WI: Delayed Italian entry into WW2

I'm seeing a bunch of open dinghys, and what appears to be a RO-RO ferry that has been poorly converted into a sort of Landing Ship, Tank.

Now if you'd said about the Japanese I'd have believed you, some of those landing craft they used actually looked quite respectable.

I'm seeing someone who realises he was wrong trying to divert the question.

The Italians could and did conduct amphibious operations IOTL. They managed to land 3000 mean at Sittia in the Crete campaign and carried out smaller landings at Cofu and Cephalonia in the Greek campaign.

Remember we are not talking about assaulting the Atlantic Wall here - it's mainly shelving beaches and small ports lightly defended.

Malta would be an issue but landing craft were available IOTL by 1942 - not many but they were there. Aprox 30 landing craft and 70 motor launches plus the usual rag tag bunch of freighters and fishing vessels. With an amphibious based war strategy these could and would be accelerated and increased in number.
 
An Italian attempt for an anphibious assault on Malta can be done...but this mean use all the nation assets (barred a crash years long program to increase the number of craft) and scrapping the barrel, and as i say it will be an 'attempt' and probably a costly one as Italy don't have much experience regarding this kind of warfare
 
The Italians could and did conduct amphibious operations IOTL. They managed to land 3000 mean at Sittia in the Crete campaign and carried out smaller landings at Cofu and Cephalonia in the Greek campaign.
Not against defended positions, and not in the kind of numbers that would be needed to oust the British, not without cutting the railway a long way either side of the landing zone.

Remember we are not talking about assaulting the Atlantic Wall here - it's mainly shelving beaches and small ports lightly defended.
And hoping like hell word doesn't get out to the British, because as bad as Matildas were relative to the German tanks (okay, they were better than the German tanks in many ways, but were easy to outmanoeuvre), they'd be better than anything the Italians could land.
 
ivanotter said:
I believe that Italy depended on German coal and oil. Would that be exported?
What has Italy got Germany wants?
ivanotter said:
That will put a spanner in the works for Allied invasion of France.
:confused::confused: I'm not seeing the connection.
ivanotter said:
Greece will be an interesting one.
That's a genuine understatement. Does Winston still insist on sending aid? Or does he allow Wavell to destroy Italian forces in Africa? TTL, there will be no DAK, not with Germany fully committed in SU.:eek: (Which means Rommel will be a comparative nobody...unless he gets promoted as von Manstein & Co get fired.:p)

This also means Singapore is probably better defended, with more Brit troops. And it means New Guinea is, too, with more Aussies free, so MO & Kokoda Track are either impacted; Kokoda, if it's more/less as OTL, will be a fiasco for Japan.

One less-known factor: what is Britain doing meantime? OTL, North Africa was the only place the British Army was fighting Germans... Does this see a scaling up of Bomber Command? (It's the easiest & quickest thing to do.)

Another: this probably means Black (revealled as blown by Enigma reading Rommel's signals) is still considered secure.

With Britain not actively engaged against Germany, does Japan perceive her as weaker? Or does Britain, with somewhat more manpower at hand, respond more vigorously in Asia? (Does that put Monty in Burma, safely away from anything really harmful to British interests?:p)
lukedalton said:
plus no Taranto as example
:rolleyes::mad:

That hoary old myth needs to be put to rest. It's not like the Japanese were total idiots.:rolleyes:

Yes, Taranto may be better defended; it's also likely the exact OTL circumstances that led to Judgement being a one-CV attack don't obtain TTL, & it balances out.;)
jmc247 said:
The campaign in Russia might start a week or two earlier
:rolleyes: That old myth should be put to rest, too. Germany was delayed more by weather than the Greek campaign.
jmc247 said:
forces Germany OTL devoted to Africa and defending the Balkans after the campaign there were far from meager. The Africa Korps was far from a full Army Group at the time, but it had a full Army Groups worth of trucks to supply it. The DAK also had 1/6th the German Air Force at the time devoted to it.
Diversion of airpower, in particular against Malta, was the big issue. TTL, this gives Luftwaffe in the East options to strike Sov oil production not available OTL. This could paralyze Red Army mobility, without needing to actually take the Don-Volga Bridge, or have Hitler be tempted by Stalingrad, at all.:cool:

It also means tactical air recce is more plentiful, which is good for German attacks.:cool: (Bad for the Red Army, which is screwed six ways from Sunday already.:eek:)
AdA said:
Trucks are like money. It's allways better to have more:D
Not if you can't provide fuel, a perennial German headache.:eek: In that case, they become targets for Il-2s.:eek:
Rich Rostrom said:
If there is no ground engagement of Axis forces anywhere, Stalin is much more likely to believe the reports of German forces massing on Soviet borders.
Very good call.:cool:

OTOH, Stalin was trying to buy time until the Red Army was more ready. (Not least, more T-34s.) So, does he still delude himself?
jmc247 said:
The far bigger fight between Hitler and Rommel would come in December of 1941 when the Panzer rush in Russia has ended and Rommel has a chance to notice there are SS death squads going around behind his lines mass shooting innocent people. I could imagine a few ways that would go... most of them that would end badly for Rommel.
That's for sure.:eek:

One important thing: if Italy doesn't join the Germans, it moves up the date for invading France about a year. There's no Italian campaign, so all the shipping tied up fighting it is used instead to build up for Neptune...which goes off with the Atlantic Wall much less nearer completion, & much, much less effective, without Rommel. Plus, without Rommel & the desert experience, German reaction to Allied air is much more conventional & less effective.

This is very, very good for the postwar world...:cool::cool:
 
Not if you can't provide fuel, a perennial German headache.:eek: In that case, they become targets for Il-2s.:eek:
Whether the trucks are in the desert or on the steppes the fuel issue is about the same, and since here they won't be in the desert they'll be on the steppes.

One important thing: if Italy doesn't join the Germans, it moves up the date for invading France about a year. There's no Italian campaign, so all the shipping tied up fighting it is used instead to build up for Neptune...which goes off with the Atlantic Wall much less nearer completion, & much, much less effective, without Rommel. Plus, without Rommel & the desert experience, German reaction to Allied air is much more conventional & less effective.
OTOH the Allies are much less prepared as well (fewer, older tanks, less supreme control of the skies, fewer landing craft), so the first landings are likely to be more tentative, and the advances slower, which could easily see about the same net result.
 
Well Rommel at El Alamein was getting his supplies somehow, and since there were no railways for a lot of the distance supplies were coming they had to have been coming by truck. I doubt it would be enough for a whole army group, but it wouldn't have been a small number either.
 

Robert

Banned
Italy contributed little to the German war effort, and caused a number of problems. Had italy remained neutral there wouldn't have been a North African front, and Rommel would have end up on the Russian Front.

Italy probably would have invaded Greece, and it might have gone better with increased forces available since there was no fighting in Libya. The British would have been hard pressed to mount any kind of intervention without German participation, and the Greeks could have taken care of themselves against the Italians.

England could have built up it's army, but would be unable to do more then conduct a few raids on the Third Reich. Most of the British efforts would be in fighting the German U-Boats.

I wonder if Hitler might have taken a clue from Italian Neutrality and not declared war on the U.S. after Pearl Harbor. Then we'd have two separate wars going on. The U.S. eventually defeats Japan, and Germany achieves a stalemate in Russia.
 
Well Rommel at El Alamein was getting his supplies somehow, and since there were no railways for a lot of the distance supplies were coming they had to have been coming by truck. I doubt it would be enough for a whole army group, but it wouldn't have been a small number either.

According to all the reports I can find online his forces were understrength in terms of trucks throughout the campaign, and often had to rely on salvaged or captured British trucks. Further, many of the trucks he used were Italian; 8,000 Italian trucks were in Africa in December 1940, and 7,000 were sent after Operation Compass. Only a small number of Italian formations were motorized. Perhaps 5-7 thousand trucks would have been needed for Rommel's initial divisions sent in Spring 1941. That may seem like a large number, but an Army Group involved in Barbarossa would need 40x that number!
 
Why would Italy still attack Greece in this TL if it has decided not to join the war in 1940? I see two major impediments to this assumption:

1) Yugoslavia may be a reluctant member of the Axis Alliance. Without the British presence in Greece, and without Italy being a formal member of the Alliance either, Yugoslavia might see the measure as the only prudent action to take to protect their integrity;

2) Britain had guaranteed the neutrality of Greece in 1939. This means if Italy does declare war on Greece they have de facto entered WW2 on the Axis side. While it's possible Britain could renege on this commitment, I sincerely doubt it with Churchill at the helm.

There is also a possibility that Greece would approach Germany for some reassurances about its neutrality status to protect from Italian encroachment.
 
If Italy stays neutral, Brooke cannot use Italy as a strategic trap, containing a significant amount of German troops. Those could have been made available in France. That was Brooke's fear that if the Italian campaign got shut down, those troops would be transferred.

Playing it smart, Italy could have produced a lot of the German equipment. As a neutral it would be "hands-off" for bomber command, just as Switzerland.

Let us now imagine that Germany hands over the production of equipment to Italy? Let us even imagine this is happening in 1942 (when the signs of the bombng to come was getting clearer).

It leaves a couple of options:

1) Italy is becoming the arsenal and the "Rhur of the South". The Milan area is excellent for this. Heavy industry, work force, etc etc.

2) US/UK provokes a war with Italy

Can anybody see a neutral Italy throughout? Would Churchill (and Brooke) be cynical enough to provoke a war so Germany could deploy troops into the trap? Oh yes. Especially if war material galor is produced in Italy.

Switzerland got a verbal hiding for looking after German production. Especially after W Allied had surrounded them. The threat of stopping the coal and oil exports unless Switzerland stopped trading with Germany was bad news indeed.

Italian potential is a lot bigger.

Imagine if Me 262 and all jet planes are produced in Italy (they were not all incompetent! Fiat had a long tradition of good planes, so no gigglig and laughing here)

Safe Haven is what Italy could provide if they stayed neutral.

Greece is still a trouble-spot. Let it fall to communism early?

Ivan
 
Fair enough, although there were some German trucks there that will now be on the steppes, although knowing the Nazis they'll put so many extra troops and tanks in the east that any minor logistical improvements will be overwhelmed anyway.
 
That hoary old myth needs to be put to rest. It's not like the Japanese were total idiots.:rolleyes:

Yes, Taranto may be better defended; it's also likely the exact OTL circumstances that led to Judgement being a one-CV attack don't obtain TTL, & it balances out.;)

It's not a question of being idiot, sure the Japanese brass will get the idea and how implement it surely even without the Taranto raid, but it was a very risky move and dangerous plan so without a clear example that can be done the higher ups can be a little more wary to authorise the plan and go for something more orthodox.
 
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