Munich Shuffle: 1938-1942
- Thread starter Garrison
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Garrison
Donor
He is in an office in Washington, doing something very important that keeps him well away from any actual fighting...
Quoting the Mikado, 'I have a little list...'
How about Fredendall in Europe as MacArthur's offisider?
It's less cruel than Patton and MacArthur together.
Patton could shoot him with his famous revolver and we could all celebrate. 😁
In part it was. Station X had been reading Kriegsmarine Enigma since mid-1941, which reduced shipping losses by 2/3. Then in February 1942, the Kriegsmarine adopted a new Enigma machine with a fourth rotor for the U-boats and a new key (TRITON). Station X couldn't break U-boat Enigma until November.
King's folly certainly contributed to the terrible losses in 1942, but losses remained high even after the US adopted convoying, until the Enigma break.
Patton's revolver doesn't have the range to hit anyone so far behind the front line!
Garrison
Donor
True, but invoking pure authorial fiat here I am going to take it that given the higher U-Boat losses overall the Allies managed another U-110 type capture and got back in earlier, indeed I might even edit it into to a forthcoming update, thanks for reminding me about that.
How much earlier? The U-110 capture made a huge difference almost immediately - a million tons of shipping not lost over the next few months (12/42 through 2/43). The spike in March 1943, when Station X was temporarily blocked, shows how important the capture was.
Another factor to consider is the impact of "operational research": in mid-1942, Coastal Command and Fleet Air Arm made a change in aerial ASW tactics recommended by OR, and U-boat sinkings increased from 3-4 per month to 7-8. Perhaps that could happen sooner as as well. Perhaps that could be what brings down King: OTL, US forces also made the changes, but ITTL King might refuse out of prejudice, and be obviously wrong.
Garrison
Donor
This is all good stuff and fits in rather well. I think King's biggest problem will be his aversion to working with the RN in the Pacific, even when the RN have a huge and at some point secure base to work from.
1st January 1942 – 8th March 1942 – The Anglo-American Alliance – Part II
Garrison
Donor
1st January 1942 – 8th March 1942 – The Anglo-American Alliance – Part II
As if defusing the situation with the Australians wasn’t bad enough there was also a certain ill-feeling between Canada and the USA, where the Canadians felt their national pride had been affronted, not to mention their economic interests were being pressured. At the end of 1941 it had been proposed that it might be more efficient and productive if the Canadians abandoned their own tank designs and focused on producing the M3 Grant, which the Americans now called the Lee as they had settled on a different specification of the tank, under license from the US. Whatever merits this idea might have had from the point of view of rationalization it was presented in such an ill-judged manner as to make it seem to the Canadians that their own efforts were being insulted and they were well aware of the poor opinion the British held of the Lee/Grant. The Canadians were looking at the possibility of a follow on to the Wolverine, perhaps an assault gun based on the same chassis, or a tank based on the newer British designs, or even their own independent design. What they were not looking to do was become an adjunct to the US Tank industry and they made this clear quite forcefully, which prompted some unhappiness on the US side where it was felt the Canadians were denigrating their designs and potentially impeding the war effort [1].
The issue was smoothed over relatively quickly, mostly because the British had already put the cat among the pigeons as far the future of US tank designs were concerned. The British had warned the Americans back in 1940 that they expected the Germans to upgrade their tanks in response to their experience in France in the same way as the British were. Unfortunately, some in the US military saw this as an attempt to have the US Army adopt the newer British designs rather than their own development plans and thus the M3 Lee/Grant was still very much the same tank that the British had been less than enthusiastic about in 1940. What had changed by the beginning of 1942 was that the British had encountered some of the very upgrades it had warned the US about during the fighting in North Africa. In January of 1942 a complete turret taken from a Pz IV fitted with the long barrelled 75mm KwK 40 L/43 gun was shipped to the USA along with a 5 cm KwK 38 L/42 extracted from a destroyed Panzer III, as well as enough ammunition to allow testing of the guns. The results of the testing carried out at the Aberdeen proving grounds were sobering. Not only had the Germans increased the thickness of the turret armour on their panzers but the 75mm gun was a lethal threat to the M3 Lee/Grant and even the current plans for the M4 Sherman would be vulnerable. This would leave to a flurry of proposals to address the issues, with only the idea of copying British designs outright being rejected [2].
These issues paled beside the question that dominated discussions throughout the spring of 1942, the liberation of Europe from the Nazis. The British position was that once French North Africa had been taken from Vichy, something that seemed imminent by March, then the next logical target was Sicily, followed by an invasion of mainland Italy and perhaps the Balkans, the ‘soft underbelly’ of the Axis as Churchill described it. The Americans were determined to take a more direct approach, an invasion of France, preferably to take place in the summer of 1942. The British saw this plan as hopelessly ambitious and something that should only be considered in the event the USSR appeared in imminent danger of collapse. The Americans were equally unimpressed with what they saw as ‘nibbling around the edges’. None of the British targets seemed to offer any route to heart of Germany and seemed to be more concerned with securing the British Empire rather than achieving the final defeat of Adolf Hitler and his regime.
What made the arguments particularly hard to resolve was that both sides had some valid points. Attempting a full-scale invasion of mainland Europe in 1942 was almost certainly impossible even with the Mediterranean secured. Some sort of raid might be carried out but establishing a bridgehead from which to advance on Germany was quite another matter. Later events would bear out this viewpoint, however even setting such hindsight aside the reality of spring 1942 was that the US was still in the early stages of its military build-up and given the havoc being wrought by the U-Boats on the east coast stockpiling the supplies and equipment needed for a cross channel invasion would be a monumental task. As a proper convoy system was put in place and the U-Boats were on the backfoot once more in the summer of 1942 this became much more feasible, but in the spring, it could hardly be taken for granted [3].
On the other hand, the ‘peripheral strategy’ so enthusiastically advocated by Churchill had its critics even among senior British military officers. An attack on Sicily made some sense, removing it as a base of operations for Italian bomber and submarines would be useful in protecting Mediterranean shipping and possibly pushing the Italians to sue for peace. If the Italians continued the fight after that point there was a strong feeling among the Imperial General Staff that taking Sicily would leave Italy powerless to mount a threat to Britain and that an invasion would simply take away resources that could be better used elsewhere. The Balkans were viewed with even less enthusiasm. Liberating Greece might be a useful propaganda tool but the terrain in the region favoured the defender and the major strategic target in the region, the Ploesti oilfields, were best targeted by long range bombers and not a land force that would be operating under arduous conditions at the very end of a long supply line, especially if that supply line had to be maintained at the expense of forces fighting elsewhere.
In the end given the lukewarm support for the peripheral strategy in London, and the reluctant recognition of the difficulties involved in a cross-channel invasion in Washington, led to a compromise being adopted. The US would support an invasion of Sicily, the British would agree to staging a substantial raid on the French coast to draw German resources away from the war in the east, and a provisional commitment was made to launch a full-scale invasion of continental Europe in 1943. This plan was initially known as Operation Sledgehammer, though before the end of 1942 it was renamed Operation Millennium. It was a political compromise that pleased no one, except the military officers in Britain and the USA who were relieved that the new Anglo-American alliance wasn’t going to try and run before it had learned to walk [4].
[1] More alt-tank possibilities. Perhaps a StuG Wolverine or a modified A24 Churchill, or some unused Canadian design, or all of the above.
[2] Probably won’t mean Pershings rolling into France, but probably means that later models of the Sherman arrive sooner.
[3] The Americans want to land in France in 1942, the British are still thinking of 1944, so perhaps…
[4] So there will be an alt-Dieppe and yes D-Day 1943. Also Millennium was one of the original proposed names for what became Overlord, though Millennium was snapped up by Bomber Command who refused to relinquish it OTL. This explains why the sequel will be called Millennium Shuffle.
So, could this turn into an alt-Dieppe where the Allies land and take the port. The Germans don't initially react in force because they think it's just a raid, so the Allies decide to hold the port for a bit and see what happens. They patrol out for a bit before realising they actually have a beachhead?
Neat. So we have build up for Sicily with drama in Italy proper. Round 2 in Malaya and I believe a second naval battle near Wake Island was mentioned along with a serious fight between the IJN and the British Pacific Fleet.
Garrison
Donor
Well anything is possible, but some things are less likely than others...
All coming in the near future.
1st January 1942 – 8th March 1942 – The Axis – Part I - No Meeting of Minds
Garrison
Donor
1st January 1942 – 8th March 1942 – The Axis – Part I - No Meeting of Minds
If there were heated debates over Allied priorities and target at least there was the goal to have a common strategy and even to try and co-ordinate action with the USSR, or at the very least supply them with much needed equipment. There was no such common purpose on the Axis side, with each member essentially pursuing their own separate wars and in several cases failing to even tell the other members what their plans were, sharing resources was little more than wishful thinking given Allied dominance of the sea lanes and was limited to little more than exchanges of technical data between Germany and Japan, as well as small quantities of critical raw materials that could be carried by U-Boat [1].
This lack of co-ordination arguably played a part in Italy coming to come to grief in Africa because they were expecting the Germans to focus on finishing off the British before turning east, leaving them to pick up easy spoils after the disappointment of their intervention in the French campaign. Both they and the Japanese were instead taken by surprise when Barbarossa was launched, freeing the British to make a maximum effort in the Middle East and North Africa. The Japanese had returned the favour by not informing Berlin about their plans to launch the war in the Pacific and South East Asia, which was launched even as Hitler was still trying to persuade them to join the war against the USSR. Operation Drumbeat was intended partly to as a demonstration of support for Japan, as Hitler hoped that the Pacific war would at least draw off US resources and reduce the flow of Lend-Lease to the British and Soviets. At the same time Hitler had little faith in the prospects of Japanese victory against the USA. As ‘degenerate’ as the Americans were Hitler still assumed they were superior to the Japanese, talk of ‘honorary Aryans’ made for useful propaganda, but in the end he still saw the Japanese as racial inferiors and he was somewhat more realistic about the capabilities of US industry in private than he was in public [2].
For Mussolini the situation at the start of 1942 was a bitter pill to swallow. His vaunted new Roman empire was gone barring the occupied nations of the Balkans and even there it was clear that the Germans intended to be the dominant power with Italy reduced to a subsidiary role. In the mid-1930s Italy had been the dominant Fascist power and Hitler’s Germany had negotiated with them as equals at the very least. Now it seemed the fate of Mussolini and his regime depended on Il Duce being able to persuade Hitler that the Mediterranean was still worth the commitment of Wehrmacht resources. There was much disillusionment with Mussolini in Italy, and not only amongst some members of his government but also in the court of Victor Emmanuel III, the King of Italy. This mattered because in theory Mussolini could be dismissed from office if the King could muster the nerve to do so. This had not been an issue during the years of Mussolini’s ascendancy and Victor Emmanuel III had willingly accepted the titles of Emperor of Ethiopia and the King of Albania, though he had denied Mussolini permission to enter the war in September 1939. He had been persuaded to grant permission in the summer of 1940, and now had reason to regret this act of opportunism. There were fears that Italy would soon face the full wrath of the Allied air forces and the invasion of Italian territory. In no small part Mussolini survived because of fear of what the Germans might do if his regime fell, and the fact that the most likely contenders to replace him were now dead, Allied POWs, or in disgrace [3].
Hitler might have been willing to offer some concessions to Germany’s allies, even over the muted objections of the General staff, however he wanted above all else to focus on his plans to finish off the Soviets in 1942, Case Blue. The German arms industry was being driven to turn out as many new tanks, assault guns, and munitions as possible for the grand armoured thrust that would destroy the Red Army and seize the Caucasus oilfields. Once the USSR was done with Germany could turn its attention to the looming threat of Bomber Command and the 8th Airforce. This did not mean that Hitler was willing to entirely turn his back on Mussolini, even if only because he couldn’t ignore the importance of keeping the focus of British operations away from the European mainland. The fundamental strategic reasoning had not changed, the collapse of Italy would open up new avenues of attack for the Allies in the Balkans and perhaps through the Alps to strike into Austria, options that Churchill was eager to pursue, and President Roosevelt was determined to resist [4].
To this end Hitler was willing to provide some troops to reinforce the defences of Sicily, however he was also latched onto the idea that some more proactive efforts be made to reverse the strategic situation in the Mediterranean. One option would be to stage a large-scale Axis intervention in Tunisia, using this as a springboard for a new Afrika Korps and an offensive into Libya, a plan that would require substantial support from the Regia Marina. This idea appalled the General Staffs in Berlin and Rome. Von Kleist mustered the will to argue that it would draw far too many resources away from Case Blue and Badoglio, still clinging to his position as Chief of the General Staff in Rome, arguing that it risked leaving Sicily exposed. As will be discussed shortly rumours of such ideas circulated in French North Africa and played a part in making the Tunisian option impossible, to the relief of everyone except Mussolini and Hitler. This left the possibility of a renewed Mediterranean offensive resting on Operation Herkules, the proposed airborne invasion of Malta. Planning for this had been continuing for practically since the Italians crossed into Egypt and if one expected Hermann Goering and Karl Student to be chastened by the fate of the Fallschirmjägers on Crete nothing could have been further from the truth [5].
[1] Later in the war this included blueprints for jet fighters and the Me 163, which contributed to their Japanese counterparts:
Nakajima Kikka
Mitsubishi J8M Shūsui
[2] Based on what I’ve read, especially Wages of Destruction suggests Hitler was concerned about the USA’s industrial might despite his public pronouncements.
[3] This show the different balance of forces in Italy versus Germany, Mussolini’s power was at least somewhat constrained.
[4] The logic of invading Italy will seem less and less attractive as 1942 goes on.
[5] Yes Goering is prepared to double down in pursuit of an ego boosting triumph.
Intervention in Tunisia was never going to work, not even for a minute... With the RN, RAF and Royal Army strong in Libya and ready to cross the border.
Such great teamwork here. Especially, causing a panic that will hand Tunisia and Algeria to the Free French. Speaking of which, what's the Free French manpower situation?
Balkans or Scandinavia. If there's no Italian front drawing resources, perhaps Millennium gets to be a simultanious Overlord and Dragoon. Maybe a third set of landings but, I'd be skeptical of the logistical capacity for that.
So after Sicily, it looks like we'll have a long build up for Operation Millennium unless there's any surprise plays in the
Balkans or Scandinavia. If there's no Italian front drawing resources, perhaps Millennium gets to be a simultanious Overlord and Dragoon. Maybe a third set of landings but, I'd be skeptical of the logistical capacity for that.
Here Italy means mainland Italy, Not Sicily right?
Sicily will be invaded right?
If Sicily will be invaded, will there be butterflies in Case Blue and Stalingrad?