Sir John Valentine Carden survives.
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This runs into the same problem as staging through Crete, sheer distances involved. You would need a lot of bombers to make it viable, otherwise the damage just isn't going to stick very effectively due to sortie rates.
True. OTOH, it's further from the mainland, has (if I understand it correctly) some airfields already built, and the primary port isn't nearly as exposed. Oh, and once you have Rhodes, you can start crawling up the eastern islands to Kos, Samos, Chios, Lesbos, etc.
On another note, this time make sure you close the Corinth Canal. Scuttle a few ships in there and bring landslides down on top of them or something. Make the Germans really have to work to get it open.
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yeah the okw concetrating most of the power on the ukraine to go for the oil in the soviet union as the main goal and the central and northern fronts being given abit lower priority might actually be a interesting way to go. The south was the most disastrous already in otl for the soviets asfar i can remember to be honest . And the south was one of the main concetrations of the germans in otl , they did a diversion in the fall from the central army group to the south to pocket a few hundred thousand soviets again.
The RAF isn't going to be hitting Ploesti every night, that's too obvious, any Bomber Group based in the Agean, either on Crete or Rhodes or both is going to vary it's targets, including hitting urban targets in Bulgaria and Hungary to highlight that being part of the Axis has costs plus transport infrastructure along the Danube. They aren't stupid so they'll hit enough other targets to force the Germans to spread their resources and not completely shred the bomber force by repeatedly hitting the hardest targets. But they'll keep coming back to Ploesti.
I think the Battle of Ploesti will follow a similar path to the Battle of the Ruhr. A lot of dead aircrew and destroyed, very expensive bombers but also a lot of damage on the ground that the Germans have to repair and lots of German resources tied up on defense. Not enough to change the result of the war massively, it won't end in 1944, the second world war was just too big for that but a noticeable shift in favour of the Allies.
I don’t think it’s likely any East Mediterranean island will be a significant bombing base because the infrastructure isn’t developed. To do enough damage you need to have a lot of bombers, which is possible in Britain because it has a developed road/rail network, manpower for the construction of bases, and the factories producing the bombers are nearby.
As @Paulo the Limey said even if you want to go that way it’ll have to wait until the Americans come in, Britain is using its resources to build air bases at home. I’d say it also requires the Mediterranean to be open to Allied shipping so the construction of sufficient bases/infrastructure won’t happen until after Sicily is taken, which tbf should be earlier ITTL.
As @Paulo the Limey said even if you want to go that way it’ll have to wait until the Americans come in, Britain is using its resources to build air bases at home. I’d say it also requires the Mediterranean to be open to Allied shipping so the construction of sufficient bases/infrastructure won’t happen until after Sicily is taken, which tbf should be earlier ITTL.
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The Soviets will still claim that anything supplied by the capitalists is rubbish and has little or no effect compared with the efforts of the heroic Soviet Army and the production efforts of Soviet industry under the leadership of Stalin.......
I cannot see a reason why the Germans would change OTL Barbarossa and focus on a drive to Baku. First and foremost, the Germans didn't plan for a multi-year campaign so as to focus on a drive to Caucasus. If the OKW expect the war will take only a few months, why bother? They would have to change completely their strategic thinking and instead of a knock-out blow (as in OTL) they would need to plan for at least a two year campaign season where in Year 1 they capture Baku and in Year 2 they drive to Moscow and knock the USSR out of the war.
Moreover, even the most insanely optimistic Heer staff officer cannot hope to reach Baku before winter. Reaching Baku from Donbas as in Fall Blau is one thing. Reaching Baku from Prut is insane even for the most insane German officer.
Overall, I sincerely doubt there will be any major difference in Barbarossa.
I think it depends. If the British offer Cyprus to Greece while retaining bases there, in order to secure Souda and an adjacent airbase complex, then the Greeks would jump at the opportunity. Moreover, in TTL the Greeks will be viewed as a more reliable and valuable ally.
The Foreign Office has to decide how british interests would be better served: have bases in both Crete and Cyprus or just keep Cyprus as a colony. Frankly, Britain had extremely few economic interests in Cyprus. The island's importance laid on its strategic location and being an unsinkable carrier for the RAF. What I propose is a win-win: Britain strengthens its power projection in the Mediterranean via Crete, while keeping what is valuable in Cyprus. At the same time, Albion gains good will with Greece. In such case, Britain doesn't lose its influence in Greece as it did in post-1946. While USA will be the western hegemon of the post-war era, Britain can claim to be the second-best more important regional hegemon.
If the resources are found, Souda can be turned into a great port and a secondary smaller one can be built in Tympaki at the south coast. If the Luftwaffe is blasting cretan ports, the extra miles to the north do not make a great difference to be honest. Due to distances involved (and the Luftwaffe operating from mainland Greece with worse logistics compared to Sicily) it will be way easier for the Allies compared to Malta. After all, Crete can feed itself. Not to mention that ina few months the RAF will oeprate fighters from the island to act as a shield for the convoys.
Why do I say that the RAF can operate fighters soonish? Because if the Luftwaffe could stage a significant part of X. Fliegerkorps in Crete in a matter of months, why the British cannot do such thing? After all, the OTL german logistics in the Aegrean were atrocious, having to rely on a handful of transports and were partially depended on wooden fishing boats.
Naturally, bombers are a whole different thing. But by late 1941 the RAF can have a decent fighter presence in the island along with a squadron of Stringbags.
Moreover, even the most insanely optimistic Heer staff officer cannot hope to reach Baku before winter. Reaching Baku from Donbas as in Fall Blau is one thing. Reaching Baku from Prut is insane even for the most insane German officer.
Overall, I sincerely doubt there will be any major difference in Barbarossa.
I think it depends. If the British offer Cyprus to Greece while retaining bases there, in order to secure Souda and an adjacent airbase complex, then the Greeks would jump at the opportunity. Moreover, in TTL the Greeks will be viewed as a more reliable and valuable ally.
The Foreign Office has to decide how british interests would be better served: have bases in both Crete and Cyprus or just keep Cyprus as a colony. Frankly, Britain had extremely few economic interests in Cyprus. The island's importance laid on its strategic location and being an unsinkable carrier for the RAF. What I propose is a win-win: Britain strengthens its power projection in the Mediterranean via Crete, while keeping what is valuable in Cyprus. At the same time, Albion gains good will with Greece. In such case, Britain doesn't lose its influence in Greece as it did in post-1946. While USA will be the western hegemon of the post-war era, Britain can claim to be the second-best more important regional hegemon.
If the resources are found, Souda can be turned into a great port and a secondary smaller one can be built in Tympaki at the south coast. If the Luftwaffe is blasting cretan ports, the extra miles to the north do not make a great difference to be honest. Due to distances involved (and the Luftwaffe operating from mainland Greece with worse logistics compared to Sicily) it will be way easier for the Allies compared to Malta. After all, Crete can feed itself. Not to mention that ina few months the RAF will oeprate fighters from the island to act as a shield for the convoys.
Why do I say that the RAF can operate fighters soonish? Because if the Luftwaffe could stage a significant part of X. Fliegerkorps in Crete in a matter of months, why the British cannot do such thing? After all, the OTL german logistics in the Aegrean were atrocious, having to rely on a handful of transports and were partially depended on wooden fishing boats.
Naturally, bombers are a whole different thing. But by late 1941 the RAF can have a decent fighter presence in the island along with a squadron of Stringbags.
Surely offering Cyprus to Greece would be the last thing a 1941 British government would want to do, given they were trying to keep Turkey onside
Yes. But they are still very welcome none the less. And if it makes them feel better the British tanks were made by British communists in the Midlands 🤪
But I am talking post-war. Initial secret talks with the greek government to dangle Cyprus as a bait. After the war, if it is deemed a good plan they can make a formal offer.
Other than the potential post-war use, I don't see why the Allies wouldn't build infrastructure in an Allied nation if it is deemed that the infrastructure was helping to win the war. For example, the Allies vastly improved the infrastructure in French North Africa in 1943 and 1944. Were there any anglo-american plans on using Algeria post-war? No, it was just deemed helpful for the war effort. After all, the Allies tried their best to pay in cement and steel instead of blood.
Won't happen. The UK still needs Cyprus (and hasn't come up with the SBA yet) and its a powder keg. Also about the only thing Turkey and Greece agree about is that they don't want the other to get hold of it. Add in that Turkey is militarily irrelevant and the Allies will soon be able to simply outbid Germany for their materials and its just not worth it.
Probably most of them and even if full scale Bomber war isn't an option they'll cheerfully use them to deploy commandos every which way and make Germany miserable.
Good. Because it occurs to me that, even if they do manage to take the are around the Corinth Canal, if the Canal itself has been blocked, the Axis can only bring shipping around the south of the Peloponnese. Might be worth putting some troops on Kythira and Antikythira to make it as difficult as possible for the Axis to get ships into the Aegean.
Also, if Crete is an allied base, and they retain a number of Aegean islands, that would make it expensive for the Axis to reinforce the Dodecanese islands.
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Sure. But you need to butterfly away completely the german strategic thinking that needed a quick, single-season campaign against the Soviet Union. How can you realistically do it? The Germans believed that by winter 1941 it would be game over and they could control all the resources of the european part of the USSR.
In their thinking, the Baku oil would be gained by very quickly destroying the Soviet State. Το quickly destroy the Soviet State then the schwerpunkt must be in the sensitive region of Moscow, the political capital, a central railroad hub and a major industrial center. They don't want to march all the way to e.g. Vladivostok. The Red Army must be brought to battle and be thoroughly destroyed. And only Moscow has the importance to achieve it.
Derek Pullem
Donor
...........and it's a long, long way to transport the oil to Germany. The other Achilles heel of Baku solves everything - it's not like there is a fleet of tankers able to transit the Bosporus and ship it to Hamburg. Even if Baku had been captured intact the rail lines would be a magnet for allied bombers.
marathag
Banned
Counterpoint, Tinian Island in July 1944 compared to July 1945
That's North Field, West Field in the distance. The Japanese just had two small runways, one at each location.
The SeeBees expanded out to four, 8500 foot long strips, with additional taxiway and parking handstands on the North, and a pair of 8500 foot strips for bombers, 5000 foot for fighters, and two shorter auxiliary strips South of that West Field.
Tinian is 39 square miles in area
Which is possible because America had the resources to do so at the time, and it was critical to the theatre that they did so. Here, now, in this timeline, the U.K. simply doesn’t have the resources to do so in a theatre that is secondary.Counterpoint, Tinian Island in July 1944 compared to July 1945
That's North Field, West Field in the distance. The Japanese just had two small runways, one at each location.
The SeeBees expanded out to four, 8500 foot long strips, with additional taxiway and parking handstands on the North, and a pair of 8500 foot strips for bombers, 5000 foot for fighters, and two shorter auxiliary strips South of that West Field.
Tinian is 39 square miles in area
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