The Italians conquer Egypt in 1940

  • Thread starter Deleted member 1487
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Having said that. Could they do it? There is many "what if Rommel captures Egypt threads" that are usually labeled close to ASB for logistics reasons.
And OTL the Italians alone didn't even get close to Mersa Matruh.

Don't know if the Mathilda is a game-changer. would it not be too slow, mechanically unrealiable and out of fuel in a scenario as this?
The Italian's can't be on the move 24/7, and wherever they set up camp, the Matildas will just role over them. Also, the Italians would be held up by the extensive minefields south of the British position.

My understanding was that the Italians were able to take them out with field artillery, molotov cocktails, and a variety of other weapons, while for the Germans the Panzerjager I with 47mm Czech AT gun or the PAK38 were capable of killing the Matilda at normal combat ranges.
http://rommelsriposte.com/2010/04/27/german-firing-trials-against-the-matilda-ii/
Test-firings in 1942. The action takes place in 1941, and given their other preparations OTL, it's doubtful the Italians took the time to try to correct this error.
 

Don Quijote

Banned
I've read that at the outbreak of war Italy only had four armoured divisions, and even these contained a lot of infantry.
 
Interesting point, the L3/33, which made up the majority of the Italian armoured divisions was less well armed than most British Armoured Cars (a 6.5mm MG vs a Boys AT rifle and a .303 Bren for the Morris CS9).
 

TFSmith121

Banned
There's also the minor point that from

There's also the minor point that from the Quatara Depression (Alamein position) to the east, the British have at least three defensive lines - Quatara, Nile, and Suez - the Italians can not flank, and can not (realistically) breech.

Then there's the minor problem the Italians entered the war with a third of their merchant marine outside of the Med...

Then there are the minor problems that the Italian ports in Cyrenaica were inadequate to sustain a motorized force in Egypt all the way east to Quatara - as demonstrated repeatedly in 1940-42.

Other than that, it's a brilliant plan.

Best,
 

Deleted member 1487

There's also the minor point that from the Quatara Depression (Alamein position) to the east, the British have at least three defensive lines - Quatara, Nile, and Suez - the Italians can not flank, and can not (realistically) breech.

Then there's the minor problem the Italians entered the war with a third of their merchant marine outside of the Med...

Then there are the minor problems that the Italian ports in Cyrenaica were inadequate to sustain a motorized force in Egypt all the way east to Quatara - as demonstrated repeatedly in 1940-42.

Other than that, it's a brilliant plan.

Best,
Per the option laid out in the OP the British were so small in number that rolling in with a limited force that was heavily motorized could be sustained deep into Egypt, as at the start of the Italian war they had the best supply options available of any time of the North African conflict due to Malta not yet being up to speed, the pre-war ports of Torbuk and Bardia being well supplied, with supply stockpiles, and being at peak capacity before both sides swept back and forth over the ports and sabotaged them.

The big problem for the Italians in 1940 was moving into Egypt with a lot of foot infantry that were logistically unsustainable. Had they opted to move light with only motorized forces they would have had a much better logistical situation, especially by stripping out all transport in Libya to move supplies and the limited number of men around.
 
Per the option laid out in the OP the British were so small in number that rolling in with a limited force that was heavily motorized could be sustained deep into Egypt, as at the start of the Italian war they had the best supply options available of any time of the North African conflict due to Malta not yet being up to speed, the pre-war ports of Torbuk and Bardia being well supplied, with supply stockpiles, and being at peak capacity before both sides swept back and forth over the ports and sabotaged them.

The big problem for the Italians in 1940 was moving into Egypt with a lot of foot infantry that were logistically unsustainable. Had they opted to move light with only motorized forces they would have had a much better logistical situation, especially by stripping out all transport in Libya to move supplies and the limited number of men around.

The problem here is that a land invasion of Egypt is not going to be a battle of manoeuvre but a series of head on attacks against the British along the line of choke points leading to the Nile Delta and the Suez beyond. The British are amply mobile enough they are always going to be able to retreat but the Italian motorised forces do not have the margin of superiority required to sustain losses in the kind of operation that results and thus need the foot sloggers to bear those casualties.

It really is a damned if you do and a damned if you don't scenario for the Italians...in OTL the only surprise was that British in fact turned out not merely to be adequate in defence but sufficient to undertake the conquest of Eastern Libya.
 
Per the option laid out in the OP the British were so small in number that rolling in with a limited force that was heavily motorized could be sustained deep into Egypt, as at the start of the Italian war they had the best supply options available of any time of the North African conflict due to Malta not yet being up to speed, the pre-war ports of Torbuk and Bardia being well supplied, with supply stockpiles, and being at peak capacity before both sides swept back and forth over the ports and sabotaged them.

The big problem for the Italians in 1940 was moving into Egypt with a lot of foot infantry that were logistically unsustainable. Had they opted to move light with only motorized forces they would have had a much better logistical situation, especially by stripping out all transport in Libya to move supplies and the limited number of men around.

The issue I see with this is as follows

The Italians doing what you propose can probably form 2 Armour Divisions - each with - 1 Armour Brigade with 3 Battalions (1 Regt) of L3 tanks*, a Brigade of Lorried Infantry and some towed artillery.

*I think they had something like 330 L3s in Libya in June 1940

Against this the British have 6th Infantry Div HQ, 4th Indian Division and 7th Armored Div plus I thinks it was 2 Cavalry regiments (= 2 Battalions of Armoured cars) and about 1 Brigade of the NZ Division + its First Echelon

Now granted the British formations are both initially understrength and spread out - but their equipment and training is far superior to those of the Italians - in addition their 2nd and 3rd Echelons are far more capable.

And most of it had been training in the desert for 2 years or more.

The tactics the British planned on using was to initially fall back along the coast delaying and inflicting losses to the mass of the 10th Army while destroying the road between Matrah and Sidi Bahrani (which I assume to be Bridges, viaducts etc) behind them while building up forces to defeat them at say...Mersa Matrah where the rail head ended or even further back towards El Alamain.

Faced with a similar sized force with inferior equipment and training the British are instead going to initially fall back and once content that they are not facing the Entire 10th Army turn and attack.

Given the disparity in Equipment and training I would expect this to result in the defeat and very likely the effective destruction of this Italian Mobile force.
 
Hypothetically let's say the Italian army opted to prepare for a serious campaign ... leading up to their intervention in June 1940 and ran such a campaign to the Nile, prompting an Egyptian uprising against the British.

What are the implications of the Italians successfully conquering Egypt on their own and effectively eliminating the British Mediterranean Fleet from the war? Would the British exit the war in 1940 with that defeat or try and dig in?

reread Struggle for the Middle Sea by O'Hara and was struck that the Italian plan was a lot more nuanced and viable than accepted view.

It did not involve "let's go capture the Suez Canal" (albeit that was ultimate goal) but rather to advance far enough into or towards Egypt to be able to launch airstrikes on Alexandria, forcing the British to consolidate operations at Gibraltar.

any British naval actions would then come from west, past Sicily, an advantage to Italians (their view)
 
reread Struggle for the Middle Sea by O'Hara and was struck that the Italian plan was a lot more nuanced and viable than accepted view.

It did not involve "let's go capture the Suez Canal" (albeit that was ultimate goal) but rather to advance far enough into or towards Egypt to be able to launch airstrikes on Alexandria, forcing the British to consolidate operations at Gibraltar.

any British naval actions would then come from west, past Sicily, an advantage to Italians (their view)

Yes, I found this thread and the information incredibly thought provoking as well. Possibly, it needs a bit more planning and intent to be carried out, but it still is one of the more subtle suggestions of how the favors of the axis could have been massively changed (Disclaimer: For the worse of mankind).
 
Hypothetically let's say the Italian army opted to prepare for a serious campaign along these lines leading up to their intervention in June 1940 and ran such a campaign to the Nile, prompting an Egyptian uprising against the British. This wouldn't like up Italian East Africa and Italian occupied North Africa, but would allow for naval shipping to operate in the Red Sea from the Mediterranean:
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/media/uploads/2009/10/italian_empire_1939_1024.jpg

What are the implications of the Italians successfully conquering Egypt on their own and effectively eliminating the British Mediterranean Fleet from the war? Would the British exit the war in 1940 with that defeat or try and dig in? Clearly they wouldn't be able to intervene in Greece when that happens and would be forced to do something about the Middle East and potentially face an Arab uprising if the Italians are able to get right to the Suez.

The gainsayers argument is that the Axis could not have done better than they did in Libya because of the logistical limitations imposed by Libya's transport infrastructure. Do the preparations for a serious campaign include increasing the capacity of Libya's ports, improving the road network and extending the railways? If they do, can anyone make a realistic estimate of the improvements that could have been made between September 1939 and June 1940?
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Isn't the big problem for the Italians in 1940 in Egypt the

The big problem for the Italians in 1940 was moving into Egypt with a lot of foot infantry that were logistically unsustainable. Had they opted to move light with only motorized forces they would have had a much better logistical situation, especially by stripping out all transport in Libya to move supplies and the limited number of men around.

Isn't the "big problem" for the Italians in 1940 in Egypt the British and Indian armies, the RAF, and the RN?

If - and its a big if - the Italians could (and in fact did) put more mobile troops into Cyrenaica in the months before June, 1940, it's not unlikely the British are going to notice...

And given the naval and maritime logistics supueriority the British enjoyed, the historically obvious capabilities on the defense and in the desert the British and Indians displayed, and the realities of the RAF vis a vis the RA in 1940, expecting the British high command (Wavell and O'Connor, mind you) to rather mindlessly fall into the Italians' cunning plan seems rather sanguine...

The Italians managed one overarching and unaided victory in a campaign against the British in this era, the conquest of British Somaliland, which pitted 24,000 "Italian" troops (regular and colonial) against roughly 5,000 "British" (regular and colonial), roughly 5-1 odds, in a small colony with nothing resembling the infrastructure the British had at their disposal in Egypt, and the Italians still suffered something like 2,000 casualties.

Good luck getting a correlation of forces - and a result - like that between the Italians in Libya and the British in Egypt.

Best,
 
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