I think the Greek numbers are this big because they are fighting against the most enemies in the Near East. Italy is spread to many different fronts so they won't have big armies around there, plus they have the assistance of other allies including Germany. Turkey is also fighting and their casualties almost reached 100k, which means it's highly possible that the Greeks just lost around 100k both in the Balkans and Anatolia, which is on rough parity with their adversaries.
Of lost monkeys and broken vehicles
- Thread starter Lascaris
- Start date
Thank you Lascaris for the great table! Very helpful!
Are the British sending more HQs, signal, transport etc units from the metropole compared to OTL? Or the same? Have they earmarked more british divisions as well or the same? If it is same, I assume that the units released from East Africa are on their way to the Middle East. Moreover, with less invasion panic and more needs in the Middle East, the 6th/70th division is organized earlier on since the sub-units are in place.
Armoured Divisions: 2nd, 7th
Cavalry Divisions: 1st (transitioning to the 10th Armoured as soon as equipment is available)
Infantry Divisions:
50th, 6th British
4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, 10th Indian
6th, 7th, 9th Australian
1st, 2nd South African
2nd New Zealand
Additional Infantry Brigades:
85th, 22nd Guards, 3rd Indian Motor
A total of 2 Armoured, 1 Cavalry and 13 Infantry divisions.
Having said that, the 2nd South African will be understrength and capable only as a garrison. The 1st South African will take some time to be ready for the front. The Indian Division Group of 6th, 8th and 10th will probably have 8 brigades between then and lack some equipment at this point. Nevertheless, they can be easily supplied in the Mesopotamian Front by the Raj through Basra and then by river and railroad.
I expect the French to want to redeploy their divisions from Thermopylae to Syria. I also expect them to recall their division from Iraq as soon as enough indian formations are in place: it is difficult to supply it through the Syrian Desert. There is also the strong brigade group from Somaliland, some 8,000 men that will be added to the Free French OOB.
The Mesopotamian Front is the easiest to deal with: the French just need to thoroughly sabotage the railroad going through their side of the border and the turko-german corps is screwed.
To be honest, there is another thing to consider as well. In OTL Koryzis occupied the office of PM. From my understanding Koryzis was just the king's lapdog. Even the king, the actual political power was neither capable, active or dynamic statesman. In contrast to these people, the current political coalition that occupy government positions are capable and active political players. I expect Dragoumis to be taken much more seriously than Koryzis in his dealings with HM Government.
Indeed, you are absolutely correct when it comes to the OTL french rearmament from USA. I have two comments though: if Allied governments place bigger orders earlier than OTL, then it makes sense that the american industry will re-tool and start spamming out equipment also earlier than in OTL. How much earlier, I know not. However, it makes sense that efforts can speed up by a few months. There is also the matter of calculating the needed expansion of the US Army and the priorities of its expansion.
To quote this source:
In TTL, Greece is also a european base for the Americans to project power. In contrast to OTL, Greece is more important for projecting american power compared to OTL Egypt. It makes certain sense that until the american divisions are trained and the shipping for supporting them across the globe is found, in these two years, it is important to maintain a european base. The other important OTL consideration of the above source, is keeping the Soviets in the war - here come the Straits and Smyrna. I would argue that arming the French in 1942-1943 is of less importance to DC compared to arming the Greeks - just due to geography alone. I think this argument is based upon OTL strategic thinking.
It is also the also the issue of calculating how many divisions are needed. With Greece Fighting On along with the Serbs and the expanding Free French there are more allies already in the field at 1941. It may very well mean that the generals estimating the needed expansion reduce the OTL 213 american divisions of the Victory Plan. The "90 Division Gamble" may come along earlier on, allowing for more armaments to the minor Allies. Even a minor earlier reduction of lets say a score of projected divisions, will be valuable.
The above arguments regard the the procurement of new equipment as it is produced at american factories. However, the 200 75mm, 300 155mm and 434 8'' that the Americans make available are a totally different thing. There are also the 500 mle1897 the British received at 1940. The Home Guard can keep the ~395 M1916 and M1917 guns.
- Charles de Gaulle has capital ships at Scapa and just sacrificed a battlecruiser at Allied service. He provides Dakar as a major anti-ASW base and sits on a Smaug-size pile of gold. He has much more leverage over British generals compared to OTL. In return, what argument can british generals provide against sending WW1 artillery to the Free French who are protecting the Suez from the north? Invasion?
- The Royal Yugoslav government with 8 divisions in Greece has a much bigger voice compared to its OTL counterpart.
Overall, if French, Greeks, Yugoslavs (well, Serbs) and Poles start screaming for the old artillery, I think they will get it. It would still pretty useful against the turkish and italian armies at this point. However, I see that only Greeks actually need the 8'' since they have to break through siege lines.
Last but not least, there is a huge pile of italian equipment captured in Cyrenaica and East Africa. While no regular Allied army would want it, what about Maronite, Assyrian, Alewite and Kurdish militias? Speaking of which, we haven't heard of a Mr Shaw for quite some time.
Are the British sending more HQs, signal, transport etc units from the metropole compared to OTL? Or the same? Have they earmarked more british divisions as well or the same? If it is same, I assume that the units released from East Africa are on their way to the Middle East. Moreover, with less invasion panic and more needs in the Middle East, the 6th/70th division is organized earlier on since the sub-units are in place.
Armoured Divisions: 2nd, 7th
Cavalry Divisions: 1st (transitioning to the 10th Armoured as soon as equipment is available)
Infantry Divisions:
50th, 6th British
4th, 5th, 6th, 8th, 10th Indian
6th, 7th, 9th Australian
1st, 2nd South African
2nd New Zealand
Additional Infantry Brigades:
85th, 22nd Guards, 3rd Indian Motor
A total of 2 Armoured, 1 Cavalry and 13 Infantry divisions.
Having said that, the 2nd South African will be understrength and capable only as a garrison. The 1st South African will take some time to be ready for the front. The Indian Division Group of 6th, 8th and 10th will probably have 8 brigades between then and lack some equipment at this point. Nevertheless, they can be easily supplied in the Mesopotamian Front by the Raj through Basra and then by river and railroad.
I expect the French to want to redeploy their divisions from Thermopylae to Syria. I also expect them to recall their division from Iraq as soon as enough indian formations are in place: it is difficult to supply it through the Syrian Desert. There is also the strong brigade group from Somaliland, some 8,000 men that will be added to the Free French OOB.
The Mesopotamian Front is the easiest to deal with: the French just need to thoroughly sabotage the railroad going through their side of the border and the turko-german corps is screwed.
To be honest, there is another thing to consider as well. In OTL Koryzis occupied the office of PM. From my understanding Koryzis was just the king's lapdog. Even the king, the actual political power was neither capable, active or dynamic statesman. In contrast to these people, the current political coalition that occupy government positions are capable and active political players. I expect Dragoumis to be taken much more seriously than Koryzis in his dealings with HM Government.
Indeed, you are absolutely correct when it comes to the OTL french rearmament from USA. I have two comments though: if Allied governments place bigger orders earlier than OTL, then it makes sense that the american industry will re-tool and start spamming out equipment also earlier than in OTL. How much earlier, I know not. However, it makes sense that efforts can speed up by a few months. There is also the matter of calculating the needed expansion of the US Army and the priorities of its expansion.
To quote this source:
In TTL, Greece is also a european base for the Americans to project power. In contrast to OTL, Greece is more important for projecting american power compared to OTL Egypt. It makes certain sense that until the american divisions are trained and the shipping for supporting them across the globe is found, in these two years, it is important to maintain a european base. The other important OTL consideration of the above source, is keeping the Soviets in the war - here come the Straits and Smyrna. I would argue that arming the French in 1942-1943 is of less importance to DC compared to arming the Greeks - just due to geography alone. I think this argument is based upon OTL strategic thinking.
It is also the also the issue of calculating how many divisions are needed. With Greece Fighting On along with the Serbs and the expanding Free French there are more allies already in the field at 1941. It may very well mean that the generals estimating the needed expansion reduce the OTL 213 american divisions of the Victory Plan. The "90 Division Gamble" may come along earlier on, allowing for more armaments to the minor Allies. Even a minor earlier reduction of lets say a score of projected divisions, will be valuable.
The above arguments regard the the procurement of new equipment as it is produced at american factories. However, the 200 75mm, 300 155mm and 434 8'' that the Americans make available are a totally different thing. There are also the 500 mle1897 the British received at 1940. The Home Guard can keep the ~395 M1916 and M1917 guns.
- Charles de Gaulle has capital ships at Scapa and just sacrificed a battlecruiser at Allied service. He provides Dakar as a major anti-ASW base and sits on a Smaug-size pile of gold. He has much more leverage over British generals compared to OTL. In return, what argument can british generals provide against sending WW1 artillery to the Free French who are protecting the Suez from the north? Invasion?
- The Royal Yugoslav government with 8 divisions in Greece has a much bigger voice compared to its OTL counterpart.
Overall, if French, Greeks, Yugoslavs (well, Serbs) and Poles start screaming for the old artillery, I think they will get it. It would still pretty useful against the turkish and italian armies at this point. However, I see that only Greeks actually need the 8'' since they have to break through siege lines.
Last but not least, there is a huge pile of italian equipment captured in Cyrenaica and East Africa. While no regular Allied army would want it, what about Maronite, Assyrian, Alewite and Kurdish militias? Speaking of which, we haven't heard of a Mr Shaw for quite some time.
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What is the current size of the greek merchant marine? Could greek ships transport enough equipment from the u.s to greece?
That's going over a very important state of affairs. Resisisting or not, Greece or even Iraq here being lost to the Allies are for sure a heavy blow (especially in regards to the fuel supply of the Mediterranean fleet from the kirkuk Haifa pipeline being cut), but the Suez canal falling to either the Turks or Rommel would a crippling one. Said otherwise, if Suez falls, the whole Allied positions in the Mediterranean, Greece included, collapse.
So in matters of strategic priorities, given Greece is still holding and Rommel is kept at bay, the Near East is probably the most urgent one yet for the British.
In fact, I suspect that with the situation stabilized in continental Greece, Pangalos might attempt something in Asia Minor, both to relieve pressure from Smyrna and distract/divert Turkish forces away from Syria.
That's an interesting question to which I'm inclined to say that they do know, which is the reason they've already reinforced the Caucasus. Why I'm saying so? If the Romanians, Hungarians and Finns all knew why the Turks shouldn't? Particularly when German leadership from Hitler down believes in both their importance and their friendship to the reich?
The first obvious target is none other than the Baghdad railroad running in parallel to the French-Syrian border and very close to it. If the Turks capture it they can supply Iraq by rail... and the axis gets effectively contiguous rail lines from Germany to Iraq...
They will be gone by winter no? That said the Turkish rail network at the time has a carrying capacity of about 3,000t a day. The Turkish army in the Caucasus if bought to action would be eating up over half of this. Large numbers of German bombers in Eastern Anatolia would need to be kept in supply to be of any use. And the Turks are receiving arms and actual reinforcements from the Germans, Turkey is too important not to support. To how much said support amounts is a different question...
Technically Syria has already been granted independence before the start of the war. Now the French are in a delicate political position. On one hand it makes sense to make amends with the Syrian nationalists. On the other doing so could only come at the cost of their Lebanese, Alawite and Kurdish allies within Syria. Both Syria and Iraq are likely going to be fun to behold in the medium to long term. Not least given how the sole reliably Arab ally of Britain at the moment is Abdullah of Transjordan...
For a German offensive that breaks the El Agheila line, Rommel needs supplies. The terrible twins Dzik and Sokol might uhm disagree. How many submarines did the Royal navy operate in the Mediterranean? In OTL it had 18 boats in the Mediterranean , plus 5 Greek, 3 Dutch and 2 Polish boats. TTL its 12 Greek and 5 French boats in addition to the rest. Hence on average instead of 28 boats you have 40...
The Bulgarians have alredy taken a loot of casualties unlike OTL, besides 10 divisions on occupation duty are 10 divisions the Germans ad Italians can't request...
The had 41 divisions in the Balkans also in OTL. Here the Bulgarians need to commit more troops as do the Croats.
It doesn't? The Germans left 7 divisions in the Balkans. No reasons these need to be all in Thessaly banging their heads at Thermopylae...
Germans did not magically stop being dangerous because the allies held them at Thermopylae.
The number of British divisions in the Mediterranean is mostly controlled by available shipping. Now Britain does have an easier time with the Irish treaty ports and Dakar but Greece and the allied armies need to be fed and supplied. So I'm quite averse to signifiant number changes. Now which divisions go where... frex when the 1st Polish armoured division is established it makes sense to have it shipped east...
They have a division in East Africa. Redeploying from Greece is an interesting question. It makes absolute military sense and uhm rather less political sense. Are we leaving the Greeks on their own in the Balkans?
Which runs parallel to it , Fahrettin has good chances of gaining it...
That it is a democratically elected government hardly hurts...
One word... shipping. And manpower limits on the French part. Of course at the moment the Pacific is open...
There are reasons for this.
About 1.889.000 GRT OTL. Let's call it 2,883,000 TTL.
Which seen from Sivas means the Syrian front should take precedence...
Now that you mentioned it how much of the American war industry was located in the west coast? Is it feasible that the allied forces in the Eastern Mediterranean be supplied from the Pacific route until japan joins the war?
That means reducing the Kurdish redoubt first, otherwise it would either unusable or constantly threatened. Overall, 13 Axis divisions to 5 Allies over Iraq and Syria combined is not overwhelming, at least by the standard of the Greek fronts that ratio didn't guarantee a crushing victory.
As for the Caucasus, the Turks never had a good time there in the last two wars they fought against Russia; and I don't see the Turks pull off a performance the quality that of the Finns or even the Romanians ITTL.
I think I remember a conversation on the topic at axishistoryforum. I think our own @Carl Schwamberger was involved in that conversation.
I think you are quite right on being averse to significant number changes on division numbers. On the other hand HQ and support units (AA, transport, signals etc) could have been increased. The British have to support a corps in Greece, two corps in Cyrenaica and soon the equivalent of one corps in Syria and one in Iraq. More support units will increase the efficiency of these formations.
I always forget about the irish treaty ports... Will Dublin allow the British to develop airfields around them?
@ShortsBelfast any ideas?
Oh right... I didn't take the political angle into perspective and I forgot that the 8,000 Somaliland garrison was reinforced by a regiment, making it a proper division.
To be honest, since the frontline in Greece has been stabilized there can be a rotation of troops, while the Allied commitment is maintained. For example, the green british 50th division can be sent to Greece. Likewise, there is a strong brigade group around the 85th brigade. In contrast to British generals in the OTL Western Desert, I think Pangalos would prefer to operate with divisions instead of brigade groups. As it happens, there is the 22nd Guards Brigade in Egypt along with the 3rd Indian Motor Brigade and a number of british infantry battalions in the Delta. Now that european Greece is temporarily a backwater, the British can form another division in Greece with these units and have the 50th Northumbrian get bloodied. In their place, the veteran french divisions can be sent to Syria. If the overall number of Allied units remain the same, I doubt Dragoumis would blame de Gaulle of not providing 2/5 of his army. After all, when the Axis invaded, the Free French were there.
Very true. But the French had weeks to prepare demolition charges on the bridges ... Fahrettin will definitely capture the line, but I am not sure how quickly he can operate it at full capacity.
If I understand correctly, the French have 5 field divisions on the field. Or is it six?
I think it will be a political decision by the French. They have the manpower from the metropole, for enough officers and NCOs and specialists for more than 5 or 6 divisions. In West and Equatorial Africa they have a manpower of 65,000 soldiers, plus the Lebanese and Alawites. Naturally, they cannot break up their current divisions while the turkish army is advancing. But if the front stabilizes they can expand to e.g. 8 divisions. In the worst case scenario, they can deposit some of their gold in New York as collateral.
In general, I think for political reasons de Gaulle might want a Field Army of his own. It plays well with his fellow officers that serve Vichy and his legitimacy in general.
There are reasons for this.
Boy oh boy ... I cannot wait !
An additional 1m GRT of shipping at this point is significant. And along with the Treaty Ports and Dakar, it will add to the compound interest of Allied logistics.
What could an additional 1m GRT carry though ... I am not sure but I can make a few comparisons to OTL.
During June-July 1941, 41 american ships delivered "10,000 trucks, 84 Stuart tanks, 164 fighter aircraft, ten bombers, twenty-four 3-inch anti-aircraft guns, a few medium howitzers of an old type, and a large amount of machinery and tools, plant for roadwork, engineering and signal equipment, and general stores". If they are on average 5000 GRT it is 205k GRT. With an average of 7500, it is 307,5k GRT. With an average of 10, it is 410k GRT. On average 16 ships per month arrived to Egypt from USA during the second half of 1941. Among other stuff, they were enough for providing 480 Stuarts.
According to "Strategic Planning for Coalition Warfare", the US Army was using 871k GRT of shipping at December 31st 1941. At December 31st 1942, the US Army in the Pacific was using 1520k GRT.
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Well this TL we have Michael Collins in charge rather than De Valera (I can't remember if Kevin O'Higgins survived as well but probably as the success of his OTL assassination was a pure fluke) and they took a slightly more conciliatory line in their dealings with the British in the interests of building up the Irish economy. At the same time, there was a lot of anti-British ill-feeling in what is now the ROI. Now Collins will be trying to play that down rather than exploit it (which he can do as the victor of the War of Independence, and not even Dev thought that the Third Reich would make nicer neighbours than the British, but I don't think they will want to be drawn into the War until they are sure that the British are going to win or, at any rate, that the Germans are going to lose. So, I think they would wait until after the TTL equivalent of US entry into the war or Stalingrad. But I think Collins has more confidence in his abilities to run a war cabinet than De Valera had. So I would expect him to come in when the time is ripe, charging a stiff price for so doing. He should at least get South Fermanagh, South Armagh and Newry.
If they are rational, indeed. But how often Axis planners have been this rational ? I expect the Turks to see a lot more red with the Greeks and the Soviets, given the past half century.
By the way, who is commanding the XXX Corps for the Germans in Syria (and Iraq by extension)? And will it be the Asien-Korps or the Levante Korps?
I'm wondering what would be the Iranian reaction and if TTL recent development in the Middle East, with Germans but mainly Turkish armies fighting, on Siria and Mesopotamia, would start to make, at least, uncomfortable enough to the Iranian, as for them to align themselves with the Allies, in TTL...
I must admit to being leery over the number. Why? Because while there is a significantly larger Greek economy, which I can quantify in a more or less plausible way it does not follow that the Greek merchant marine would necessarily expand in parallel to the rest of the Greek economy, when in OTL it was already much larger than what the Greek economy alone allowed. You CAN reasonably argue that it is going to be larger, the larger economy also means increased capital formation for which shipping has been on of the traditional outlets and in addition of course to the Greek financial elites of both Smyrna and Constantinople coming out of the war for the most part intact and profiting, no matter how much of their assets were outside the Ottoman empire neither could go unscathed between expulsions and Smyrna getting burned around them, Onassis and Bodosakis make excellent examples of this.
So how much of an increase to total size of the Greek merchant marine is reasonable? the 2.889 million tons is a straight extrapolation of the constant price increase of Greek GDP compared to OTL. It may be on the high end it could be on the low end. Either way most of it translates to an increased share of the Greek shipowners to the world's merchant marines not absolute increases to its size. If the Greek merchant marine is larger by 1 million tons it also means that frex the French, Norwegian and Dutch merchant marines may each be slightly smaller...
@Lascaris I have two questions about the Greek war industry . First, I suspect that the greatest percentage of it is located around Athens, Smyrna and Chalkis, am I correct? The second question is whether this industry is still operational or if it has been crippled by bombings and shortage of materials.
I don't think I've ever mentioned anything about O'Higgins fate but it seems to me reasonable to say he survives given Collins survival...
A note on Greek Merchant Marine size in 1938
So giving this a bit further thought. The table below is world merchant shipping at the start of the war
Now Greece has a larger economy, how much is that in terms of the world economy though? Starting from a world GDP of 4.502.584 million dollars to use Maddison's numbers TTL Greece adds another 37,750 while Turkey reduces it by 10,266. So overall we are talking about a 0.61% increase in world GDP while the Greek share of the world economy has gone to ~1.26%. That's an additional 414,000t of shipping. I'll add to this 60% of the OTL Turkish flagged vessels between the reduction in major ports and smaller economy, for a further 133,000t.
So hmm an increase of 547,000t to the TTL Greek merchant marine appears a reasonable estimate. Which puts the Greeks at 2,436,000t in 1938. Still 9th largest in the world though quite closer to the Netherlands in the 8th place.
Well ot seems that the greek merchant marine will dominate the shipping world even more post war
Yes, no, maybe. The Turkish rail network, after subtracting other needs could handle about 3,000t a day.
So yes as the Syria and Iraq forces are taking up a little more than this at the moment.
No from the moment both fronts need to be doing full scale operations, should they need to use the same lines of the network to supply both and to the extend munitions needs would need to be mostly coming from Germany and Italy after Turkish war stocks start to dwindle, as Turkish industry was unable to produce sufficient artillery munitions for more than a corps or two in combat. This is going to be uhm fun to behold to the extend it also means Turkish operations will depend on moving German supplies through Yugoslavia and Bulgaria conflicting with serving the Thessalian front and with an obvious chokepoint in Constantinople from where it needs to be shipped either to Panormos/Bandirma and the rail there or accross the straits to Uskudar and from there east unless you use naval convoys to Samsun. Which the Soviet Navy should be able to target.
Maybe as, after the Turkish quartermasters successfully juggle what goes where to not clog the network... they'll also need sooner or later replacement locomotives and rolling stock before they drive what the have available to the ground...