Could the Nazis have taken either Iceland, parts of Greenland or the Faroes and operated aircraft and submarines from such places?
Could the Nazis have taken either Iceland, parts of Greenland or the Faroes and operated aircraft and submarines from such places?
Could the Nazis have taken either Iceland, parts of Greenland or the Faroes and operated aircraft and submarines from such places?
Yes, but Britain could have taken it back. It would be like Norway in reverse.
I suppose you could just rerun the Fortress Keflavik scenario from Red Storm Rising, and have a Q-ship drop off a few thousand troops to try to get a forward airbase for Condors up and running, but it's not like a 1980s' WWIII where if REFORGER convoys are interdicted for six weeks then you've got II Shock Army in Calais. Germany will get to Calais fine, the issue is not about stopping warfighting reinforcements from arriving on the Continent, but about starving the UK, and that won't happen fast enough to prevent a counterinvasion of Iceland from succeeding.
There was such a plan anyway but without the equivalent of Soviet Naval Aviation to forward base from Keflavik, you won't do as much damage to UK shipping as it will cost you.
Not sure that Keflavik is in range of aerial resupply by the Luftwaffe anyway, and the KM would not be able to maintain a SLOC through the Norwegian Sea against the Royal Navy.
Malta was one of the few that actually made a difference in the war, but then you must recoginise it was a pre-war established base and so had all the 'dug in equipment and supplies it needed'.