Surely they'd see its to narrow? 27 m could be bridged easily even with on hand equipment in 1941. Only issue is the sheer sides of the thing.
Sir John Valentine Carden survives.
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The issue isn't the Isthmus of Corinth, it's having to hlod the entire northern coast of the Peloponnese.
That too. But the Canal would seem like a strong psychological barrier to the uninformed.
Yeh, it can't be done unless you own the sky. Even if you do own the sky it's a very chancy proposition, Of course if you own the sky you're probably not going to get pushed onto the Peloponnese in the first place.
What concerns me is someone (Cough Churchill Cough) looking at the map and seeing an impassable anti tank ditch.
What concerns me is someone (Cough Churchill Cough) looking at the map and seeing an impassable anti tank ditch.
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More like Germany getting pushed back into Albania and beyond. Sadly a combination of obsolescent aircraft (Hurricane mk 1) and not enough aircraft ensured that could not ever happen.
Of course if we could project that much force so far from home in 1941 we wouldn't be in that mess in the first place...
Well it is pretty deep, so that limits your options for bridging it. Basically, you have to build the entire span on one side, then push it across. 27m isn't long per se, but it requires a lot of setup, and a well-defended bridgehead on the opposite shore before you can push it across.
With modern air power that would be easy to stop, not so with what they had in Greece even ITTL. Sadly it would just be another river crossing and then the blitzkrieg rolls onwards.
Also because they were not facing the wrong way. Its a myth. Of the five 15" guns on Singapore, 3 had 360 degree traverse. They did fire on the Japanese, though they didn't do much damage. Partially due to the lack of HE shells for them.
No it's not just another crossing, a normal river crossing you can put a pontoon bridge over. Here the bridge has to be a monolithic construction, which is difficult to put together, and harder to put into position, especially against any kind of serious resistance.
I don't think the Germans have an equivalent, or any way to force a crossing in the first place.
The Germans had the Roth-Waagner Bridgelager since the 1st WW.
Roth-Waagner-Brückengerät – Wikipedia
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OTL German para's captured one of the bridges intact, though it was later destroyed.
Okay, but that means you need a counterweight before you push it out. plus you actually need to prepare the ground on your own side. All in all, putting a bridge across the Corinth Canal is significantly harder than putting it across a generic river of equivalent width.The Germans had the Roth-Waagner Bridgelager since the 1st WW.
Roth-Waagner-Brückengerät – Wikipedia
de.wikipedia.org
That would make thing easier. But I maintain, trying to force a crossing under wartime conditions will be a significant undertaking, and require far more effort than doing so across a normal river.
I think I like Mr. Bailey's toys better.The Germans had the Roth-Waagner Bridgelager since the 1st WW.
Roth-Waagner-Brückengerät – Wikipedia
The Corinth Canal:
(From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corinth_Canal#/media/File:Canal_of_korinth_greece.jpg (photo attribution: By Vancouverquadra at en.wikipedia - Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by SreeBot., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16702082 ) )
(From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corinth_Canal#/media/File:Canal_of_korinth_greece.jpg (photo attribution: By Vancouverquadra at en.wikipedia - Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by SreeBot., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16702082 ) )
Annoying but doable with effort and Germany has air superiority by this point so disrupting the engineering team will be hard. Probably slow them a day or so even if the bridges have been blown.
Part of the problem with defending that canal would be where you actually defend it from. Presumably there were no fortifications at that point, so anything attempted will be pretty roughshod at best by the time the Germans arrive with their air superiority and such.
Trying to hold it might commit some (all?) of the available German airborne force to hold a bridgehead to allow a decent bridge to be bullt. That wouldn't help Crete
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