Good revision. The tweaks make it read much more believably now
Now that's dedication to a TL! On the ground research!
Indeed I'm a serial poster, major update in the following post (lunchtime posting - the chapter has been ready since last week
Good revision. The tweaks make it read much more believably now
Now that's dedication to a TL! On the ground research!
I feel the Italian Navy and Army codebreakers, who both were very good at their job, should have seen the buildup activity. They had broke the French and Yugoslavian Military and Diplomatic codes, Their Spies were very good at stealing codebooksAir bombings from France and Tunisia almost annihilated at soil the Regia Aeronautica in northern Italy, caught completely off guard by the sneak attack.
I didn't know about the spy games behind, maybe I'll edit, I've some ideas about it. Next update will be an overview of how the war actually goes.
annihilate Regia Aeronautica like the Israelian with the arabs during the 6 days war will be almost impossible, especially with the general situation of the French air force. Naturally once the Luftwaffe enter in the game, things will change drammatically and Regia Areonautica will be in the fight for her life but said that remember that the RAF had not steamrolled the italians in 5 minutes.
I will edit accordingly the update with some major details on the French military status. I enjoy the fact that indeed (except for some foolish things I wrote) that the TL is considered "plausible"...
Piave92
I'm back, now unfortunately I'm not working due to COVID-19 reduction in work hours so I've got more time to post![]()
Thank you @lukedaltonEhy glad to have you back and sorry for the work situation.
Back to business IMVHO there are two things to point:
1- While at the time the Red Army general performance made the OTL Italians look professional and the Stalin military leadership was nothing to write about; Germany will be very hard pressed to be so succesfull as the italian campaign is an enourmous waste of men, equipment and supply, just the battle of Trieste has been costly as the OTL invasion of Greece and Jugoslavia put together...honestly i doubt that the Wermatch will have the possibility to launch Operation Typhoon.
2- With this level of loss, the troops of the Duke of Aosta will be sent in Italy or at least the British will have sent a contingent to help the italian war effort (the minimum effort is something equivalent of what sent in Greece OTL) and Land-Lease will quickly include Italy.
3 - The Axis invasion of Libya will soon run out of steam, if Italy had a lot of difficulty in supply his troops OTL, France it's even in a worse situation as Marine Nationale has been gutted
Thank you @lukedalton
I try to answer to your remarks below:
1 - At the moment, Italy is facing in my scenario around 2 German Army Corps, one in Sudtirol (chiefly Gebirgsjaeger and regular infantry with divisional artillery) and one in Friuli-Giulia sector (let's say a Panzer corps plus some spare infantry). The numbers engaged are pretty much around 200k. Add in around the same Yugoslavs (infantry and crackpot units). On the French border, it's the very same Armeé des Alpes. German casualties are high (at least 50k troops since the start of the invasion, most in Sudtirol) but the Italian ones are staggering (300k +)
Italian campaign will be costly in the TL, for sure, but something is cooking behind the scenes.
2 - Likely that we will see some Zaptié fighting on the rivers of Veneto soon, but at the moment Duke of Aosta will have to demonstrate his own fighting skills in Syria and then, against a certain Desert Fox. Lend-Lease will be absolutely provided also to Italy (Free France had it around the very same time in OTL). Brits are still reorganizing after the hits in Greece and their battle in Syria against the French and the general, widespread revolt of the Arab populations is draining their manpower at the moment.
3 - At this moment, foolish Graziani and Wavell are just outside the Mareth Line in Tunisia without the intelligence to seize the moment. They will be hit soon in the face
the problem for Germany are his allies, France army will lack almost everything in term of heavy equipment, Hitler can't give it back to them as it's vital to Barbarossa and the invasion of Italy (Nazi war effort was an enourmous Ponzi scheme). Sure the french can try to build them but as OTL Italy they will face problem in getting the resources necessary and they will face even more bombardment than Italy by the RAF so i expect them to be heavily underequipped.
The Jugoslavian Royal Army is by no shape capable of waging an offensive war of this type, thing of OTL Italian army but with even worse equipment and training and the addition of ethnic tension.
The situation in Algeria will be very problematic sure...but for the Axis, as said before, with Marine Nationale no more a factor in the battle of the Mediterrean the effort of supply whatever Axis force are there will be much much more problematic than for OTL Italy as frankly both Regia Marina and Royal Navy can actively interdict any ships that try to go there (frankly together they have absolute control of the Mediterrean) as whatever left of lifting capacity has been used for Syria. Basically at most the French had one shot and even if wildly succesfull the British counterattack will make look Compass a fair fight.
Basically i'm not saying that what you wrote is not possible, just that the Axis ITTL it's even more lucky than OTL, by now the Jugoslavian loss will have been staggering and anyone in command of the Germans force will basically sell his wife and mother thanking any god in existence for having just 50k casualities in this theatre after months of warfare in that terrain.
The general problem for the German is that France and Jugoslavia put together don't compensate the change of side of Italy, especially if we are talking of a defensive war and USA and UK resolving overnight any supply problem of Italy and Petain making the same mistake of Mussolini in wasting resources in fighting everywhere...anything sent in Syria is for all pratical purpose lost and everybody knows (French troops included ) that they will not last long