1940: better reinforced Italian East Africa

BlondieBC

Banned
It is not completely hopeless. There might be a tipping point if the Italians can send enough aircraft, submarines and MTBs to make it very difficult for the British to move merchant ships through the Red Sea. If the British cannot send merchant ships through the Red Sea, they cannot fight a war in Egypt. They will have to attack Italian East Africa before reinforcing Egypt. As Italian East Africa contains some of the most difficult terrain in the World, they may find it difficult to win quickly. If they do not win very quickly, even the Italian Tenth Army might wake up and occupy Egypt (see http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA367611) . If that happens, then even if later Egypt were recaptured, a thoroughly wrecked Suez Canal could stop any further British action in the East Mediterranean. In addition, we may not see a Balkan Campaign etc. and for the time that the East Mediterranean is an Axis lake, we might see German troops allowed through Syria into Iraq.

ps. This is all quite impossible unless Mussolini anticipates the rapid Fall of France as otherwise he needs the aircraft at home :D

Look at the Rail network. The UK in WW1 built railroads at a rate of 1.5 miles per day. Using trucks, you can supply Egypt via Kuwait. Not ideal. Probably not enough for offensive operation, but enough to defend.

Now if we are just closing the Suez, it is even easier. We can unload at the port at the South of Suez or Jeddah (Medina port). Either has rail all the way in, at least once you rebuild Sinai rail.

Threatening or closing the Suez has huge benefits to the Italians, but it is not the UK land force leaving. The RN will pull out of ports on the Med Coast. This will make the Med Sea an Italian lake. More supplies get through for the Italians. The job of the Italian Admirals gets much easier. New option open up such as Italian landings in Cyprus or Palestine.
 
The best strategy for Italy

Is to stay out of the war in the first place.

It had far too much to lose and too little to gain in a war with Great Britain.
 
Is to stay out of the war in the first place.

It had far too much to lose and too little to gain in a war with Great Britain.

This

Italy entered the war completely unprepared, in a spasm of gross opportunism.

No one thought France was going down that fast, or planned for it.

Mussolini knew the war was over, all he had to do was show up to get stuff on the cheap.

An Italy that thinks that it needs planning, and to be ready for a war that may go longer than a month, is not coming into the war in the first place.
 
What Italy (and others) did not count on was the South African ability to put together a 100% fully motorized force.

The build roads, dug for water, the works and in record time for that matter.

That totally got the Italians as they never thought an invasion force could be assembled fast and even get across the wastelands. Well, General Brink and his merry men could and did.

The "superior" Italian airforce had to fight the SAAF, equipped with all kind of things, mosly Hartebees biplanes. As Italy started to emply Fiat CR42's, SAAF got some few Hurricanes and that took care of that.

There is a rather good book: "The war of a hundred days" by James Ambrose Brown.

Unless Italy could somehow get to the same level as SA in terms of transport and logistics, they would never get much beyond their current borders.

Interestnig fact, SA's campaign was the first time 100% mobility was achieved. Smuts, having been doing the East African campaign in WWI, did not want to see more foot slogging. But easy it was not!

Ivan
 
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How about this, during the Battle of River Platte, the shot the just stunned Langsdorf, kills him instead. Second in command takes over the Graf Spee and instead of going to Uraguay, just dissapears into the night into the Ocean.

Damage is too much to reach Germany, so they go to the sympathetic neutrality of Mogadishu in Italian East Africa, Ship is interned (sort of), but the Germans just sort of flaunt around East Africa and energize the local italians with advice.

During Italys neutral phase, repair parts and equipment are smuggled from Italy, critical personnel are flown in. The German naval personel there realize the value of the East African base, and arrange for neutral merchants loaded with diesel fuel and aviation fuel to arrive before any Italian DOW. A few German pilots are trained to fly SM79s and flow in to help provide naval recon and to annoy any close blockading force.

Oooh, i like that. Yes, a self providing enclave that basically fights its own war.

However, wouldn't the British just simply destroy those feul storages with bombings very rapidly?
 
Damage is too much to reach Germany, so they go to the sympathetic neutrality of Mogadishu in Italian East Africa, Ship is interned (sort of), but the Germans just sort of flaunt around East Africa and energize the local italians with advice.
Damage too great to cross the Atlantic and head home... except not damaged enough to cross the Atlantic round the Cape of Good Hope and steam north? That's some pretty weird damage.

Then "ohh... the addition of a couple of hundred Germans changes things completely, turning the small colony into an unbeatable industrial powerhouse" (okay, that's mild exageration, but you get my point). Blatant German wank...
 
Have you ever seen a map of Africa?

Well if they had fuel to get to Montevideo they might be able to buy some from the Spanish or further down south in Africa from Portugal... Or they can be towed by Italian vessels.... or they can pull out the oars.
 
The British control Gibraltar, the Suez Canal, Aden, and a large portion of the coast of West and East Africa. They have South Africa as an ally. They have a large potential pool of troops from British India--fighting men who in OTL showed themselves superior to the Italians again and again. And the British have a huge navy that can both fend off long-shot Axis supply efforts and transport the necessary Allied troops and supplies around the Cape and from India with only minor annoyance from U-boats (the number of which was still relatively small) and German surface raiders. There is no way the Italians can resupply their troops in East Africa. And even if the Germans come in and conquer Egypt for them (highly unlikely given logistical problems and Hitler's focus on attacking the Soviet Union) the British would sabotage the canal so thoroughly that it would be unusable for long enough for the British to conquer the Italian colonies. The only way a successful fight to retain their colonies would be even remotely possible for the Italians would be if Musso resolves in the early 1920s to build a truly modern military-industrial complex (in spite of Italy's lack of mineral resources) and to totally reform his armed forces. And to search very thorougly for oil in Libya. What possible POD would have given this popinjay the motivation and ability to conduct himself in such a far-sighted way?
 
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Well i don't mind getting laughed at but no need to keep rubbing it in....:confused::D

I believe it was a nice thought. Untill i realised it was an enclave with no hope of getting supplied.
 
Damage too great to cross the Atlantic and head home... except not damaged enough to cross the Atlantic round the Cape of Good Hope and steam north? That's some pretty weird damage.

Then "ohh... the addition of a couple of hundred Germans changes things completely, turning the small colony into an unbeatable industrial powerhouse" (okay, that's mild exageration, but you get my point). Blatant German wank...

I think the concern was returning to Germany in the North Atlantic Winter (rougher seas). Summertime in the south, and since your not having to run blockade line you could go slower for longer periods.

No your not going to turn Italian Africa into an industrial powerhouse, but there was a complete lack of energy and preparation associated with the Italian war effort. The Germans themselves could arrange while Italy is neutral a tanker with aviation fuel, avaiation fuel shortages were a big issue in East Africa. German naval officers stuck in Mogadishu could realize the value of the base and push their higher ups to do something while there was still time.
 
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How about this, during the Battle of River Platte, the shot the just stunned Langsdorf, kills him instead. Second in command takes over the Graf Spee and instead of going to Uraguay, just dissapears into the night into the Ocean.

Damage is too much to reach Germany, so they go to the sympathetic neutrality of Mogadishu in Italian East Africa, Ship is interned (sort of), but the Germans just sort of flaunt around East Africa and energize the local italians with advice.

During Italys neutral phase, repair parts and equipment are smuggled from Italy, critical personnel are flown in. The German naval personel there realize the value of the East African base, and arrange for neutral merchants loaded with diesel fuel and aviation fuel to arrive before any Italian DOW. A few German pilots are trained to fly SM79s and flow in to help provide naval recon and to annoy any close blockading force.
The problem is this is impossible, we know now that Exeter crippled the Graf Spee beyond operational repair as an 8" punched straight through the armour and destroyed the fuel purification system leaving her with just 16 hours worth of Fuel following the battle.
She was doomed at just 06:38 that morning.
 
The problem is this is impossible, we know now that Exeter crippled the Graf Spee beyond operational repair as an 8" punched straight through the armour and destroyed the fuel purification system leaving her with just 16 hours worth of Fuel following the battle.
She was doomed at just 06:38 that morning.

Thanks. Evidently the 16 hours part only came available as of the year 2000 which is interesting.

The diesel propulsion of the Graf Spee would seem to be a weakness in this respect, since diesel engines would be unworkable without purified fuel in short order, where other propulsion methods could burn dirtier.. expecially considering as a raider damage without an easy way to repair is likely.

I wonder if the Altmark would have any repair capability / spare parts in this respect.
 
Thanks. Evidently the 16 hours part only came available as of the year 2000 which is interesting.

The diesel propulsion of the Graf Spee would seem to be a weakness in this respect, since diesel engines would be unworkable without purified fuel in short order, where other propulsion methods could burn dirtier.. expecially considering as a raider damage without an easy way to repair is likely.

I wonder if the Altmark would have any repair capability / spare parts in this respect.
Yeah it was interesting when i found that out as well i was surprised it was such a well kept secret for so long, we knew that Exeter's 8" could punch through Graf Spee's armour (aside from the turrets) as their armour was very similar in armour plate thickness (main belt for AGS=3.1" EXE=3")

As for Altmark, quite possible that she did have the capacity to repair the problem would be the time that was needed to do so as i would suspect that a repair of this magnitude would take days rather than hours and to do at sea would be damn near impossible.
 
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