Garrison
Donor
Well the lines of supply to China are secure, unfortunately the Chinese Nationalists are still something of a black hole when it comes to Lend-Lease, stuff goes in and is never sseen again.
Munich Shuffle: 1938-1942
- Thread starter Garrison
- Start date
If it pins down the balance of the IJA then its worth the effort and with Rangoon still in Allied hands there is a direct rail link to China
Garrison
Donor
And if some stuff heading for China ends up somewhere a little more useful so much the better.
3rd May – 9th May 1942 – Malta - Operation Herkules
Garrison
Donor
3rd May – 9th May 1942 – Malta - Operation Herkules
When the British first acquired intelligence about Operation Herkules there was considerable alarm in Whitehall, not so much about the prospect of an attack on Malta, but the possibility that the Germans were aware that Bletchley Park was making inroads into reading messages encoded by the Enigma machine and the even more complicated Lorenz cypher. It seemed to some that the plan for an airborne operation against Malta had to be some sort of decoy, perhaps designed to provoke a response from the British that would prove Enigma had been penetrated. This was a legitimate reaction as from the British perspective Herkules was at least six months too late. The importance of Malta was obvious to both sides, and the Axis had tried to force the island into surrender both by bombing and by interdicting supply convoys. The series of defeats suffered by the Italians in Libya, the increasing activity of the RAF and Royal Navy operating out of Crete and the Wehrmacht’s preoccupation with the Eastern Front had substantially reduced the pressure on the beleaguered Maltese. Even so a large-scale airborne assault remained a concern throughout 1941 even after the heavy casualties inflicted on the Fallschirmjägers in failed attack on Crete [1].
By 1942 however the window of opportunity for such an attack had closed. Malta had been substantially reinforced, especially its air defences, and the British reasonably wondered how if an airborne force did somehow take the island could they hold it given that the supply lines of any Axis force would be tenuous at best? Once they concluded that the Germans were still unaware that Enigma had been breached and that they were serious about Herkules the British still had to be cautious about reinforcing the island, any sudden increase in forces on Malta without a plausible explanation might well tip the Germans off about their security issues regardless and thus a solid cover story had to be put in place. In this case the explanation was straightforward and logical. New equipment was being sent to Malta to replace some that was deemed worn out or obsolete. The chosen reinforcement troops in the shape of the Royal Canadian Regiment were being dispatched for training, prior to relieving other troops on Malta. This caution was admirable, though in the end unnecessary as the Germans and Italians were too busy blaming one another for the outcome of the battle to worry about anyone reading the unbreakable Enigma code [2].
For those who saw them on the morning of the 3rd of May 1942 the sight of the massive Me 321 swooping out of the dawn sky was something that they would never forget, though this did not stop the islands anti-aircraft defences from opening fire on them. On the day eleven Me 321 took part in the assault, a twelfth had been damaged while being towed on the ground and could not be repaired in time. Of the remaining eleven only five survived to land in Malta. The complex towing arrangements for the Me 321, requiring the use of three Bf 110 led to the first casualty as a malfunction in the release mechanism led to a collision between two tow planes that sent both of them and the Me 321 plummeting into the sea. Two others were apparently affected by control or piloting issues that saw them descend far faster than they were intended to, with both also ending up in the Mediterranean and one hit an obstacle while landing and cartwheeled, destroying the glider and killing all aboard. Only two succumbed directly to enemy action as the Me 321 proved remarkably resistant to both fighter cannon and anti-aircraft rounds, their light construction simply allowed rounds to pass through with little damage [3].
The five that made it to the ground delivered not only 120 troops but a variety of exactly the sort of supporting weapons that had been so lacking in Crete. This included seven Panzers, a mix of Pz I and Pz II models as well as four British Bren Carriers, captured in Greece. These had been reconditioned, and now put to work towing light artillery pieces for the Fallschirmjägers. Combined with Fallschirmjägers from more conventional gliders this group could muster almost 200 troops and what was grouped as a fire support company. Their objective was to seize the airfield at Luqa and open the way for reinforcements to be flown in. The problem for the German troops was that the relative success of the Me 321s would turn out to be only such triumph in the battle. Even as these troops organized themselves to move out, they encountered forward elements of the Royal Canadians. The Canadian troops were taken by surprise by the presence of German armour and lacking anti-tank guns were forced to fall back while engaging in a series of blocking actions to slow the advance of the Fallschirmjägers [4].
The presence of this small group of tanks was potentially a problem for the defence of Luqa as there had been nothing on the island bar a handful of Mk VI Bs prior to April. These tanks had demonstrated that they were effective against the Fallschirmjägers on Crete, but the Pz II were a threat they could not counter. This changed when the Canadians were deployed and their superiors in the 1st Canadian Division successfully lobbied for them to be accompanied by a detachment from the 12th Canadian Army Tank Battalion. Most of these tanks were still Mark VI Bs, but the Canadians had taken the opportunity to include two platoons of their home-grown tank the Wolverine in this front-line deployment. The short-barrelled howitzer on the Wolverine was hardly ideal for tank-to-tank engagements, however firing against the Pz I and PZ II at point blank range they proved effective, especially given that they were large immune to return fire. The ‘Wolverines of Malta’ engaged the advancing Fallschirmjägers about two miles west of Luqa. There were five of them with the Canadian infantry in support and the exchange lasted barely twenty minutes. At the end of this one Wolverine was out of action owing to a shot damaging its tracks, in return they had destroyed all the Bren carriers and four out of six Panzers.
Allegedly the moment when the Fallschirmjägers gave up trying to break through and began to retreat came when a hit from a Wolverine blew the turret off a Panzer II. Though some doubts have been cast on this story over the years the turret in question can still be seen in the Malta at War Museum in Birgu. Regardless of whether this legendary shot actually happened or not the Fallschirmjägers were forced to withdraw, and this detachment was the only one that even came close to taking its objective [5].
The decision to deploy the Fallschirmjägers primarily by glider removed some of the issues encountered at Crete but Malta was much smaller island, and the number of landing zones was far more limited. A number of DFS 230 gliders not only missed their landing zones but overshot the whole island and ended up in the sea. Those that did find their target also found the landing zones had been littered with obstacles specifically intended to wreak havoc on gliders and heavy losses were taken. There was some inevitable confusion among the defenders, especially after the first reports of Panzers on the island were received. A group of gliders that landed off course near the airfield at Takali was able to organize and advance for three hours without encountering any opposition because two infantry units were under the impression that the other had been tasked with moving up to block them. Only when they began engaging the defences at the airfield itself was the mistake recognized and troops hastily rushed in to reinforce the airfield, though by the time thesse arrived the German troops had already been driven off [6].
The intended amphibious support for the operation was to put it mildly a shambles. The escort force was supposed to be led by the battleship Vittorio Veneto, intended to provide direct fire support during the landing, along with the cruiser Gorizia, two destroyers and a trio of torpedo boats. On the 1st of May this plan was changed, without the Germans being informed. The Regia Marina had become increasingly anxious that the presence of one of their remaining battleships would make the convoy a magnet for British attacks if they discovered it, the Vittorio Veneto remained in port and command devolved to the Gorizia. The British already knew about the dispatch of the convoy thanks to ULTRA decrypts, and arranged for a reconnaissance aircraft to overfly it, providing a plausible explanation for the dispatch of an intercepting force. This reconnaissance aircraft was spotted and soon Regia Aeronautica scouts reported the presence of Royal navy ships heading to intercept the convoy. At this point the Italian force was ordered to turn around and return to port. It is hard to say who was more upset by this decision, The Wehrmacht or the Royal Navy. There was certainly a great deal of anger in Berlin at this latest display of Italian cowardice. Given the balance of naval forces in the Mediterranean the Italian action may not have been heroic, it was however eminently sensible [7].
There were several attempts by the Luftwaffe to drop supplies to the beleaguered Fallschirmjägers and a second wave of gliders was dispatched on the 4th of May, both taking heavy losses from RAF fighters and the meagre number of supplies and reinforcements received did nothing to change the situation on the ground. The losses in Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica aircraft incurred in these efforts, and in trying to bomb British positions, meant that both air forces drastically scaled back their support over Malta on the 5th and now completely isolated the Fallschirmjägers had little choice but to surrender, though a few pockets of resistance held out until the 9th of May.
The attack on Malta was an unmitigated disaster, according to senior British and American commanders it did not move the date of the Sicily landings by even so much as a day. Inspecting the remains of the Me 321 gliders in the aftermath many were impressed by their sheer carrying capacity, which dwarfed that of anything else in the air. It was however concluded that designing it as a glider and deploying it without adequate fighter cover was folly. The Germans would largely have agreed with this appraisal and were already working on a powered version, the Me 323, though the question of how to use it effectively was never resolved by the increasingly beleaguered Luftwaffe [8].
In the name of preserving his own position Goering threw not only Italians but Kurt Student under the bus and Student found himself unceremoniously removed from command of the 7th Air Division. The new command structure of the division took a more realistic line as far as the capabilities of the Fallschirmjägers were concerned, envisioning them being used in small scale actions in advance of a major attack to cut lines of communications and seize strategically important targets such as bridges. This realism did little to impress Goering, who argued against such deployments. He still kept the program to develop an airborne infantry support vehicle alive into 1943, suggesting that had not yet abandoned the idea of some spectacular airborne operation. Much of the surviving strength of the 7th Air Division was deployed to Sicily to fight as infantry, a questionable decision given their relatively light armament [9].
For the Allies Operation Herkules served as a sign that the Axis was growing desperate and reinforced the belief that plans for a landing in Northwest Europe be prioritized over any operations in Italy or the Balkans. The invasion of Sicily remained a focus of plans in the west for the summer of 1942, however planning for a large-scale incursion on the coast of France was well underway, with the port of Dieppe being selected as the intended target for what some saw less as a raid and more as a chance to seize a foothold on the continent [10].
[1] It was a genuine worry, at the time when it would actually have mattered.
[2] The Axis refusal to consider the possibility the Allies were reading their messages is deeply embedded and immune to any butterflies here.
[3] In OTL it acquired the nickname ‘Elastoplast bomber’.
[4] If the Germans had been able to deploy 100 Me 321, well 80 of them would probably have end up in the Med around Malta.
[5] The first time the Wolverine sees combat ITTL, but not the last.
[6] A bit of confusion but the Germans just don’t have the numbers to hold any ground.
[7] The Italians just don’t have ships to throw away, and the RM had no faith in Herkules anyway.
[8] The Me 321 and 323 were interesting ideas, but they were just never going to work in 1942-43.
[9] And we will see them again when the fighting on Sicily starts.
[10] And yes there will be a couple of updates on alt-Dieppe.
Garrison
Donor
No, here the had to compromise between the two operations and they did have a fair idea where the Japanese carriers were.
Thanks. I must say that this still strikes me as a risk Nimitz would not take; even in this timeline, carriers would be worth more than their weight in gold to Nimitz (and King) in early 1942, and sending Hornet out with no other carrier for cover is making it a sitting duck if he's guessed wrong.
But that's a niggle. This is a solid timeline otherwise.
Garrison
Donor
Politics strikes again, with some people in Washington being far too enthusiastic about the Doolittle raid and on the other hand Nimitz wanted to hit as hard as possible at Wake, so you wind up with a compromise that would have cost someone their job if it went wrong.
marathag
Banned
Somewhere, I have the US Army photos of the 75mm Pack Howitzer tested against old tanks as proof of concept for T5E2
Old tanks, but had similar armor to what the German Mk I and MkII had, and did make a mess of them, with just HE
Garrison
Donor
Cool, means it does make sense that they could wreck the Fallschirmjägers Panzer support, that's a relief. I was afraid that only worked in World of Tanks.
A little surprised you didn't have the Germans use the Pz.38 instead of Pz. I's & II's, as I mentioned here there is film footage of a Pz.38 being unloaded from a Gigant but I guess it was better for the story that you didn't.Cool, means it does make sense that they could wreck the Fallschirmjägers Panzer support, that's a relief. I was afraid that only worked in World of Tanks.
I personally was assuming that all the Pz.38s would be otherwise engaged in the East, and that using these obselete and therefore expendable tanks was a spasm of sanity by the people planning the operation.
I could see Göring getting his hands on some and he must've done so IOTL cause as I said there is film footage of a Pz. 38 unloading from a Gigant, makes me wonder if a Pz.III could've fit in an Me-321 but that would've been harder for the Luftwaffe to obtain.
Garrison
Donor
It was pretty much case of giving Goering something for his scheme that the Heer didn't really want anymore, and of course he was still planning to use the Pz II as the basis for his airborne support Panzer.
Thanks for the laugh, I’m totally using this at some future meetings at work
Panzer II has less armour than the Japanese tanks that Sherman crews used HE on as AP just over penetrated and punched a hole through ie doing less damageCool, means it does make sense that they could wreck the Fallschirmjägers Panzer support, that's a relief. I was afraid that only worked in World of Tanks.
Also, while Panzer I and II weren't good front line tanks at that time, if you view them as mobile armoured machine guns, they can be very useful against most unarmoured (and some lightly armoured) targets.
Available (and expendable) and good enough makes them a credible and sensible choice.
Available (and expendable) and good enough makes them a credible and sensible choice.
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