Allies ignore North Africa in 1942 and invade Crete.

Originally posted by Abdul Hadi Pasha

Yes. But it was poorly defended at that time - only by French troops who were not eager to fight the Americans.


There was also a risk of failure - as I mentioned above, the Maghreb was not heavily defended, without air cover, etc. Greece, OTOH, would have been heavily defended. Notice also, that most of Torch forces were American - well equipped, but with no experience at all. Sending them to hard terrain, without full air superiority against entrenched Germans with Italian support... Too risky. And imagine how terrible the failure would have been to Allies' morale.
And frankly, I doubt Turkey really would have entered the war in 1942/1943 - Germany was to strong then. Ankara staid neutral even in 1945, when there was no doubt Germany was loosing. Even Chile declared war on Germany in 1945 - Turkey did not.

Turkey was still adjacent to the Axis in 1945. If the Balkans were falling to the Western Allies, they would have been forced to come in.

Possibly good point about failure, but I don't think Crete could "fail" - just be overly costly as a worst case.

I just don't see how Torch was worth the effort. I would have done Normandy earlier and dispensed with other efforts, but I'm not sure why "soft underbelly" ideas are so maligned. It worked pretty well in WWI - the Salonika front forced the Ottomans out of the war and that plus the Italian front disposed of A-H.

What did Torch really accomplish? Once the Allies had landed in France in force the French would have come around to our side anyway, North Africa was useless, and Italy was more or less irrelevant. Why bother?
 

Commissar

Banned
So many errors I'm starting to wonder what the point of correcting them is...

The Shermans were outclassed by the Panzer Mk IV tanks, not to mention the Panthers and the first Tigers already in service.

There are less than 50 Tigers operational at this time and they are on the Ost Front near Leningrad and have serious teething problems. The Panther won't appear till next year and they have teething problems as well.

Most German Tanks in the Balkans at this time will be a hodgepodge of early Panzer IIIs and IVs plus captured French Tanks which are inferior to the Sherman as the Panzer IVF2s are are going entirely to the Ost Front. Rommel only got a handful of them and American Sherman Tanks were superior to them.

Never mind that Tank on Tank Fights are the exception not the rule at this time.

The Greek merchant marine which isn't already with the Allies will be kept by the Axis or massacred. Even the (Vichy) French and Italian navies were unable to avoid massive losses trying to change sides and merchant ships will only take heavier losses.

The French Fleet was ambushed in Port with no warning time to get up steam and run from Toulon. Ships already out at sea can make the escape and get under Allied Fighter Cover.

By the time Crete is taken it will take months before the air fields and ports can be improved sufficiently to serve as a base for further advances there will be enough German troops in the Aegean and Greece to stop the Allies, especially since the offensive will be limited to what the Allies can land amphibiously.

The Islands are lightly held and the Americans have plenty of excellent engineers to get serviceable ports and Airfields built quickly.

As for the grander scheme...The US Navy is not wasting ships on the Black Sea when it's being ground down from Midway to Guadalcanal, the Luftwaffe would butcher a fleet with the air support mentioned for Torch and none of this fantasy is credible since Turkey is not going to join the war when the loss of Istanbul is the first result they can be certain of and the Allies aren't going to be able to deploy sufficient units to protect the city. So Wozza is correct that the grand invasion of the Balkans is jumping the shark.

The Americans have more than enough Carriers to do this and more are coming online as time passes. 18 new CV,CVL,CVE were built 1942 and 65 more were built next year. Also don't forget Britain's Carriers as well.

Also Midway is done at this point and Japan is licking its wounds.
 

Commissar

Banned
this whole idea is a total disaster in the making. the germans only had about 2 divisions on the whole island and wouldn't really be able to reinforce it yet the allies are going to commit 3 corps to it?

if they could land on the south shore than maybe it has some benefit as an unsinkable aircraft carrier but thats just not the case. all the ports that are of any use are on the north side of the island making the allied ships extremely vulnerable to luftwaffe airstrikes. the germans could fight a protracted mountain campaign like monte cassino or mount etna with just the resources at hand. the allies in 1942 didnt have total air superiority either the torch landings were frequently bombed by the luftwaffe. also the allied airforce had no experience yet in air to ground operations on such a big scale and tended to attack everyone indescrimently.

assuming similar forces were deployed as a quick reaction by the germans the allies would face 3-4 line infantry divisions and 3/4 of a panzer division along with most of an air fleet. given the horrible terrain and lack of air bases available on the south coast this could be stalingrad south

Chill out and read up on the Ship's AA armament.

BB 59 has

9 × 16 in (410 mm)/45 caliber Mark 6 guns
20 × 5 in (130 mm)/38 cal guns
24 × Bofors 40 mm guns
35 × Oerlikon 20 mm cannons

And the other ships have more were that came from plus Carrier Air Power.

The German Italian Occupation Force doesn't stand a chance with all the concentrated AA the Escort Fleet gives (not to mention fire support) or the heavy Carrier Aircraft commitment.

Where are the Germans going to pull aircraft from. Stalingrad? Its being surrounded and its not a simple thing to tell them to break out as that will enable the Soviets to pour into Army Group B's rear or hit Army Group Center which itself is in engaged in heavy combat with Zhukov's Operation Mars.

Leningrad? Also under heavy Soviet Assault.

Caucasus? Being slammed hard by the Soviets.
 
Abdul, the British and US were not capable of invading France in 1942 and Italy could hardly be targetted while the fighting was raging in North Africa so something had to be done.

As for WWI comparisons, there wasn't the slightest chance in 1942 of the Western Allies deploying forces remotely on the scale of the Italian and Salonika Fronts, not to mention the other British/Allied forces attacking the Ottomans at the same time.

A fair estimate for 1917-1918 for all Allied forces in Italy and Salonika but not the other fronts with the Ottomans, including the Italians and Greeks, would come to something above 1.75 million men, whose sole accomplishments came at the very end of the war against a disintegrating Austria-Hungary and a mutinous Bulgarian army.



Commissar, amazing how so many historians have been deluded into thinking the US was short-handed in carriers during the Guadalcanal campaign when so many were actually available. Not to mention the utter lack of Luftwaffe resistance in the Med from Operation Torch until the end in Tunisia...:rolleyes:
 
Chill out and read up on the Ship's AA armament.

BB 59 has

9 × 16 in (410 mm)/45 caliber Mark 6 guns
20 × 5 in (130 mm)/38 cal guns
24 × Bofors 40 mm guns
35 × Oerlikon 20 mm cannons

And the other ships have more were that came from plus Carrier Air Power.

The German Italian Occupation Force doesn't stand a chance with all the concentrated AA the Escort Fleet gives (not to mention fire support) or the heavy Carrier Aircraft commitment.

Where are the Germans going to pull aircraft from. Stalingrad? Its being surrounded and its not a simple thing to tell them to break out as that will enable the Soviets to pour into Army Group B's rear or hit Army Group Center which itself is in engaged in heavy combat with Zhukov's Operation Mars.

Leningrad? Also under heavy Soviet Assault.

Caucasus? Being slammed hard by the Soviets.


the same way the germans attacked the actual troops who landed during operation torch by pulling units stationed in italy and france to create at least some air contestment.

to send your aircraft carrier within easy reach of land based air is pure folly especially in 1942. the germans had implaced battalions of coastal guns along with aircraft that were available to fight in the theater. assuming the allies landed on the south shore of the island (i dont think they would be bold enough to land on the north shore (sicily ie)) they would be vulnerable both to airstrikes and german reinforcements that could be parachuted in or shipped in during the hours of darkness.

crete is so far away from any meaningful objective as to actually be a useless operation. plus they would be intermingling themselves in a nasty civil war between the right and left that was allready going on in greece. churchills first attempt to send troops there was a mistake... salonika in ww1 was a mistake

the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting something different
 

Commissar

Banned
Commissar, amazing how so many historians have been deluded into thinking the US was short-handed in carriers during the Guadalcanal campaign when so many were actually available. Not to mention the utter lack of Luftwaffe resistance in the Med from Operation Torch until the end in Tunisia...:rolleyes:

Maybe because the narrow confines of the Solomons restricted Carrier Operations and most carriers were needed for troop protection in Europe.

Now the F4Fs might not be fully up to snuff against the Me-109F-4s and the few Me-109Gs that are available, the P-40Fs however, are. With the Carriers the Americans and British can maintain enough Aircover to keep the Fleet covered.

P-38s can also be brought to the theater as well.
 
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