yeah greece and yugoslavia are options for italian adventures now that the entente and germans are busy with each other if astro wants further pursue alternative history.
Ah yes the reconquest of Taras, Neapolis, Kyrene and Syracuse Megali in the West, its time has come.
Actually the Allied blockade was set up to stop neutral's from buying more oil etc than they needed ( the assumption being they would resell it to Germany for a big profit ). It was one of the sore points before Italy's entry to the war. They got away with a bit but were watched like a hawk ti stop large scale evasion of the blockade.
And at this point Italy is beginning to have problems that only the Kindly British and French can solve. Like coal . Thing to remember is the Germans have no money , boracic ,stony, indigent, can only pay in paper reichsmarks, which are not convertible.
So second rate Italian kit or first rate Swedish ore or Russian Oil its a pickle.
The specific problem is coal. Annoy the Brits enough and they don't sell you coal, don't need to the French will buy it all ( this is part of the agreement the French mobilised miners, the brits provided coal. The Germans could provide coal, but that means its not going to the blast furnaces to make steel ( or the railways to keep the trains moving).
Of the Brits would be happy to sell coal for gold USD or something useful and use the USD to buy things they find useful.
The Boche will operating without the million + French POW of OTL, and the french coal and iron fields so have far less flexibility in what they can provide. But everyone likes tea and needs rubber with no pesky U Boats or need to move everything in convoy all the way.
Hurricanes, Spitfires, Blenheims and Wellingtons will have the highest priority, and Battles will continue to be made as long as it doesn't interfere with the first four types.
Which it does, uses Merlins. Also what about Hampdens ? and the Beaufighter which has 4 Sq due to go operational in September.
What is the status of Operation Pike?
OTL planning was for May 15th, 1940, once French airfields in Syria were ready for Farman F.222 bombers
Pike is probably off the table its really a last gasp of the French Bomber Barons in 10 May the Farmans are all in France ( and bombing Berlin) noone is going to pull aircraft and aircrew out of the main battle, the BAltic annexation btw deprives Germany of a series of imports, they now come under the totals of imports from the USSR - so don't break the twins yours going need them for trade.
And the fighting has only been going on a few weeks thus far, and the bar-chart & graphs people will have other demands being made of their number-crunching skills too, such as assessing allied casualties and how effective (or otherwise) particular German weapons seem to be against the allies.
I find it difficult to believe (even though this is the pre-spreadsheet era) that the actual size of the German tank reserves will have emerged yet from the fog of war. Not unless they found a set of numbers in a convenient pocket-diary on Rommel's corpse or something like that.
This is where things get difficult. None of which will affect the next few days or weeks.
If the Germans have these reserves where are they? If they have those tanks why are they sending infantry forward armoured in wool shirts and a fanatical devotion to National Socialism. Why are there not full staffel flying? The guys that notice that will the be guys at the pointy end and its them that will be asking the questions because being Intelligence officers its their job.
And its not something that's come about in the last few days the problem has existed for years. How strong is Germany? I don't know the Ground forces position but the RAF one was based on a pretty accurate assessment of LW front line strength plus an assumption that they had a material reserve. If they had a material reserve, where are they? If they had all 6000 a/c in front line service where are they?
The issue will not be a leap towards an accurate assessment of German Strength but a questioning of the assumptions underpinning previous assessments. That process will have started in Spring 39. Prior to that the assessments are secret spy things limited to people with appropriate clearance. Come wartime the number and background of the people with that clearance widens. Notably the Brits and French will be sharing and trying to reconcile differences. Depending on the original source of the intel people may doubt but noone can disprove the previous assessments. But now they are getting data.
That wont affect current operations, or Government level planning which is inherently all about next year.
