@RamscoopRaider : Merry Christmas good sir. I have a two part but otherwise single question, which I theorize you answering will not spoil anything that much for your readers but will be a nice bit of knowledge to have when thinking about what we read going forward... so, ITTL, is Von Richtofen as influential to Hitler as Goering OTL? Part two to that question, does he make it to the end of the war in some functional state of being or will something occur to remove him from control of the Luftwaffe? (Like, say, assassinated? I don't want to know if/how he may die or be removed, only if it happens or if he is analogous to Goering aside from actually being competent)
He is not a Goering equivalent. He is the head of the Luftwaffe, which is just an air force and doesn't also control AA or any ground forces beyond airfield security ITTL, and he definitely does not have Goering's economic empire or political connections. He does still have a great deal of respect and a forceful personality
Basically Hitler actually respects Von Richthofen's martial abilities, while seeing the Heer's general staff as a bunch of venal ass covering timer servers, so the Red Baron can get away with a lot more criticism
He is not a Goering equivalent. He is the head of the Luftwaffe, which is just an air force and doesn't also control AA or any ground forces beyond airfield security ITTL, and he definitely does not have Goering's economic empire or political connections. He does still have a great deal of respect and a forceful personality
Basically Hitler actually respects Von Richthofen's martial abilities, while seeing the Heer's general staff as a bunch of venal ass covering timer servers, so the Red Baron can get away with a lot more criticism
Well he scares me with his competency, his ability to influence Hitler I didn't envision as analagous to the fiefdom that Goering qas granted or collected OTL in terms of manipulating Hitler's mentality or economic assets. I feel conflicted in wanting him to die, just to make it more difficult for Germany, but I do very much appreciate your including him in the story since I've never seen it in anything I've read and I don't even really know how much more dangerous the Luftwaffe now is under his leadership. I am assuming France is going to go down harder than it did OTL but my intuition is telling me you're probably going to surprise us (50/50 odds are my bet )
I don't think I've seen a detailed "competent Luftwaffe" timeline before, this is fun. And poor Norway, their better-than-OTL performance is rendered meaningless as Britain evacuates to try saving a doomed front in France. If they leave Narvik too this will be a huge farce.
Indeed. The only thing that is difficult to get a hold of is the choices that he is potentially going to make because he didn't get to live long enough for him to get a super in-depth ides of his personality in the historical record.
Indeed. The only thing that is difficult to get a hold of is the choices that he is potentially going to make because he didn't get to live long enough for him to get a super in-depth ides of his personality in the historical record.
Agree. I've oftened wondered what MvR would have done after the war had he lived, maybe go home and become a recluse? Or stay in the military?
I supposed it depended on the circumstances of his survival in an alternate timeline.
I once had an idea for a TL where Richthofen traveled around the world visiting mostly countries that had an air force especially Germany's former enemies who I think would welcome him and even put out the red carpet for him, these would basically be goodwill tours but in reality MvR would be spying for Germany.
A former member here was thinking of turning this idea into a TL but then got banned.
Agree. I've oftened wondered what MvR would have done after the war had he lived, maybe go home and become a recluse? Or stay in the military?
I supposed it depended on the circumstances of his survival in an alternate timeline.
I once had an idea for a TL where Richthofen traveled around the world visiting mostly countries that had an air force especially Germany's former enemies who I think would welcome him and even put out the red carpet for him, these would basically be goodwill tours but in reality MvR would be spying for Germany.
A former member here was thinking of turning this idea into a TL but then got banned.
What a shame, that's a very intriguing premise that could have so many possible butterflies in the world that it could be developed remarkably by the right executor D:
What a shame, that's a very intriguing premise that could have so many possible butterflies in the world that it could be developed remarkably by the right executor D:
If I could write I'd take a shot at it but I have no real experience at it and I'm afraid I'd get stuck and end up abandoning the TL and I hate it when people do that.
If I could write I'd take a shot at it but I have no real experience at it and I'm afraid I'd get stuck and end up abandoning the TL and I hate it when people do that.
Don't think that you have to be a perfect writer you can expect to have like three ideas contending for primary attention before you finally take the time to make sure that you have a primary one like mostly figured out. But all that takes time and patience and practice.
…German forces continued their headlong dash to the sea on the 22nd, with nothing able to stop the 9 Panzer divisions as they advanced. The detachments of Anglo-French troops unable to evacuate found themselves rapidly overrun, including an entire squadron of newly arrived Glaives being caught on the ground by German Panzers before they could fly to another base, and a battalion of French reservists being overrun while drilling. In the eastern part of the advance several British line of communication divisions were destroyed near Cambrai in a desperate but futile attempt to slow down the Germans. By the end of the 22nd Amiens had fallen and the Germans were less than 30 miles from the sea.
The advance continued the next day with Abbeville falling by noon and the destruction of a pair of British territorial infantry divisions near Arras. Positioned on the Scarpe river to hold staging areas for the British counteroffensive, now postponed to the 25th, they were unprepared when a French unit to their east retreated without orders and allowed a Panzer division to cross and get in their rear areas. Pincered between two panzer divisions they rapidly disintegrated as they attempted to flee north.
At 3:00 in the afternoon on the 23rd German recon units arrived at the village of Cayeux-sur-Mer and transmitted in the clear “Thalassa, Thalassa.” The sea had been reached and the pride of the Anglo-French armies trapped in a giant pocket…
…On the 25th 3 British divisions attempted to breach the German lines at Arras. The original plan was to attack in coordination with the French on the 23rd and to cut off the German spearhead completely. However the French were unable to assemble a significant mobile fist south of the breakthrough, and a combination of lack of plans and Luftwaffe attacks delayed the British part of the attack until the 25th.
The British attack opened at dawn with an artillery barrage, followed by an advance of infantry tanks on the town of Vimy just north of Arras. The heavy armor of the infantry tanks rendered them frontally immune to the 37mm, 47mm and 50mm AT guns of the German screening forces, with the Mark III’s even immune in the side arcs, and allowed the British to simply roll over the defenders and take the ridge south of Vimy. That is however when the situation bogged down.
The slow speed of the infantry tanks meant that they could not reach the Scarpe in a timely manner, so the decision was made to send the lightly armored light and cruiser tanks ahead and try and seize crossing before the Germans brought up reinforcements. This proved to be a mistake as the more lightly armored tanks, while quickly getting within sight of the river, proved vulnerable to the second line of anti-tank guns across the river. The British practice of providing only one tank in a platoon with an HE throwing gun proved a hindrance as the cruiser tanks found it difficult to neutralize the AT guns, especially when the Germans quickly learned to prioritize them. The arrival of the infantry tanks solved this dilemma at 11:30, as they all mounted HE throwing guns, however by that point the British cruisers and lights had suffered heavy losses.
By 12:30 the British had crossed the Scarpe both east and west of Arras, but lacking infantry could not dig the Germans out of the town. The infantry that would have been able to attack the town had been delayed by German artillery and air attack, and was still not even at Vimy. Instead the British infantry tanks screened the town while the cruisers and lights attempted to break out into the German rear areas. By this point however they were too late and 4 miles south of Arras began encountering a hastily dug in German defense line.
Lacking infantry and the weapons to effectively demolish strong points the British found it impossible to neutralize the German defenses. They could maneuver around them, but that only exposed the vulnerable sides of their tanks to the AT rifles and light Flak they could otherwise ignore, while frontal assaults would result in more casualties they could ill afford. The British were thus forced to wait for their infantry to arrive to do anything.
The British infantry however was finding itself the concentrated target of every dive bomber the Germans could muster and by 3:00 both infantry divisions had yet to reach the Scarpe while having suffered very heavy losses. General Dill, in his role as commander of the BEF, called off the attack and ordered a withdrawal back across the Scarpe, not wanting his tanks dispersed for a concentrated Panzer division to hit them…
…The Battle of Arras was a failure, despite an impressive advance of 10 miles in half a day, the British breakthrough was easily contained and they lost half of their gains. The British attack did however convince Hitler to issue a halt order for three days to bring up reinforcements and reorient the direction of the German attack…
…On the 24th the German forces pivoted north, moving up the coast to try and capture the Channel Ports before the Anglo-French could properly fortify them. Recon units reached the outskirts of Boulogne on the 24th, precipitating its evacuation by the French during the night. On the 25th Boulogne fell and German recon units encircled the port of Calais before an order to halt and consolidate was issued…
…Following the failure at Arras the British and French knew that there was no salvaging the situation in Belgium and on the 26th orders were given to withdraw to Dunkirk, Ostend and Zeebrugge for evacuation, which would begin on the 28th…
…The French units intended to defend Ostend and Zeebrugge instead withdrew west, having received contradictory orders to defend the ports and to withdraw to Dunkirk if under German threat they chose to perform the latter. This left only Dunkirk to begin evacuations on the 28th…
…On the 27th the Belgian army found itself completely surrounded in Antwerp. No attempt to break out was made, nor was there any attempt to storm the position. Antwerp had 90 days of provisions and by then the situation would be over one way or another, either the Anglo-French would pull out a miracle, or the Germans would take Paris. Either way both Hitler and King Leopold were willing to accept the status quo as it held for the moment and to discuss the matter of Belgium’s international position when things were settled…
…The success of the Sickle Cut had enormous repercussions. The most important of these was in Rome. On hearing the reports of what had happened on the 27th Sanna found his expectations for the course of the European War completely upended. He had assumed that while Germany might launch a fairly successful offensive, it would not be able to change the strategic calculus that saw her defeated in the previous war. He did not anticipate that Germany might destroy the flower of the Anglo-French armies without suffering severe casualties, yet by the 27th Germany had done that and after finishing off the doomed armies in Belgium and northern France was poised to take Paris.
This placed Sanna in an enormous quandary. If he continued with his current plan he would find Italy marginalized, as Germany vassalized France and the low countries and used her enormous economic clout to gain influence in eastern Europe. Italy would be under Germany’s shadow at best. The only way to avoid that would be to get in on the winning side and to leverage that to a form of equality with Germany.
That however would require that Italy join the war, and do so before the situation was completely hopeless for the Anglo-French, which meant before Paris fell. That gave Sanna a very limited amount of time to work with, if he wanted the Italian military to have even minimal time to prepare he would need to make his decision immediately, something he was normally loath to do.
After a sleepless night and a long day of worry he made his decision at 6:00 on the 28th, against his gut feeling Italy would enter the war…
-Excerpt From The Fall of Europe, Scholastic American Press, Philadelphia, 2005
…The Halt order of May 25th is usually attributed solely to the British counterattack at Arras revealing the fragile nature of the German position. This paper will show that the Germans placed equal or greater weight on logistics and maintenance considerations in ordering the halt on the 25th than the British counterattack…
-Excerpt from Revisionist Viewpoints in History Volume XVII, University of California Press: Berkley, 2007
The Republic of Chile
Basics:
Chile is a presidential republic in the southern cone of South America. It was neutral in the first world war and currently remains so. It is recovering from a major earthquake in 1939.
Economy:
Chile is a primary export driven resource extraction economy. Its main exports are copper, saltpeter and wool. Chile is self-sufficient agriculturally and produces its own coal, being merely dependent on oil imports. Chile is semi industrialized with a limited textile and metallurgical industry.
Land Forces:
Chile has a conscript army of 100,000 organized into 6 regional divisions of 3 infantry regiments, with 8 independent cavalry regiments and several independent infantry regiments.
Chile’s standard longarm is the M1895 Chilean Mauser in 7x57mm Spanish Mauser. Chile is currently replacing the M1895 with a semi-automatic design from the United States using a unique 10 round rotary magazine.
Chile standard sidearm is the Luger P08 in 7.65x21mm. It is being replaced by the Browning high power in 9x19mm parabellum. For a submachine gun Chile uses a domestic MP 18 clone in 9mm Parabellum.
The standard Chilean light machine gun is the Madsen in 7x57mm Mauser, supplemented by export model BARs. The standard heavy machine gun is the MG 08 in 7x57mm. This is being replaced by the Czech ZB-53 in 7x57mm.
For infantry support Chile issues 3 81mm Brandt mortar clones per battalion. Chile has about 120 Bofors 37mm AT guns on order to issue 3 per infantry regiment and 6 per division.
Standard Chilean AA is machine guns on AA carriages. Heavier AA is 20mm Oerlikons from Switzerland and 37mm Breda from Italy. Heavy AA is WWI era 75mm guns bought from France or modern 83.5mm AA guns from Skoda.
The standard Chilean regimental gun is the German 7.5cm Infantry gun, all older horse drawn models, issued 6 per regiment. The standard field gun is the Canon de 75 M1897, and its American clones in 75mm, supplemented by modern 75mm/22 Bofors Mountain guns. In reserve are 7.5cm Krupp guns of various models, primarily the model 1909, as well as 7.5cm Krupp mountain guns.
Standard Chilean divisional Artillery is the 105mm/24 from Sweden supplemented by the 150mm/22, generally 36 and 12 per division, modern interwar pieces. In reserve are pre WWI Krupp export 10.5cm, 12cm and 15cm howitzers. For very heavy field artillery Chile has 2 independent battalions of 15cm/55 bought from Germany, modern late 30’s pieces meant for motor traction.
Chile has a modest tank force organized in independent battalions.
35 are US 6 tons, 5 radio equipped command models, 15 machine gun armed and 15 cannon armed.
30 are L5/34 from Italy.
30 more are Swedish S39 with a 37mm gun and machine gun.
The Chileans also have about 30 armored cars based on varying truck chassis and armed with machine guns.
The Chilean Army is only lightly motorized but has standardized its vehicle park on a few models for ease of maintenance and is planning on increasing its level of motorization.
Chile has some of the best mountain infantry in the world.
Naval Forces:
Chile has a medium sized navy.
The most powerful ships are the battleships Almirante Latorre and Almirante Cochrane, 28000 ton 22.5 knot vessels built in the UK. They have 5 twin 14”/45, A-B-Q-X-Y, 10 6”/50 in casemates, 6 4”/40 AA, 4 2pdr autocannon and 12 20mm autocannon. They have been recently modernized but are only lightly armored even by the standards of 1914 and can carry a single float plane each.
The Santiago and Valparaiso are 6500 ton British built light cruisers capable of 29 knots. The have 3 triple 6”/50, two fore, one aft with one fore superfiring, 4 4”/40 AA, 2 twin 37mm, 4 20mm AA and 2 triple 21” torpedo tubes. They are lightly protected from 6” fire and have a float plane each.
In reserve is the 4200 ton British built cruiser Chacabuco. She carries 2 8”/45, 10 4.7”/40, 6 3” AA, 4 machine guns and 2 18” torpedo tubes. As a protected cruiser she has only limited defense against 6” shells in an obsolete manner, is coal powered and only makes 23 knots.
6 Almirante Lynch class destroyers are in service, 1450 ton 31 knot British built vessels. They have 2 4.7”/45, 2 4”/40, 2 20mm Autocannon and two twin 21” torpedo tubes.
6 Serrano class destroyers are in service, 1100 ton British built vessels capable of 35 knots. They have 3 4.7”/45, 2 37mm and 2 20mm AA with 2 triple 21” torpedo tubes. 3 vessels are fitted as minesweepers and 3 as minelayers.
6 British H class submarines are in service, 375 tons. They make 13 knots surfaced, 10 submerged and have a range of 1600 knots. They are armed with 4 18” tubes in the bow with 8 torpedoes.
The 3 Captain Thomson class submarines are 1550 ton British built vessels. They make 15 knots surfaced, 9 submerged and have a range of 8400 knots. They carry 6 bow and 2 stern 21” tubes with 14 fish and a 4.7”/45 deck gun.
Chile has a single 9000 ton British built submarine tender, the Araucano, capable of 20 knots. She has 3 4.7”/45, 4 37mm and 6 20mm guns.
4 Golub class minelayers bought from Finland are in service, 550 tons and 14.5 knots. They have 2 3”/40, 2 20mm and up to 50 mines.
Chile has an 1800 ton sail training ship, the Lautaro, which is presently unarmed.
Chile has a small naval air arm and a regiment strength Marine corps that primarily serves as coastal artillery crews.
Air Forces:
Chile has a medium sized independent air force of 200 planes organized on the German pattern.
The standard Argentine fighter is the P-36 with 40 in service and local license production, armed with 4 7mm MGs. 20 British Hawker Headhunter biplanes remain in service, modified with Chilean standard 7mm machine guns.
The standard Chilean light bomber is the US A-13 of which 30 are in service. This is complemented by 20 newer A-18 bombers and 20 Ju 56 Bomber variants. In reserve are 10 ancient Breguet B.19 export biplanes, a thoroughly obsolete biplane.
The remainder of the Chilean Air Force consists of trainers, liaison aircraft and transports of a variety of designs. The standard transport is the German Ju 56.
The Chilean Navy has 50 aircraft.
10 are Ju 56 bomber variants for maritime patrol. This supplements 10 Saunders Roe Severn flying boats.
15 British built Fairey amphibious biplanes are in service as shipboard scouts.
The remaining aircraft are trainers and transports.
Chile lacks paratroopers or advanced aeronautical research
Weapons of Mass Destruction:
Chile has a small stockpile of Mustard Gas to be delivered by bomb or artillery shell.
Chile lacks nuclear or biological weapons programs
Problems:
Chile has territorial disputes with all of its neighbors
Chile’s location in the southern hemisphere is far from the primary conflict zones
Chile is dependent on oil imports
Chile’s exports are not diversified
-The Eve of War, the World on October 1st 1940, Eagle Press, Philadelphia, 2001
Okay last update of the year, maybe one more eve of war to go
…The Halt order of May 25th is usually attributed solely to the British counterattack at Arras revealing the fragile nature of the German position. This paper will show that the Germans placed equal or greater weight on logistics and maintenance considerations in ordering the halt on the 25th than the British counterattack…
-Excerpt from Revisionist Viewpoints in History Volume XVII, University of California Press: Berkley, 2007
…On the morning of May 28th the Royal Navy began conducting evacuations from the port of Dunkirk. With the city’s docks destroyed by air attack on the 26th they determined that they could get approximately 5,000 a day out from the city, with approximately 7 days to evacuate that would leave them with 35,000, compared to about 500,000 troops present. The French, having control of the port insisted that evacuations be split 50/50, something that favored the British who had only about 45% of the troops present.
On the 28th the British and French navies managed to slightly better expectations and evacuate 7,000. On the 29th things became better as the good weather that had allowed the Luftwaffe to act with impunity broke and was replaced by foul storms. While this prevented the ferrying of troops to the waiting ships with small craft, a decision to use the inner sides of Dunkirk’s Moles as improvised docks allowed no less than 17,000 troops to be evacuated on the 29th, more than 3x that expected and a welcome morale boost after the surrender of Calais that morning.
On the 30th the Germans began pressing the perimeter, slowly but cautiously and almost exclusively with infantry given the swampy terrain prevented effective use of Panzers and the fact that the Panzers and motorized troops were already redeploying to face Paris. The rearguards held firm and despite the bad weather 27,000 more were evacuated, already surpassing the estimated recovery after 3 days. Weather continued to be bad on the 31st when 23,000 more evacuated.
A brief break in the weather occurred on the 1st and 2nd of June, which allowed the Luftwaffe to wreak havoc, slaughtering the patrols of Bandit turret fighters that attempted to protect the beaches, but also allowed the use of small boats to aid the evacuation. 89,000 men were evacuated on those days, at the cost of a cruiser minelayer, 5 destroyers and numerous smaller vessels. On the 3rd of June the weather turned foul again and only 23,000 were evacuated, but naval losses fell. Bad weather continued on the 4th of June and 21,000 were evacuated, something complicated by the fact that the Germans had brought up 28cm railway guns to bombard the evacuation ports.
The weather broke on the 5th, and the Luftwaffe returned with a vengeance, 27,000 were evacuated but losses had grown enough that this was the last day of daylight evacuations. During the nights of the 6th and 7th 29,000 more were evacuated. By the 8th however the situation had grown critical. The Germans had pushed the pocket back far enough that 24 and 17cm railway guns, as well as 21cm siege guns, could now bombard the embarkation zones and losses would be unsustainable. The evacuation came to an abrupt end.
The Miracle at Dunkirk had saved just over 265,000 troops, over 7 times as many as expected, 136,000 British and 129,000 French. About 215,000 troops surrendered on the 9th after it was clear no further evacuations would take place and the situation was hopeless, 97,000 of them being British and 118,000 French. The moral blow of this surrender took some of the luster off the success of the evacuation, but did not completely overshadow it…
…Despite the unexpected success of the evacuation it still was merely a mitigation of a disaster. The troops were evacuated with nothing more than the uniforms on their backs, and maybe their packs if they were lucky. The only weapons withdrawn were the officers sidearms, with all others having been abandoned, along with all the artillery, armor, unflyable aircraft, heavy equipment, ammunition, fuel and supplies. Furthermore a cruiser-minelayer, 7 British and 3 French destroyers, 4 British and 2 French minesweepers, 6 British naval trawlers and a myriad of lesser vessels had been lost, losses that would be keenly felt in the coming days…
…On the 28th Weygand had managed to scrape together 2 functional armored divisions of his own, one of them light, and acquired the British 2nd Armored. In an attempt to relieve the Dunkirk pocket he had them launch a counterattack on the Somme at Abbeville. He hoped to rapidly take the city and then advance on Dunkirk. While seemingly foolish, 3 armored divisions, with limited infantry support, against 9 armored, a half dozen motorized and several infantry divisions, French intelligence believed that there were only 7 exhausted and fragmented Panzer divisions supported by a few motorized regiments, something that was manageable for 3 intact armored divisions.
The plan was for the heavier of the two French armored divisions attack Abbeville and pin the defenders while the other seized crossings over the Somme by 10:00 for a 12:00 advance by the British who would race ahead to capture Labroye by 4:00 and Hesdin by nightfall. This played to the relative strengths of the two sides, the high speed of the British tanks and the toughness of the French ones. Unfortunately early morning attacks by the Luftwaffe delayed the French, who called for a 3 hour delay and the abandonment of the goal of Hesdin. Bad communications meant that this did not reach the British, who started moving at 10:00, expecting to find German defenses already broken.
Instead at 11:00 the British ran into well placed anti-tank guns which shredded their lightly armored cruiser and light tanks. The British, out of communication with the French but cognizant of the need for speed continued to attack, pushing forward to reach the Somme despite heavy losses. However with the German defenders not yet pinned they were able to transfer additional forces and throw up a defense line at the river, stymieing them. The French assault proved more successful than the British, pushing the Germans back into Abbeville proper and taking out all of their AT guns. However the French lacked the infantry to dig them out and the 88mm AA guns and 105mm Howitzers of the defenders were able to wreak a dreadful toll.
Motorized German reinforcements arrived in the night, making the goal of crossing the Somme too costly. Instead Weygand wanted a limited offensive to deny the Germans Abbeville as a jumping off point. Attacks on the 29th and 30th pushed the Germans back into the city itself, but without artillery heavier than was immediately available they could not break the final German defensive perimeter, 75mm and 105mm shells being simply inadequate to deal with German fieldworks. On the 31st Weygant called off the counterattack on Abbeville and instead ordered a series of small counterattacks to try and disrupt German preparations…
…The attack on Abbeville was perhaps Weygand’s only mistake. While an attempt to try and relieve Dunkirk was reasonable given what he thought the balance of forces was, the attempt cost about 250 tanks and severely weakened his mobile forces, right before he would need them more than ever…
…On June 8th it was decided to evacuate Narvik once the shipping was available in order to divert the forces there to France…
…On the 29th Sanna laid out his basic plan. He assumed that the Germans could not start moving on Paris until June 10th, and could not take the city before the 15th. Therefore he wanted to declare war on the 13th. This was not nearly enough time to prepare for a proper campaign but it was what he had. He would spend the time publicly justifying the war on the basis of maritime grievances, given how Britian and France were once more breaking international law with a distant blockade. Privately he would pretend to be merely trying to exert pressure on the British and French for concessions and that he wasn’t really going to declare war until the last moment…
…Sanna’s plan for the war involved token attacks on France in the Alps and Tunisia to push the French back to their fortress lines without exposing his forces to heavy casualties. Instead his main thrust would be a spoiling attack out of Cyrenaica to disrupt the British in Egypt and a major air and naval attack to neutralize Malta and the British fleet there. The British were his primary target, as while the French could not hold past June given their losses so far, the British could deny reality for considerably longer and make things difficult for Italy. Therefore Sanna wanted to do enough damage in his opening attack to convince them to give up if possible, or to reduce their ability to counterattack if not…
…With the surrender of the Dunkirk Pocket on the 9th the German army was able to complete the process reorienting to face Paris that had begun on June 1st. Units were given chances to rest and refit while the masses of prisoners and captured equipment were dealt with. On the 10th they would start their attack….
…After the surrender of the Dunkirk Pocket Anthony Eden finally resigned as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Unfortunately the man the Cabinet chose to replace him with on the 10th was perhaps the worst plausible choice…
-Excerpt From The Fall of Europe, Scholastic American Press, Philadelphia, 2005
Sanna’s plan for the war involved token attacks on France in the Alps and Tunisia to push the French back to their fortress lines without exposing his forces to heavy casualties. Instead his main thrust would be a spoiling attack out of Cyrenaica to disrupt the British in Egypt and a major air and naval attack to neutralize Malta and the British fleet there. The British were his primary target, as while the French could not hold past June given their losses so far, the British could deny reality for considerably longer and make things difficult for Italy. Therefore Sanna wanted to do enough damage in his opening attack to convince them to give up if possible, or to reduce their ability to counterattack if not…
Agree. I've oftened wondered what MvR would have done after the war had he lived, maybe go home and become a recluse? Or stay in the military?
I supposed it depended on the circumstances of his survival in an alternate timeline.
I once had an idea for a TL where Richthofen traveled around the world visiting mostly countries that had an air force especially Germany's former enemies who I think would welcome him and even put out the red carpet for him, these would basically be goodwill tours but in reality MvR would be spying for Germany.
A former member here was thinking of turning this idea into a TL but then got banned.
)