The Guns of Djibouti

According to Colin Smith's “England's Last War against France”, page 320, there was a battery of 330 mm Mod[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]è[/FONT]le 1931 guns, the same as the main armament of Dunkerque and Strasbourg, at Orongea Point defending Diego Suarez in 1942. http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNFR_13-50_m1931.htm gives these a range of 41.7 km at 35[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]º[/FONT] elevation. Presumably these had been emplaced pre-WW2 and they seem a stupid waste of money to me. However, if we assume that decisions within Third Republic ministries were made by the method described in Clochemerle, we can imagine the same guns sited at Djibouti or rather north of the city of Djibouti on the north side of the Gulf of Tadjoura, where they could command all access to the Red Sea. Now on 3rd July 1940, it is possible that a surprise British attack could capture or disable these guns. However, such an attack might fail. The need for such an attack might be forgotten. Thus after the British Operation Catapult in this POD, France could perhaps have prevented any ships from entering or leaving the Red Sea. Is this a plausible POD with amusing consequences?
 
How many guns are we talking about in the battery? On the whole I think the British would just send down a carrier and bomb the battery to disable it and then bombard it by battleship to destroy them.
 
This is an interesting POD. Obviously the UK is not going to conveniently "forget" about these guns following the rise of Vichy France. As soon as France finishes the battery (undoubtedly with British criticism, perhaps as a countermeasure to the Italian invasion of Abyssinia?) there will be British plans drawn up to deal with the battery. The Red sea is a crucial British Waterway and Britain simply can't risk such a battery remaining in hostile hands. Odds are as soon as French Djibouti declares for Vichy France, RAF planes from Aden will hit the installation disabling the turrets and clearing the Red Sea.
 
Odds are as soon as French Djibouti declares for Vichy France, RAF planes from Aden will hit the installation disabling the turrets and clearing the Red Sea.

While I'm sure that there would be contingency plans, 1940/1941 aircraft vs. a coastal artillery emplacement isn't a slam dunk. There will be AA guns there, too, and it takes a large bomb for the times making a direct hit to take out a heavy bunker. We're not talking an 8" coastal howitzer in a pit mounting here.

Even WWII battleships weren't eager to close with heavy coastal guns.

Wasn't Vichy OFFICIALLY neutral? OK, everyone knew that at best they were neutral in Germany's favor, but would they restrict passage past the battery? How many times could the British attack Vichy targets before Vichy simply joins the Axis?

I don't know how likely establishing the battery would be, but it doesn't seem ASB to me that it remains active for most of the war.
 
All Churchill has to do is to give support to General LeGentilhomme, commanding officer of the French forces in the French Somalis, so he can overthrow governor Deschamps and replace him by a Gaullist. As it happens, General LeGentilhomme desired nothing more than continuing the fight against Germany and Italy, and he eventually led his forces into British Somaliland so he could do just that...
 
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