they would if you read through the accounts the Royal Navy at that period in the first couple of years of the war a lot of days radar spots it's shadowing aircraft fighter launched shadowing aircraft shot down with idiot kind of recon aircraft the Italians using that's pretty easy even for something like a full ma makes it even worse because the Italian recon aircraft had to land and report what they saw before they could actually tell the towns because they couldn't radio communication in the Italian Air Force was a novelty yeah and then with the with the with an increased Luftwaffe presidents you've got Luftwaffe recon aircraft which are faster higher performance higher altitude in the case of something like a young because ITA probably has a reasonable chance of actually engaging a full moi and winning so the Royal Navy fleet movements are much more likely to be spotted and then actually attacked by obviously initially elements of league of core 10 and any others who happen to be in the area but Pfleger core 10 when it historically engaged was a huge game-changer air attacks went from an annoyance with occasional damage to ah right this could be a major major problem because as as we draw towards the end of the year September Valiant comes in so you've got another battleship coming in illustrious is coming in as well to the Mediterranean fleet Barham shows up is the Royal Navy support at this point when this only the Scharnhorst have to worry about in the northern northern yet they're pouring naval units into the Mediterranean theater but of course we know when illustrious was caught out by mixture of 10th lega core and and italian dive bombers even with its armored deck a thousand kilogram bombs that the Stukas could carry over match it and illustrious is sent packing to the shipyards for a very long time now if all of that is coming earlier in the war when the Royal Navy's anti-aircraft capability is less its radar is less it's it's wartime experience is less and you've now got a huge amount of look offer aircraft overhead you could end up in a scenario where the Royal Navy's really pushing to try and stop the Germans getting across but then it's a coin toss did the air attacks come off properly or not if they don't potentially the Italian fleet gets decimated and a large portion of the reinforcements get sent to the bottom but given the competency of 10 10th Liga Corps it's far more likely that as the Royal Navy chances they're armed and gets close to the Italian coastline even if they lost an eagle they're only talking about a few dozen relatively low low capability naval fighters and what what passes for a aircraft defense in 1940 versus most of 10th Liga Corps and anyone else who wants to show up for the party so the wrong area potentially could take up there few losses straight off the bat if they chance it now if they know that 10th legal cause there they might use the hottest air hold back on watch and watch and see what happens you don't want to be caught out by a shaft Espada yeah that's why I mean the thing is I I never read anything that the transfer of the troops to from Italy to North Africa was a intercepted like could it be protected very easily because it's rather close yes during the war there during the whole war there was attempts to interdict mainly the supply lines and this was obviously a major problem for Rommel going forward it they'd send him new tanks would spare parts for oil and he'd be waiting for them and turn up and they wouldn't show up because they've been sunk the initial stuff historically there wasn't a major push made to try and stop Georgia Africa call coming across because obviously historically that was a little bit later by which point the Italian fleet and the Luftwaffe presence was such that the Royal Navy was very conscious that yes they could they could play tag with the Italian Navy in most of the Mediterranean but if you go to that narrow point between kind of Sicily and North Africa you're inviting pretty much every aircraft that the axis has to come pouring down upon you and they know that they won't withstand that this early in the war they might chance it because the Italian fleets substantially weaker but it depends on whether how much they know of the Luftwaffe SRI deployment and with the speed the look whoever could redeploy given the distance between Alexandria and Sicily you could very well end up in a situation where the Mediterranean fleet starts deploying and by the time it gets to Sicily lega core 10 which wasn't the hair when they left is now there and that could be a rude surprise it it's going to go going coming down a lot to intelligence as to what they know of the German movements personally I suspect some of the Admirals might have liked to they probably want they might send in destroyers by night intra bed and they'll try submarine attacks but I think the majority of the troop movements still going to get through at which point they have a major problem on their hands although obviously there's the supply lines but they need a lot more supplies than historical which can be interdicted so from my side basically the situation for the British was in summer 1940 was not particularly good with what they had at the island or at home Ireland and for instance fennel notes about 340 tanks I know that some other historians know different numbers 54 anti-tank guns and to put this in perspective I know I'm not sure if this was a misprint or not but 54 anti-tank guns it's less than a German infantry division has in 1940 I think it's about 75 120 few guns and 163 heavy guns left to defend - was written from retreat of imminent innovation the other thing is in in the Middle East the British forces are also rather limited they have like East Africa British deployed 40,000 - most of them lock in Egypt 36,000 and in Palestine 27,000 Middle East Command was made and I think I have specific numbers for October 4 I think the British oh yeah yeah but 85 tanks of 12.5 and 14 tonnes were ready in in September our briefs and the question is could lead to redeploy very much more I don't think so because there are still some pressure on the home island and you move deploy a bit more is it enough to match determined division yeah and I mean if the Germans are keeping up the pressure in northern France we now know the operation C Line is a doomed doomed attempt ah they don't know that at the time so denuding the entirety of the UK of tanks probably not going to go over very well and the thing is for for the Germans redeploying a Panzer Corps was not a huge issue that point because I me did all the divisions in France or something so that is not like the previous UK there's a major shift to going on so their home on and a higher priority so from the homicide the treatments now getting is substantially advantage the main question here would be probably on the logistical side what's going to happen or did you had anything I guess what is your direction of the RF do you think would be to this change we have sorry and you mean in Africa or yeah I mean in general we have now what we discussed the Germans to the shift and everything so what would be the difference for the area assuming I mean what I've heard out here earlier is that Italy at this point has Italy already declare war it had we assumed that the British basically declare war once the Germans bring it definitely I think INSEAD so if the British declare war I mean they were ready to act when the Italians declare war the RAF in the middle in the Mediterranean so I assume that if they had the initiative essentially just to take that decision they would immediately send out fighters bombers to at least ground Italian Air Force which would be given the historical performance in the first couple of days probably they would succeed in doing that question then is how much does Italy give them that the Germans have given them a reassurances that you know more it's coming more aviation stuff is coming how much do they then redeploy to Libya how much do they pull back and how much do the Germans actually take advantage of the fact that the Italians are maybe pulling back so if the if they look for flights to Sicily and then to Libya and do deploys there maybe we can save a little bit of D tau in Air Force and keep them in the fight however the RAF given that the fact that they have the initiative I think that we will see a greater shift of hurricanes towards the theater definitely not Spitfires all that much I'm sure we'll see some of those as well but it will probably kept in the home islands as well Lenin's will keep pouring and historically I think we would I I don't want to put really numbers on it but it wouldn't surprise me if they would not send double of what they had sent historically in 1940 to the Mediterranean because if the Germans don't keep up the pressure against Britain and you know engage in any sort of battle quit light version that the yes of course the RAF is gonna keep a lot back given the fact that there might be that potential for operations new line but they have a lot more leeway they have a lot more capacity just sent over so I think we're going to see a very aggressive RAF and probably also one that takes a lot more chances with redeploying assets to the Mediterranean and then they're the only arm of the British forces that can take that job yeah because you can manufacture a new plane in a few months and if you lose a plane you've lost a pilot that hurts but it's one person it tanks all the infantry stuff what a tank is you knew Hank you lose the crew theoretically possibly but also as you said they can fly aircraft in you know as reinforcements tanks and other bits and pieces as long as there are hostile forces in central North Africa you basically going all the way around Africa so your logistics for resupply of ground units are hugely slower yeah and it takes longer to build a tank anyway and obviously with the Navy you're not replacing capital ship losses and aircraft carrier losses if you chance it and that's thousands of men per loss so it's just from a purely from a mathematical perspective the Aria is the only one you can afford to take any chances but it's also the only one you can resupply any and they also read I'm not quite sure about the Navy's capacity to repair their fleet in Alexandria I'm sure there was some capacity there some yeah I mean Malta had some repair capacity which officer will come on to a bit later yes Alexandria had some repair capacity and Gibraltar did the the main problem was that Alexandria Malta were both within range of bombers so we see historically that winds a lustrous is damage or some of the cruisers or even the battleships later on they get sent out the theater mm-hmm so anything that's damaged both has to make it out of the theater entirely and then has to either make it somehow back to the UK or over to America depending on what time period it's in and and and then get repaired there and then somehow get back in again yeah so key word Malta yes yeah I mean one one issue kind on the army side is what would the British Army do in North Africa but the other charge and attack on bring the back and drive back the Italians did operation compost but I think at that point which was historically in December 1940 they were way better equipped and in summer so the question would really be an interesting if they push further because this also comes down mystically side Tobruk was an Italian port but then the Africa Corps landed it was already British port and tobruk has a capacity of about 20,000 tonnes you can ship in per month whereas Tripoli at 45,000 which was the main port for the Italians in North Africa so this this is quite a substantial difference here so let's assume for for the sake of simplicity that the Italians hold onto Tobruk long enough that the chairman's get in between or actually the Germans might shipped to broke its bit it's probably chancing it yeah yeah I mean as a supply convoy that's coming down from Italy straight down yeah there's a very tough target a supply convoy that's edging into the eastern Mediterranean is a very tempting target and it's kind of this for the balance of who's got the air superiority and naval security starts to shift no troop movements to Tobruk but likely probably as they did later they would ship like surprise yeah you could get fast a fast supply ship that maybe is making the run into arrived at like 2:00 3:00 in the morning could probably make it because once they're in the harbor they can be defended and then sailed for the next evening to get out under cover of darkness I said I mean obviously you're the ground expert but I I suspect that the the British ground offensive as it may be in North Apple would probably be limited more to mobile like columns armored cars and that kind of thing trying to harass and yeah which of course when he brings of his slight familial connection cuz that means my great-uncle's gonna be charging around in his armored car quite happily shooting Italians for the first part of the war which is pretty much we did historically at eBay but he's now gonna be alone so you want to discuss Malta well I think we have to discuss my here's the big issue because usually everyone says Malta was the thing why Roma more or less lost what as some of the reasons I read up what Craven noted in his supplying war and he actually notes yeah we look at the loss rates the head and he were actually quite limited the main problem he argues for at North Africa was the port capacity but even that was quite a bit and after the port capacity the transportation along the coast lines was a major problem because you need the trucks to have the railways were in bad shape or sometimes to run on at all and to burn tear on in the desert is way higher so with the trucks and they needed about 20 cents 10 percent of the fuel for just supplying it that they could deliver them to the troops so the question here all is if an attack of Malta makes sense because it's less of an issue especially if they love buffer hold it or it sit down and if the Germans push as fast as possible to Alexandria because if you have Alexandria the port capacity there is I think quite an old yes yeah well I mean the Alexandria as we said is supporting at one point nearly half a dozen capital units multiple cruisers and multiple destroyer squadrons plus all the resupply pretty much all the resupply for 7th armored and the rest of the desert army plus the plus it's acting as a staging point for various other units so yeah this is the I mean the chairman's was a quite aggressive so I would assume they would they would they were just the they would probably try to a dash for Alexandria and also if the Germans is on a mystical side adir more I read up on this historically basically for the chairman that was always they were successful despite shorting logistics this was the thing it was basically the Germans had the fuel get out get out cause what this that the logisticians usually conjure up the proper support at some point because if you look at the in the 19th centuries the Germans had quite often quite problems with logistics but they performed still rather well and I think and especially historically also in North Africa I think wrongly whoever would be in charge likely would just push for it the question is would the British hold long enough and or what the chairman's completely run out of the supply lines but then you also have to look and you can bring in more another aspect here's of course cost of shipping yeah because I have the capacity for cultural shipping and according to Craven it was about 15,000 tons per month and the question is if the Germans would also focus bringing more coastal shipping capability because I think they could also ship this to the Mediterranean but I'm I don't know how coastal shipping works I wouldn't a west one sir I wouldn't want to try and run a convoy of coastal merchantman task force H that's oh that's an easy way to rack up a lot of kill markings off the side of the Royal Navy but either they come off the Luftwaffe the problem is for say the Gibraltar is so narrow for Sage could literally be moored in Gibraltar issues right because the shipping basically shipping down I don't know how big a cost of ships candy candy use the rivers Oh any coastal any ship that could set cargo ship that could sail down a river is not one I'd want to south across the Mediterranean so but on the other hand they're small ships they're relatively quick to build I mean we're not talking liberty ship mass production but you could you could if you if the decision is made to start all this in early 1940 by the time the efforts really getting going in terms of offensive actions you probably could in various Italian and for Mastro Hungarian Austrian and maybe even some of the Greek ports if that offensive has kicked off by this point you could begin building and requisitioning a lot of coastal shipping and to be honest it doesn't take that much more because when Rommel historically got very close to breaking the British and that's when the British had a lot more forces available and a lot more secure supply lines there were periods in that in during those offensives where the British were like or one more bad battle and we've got nothing between here and Alexandria we'd have we'd make a final stand on the Nile and then we're stuffed so if you've got significantly more ground forces in there you could make a fairly decent argument say well actually if you can build up enough supplies to sustain one big push and just throw everything into even even lift off a transport aircraft if necessary to bring up the most vital supplies this all the the low volume high important stuff if you can shatter a desert army in the western reaches of Egypt they don't have anywhere to go this the Western leaders like well this just open baked desert there's no word really that makes a good defensive position until you've you pull them back to the Nile and once they've fallen back there you could operationally pause a little bit build up enough supplies just to make it across and then you arrive in overwhelming numbers there's not a lot the British can do other than they could probably hold Alexandria for a while probably mainly on the basis of naval gunfire support which probably won't do good things to Panzers but but by that point it would just be a case of well how long does it take to bring the Luftwaffe up to a turn to the point we could start carpet bombing Alexandria which point you you have to withdraw that you don't have a choice I mean it's the same kind of thing is the historical campaigns in Greece and then later with the evacuation of Crete as long as their fight as long as they're fighting infantry and all parts of the Italian Navy to the ground and naval elements even if they're being driven back the British will still fight to the last man once the Luftwaffe shows up the they can't it's no longer a viable option as with the evacuation in Crete they can hold on that can get as many people out take horrific losses doing so but at least with that they knew they had Alexandra to fall back on if it's Alexandra that's now the new Crete there is nowhere to fall back so that they your only choice then is to try and withdraw before some lucky Panzer unit gets to see the Suez Canal at which point and your next stop is either going to be Aden which it can't support them India which is way out of the way or Australia well I'm sure the Japanese will thank everybody for sending off their will Navy to Australia but there go this is actually an important point to mention here I looked up the the Battle of Crete a bit but it was to offer landed there are five Amiga and basically they ran into the British knew that they were coming the they had major problems of landing and everything and everything went good but then British broke and the question is why and they had ACTU a report and it was lessons report and to quote family a much like that of battle oak a battle me committee stressed more red and material impacts of air power at Melanie after several days of strafing only one NCO had been killed and free Auto ranks wounded the effect produced on the troops he said appeared out of all proportions to the actual damage inflicted and is something which is all discussed in my pants a video so basically at this point early on in the bore 9 1940 1941 yeah yes Co priority or something close air support the infantry basically gives up and this would likely happen there similarly I assume in a desert to a certain degree so they don't kill very much but the more I'll just takes a nosedive basically doesn't dive long yeah and I'm unlike practically anywhere else in the European theater where Fighting's going on if you're an infantryman fighting in the desert if you're being shot at by infantry or a tank or anything there's plenty of sand dunes to hide behind if there's aircraft there is nowhere to hide they can see you wherever you go even on the coast where there's a little bit more cover it's nowhere near the level of covering in Europe where you can dive into a ditch hide under a hedge buildings trees etc the feeling of being exposed is terrible as well he was like I think he was calling some some aspect and you were always like freaking augments once they saw an aircraft they always assumed he was spotted or something which is like okay and later on this I assume was fixed mostly but we are still early in the war hmm so the question is can we assume that the chairman's take Alexandria or not or should be discussed about the situation I think I think it would make sense for them to go from Malta because even compared to Crete Malta is a much smaller target yes the letter is heavily defended but most of the rest of Malta isn't and I always said that the number of losses inflicted directly by mortar is relatively small but it's for very irritating and they don't necessarily have to hit everything because if they've got one one supply ship that's just getting loads of spare parts of the Panzers if they hit that ship I mean yeah it's roll of the dice but hit that ship and that's potentially operations crippled for months so and you've got not only the air the crop but you've got a lot of the submarines basing out the ground Harbor as well and it's also the other things that's also a vital supply link for the Mediterranean fleet because the way the Mediterranean fleet cycles damaged units out and gets fresh units in is usually force H sales with a convoy from from Gibraltar and Mediterranean fleet comes up in support and the kind of swap ships in the middle of the chaos and confusion that is the merchants heading into Malta and then go their separate ways again cut Malter out and there's now very little if any ability to resupply and restock the Mediterranean fleet and take its damaged ships out away again short of going around the entirety of Africa which adds months to the to the logistics I assume all the Italians wanted for prestige regions probably has potential yeah when the war starts and in the Mediterranean motors potential that's not yet realized but it does have an RDF stations it's starting to get a radar it's a place in the middle between Sicily Sicily of course so focus on but also for a logistical beast for the Germans or for the E or the axis it would be make sense to have Malta or if you for example have a flight going from Sicily to Libya and some technical problems occur yeah there you can ultimate ships you know have a higher chance of actually finding an airport and the fact that Malta still has communicated RDF that would those be RDF installation that would be good for the RAF if it ever you know is able to hit these or supply ones our mouth is just at the beginning it's not a hard factor but it's a soft factor that very much becomes a hard day historically speaking so taking that away would help the problem is how much how many men do you need a theoretically the Germans were speaking of dropping paratroopers on it and I think they spoke about between twenty to forty thousand men in total over three different attack points so for creed to basically detect within with a paratroop division and then they took airfields and then they flown in Mountain Division they are similar to the plans for Malta are very similar the Italians of course had plans since 1938 but they were more sort of theoretically what you'll be doing how much how much is our capacity and it was I think those are more of a seaborne invasion and actually every way but if you could pair those together I think multiple fall relatively quickly as long as you also prepare to then take it hold the island I don't think the Brits would really have the capacity - to launch counter-attack or do not take it and so it may be it's got to be you know a week of heavy fighting paired with a little bit of Korea action in the end this multi does have some odd mystery I guess some labs would take their rifles go into the mountains and there's two islands two multi itself Kamino I guess would have to be taking as well but you know we're talking about peanuts at that point and historically the defenses were very stretched the one of the reasons for the supply convoys well this plugin was removed because they kept running out obviously but it was also resupplies at men resupplies of ammunition very supplies of aircraft and I say although they had some repair capacity in the ground harbor historically you had ships like HMS Penelope so it sails in for repairs and actually takes more damage from incidental incidental shrapnel hits from the bombs that land around it and goes in replaces its gun barrels wears out all of its gun barrels shooting at the aircraft that are attacking it while in port so it needs another set of gun perils just from these activities in port so that gives you some idea just how much pressure mortars under it in the in the early part of the war so if there's more aircraft coming in and obviously those aircraft also able to interdict the resupply convoys a lot more so there's less supply is coming to Malta and attack the attacks happen earlier and there's an even more pressure on Malta generally it may well even start running out of supplies and be post before situation of surrender or starve depending on how well the air operations against the resupply convoys go but even if they've just about got enough to continue holding out their ability to fight back against any kind of mass attack is gonna be severely degraded and for all that I'm sure they'll put up the best fight they can I can't really see anything happening I mean the only scenario where possibly goes really badly wrong is if some somebody decides it's a really bright idea to drop the files from you go right over the Grand Harbour into the teeth of the anti-aircraft defense but I can't see them being that stupid that there's enough of Malter that you can quite aptly drop al-sham Jaeger units with minimal opposition and then form up and it may make Cree actually look well creepy a lot worse historically then Malta probably would be okay then by the way I just saw in my basic structure I missed some important aspect third part is basically Italy Spain and Soviet Union Greece in Yugoslavia you know we keep them mostly out for for simplicity reasons because if you then also account what would they see what union do and Spain and Greece it yeah it gets even more complicated now okay Malta has fallen the Germans can make it to Alexandria the question is now can the British correct the harbor there to make it or the ports to make it not usable or is this nearly impossible they can destroy them they can destroy the in the dockside infrastructure I mean things like crane or warehouses can be set on fire cranes you can put demolition charges and blow them into the water it depends on how fast Alexander is taken if it's a case of you they've broken the desert force but they're now rested resupply and it's obvious that this is what's going to happen next then there probably will be a whole scale kind of destruction of the port infrastructure if that battle actually goes stupendously badly for the British and someone takes a chance and just goes right we're just following them the possibility that they might not completely do it but ultimately Alexandra is a huge pour it goes back millennia that the name gives clues to who founded it obviously and you I mean short of sinking a cup maybe a few damaged warships as blocked ships in the in the in the approaches but even then the project is quite large there is not a tremendous amount you can do to remove the utility of it as a as a geographic location I say sure you can take out cranes and stuff but all all taking out the cranes means is that you can bring in supplies that have to be uploaded by hand and that only lasts until you can bring in replacement cranes and build replacement warehouses you can't destroy the pier the jetties or somehow magically silt up the entire are but that's that's still going to be there and what once you can bring supplies into Alexandria there's no way the British can hold anywhere else the rest of Egypt or sewers or anything because the Germans basically at that point have supplies right there that are taking and the British are at the other end of a supply line the wraps around entire continents at which point they have to fall back quite where they fall back to I don't know they probably have to fall back in to mess up what was their Mesopotamia and probably be taken taken off by ship as they be the back to India Australia or really long journey back to the UK around the entirety of continental Africa but and then of course the the big o the oil yeah is left open do we want to go on to that I think do like in a few minutes yeah a few minutes okay so obviously historically we know the Germans have problems with oil mostly relying on the Romanian fields and some artificial production and a few other bits and pieces compared to Romanian oil so obviously America is the biggest oil producer it's ten times more oil than the next largest producer so the Allies aren't running out oil anytime soon but the Romanian oil fields at this point they're producing about seven million tonnes of oil a year Iran alone is producing ten million tonnes or what we would today call iran iraq s-- another two thirds of Romania's capacity and what we would stake with Bahrain there are some oil fields in Egypt as well and what we call Saudi Arabia some bout another third so in theory taking the Middle East increases total access oil production if you take Romania as the bulk of it based or key by about 250 percent um so they they're no longer gob because Kriegsmarine no longer has any fuel concerns you could probably line up a you could probably make like crocodile versions of tigers and run them through their flamethrowers constantly going all the way up to Moscow and not miss it um the only thing you have to balance that with is that those oil fields are quite far away and there's not a lot the British can do to defend them but they do have the time to sabotage them so the production is probably going to be down obviously you can reinstate that the other two things is how do you transport that back to Europe and how much refining capacity have you got because it's all very well saying we now have 20 milli 2025 million tonnes of oil per year but if your refinery capacity is only 12 billion tonnes that's how much petroleum product you're getting so basically let us know in the comment section of course we took on the political side on the diplomatic side we took the cheap way out because well it's really a mess in there and we might overlooked something on the army side I think on the luftwaffe annals on the neo side we are pretty strong so let us know what you think in the comment section also be sure to subscribe to Draconis Channel and of course the military aviation history channel so thank you for watching and see you next time big thank you here to detect Museum at Boeing and for inviting us to tankfest 2019 also a big thank you here to Philip for helping us out at tankfest thank you for watching and see you next time

Channel: Military History Visualized

Views: 141,581

Keywords: Military History, Military History Visualized, History, Visualized, mhv, Afrika Korps, An Early Afrika Korps, Alternate Military History, Alternate History, WW2, 1940, German Strategy for 1940, Mediterranean Strategy, Drachinifel, Military Aviation History, Tankfest 2019, world war 2, second world war

Id: FnKDgC9aNu0

Length: 57min 48sec (3468 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 09 2019