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  1. Malta or Egypt in 1942: The right strategy

    Could be deja vous from over forty years ago, but looks like it. Thanks very much. The last time I went hunting for a book from the mists of my school days was 20 years ago and I struck lucky then too. I now have the pdf version and talking myself into the revised copy with the new afterword...

  2. Malta or Egypt in 1942: The right strategy

    I read the book over forty years and cannot remember the title or the author. The account on Rommel's logistics was only part of it. The lack of the Italian effort not to build a railway was clear. The captured railway was covered in the book. It was of limited value because Tobruk had...

  3. Malta or Egypt in 1942: The right strategy

    Thanks for this. Finger in the air time. Assuming that general military cargo is mainly ammunition (I know that it will also include food and new equipment) the amount for fuel available for reasonable for normal combat what the two are compared. However, the Luftwaffe will also need some of it...

  4. Does Robert E. Lee get too much credit as a great general?

    You have to be able to do the strategic as well as the tactical stuff to be considered for being a great general. Allowing for the strategic situation that he was in and not his fault I don't think that he did as well as he could have done strategically. However, I was not there and I do not...

  5. Does Robert E. Lee get too much credit as a great general?

    Lincoln was like that too. A series of little/no success pre war yet an incredible presidency (often rated in the top two with Washington. However good Lee is rated in absolute terms, two of the Union leaders outrate him in relative terms.

  6. Does Robert E. Lee get too much credit as a great general?

    The Anaconda Plan did not have worked as planned ie strangle the Confederacy with minimal Union casualties. Moreover, the blockade was not exactly effective in that 80% of the blockade runners got through. Still, it hit the Confederate war effort in that they would have imported more munitions...

  7. Does Robert E. Lee get too much credit as a great general?

    Taking out New Orleans after the defences were serioulsy weakened by the withdrawal of forces helped quite a bit. Nothing to do with Lee though.

  8. Malta or Egypt in 1942: The right strategy

    I can't remember all the details (it was over 40 years ago when I read it), but I got the impression that the trucks referred to were originally German for German units. Obviously it would make sense to use captured trucks for replacements especially those lost to British raids. That was...

  9. Malta or Egypt in 1942: The right strategy

    Years since I read the book on an account of Rommel's logistics in the desert, but I distinctly remember it. 1) Rommel had more trucks per division than those in Russia had. 2) Apart from when he got control of a section of British railway everything had to be moved by truck from the port...

  10. Does Robert E. Lee get too much credit as a great general?

    Not if you are fighting a Western civilisation. As the Persians, Carthaginians, Aztecs, Ottomans and Zulus all discovered, win a battle against a European army and they come back again. They rarely quit until totally destroyed. Given the Americans are heirs to the same tradition this applies...

  11. Does Robert E. Lee get too much credit as a great general?

    A point that the acedamic John Keegan made is "For all their operational expertise, Lee and Jackson proved men of limited imagation." Whether Keegan's proposed strategy would have been permitted to continue for very long by his political masters just as Fabius got sacked by his during the Second...

  12. WW one postponed?

    To defer British entry into WW1 the German should not invade Belgium because that was the causus belli that brought Britain into the war on OTL. An attack by Germany on France on just the French border is going to stalemate the Western Front. The Germans knows this hence the Schlieffen Plan. No...

  13. WW one postponed?

    If the Italians think that the British will stay out and so declare war on the side of the Central Powers they may regret it. An election in 1915 could bring the Tories into power and causus belli or no causus belli they are likely to declare war on Germany. Subject of course to any civil war in...

  14. WW one postponed?

    Some of the smaller colonies had non-monterian value in that the power who owned them had bragging rights that they had a presence in the region. Like the Cold War Space Race the cost was of less importance than "flying the flag." You still had to be able to afford to put people on the ground.

  15. WW one postponed?

    Given that 1) Compared with British and French colonies German colonies had low economic value (the South Sea Islands have even less) 2) With no RN in the war the Kreigmarine is the largest combatant navy in the war why would the French waste warships blockading African ports as opposed to...

  16. What if Bannockburn went the other way?

    If you split Scotland into four, Lowlands, Edinburgh/Glasgow, Highlands and the Islands then the first show be easily (?) "Welshified", ie subsumed into England. The Highlands are completely different, rugged and low population. In other words something like Ireland so as the Englsih found...

  17. What if Bannockburn went the other way?

    I would go with the super England. There would be no Scottish monarch and no Scottish parliament. In other words just like Wales. On OTL Scottish law is separate to England law. That would not happen on this PoD. In contrast much of Welsh law is the same as English. Of course the English have...

  18. What if Bannockburn went the other way?

    It would make more sense to annex Scotland a la Wales and Ireland then make Piers Gaveston viceroy. Given the size English control is going to be more like Ireland than Wales with semi-independant lairds in the Highlands and Islands. Your point on the succession on the death of Bruce is...

  19. What if Bannockburn went the other way?

    The English would have retaken ownership if not control of Scotland. In effect they are back to where they were at the Battle of Falkirk. In terms of concentration of effort English had three fronts, France, Wales and Scotland. During the Scottish wars of Independence all had the same level of...

  20. WW1 starts with Tanks

    If the proposed idea for British is based on the Simm's Motor War Car then hopefully some one sits on the idea until it goes away. The Burstyn Motor Gun was a missed opportunity by the Germans.
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