Germany follows the Goering stratgy in 1940 and 1941

Yeah, a logistics chain stretching through France and Spain? Good luck with keeping that running...
Guderian seems to have a better appreciation of the situation, he urged Hitler to postpone the armistice so that he could rush on through Spain with two Panzer divisions.
 

thaddeus

Donor
British stopped using the Med when Italy entered the war, the question is how best to support them?

evolutionary version of Type II uboat, able to be transported overland to the Med

A terrible idea. Italy already had enough of short-ranged, poor-performing small subs that were not useful at all.

a terrible idea shared by Donitz and KM as they specified the Type XXIII must be transportable overland, also they had schemed an even smaller 100t boat for Finland pre-war.

you recall they sent 60-odd uboats to the Med beginning in the fall of 1941, the larger Type VII, taking them away from use in the Atlantic.

assume you are referring to Italian coastal submarines, the Series 600 variants, they were (approx.) the same size as the German Type VII ocean going boats, but with overly large conning towers, attempted mods during wartime. (they had issues outside of their size and numbers)

the quick dive and smaller signature of an evolved Type II seems ideal for the Med, this for use around Greek isles and Tunisia, but it seems they would want to develop boats and procedures to have capacity to move them tot he Black Sea (not endorsing an invasion of the USSR, and under this scenario they are not, but it seems they would have wanted that option)
 

Deleted member 94680

Guderian seems to have a better appreciation of the situation, he urged Hitler to postpone the armistice so that he could rush on through Spain with two Panzer divisions.

Doesn't mean he was right. German invasion of Spain (and it would have been an invasion) would have resulted in a new civil war and the mother of all guerrilla campaigns.
 

Deleted member 94680

uhm, why do you think they would need any luck? OTL the germans supplied entire armies locked im combat so intense it dwarfed anything in the west at the time, over similar distances on the eastern front, in significantly worse terrain both considering the avaiable infrastructure and partisan activity. Attacking Spain and tacking Gibraltar may or may not be a good idea, but the reflexive "lol logistics" is certainly not a reason.

It’s not a reason? To worry about logistics is not important?
Also, I think you need to re-evaluate your understanding of Germany’s effectiveness of their logistics if you think the eastern front was the paradigm of brilliance. Further, to suggest Germany would be able to support both an eastern and western overextended logistical chain is optimistic at best.
 
Doesn't mean he was right.
He'd have a better idea than you give him credit for.

German invasion of Spain (and it would have been an invasion) would have resulted in a new civil war and the mother of all guerrilla campaigns.
What, like France? Fascists resisting Fascists and they may be just total confusion to start with, 'we're just pursing the Brits, they are down south, you can have it when we're finished'.
 

Deleted member 94680

He'd have a better idea than you give him credit for.

Yet here I am, agreeing with OKW and the rest of the Generals. It was a bad idea.

Also, Guderian’s memoirs are never the best place to get an idea of what Guderian thought during WWII - a fair bit of embellishment and whitewashing went on there.

What, like France? Fascists resisting Fascists and they may be just total confusion to start with, 'we're just pursing the Brits, they are down south, you can have it when we're finished'.

No, not like France. The “total confusion” wouldn’t last long enough for the Germans to get to Gibraltar, would it? Also, “you can have it when we’re finished”? So the Germans are going to conquer Gibraltar and then hand it over to the Spanish? To be garrisoned by Spanish troops and therefore the security of the Mediterranean entrusted to a so-so ally (who may or may not have resisted the operation) with no German presence? Doesn’t sound likely to me.
 
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McPherson

Banned
a. Not enough oil.
b. Not enough sea lift. (freighters)
c. Not enough air power. (As in anti-ship strike at which the Germans totally sucked until coached by the Italians.)

Goering's "lies", and I call them that, were tailored to what he thought his captors wanted to hear and what would make that fat war criminal look good. @Stenz has the right of it. LOGISTICS makes a Med strategy impossible, because the Axis has not enough of it, ever. FSS, the Wehrmacht moved on hay and rode and towed their selves on future candidates for the glue factory (About 3 million of them there critters called horses which they killed in droves (PUN!).). They could get away with that WWI crap in Russia. War on land, at sea, and in the air in the Med is 100% mechanized and needs POL products.
 
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German logistics often left a great deal to be desire in the steppes of Russia. In the Mediterranean they were highly reliant on the Italians. The Italians were good and bad at logistics, depending on the circumstances. Rommel once remarked when the Italians topped the amount of materiale' they were able to transport to Africa, "why hadn't they managed that before?"

Rommel was also criminal, he relied too much on captured material to fund his drives on Egypt. When he needed Malta to be captured, he captured instead Tobruk and that allowed him to drive to el Alamein. So, the Luftwaffe shelved HERKULES. The Italians stood down their parachute division and used the naval forces to send more resources to North Africa. We all know how that turned out...
 
He'd have a better idea than you give him credit for.
Every Nazi general’s memoirs need to be taken with a grain of salt so big the sun would orbit around it.

Beyond that, there’s no reason to think he was right. Hindsight and additional information let’s modern work take all the facts into account, which noone at the time had to work with.
 

thaddeus

Donor
a. Not enough oil.
b. Not enough sea lift. (freighters)
c. Not enough air power. (As in anti-ship strike at which the Germans totally sucked until coached by the Italians.)
LOGISTICS makes a Med strategy impossible, because the Axis has not enough of it, ever.
War on land, at sea, and in the air in the Med is 100% mechanized and needs POL products.

do not contest any of the weaknesses you have highlighted but under this scenario they might not be so glaring as the invasion of USSR is at least delayed (which consumed their reserves and eliminated their supplier?)

there is also the road not taken with Vichy regime, they had their one "get out of jail free card" and used it to pressure the French on Indochina (for little to no benefit to themselves)

here they are concentrating on the Med and UK, it is possible they have an expanded effort into Syria and seek the use of Tunis (at least for themselves, albeit not Italy)

the tabled Paris Protocols allowed for bases at Dakar, Bizerte, and Aleppo. the French were perfect barometer of German success and once they invaded East any deal became elusive.
 

McPherson

Banned
do not contest any of the weaknesses you have highlighted but under this scenario they might not be so glaring as the invasion of USSR is at least delayed (which consumed their reserves and eliminated their supplier?)

there is also the road not taken with Vichy regime, they had their one "get out of jail free card" and used it to pressure the French on Indochina (for little to no benefit to themselves)

here they are concentrating on the Med and UK, it is possible they have an expanded effort into Syria and seek the use of Tunis (at least for themselves, albeit not Italy)

the tabled Paris Protocols allowed for bases at Dakar, Bizerte, and Aleppo. the French were perfect barometer of German success and once they invaded East any deal became elusive.

Let us look at the Paris Protocols. (May 1941): part of a French reaction to Operation Catapult, and see how it finally falls out as played.

Mers el Kebir? (Operation Catapult) July 1940
Paris Protocols. (May 1941)
Syria? (Operation Exporter.) June/July 1941
Dakar? (Admittedly bungled. Operation Menace.) September 1941
Madagascar? (Operation Ironclad) May-June 1942, It is a big island.
French scuttle themselves? (Operation Anton foiled.) November 1942^1
Tunis? (This one took awhile.) May 1943

IOW, the British were between the Germans and the Paris Protocols, and in the end the French^1 had no intention of allowing the Germans to use them as patsies, either.
 
The strategic benefit to Germany of a southern strategy was worthwhile, the greatest possible benefit of course being that it could in theory drive Britain to the peace table and end the 2nd front

Bribing Spain with whatever it takes would ultimately be worth it, if they could secure Gibraltar. Closing Gibraltar, allows the entire Italian Navy and all German U-boats assigned to the area to concentrate on the Eastern Med. Malta can then only be supplied from one direction and would have to be abandoned

The easiest way to make progress is the Med is for the Italian declaration of war to not be so utterly knee jerk. Seeing France on the ropes, Mussolini jumped in with no notice given to his high command to prepare for a declaration of war. The Italians at the time did not use Enigma, and therefore had secure military codes, they could have quietly recalled as much of their merchant shipping as reasonably possible instead of letting it all get gobbled up or interned on the world sea lanes, and they could have prepared a regimental landing for Malta for the day war would be declared. They had done a regimental sized landing in Albania the previous year, so they, had at least one dress rehearsal and would catch the British largely unprepared

Gibraltar, Malta and Crete largely makes the sea lanes safe between Naples and Tripoli, in the 1940-1941 period so the Italian African Army and whatever German formations are assigned could receive a steadier flow of supplies than the original timeline. Building a narrow gauge railway to the Egyptian frontier might even be possible in the medium term instead of solely relying on the Via Balbia highway. As well, with thick air cover it would be possible to use some coastal convoys to nourish the advance of axis forces along the coast

Ultimately capturing Alexandria and eventually Suez frees up a lot of Italian man power that can go to Russia to free up more German formations for offensive tasks, as well it would allow a greater amount of political pressure to be applied against Turkey to join the war against the Soviet Union or at least to allow the Axis to stage forces from there
 
Every Nazi general’s memoirs need to be taken with a grain of salt so big the sun would orbit around it.

Beyond that, there’s no reason to think he was right. Hindsight and additional information let’s modern work take all the facts into account, which noone at the time had to work with.

Rommel was actually one of the better ones.
He wasn't part of the group of generals that accepted massive bribes from Hitler, aka the Konto 5 accounts.
And he lead by example and refused to follow orders that contradicted his ethics.
And for that the Nazis forced him into suicide, those idiots.
 
The Italians at the time did not use Enigma, and therefore had secure military codes

I believe the Italian navy used a version of Enigma at the time and it was cracked by Ultra.
It contributed to their defeat in the Naval battle off Cape Matapan.
I don't think their army or air force or intel agencies used it though, so u might be partially correct.
 

thaddeus

Donor
Let us look at the Paris Protocols. (May 1941): part of a French reaction to Operation Catapult, and see how it finally falls out as played.

Mers el Kebir? (Operation Catapult) July 1940
Paris Protocols. (May 1941)
Syria? (Operation Exporter.) June/July 1941
Dakar? (Admittedly bungled. Operation Menace.) September 1941
Madagascar? (Operation Ironclad) May-June 1942, It is a big island.
French scuttle themselves? (Operation Anton foiled.) November 1942^1
Tunis? (This one took awhile.) May 1943

IOW, the British were between the Germans and the Paris Protocols, and in the end the French^1 had no intention of allowing the Germans to use them as patsies, either.

you are off a year on Dakar ( I always consider Mers el Kebir and Dakar a one-two punch by UK), when Exporter took place to clear Vichy out of Syria, the French had sent reinforcements as far as Greece but left waiting for German air transport the final leg of journey. likely that does not happen absent Barbarossa.

my speculation also had nothing to do with use of French fleet, but simply to use two locations they did use historically (Aleppo and Tunis) in a more coherent manner.

think it was well understood by Vichy regime once Nazis were fully invested in the USSR invasion that German-French relations and the entire Med were of little importance to them.
 

Orry

Donor
Monthly Donor
Best Med strategy......

Get Italy to stay neutral.

As a threat in being the British will still need to keep forces in the Med.

Italy will still be able to import items they need which means the Germans do not need to supply them. A percentage of those imports would be able to reach Germany - especially if the Italians allow the British to transport small amount into and out of Switzerland. Bit hard to complain about one whilst taking advantage of the other.
 
The only way to get Hitler's attention focused on the Med is if oil was found in Libya in 1930.
Hitler always regarded the Med as a sideshow, as it didn't produce any resources in the 1930s and 1940s and it wasn't his ideal of Lebensraum.
 

McPherson

Banned
Let us look at the Paris Protocols. (May 1941): part of a French reaction to Operation Catapult, and see how it finally falls out as played.

Mers el Kebir? (Operation Catapult) July 1940
Dakar? (Admittedly bungled. Operation Menace.) September 1940
Paris Protocols. (May 1941)
Syria? (Operation Exporter.) June/July 1941
Madagascar? (Operation Ironclad) May-June 1942, It is a big island.
French scuttle themselves? (Operation Anton foiled.) November 1942^1
Tunis? (This one took awhile.) May 1943

IOW, the British were between the Germans and the Paris Protocols, and in the end the French^1 had no intention of allowing the Germans to use them as patsies, either.
you are off a year on Dakar ( I always consider Mers el Kebir and Dakar a one-two punch by UK), when Exporter took place to clear Vichy out of Syria, the French had sent reinforcements as far as Greece but left waiting for German air transport the final leg of journey. likely that does not happen absent Barbarossa.

my speculation also had nothing to do with use of French fleet, but simply to use two locations they did use historically (Aleppo and Tunis) in a more coherent manner.

think it was well understood by Vichy regime once Nazis were fully invested in the USSR invasion that German-French relations and the entire Med were of little importance to them.

Corrected timeline, which just renders the Paris Protocols even more meaningless.

The point is

PARIS-ACCORDS.png


Can one explain (^^^) how one uses these bases in the face of an enemy who controls the sea and air? If that braindead mass murdering sociopathic corporal or any of his equally criminally stupid minions had learned FRENCH history as Admiral Darlan DID, he would have known what happened to another would be world conqueror (Napoleon) who did not understand SEAPOWER. Napoleon actually got as far as the pyramids, but he lost to a NAVY, too. Same navy in fact, for the same exact reasons; I might point out. No secure logistics and in fact no logistics period. At least the dumb Berlin maniac should have remembered what happened to Kaiser Bill the worst?

May I suggest... this.

And this...

Listen to William Mitchell from 2.20 to 3.10 on especially.

Implicit in both lessons (Mahan and Seversky), is that one must have land and sea lines of communications to make it all work. The British never lost and the Axis never gained those secure lines of communications, nor when the Axis had some temporary tenuous sea lines of communication to North Africa, did they have the freighters (sealift) to supply more than they did, so their sputtering logistics effort was doubly insufficient and inefficient.

One will note the British moved immediately on Syria-Lebanon? There was the greatest danger that the Germans might make a go in the Middle East and subvert Turkey to their cause. There was the closest and greatest danger to Egypt, the yoke between the Mediterranean and Indian oceans. The British nailed that one down as soon as they dared.

It is instructive to see the British moves along the periphery of the North African struggle of 1940-1941 because those are the moves that MAHAN would have urged. Not Corbett... MAHAN.

To compound the error of not understanding seapower, the Berlin maniac and his criminal crew airlifted 50,000+ future prisoners of war into Tunis to swell the Anglo-American final prisoner bag.

Can't swim back to Italy once the Royal Navy seals off your sea borne line of retreat.
 
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a terrible idea shared by Donitz and KM as they specified the Type XXIII must be transportable overland, also they had schemed an even smaller 100t boat for Finland pre-war.

Huh, no. Don't try to recruit Doenitz's opinion about the overland transportability of the Type XXIII as if it was the same as requesting Type II to be used in the Med.

you recall they sent 60-odd uboats to the Med beginning in the fall of 1941, the larger Type VII, taking them away from use in the Atlantic.

They sent the Type VII. And kept the Type II for training purposes. That's the good idea wrt those small subs.

Yes, at the beginning of the war the Germans also used the IIs for actual combat missions - but then again, at the beginning of the war they also used Pz Is for combat.
 
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