If the British try there's a decent chance they'll get away with it. As everyone says the Axis forces morale must be rock bottom. But this could very easily turn into a Market Garden of anyone actually fights back. Though a small disaster now might not be the worst thing. After such a successful campaign the British must be getting pretty cocky and that never ends well.
Sir John Valentine Carden Survives. Part 2.
- Thread starter allanpcameron
- Start date
If the British try there's a decent chance they'll get away with it. As everyone says the Axis forces morale must be rock bottom. But this could very easily turn into a Market Garden of anyone actually fights back. Though a small disaster now might not be the worst thing. After such a successful campaign the British must be getting pretty cocky and that never ends well.
Yep. OTOH, even an unsuccessful, landing could panic some units into surrendering prematurely.
It could, but why risk it. The British are winning comfortably and with low casualties and under no particular time pressure. Yes it would be diplomatically convenient to ensure as few Axis troops cross the border as possible but you can't prevent every single Axis soldier from escaping and then Vichy are in a cleft stick and Britain as a political question about how hard they are going to insist on Vichy following the rules and how they are going to react if Vichy doesn't. So a landing wouldn't achieve a political end and from a military perspective the risk/reward balance doesn't make sense. Unless the British have got really cocky.
Problem is going to be keeping them supplied they will need to take a small fishing village at the very least so they can lighter ashore supplies, thats going to be a big heel of the operation as well as putting ashore heavy equipment.
Yeah but having only one active front does simplify the supply situation to some degree and also free’s up units to move to fight in the east if needed as well as giving them a larger naval commitment since the Kriegsmarine surface force and the Italian navy surface force are not venturing out of port means Force Z can get a carrier or two as well as forces from the Med.
You can't prevent every soldier getting past, but if you're on the road, you can stop most of the vehicles.
Well I'd assume they'd land with a fair few supplies (I'd assume one ship would be loaded with tanks, the other with trucks of supplies).
That had been my guess as well.
Would probably depend on how hard they push then as has been pointed out it could go belly up as I'd at least want a small fishing town to be secured at least so a greater quality of supplies can be landed. Even if it has only a small wooden pier it beats having to try and move stuff through the surf to try and get it to shore.
But who cares. Any troops retreating across the border into French Tunisia will be by definition by the battered and disorganised survivors of both the imminent defeat that Crusader will almost certainly inflict and a failed defence of Tripoli. These are not going to be significant formed units, otherwise a landing force on a scale that 2 LST's and 8 LSI's can deliver and support would be completely inadequate and the whole thing goes from risky to suicidal so that not even the cocky ttl British will launch it.
Oh I'd agree, and not just because of that, but also because the road it mostly built through villages, thus, it's at the villages where the road is closes to the sea.
If you can cut the main Axis force off from the Tunisian border, you remove the possibility that the French might be forced (by the Axis) to allow them past. If they allow them in without entering internment, Vichy France is now, by definition a co-belligerent, and thus, will force you to commit even more to dealing with them. Remember that the British attacked the French at Mers el Kebir and Dakar because they feared such pressure would be applied to force the Vichy to hand over their ships.
OKW assesment
Rommel
To rash to be a Panzer comander
Did Ok as an infantry commander in ww1 in Italy
Give him command of a Mountain division......
Surely it's up to the British if they want to invade Vichy Tunisia or not?
When Finland joined in Barbarossa in the original timeline, that made them a co-belligerent of Nazi Germany, but as far as I understand it the British intentionally dragged their feet on declaring war on Finland until the reasons not to do so became too great.
One might wish to compare the French interning Commonwealth sailors and airmen who ended up in French North Africa and were interned, often under atrocious conditions with what action the French might take when Axis troops cross the border. IOTL French forces were informally regarded as co-belligerents with the Axis at this point.
The difference is, Finland couldn't hurt the British, Vichy France can, at least a bit.
Maybe, but there's a difference between informally and formally.
It's not clear to me what is the state of Vichy French and British relations are at this point. Did the OTL British attack on the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir occur same as OTL in this story? Allowing the surviving Italian and German forces to have a bolt-hole into Tunisia may lessen the fighting and hasten the collapse of the Axis armies in Libya. Providing the British are confident the Vichy French will actually disarm and intern the Germans and Italians.
Otherwise landing a blocking force to prevent the Axis forces from escaping into Tunisia maybe worth attempting. Though it would be risky. How well supplied could it be? And would there be sufficient RAF and possibly RN fire support available while there is the major attack occurring far to the South? This purported blocking force could end up facing some or all of the German mobile reserve Africa Corp remnant.
How well a blocking force can do wil depend on how much of an RN boating park this part of the Med is.
Being able to land by surprise isnt hard, but the British will need to feed in reinforcements and supplies.
There's also a point that A Bridge Too Far didnt have RN battleships dropping 15" bricks on the counterattack...
Being able to land by surprise isnt hard, but the British will need to feed in reinforcements and supplies.
There's also a point that A Bridge Too Far didnt have RN battleships dropping 15" bricks on the counterattack...
Putting aside the merits or demerits of this scheme the more practice the British can get at cooperating to driver naval gunfire support the better. Whether in the Med, the Far East or NW Europe it is always going to be useful and while theory is one thing nothing makes up for firing live rounds at real people.