Nazi forward air base in the Atlantic???

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?

Because small islands are by their very nature logistical liabilities. Once you base from them, you need to put your supply depot there. That's additional men and equipment, which must be defended. More men and equipment. Then the harbour and dock facilities or aircraft facilities need to be build for whatever your basing there.

Ok, so you've throwed down a few thousand men, cool. Now what happens when your enemy comes with a battlefleet and bombards your base for a few days then sails away...

...not that good a base was it?

In general all the small islands were liabilities, 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'.

The cost of setting up island bases was phenominal. The Germans, spent ~1/24th of all their atlantic wall funds and resources on Sub and Airbases on the Channel Islands.... and what do you hear about from all that massive expenditure? Zip, because the Allies safely ignored them, and it did Germany very little...if anything it cost them more than it gained them by a long way.
 
Well... Since the Nazi's occupied the channel islands and fortified them, it's not IMPOSSIBLE that Hitler would consider such an option, but there is the big issue of actually invading/annexing these nations, with the Royal Navy hounding your every move. Remember, the British basically owned the North Sea so invasion is going to be out of the question. For such a base to be established, the Nazi's would need to have those bases there before the outbreak of war (VERY unlikely), and even then, maintaining them would be difficult with the aforementioned fleet cutting supplies from Germany.
 

GarethC

Donor
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.
 
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.

Yeah, basically the cost would be enourmous and would achieve little.
 
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'.

I agree with you on most of your comment but the British preparation of Malta pre war was appaling - its more an example of how desperate and brave one has to be to maintain an island base in war and the logistics of re-supply.
 
Top