What if Malta was invaded? Unlike other amphibious operations, this one had a plan, several plans, and some amphibious equipment finally developed from the other big operation that never happened. No river barges. It's a small place, and the Axis had a big army, a big air force and the Italian Navy. It's presence caused all kinds of logistical problems to African operations, and yet it remained a thorn. I know something was always coming up as an excuse not to invade, but could it have been done? When?
SeaLion small, Malta.
- Thread starter Just Leo
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Deleted member 1487
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Malta_(World_War_II)#Italian_invasion_plans
If there is no Greece invasion by Italy, it has the means to take Malta in late 1940 by itself. Germany could throw in some aircraft if it wanted to help. The landing craft were already available in 1940, so all that was needed was the will, as the means were there, including Italian marines.
Forego Greece and Malta falls pretty quickly IMHO. That frees up a lot of Axis aircraft later, though without the Balkans in the war there is no much opportunity to use those aircraft in Africa, but potential for greater use around Britain in 1941 and of course the USSR. By 1942 the forces saved suppressing Malta helps the Axis, but it also helps the British, who don't lose a fairly large number of ships trying to supply and support the island from 1940-43.
Butterflies result from whenever the attack happens; IMHO the best two chances are in 1940 either after France falls or in late 1940 instead of invading Greece. Then in 1941 there isn't as good a chance to the Axis devoting the resources, especially if Greece has been invaded in October. So then that pushes things back until 1942 and then the Axis has to forego Rommel invading Egypt, which only helps the Axis all around.
IMHO the most interesting POD is the last scenario: Rommel is denied airpower for the invasion of Egypt, so has to sit tight on the border in defensive positions, which of course gives the Axis a much better chance in North Africa from that point on, as Herkules is launched, which takes Malta. So now the Axis is falling back on Tunisia without the problem of Malta affecting their supply lines as the US lands in Morocco. All sorts of interesting butterflies from that.
The other is the 1940 invasion of Malta, which has its own interesting possibilities, but it would hugely affect the North African theater, making it very different than OTL. Britain benefits from Malta being taken instead of Greece being invaded (it was an either or proposition in late 1940), while the Axis is hurt in many ways in the medium term. North Africa becomes much more of a slogging match, as the Axis have less ability to maneuver, thanks to greater British resources being able to be poured into Libya (https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=279389). Conversely the Axis have more resources to pour in without the Balkans mess and Malta interdicting supplies, so it just a question of who can throw in more resources; the Italians will be a lot stronger than OTL thanks to having just one major active front (though Russia will be a drain in 1942) and no occupation responsibilities (same for Germany without the Balkans occupations). So North Africa becomes more like WW1 trench warfare, which favors the British style more, though the Italians would have been better in such a dynamic than the maneuver of OTL.
What would be interesting is if the Italians launch their invasion of Malta when the British were planning on launching Taranto, so the Brits end up missing the Italian fleet as it heads out to Malta. Weirder things have happened.
If there is no Greece invasion by Italy, it has the means to take Malta in late 1940 by itself. Germany could throw in some aircraft if it wanted to help. The landing craft were already available in 1940, so all that was needed was the will, as the means were there, including Italian marines.
Forego Greece and Malta falls pretty quickly IMHO. That frees up a lot of Axis aircraft later, though without the Balkans in the war there is no much opportunity to use those aircraft in Africa, but potential for greater use around Britain in 1941 and of course the USSR. By 1942 the forces saved suppressing Malta helps the Axis, but it also helps the British, who don't lose a fairly large number of ships trying to supply and support the island from 1940-43.
Butterflies result from whenever the attack happens; IMHO the best two chances are in 1940 either after France falls or in late 1940 instead of invading Greece. Then in 1941 there isn't as good a chance to the Axis devoting the resources, especially if Greece has been invaded in October. So then that pushes things back until 1942 and then the Axis has to forego Rommel invading Egypt, which only helps the Axis all around.
IMHO the most interesting POD is the last scenario: Rommel is denied airpower for the invasion of Egypt, so has to sit tight on the border in defensive positions, which of course gives the Axis a much better chance in North Africa from that point on, as Herkules is launched, which takes Malta. So now the Axis is falling back on Tunisia without the problem of Malta affecting their supply lines as the US lands in Morocco. All sorts of interesting butterflies from that.
The other is the 1940 invasion of Malta, which has its own interesting possibilities, but it would hugely affect the North African theater, making it very different than OTL. Britain benefits from Malta being taken instead of Greece being invaded (it was an either or proposition in late 1940), while the Axis is hurt in many ways in the medium term. North Africa becomes much more of a slogging match, as the Axis have less ability to maneuver, thanks to greater British resources being able to be poured into Libya (https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=279389). Conversely the Axis have more resources to pour in without the Balkans mess and Malta interdicting supplies, so it just a question of who can throw in more resources; the Italians will be a lot stronger than OTL thanks to having just one major active front (though Russia will be a drain in 1942) and no occupation responsibilities (same for Germany without the Balkans occupations). So North Africa becomes more like WW1 trench warfare, which favors the British style more, though the Italians would have been better in such a dynamic than the maneuver of OTL.
What would be interesting is if the Italians launch their invasion of Malta when the British were planning on launching Taranto, so the Brits end up missing the Italian fleet as it heads out to Malta. Weirder things have happened.
Interesting description on the effect of Keith Park arriving on Malta in Stephen Bungay’s ‘Alaimein’
Lloyd had led Malta’s air defences with great courage and tenacity throughout the worst year in its history, but he was a bomber man. He had been a strange choice for the Malta job, for he was wont to express contempt for Fighter Command and had a deep dislike of the Royal Navy. His successor was the most experienced and successful fighter commander anywhere in the world. Throughout the summer of 1940, this tough, wiry New Zealander had been in charge of 11 Group, the largest Group in Fighter Command, which covered southeast England and London. He had frustrated Kesselring’s every move and thwarted the Luftwaffe with a brilliance which put him in a class of his own. After the war, Tedder, then Chief of the Air Staff, once observed that ‘if ever any one man won the Battle of Britain, he did’. He was about to demonstrate his quality for a second time. Fliegerkorps II’s attacks on Malta had peaked in April. The 8,788 sorties they flew in that month fell to 2,476 in May, and dropped again to 956 in June because of the needs of the desert itself. But in July, bombers from France and fighters from Russia arrived in Sicily. That month, with 150 aircraft, Fliegerkorps II flew 1,819 sorties against the island. They were given a beating.
Park spent the first few days after his arrival assessing the situation. He later wrote down what he discovered. Malta’s three airfields were being bombed three or four times a day, inflicting losses on aircraft and personnel. ‘The tactics in vogue,’ he wrote, ‘were to dispatch our fighters to the rear of Malta whilst they assembled and climbed in big formations, and then to come in and attack after the bombs had been dropped and the enemy was diving away in full retreat under cover of its fighter escort. These tactics were being employed by the Commander of the Fighters, who had been station commander at Duxford in No. 12 Group which originated the Big Wings led by Bader in 1940. I immediately sent this officer back to England, and changed the tactics to what I called a forward interception plan used in No. 11 Group. I sent the fighter squadrons forward, climbing to meet the enemy bombers head on, and to intercept well before they reached Malta, when the bombers were in tight formation, heavily laden and unable to take evading action.’ The officer concerned was Group Captain Woodhall, who had come to Malta in February 1942, having been the senior controller at Duxford during the Battle of Britain. There had been at the time a famous controversy between the commander of 12 Group, Trafford Leigh-Mallory, and the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff Sholto Douglas on the one hand, and Park and the Commander-in-Chief of Fighter Command, Sir Hugh Dowding, on the other. Leigh-Mallory and Sholto Douglas believed that it did not matter whether enemy aircraft were intercepted before or after they bombed as long as lots of them were shot down, and that the way to do that was to form wings of at least three squadrons and attack them in strength all at once. Park and Dowding believed that enemy bombers should be intercepted before they inflicted any damage on the ground, and that the way to do that was to send up fighters in squadrons or pairs of squadrons without forming them into wings. Park and Dowding won the Battle of Britain that way, but Leigh-Mallory and Sholto Douglas won the argument at the Air Ministry, and so took over their jobs, with Leigh-Mallory inheriting 11 Group from Park and Sholto Douglas inheriting Fighter Command from Dowding.
Park issued his ‘Fighter Interception Plan’ on 25 July. He generously suggested that past tactics had been forced on the defenders by lack of fighters, but that they now had sufficient numbers to stop daylight bombing. Squadrons were from now on to follow instructions from the controllers, who were to put one squadron up-sun to attack the German top cover, one to attack the close escorts and a third to deliver a head-on attack on the heavily laden bombers to break them up and force them to jettison their bomb-loads. He tightened up radio discipline and controlling and demanded take-off from ‘standby’ in two minutes. Park’s four-page document gave a full account of the purpose and method of the new policy, and was to be read by every fighter pilot in Malta so that everybody knew exactly what they and everyone else were to do and why.
The effect was immediate. On 10 August, Park issued a second set of instructions in which he reported the results of the new tactics. During the first half of July, 34 British aircraft had been destroyed or damaged on the ground. In the latter half of July, the comparable figure had been four. Whilst 380 tons of bombs had fallen on Malta during the first two weeks, after Park took over the figure dropped to 160 tons. During July, the Luftwaffe suffered a loss rate of 5.8 per cent, even higher than the 5.1 per cent loss rate suffered by the US Air Force in the disastrous Schweinfurt-Regensburg raid of August 1943, which almost persuaded them to abandon the daylight bombing of Germany. Unlike the Americans, the Luftwaffe was truly persuaded. Having flown 1,819 sorties against Malta in July, they reduced their activity to 862 sorties in August and reduced it further to a mere 391 in September. As in the closing stages of the Battle of Britain, they switched from bombing raids to fighter sweeps. Park had stopped the bombing, saved his aircraft and airfields, and defeated the Luftwaffe in the air.
Of course Park benefited from having the structure and forces in place but he seems to have been able to make far better use of them and it would have been interesting to see how what was availalble earlier would have fared had Park's tactics been used.
Lloyd had led Malta’s air defences with great courage and tenacity throughout the worst year in its history, but he was a bomber man. He had been a strange choice for the Malta job, for he was wont to express contempt for Fighter Command and had a deep dislike of the Royal Navy. His successor was the most experienced and successful fighter commander anywhere in the world. Throughout the summer of 1940, this tough, wiry New Zealander had been in charge of 11 Group, the largest Group in Fighter Command, which covered southeast England and London. He had frustrated Kesselring’s every move and thwarted the Luftwaffe with a brilliance which put him in a class of his own. After the war, Tedder, then Chief of the Air Staff, once observed that ‘if ever any one man won the Battle of Britain, he did’. He was about to demonstrate his quality for a second time. Fliegerkorps II’s attacks on Malta had peaked in April. The 8,788 sorties they flew in that month fell to 2,476 in May, and dropped again to 956 in June because of the needs of the desert itself. But in July, bombers from France and fighters from Russia arrived in Sicily. That month, with 150 aircraft, Fliegerkorps II flew 1,819 sorties against the island. They were given a beating.
Park spent the first few days after his arrival assessing the situation. He later wrote down what he discovered. Malta’s three airfields were being bombed three or four times a day, inflicting losses on aircraft and personnel. ‘The tactics in vogue,’ he wrote, ‘were to dispatch our fighters to the rear of Malta whilst they assembled and climbed in big formations, and then to come in and attack after the bombs had been dropped and the enemy was diving away in full retreat under cover of its fighter escort. These tactics were being employed by the Commander of the Fighters, who had been station commander at Duxford in No. 12 Group which originated the Big Wings led by Bader in 1940. I immediately sent this officer back to England, and changed the tactics to what I called a forward interception plan used in No. 11 Group. I sent the fighter squadrons forward, climbing to meet the enemy bombers head on, and to intercept well before they reached Malta, when the bombers were in tight formation, heavily laden and unable to take evading action.’ The officer concerned was Group Captain Woodhall, who had come to Malta in February 1942, having been the senior controller at Duxford during the Battle of Britain. There had been at the time a famous controversy between the commander of 12 Group, Trafford Leigh-Mallory, and the Deputy Chief of the Air Staff Sholto Douglas on the one hand, and Park and the Commander-in-Chief of Fighter Command, Sir Hugh Dowding, on the other. Leigh-Mallory and Sholto Douglas believed that it did not matter whether enemy aircraft were intercepted before or after they bombed as long as lots of them were shot down, and that the way to do that was to form wings of at least three squadrons and attack them in strength all at once. Park and Dowding believed that enemy bombers should be intercepted before they inflicted any damage on the ground, and that the way to do that was to send up fighters in squadrons or pairs of squadrons without forming them into wings. Park and Dowding won the Battle of Britain that way, but Leigh-Mallory and Sholto Douglas won the argument at the Air Ministry, and so took over their jobs, with Leigh-Mallory inheriting 11 Group from Park and Sholto Douglas inheriting Fighter Command from Dowding.
Park issued his ‘Fighter Interception Plan’ on 25 July. He generously suggested that past tactics had been forced on the defenders by lack of fighters, but that they now had sufficient numbers to stop daylight bombing. Squadrons were from now on to follow instructions from the controllers, who were to put one squadron up-sun to attack the German top cover, one to attack the close escorts and a third to deliver a head-on attack on the heavily laden bombers to break them up and force them to jettison their bomb-loads. He tightened up radio discipline and controlling and demanded take-off from ‘standby’ in two minutes. Park’s four-page document gave a full account of the purpose and method of the new policy, and was to be read by every fighter pilot in Malta so that everybody knew exactly what they and everyone else were to do and why.
The effect was immediate. On 10 August, Park issued a second set of instructions in which he reported the results of the new tactics. During the first half of July, 34 British aircraft had been destroyed or damaged on the ground. In the latter half of July, the comparable figure had been four. Whilst 380 tons of bombs had fallen on Malta during the first two weeks, after Park took over the figure dropped to 160 tons. During July, the Luftwaffe suffered a loss rate of 5.8 per cent, even higher than the 5.1 per cent loss rate suffered by the US Air Force in the disastrous Schweinfurt-Regensburg raid of August 1943, which almost persuaded them to abandon the daylight bombing of Germany. Unlike the Americans, the Luftwaffe was truly persuaded. Having flown 1,819 sorties against Malta in July, they reduced their activity to 862 sorties in August and reduced it further to a mere 391 in September. As in the closing stages of the Battle of Britain, they switched from bombing raids to fighter sweeps. Park had stopped the bombing, saved his aircraft and airfields, and defeated the Luftwaffe in the air.
Of course Park benefited from having the structure and forces in place but he seems to have been able to make far better use of them and it would have been interesting to see how what was availalble earlier would have fared had Park's tactics been used.
I enjoyed reading your entry about the talents of Park, and his dismissal of Woody Woodhall. It's curious how history gets skewed depending on who's writing it. According to the famous air controller, Woody's contribution was pivotal to victory. His abilities came highly rated due to his efforts at Duxford, but his pilots, led by Bader, never followed his instructions. He did, however, work hard, to the detriment of his health, something quite common in Malta.
Thank you for the insightful post. You raised many good points, but I fell off my chair laughing when I read the last one. That would indeed be an OOPS.
Deleted member 1487
Someone else brought that up on my other thread about the Italians not invading Greece, as the Taranto raid happened about the same time:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Taranto
I can't take all the credit for unseating you
What about your thoughts on the loss of Malta in 1940? What do you think the political ramifications would be, if any, and the military ones for the war over all?
I don't have a good track record for predicting political repercussions so I won't try. The de facto loss of Malta in 1940 due to an Italian invasion means a complete revision of North African events and possible/likely success in the Axis taking Suez. Malta was an obstacle to the logistics chain that was overlooked when barely defended because it wasn't that much of an obstacle. When it began to cause trouble, it became a tougher nut to crack. When taking Malta became imperative to success in North Africa, the Axis deemed it more important to deploy forces in the desert, even though those forces were severely reduced by the actions of the Malta-based British forces. In hindsight, their foresight was lacking. Then again, I don't know why they were fighting in the desert in the first place. But if they had to, Malta was a logical and logistical stepping stone. Once Suez was taken, what would be next?
Another aspect, one of Italian morale could be questioned. The Italian army weren't really interested in winning a war. A victory might change that somewhat. Primary German goals were elsewhere, and assets were limited. Would the taking of Malta have changed the Italians into conquerors in what was essentially an Italian theater of war? If not, the taking of Malta is of no consequence.
The Famagusta beachhead would be made at 100-m cliffs with only a few landing points where you have a half-an-hour trek to get up to the where the roads are.
Has nobody who planned this in Italy been to Malta before?
Also, why are they landing from the South, the North is much flatter and is where all the population is.
Has nobody who planned this in Italy been to Malta before?
Also, why are they landing from the South, the North is much flatter and is where all the population is.
Deleted member 1487
The initial 1938 plan for invasion was to land in the north. I'd like to know the source of the map that was posted in the OP, as it seems to involve the Italian paras, so it probably refers to the 1942 Herkules invasion, which would involve more than what is shown on the map. I think the Italian paras would secure the beach exits by dropping on them, an unexpected target, as by 1942 the defenses in the north part of the island were considerably stronger than in 1940. Italian marines would land after the Folgore division drops and secures the exits from the beach.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Hercules#Airborne_forces
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/185th_Airborne_Division_Folgore
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Marco_Regiment
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/80_Infantry_Division_La_Spezia_(Airlanding)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Hercules#Amphibious_forces
Deleted member 1487
Here is a map I found that might be of interest:
http://maltagc70.wordpress.com/tag/george-cross-70th-anniversary/page/4/
Seems doable if surprise is achieved, along with suppression by air. There are even roads right on the beach.
http://maltagc70.wordpress.com/tag/george-cross-70th-anniversary/page/4/
Overkill for a hard target (Crete really scared them I think).70K for Malta at the time seems pretty excessive
Which is exactly why it was chosen. The problem of course is whether they can keep the RN out of the operation, which, if they concentrate the necessary airpower, is certain possible IMHO.
Seems doable if surprise is achieved, along with suppression by air. There are even roads right on the beach.
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Deleted member 1487
Interesting find
http://www.matrixgames.com/products/313/details/Conquest.of.the.Aegean
Apparently there is a game out there if you want to try and war game the invasion.
http://www.matrixgames.com/products/313/details/Conquest.of.the.Aegean
Apparently there is a game out there if you want to try and war game the invasion.
They wanted the airports first, not the population. And then the seaport.
And yes, the beach head would be a death trap - if the paratroops don't do their job up above. Then again, the easier beaches, exactly because they were easier, were well defended and thus presumably also a death trap.
Look at the bright side: if this thing is done at the right time (sooner rather than later), there is half a chance that the Axis ships and aircraft appear almost nearly unexpected.
Unlike with the actual Sealion plan, which had no chance whatsoever to achieve strategic surprise. The British were flying photo recon missions every morning of good weather over the starting ports (for the very good reason that they were bombing the barges and steamers, to the point that 12% of it had been sunk or damaged by early September). And the German plan, what with the long, long exit times from Antwerp, the difficulties in loading their toy armada, the different speeds of their smorgasbord, and so on, would begin loading on S-9! Nine days before the planned landing date. Some steamers would wait in the roadsteads for two or three days! Nor would there be any uncertainty as to which night they would come. The ships from Rotterdam would be chugging around in the port on S-2, and then early in the morning of S-1 they would be moving off to the Hoek, were they would have to be gathered, in plain sight, by 12:00 of that day!