WI: In 1942, General Gott Had NOT Died & Had Taken Command of the 8th Army?

formion

Banned
Respectfully, I disagree that the British cannot hold Crete. I have read much and more in different threads about the sustainability of Crete. I know all the arguments: ports on the north side, close distance to enemy airfields etc.

Malta was held in far, far more dire geographical location and the islands are tiny, with insignificant food production and a civilian population of 250,000. Crete in 1940 had a population of 400,000 people spread over a big island with food production that almost covered all the needs of the islanders. If you move a few dozen AA guns on the hills aroung Suda, the anchorage becomes as safe (or more) from air attack as the Great Harbor. If the Germans could build significant infrastructure in half a year (without any urgency), if the Allied put a bunch of buldozers, 2-3 engineer battalions and a loyal civilian work force frantic to help, then by all means the logistics are way easier. Remember: the Luftwaffe may place either Crete or Malta in a siege, not both at the same time. When they focus in one place, the other gets a respite. Regarding garrison needs, the Greeks can field 25-30,000 men in Crete by late 1941, by green troops that will have been trained, veteran escapees from the mainland via Turkey and Cretan reservists. If Merkur fails, there is no chance the Allies are dislocated from Crete. By late 1942 the island can be transformed in an offensive base hosting fighters and 2-engine bombers.

Btw the most absurd argument for the Suda logistics is the following: in the pier there was a tiny customs building that didnt allow vehicles to disembark. The Cretan civilian population attacked the German paratroopers with shotguns, knives and staffs. A population that prefered to see their villages torched rather than submitting to the Germans. A simple memo to the local mayor would result in the speedy demolition of the building by half a dozen guys with sledgefammers. That nobody thought of it in OTL over 6 months is infuriating. Crete is not Malaya with the local magnates and colonial administrators that threw a wrench in the campaign.

I think also - but I m not sure- that Merkur in May 1941 would fare worse in Malta. While the garrison was smaller, it was actually prepared and concentrated in prepared terrain. The rocky landscape of Malta, defended by troops that had actual artillery would be a killing zone for paratroopers. Also, ABC would have his full fleet to intervene. If he was willing to sacrifice so many ships for Crete, I imagine the same for Malta. However, it is all moot, because Ploesti wasn't in Malta's radius. In 1941 both the Wehrmacht leadership and especially Hitler would prioritize Crete over Malta.

Edit: On the contrary, the German logistics in the Aegean was depended on boats such as this:

- The photo is from the German invasion of the Aegean islands in April 1941
 

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Respectfully, I disagree that the British cannot hold Crete. I have read much and more in different threads about the sustainability of Crete. I know all the arguments: ports on the north side, close distance to enemy airfields etc.

Staying for pride and staying for practical military results are 2 different things. I hope to explain.

Malta was held in far, far more dire geographical location and the islands are tiny, with insignificant food production and a civilian population of 250,000. Crete in 1940 had a population of 400,000 people spread over a big island with food production that almost covered all the needs of the islanders. If you move a few dozen AA guns on the hills aroung Suda, the anchorage becomes as safe (or more) from air attack as the Great Harbor. If the Germans could build significant infrastructure in half a year (without any urgency), if the Allied put a bunch of buldozers, 2-3 engineer battalions and a loyal civilian work force frantic to help, then by all means the logistics are way easier. Remember: the Luftwaffe may place either Crete or Malta in a siege, not both at the same time. When they focus in one place, the other gets a respite. Regarding garrison needs, the Greeks can field 25-30,000 men in Crete by late 1941, by green troops that will have been trained, veteran escapees from the mainland via Turkey and Cretan reservists. If Merkur fails, there is no chance the Allies are dislocated from Crete. By late 1942 the island can be transformed in an offensive base hosting fighters and 2-engine bombers.

The Ploesti air defenses are not going to be breached from Crete. A much better air force than the RAF in 1941 tried and could not launching from Foggia Italy. Other than an ineffectual bomber platform, it has no other practical military value. Malta on the other hand is solidly plugged onto the shortest Axis supply route from Italy to Libya. British subs, fast attack craft and short ranged single engine attack planes make Axis convoys either detour extensively or suffer a reverse Pedestal outcome. It makes Malta a hold at all costs type of asset and a take at all costs type military objective.

Btw the most absurd argument for the Suda logistics is the following: in the pier there was a tiny customs building that didn't allow vehicles to disembark. The Cretan civilian population attacked the German paratroopers with shotguns, knives and staffs. A population that preferred to see their villages torched rather than submitting to the Germans. A simple memo to the local mayor would result in the speedy demolition of the building by half a dozen guys with sledgehammers. That nobody thought of it in OTL over 6 months is infuriating. Crete is not Malaya with the local magnates and colonial administrators that threw a wrench in the campaign.

I know the Greeks, they would not stop with sledgehammers and a building.

I think also - but I'm not sure- that Merkur in May 1941 would fare worse in Malta. While the garrison was smaller, it was actually prepared and concentrated in prepared terrain. The rocky landscape of Malta, defended by troops that had actual artillery would be a killing zone for paratroopers. Also, ABC would have his full fleet to intervene. If he was willing to sacrifice so many ships for Crete, I imagine the same for Malta. However, it is all moot, because Ploesti wasn't in Malta's radius. In 1941 both the Wehrmacht leadership and especially Hitler would prioritize Crete over Malta.

Edit: On the contrary, the German logistics in the Aegean was depended on boats such as this:

- The photo is from the German invasion of the Aegean islands in April 1941

Shrug. The prize was worth the risk. I think Cunningham would have found out that the Italians at sea with air cover are a lot different navy than Italians without. I also think that if you have only one German parachute assault in you, you better make it count. Crete went no-where. Malta could have been the war for Great Britain; one way or the other.
 

formion

Banned
Staying for pride and staying for practical military results are 2 different things. I hope to explain.

Pride has nothing to do with it. Crete is a shield for the RN to operate in the East Med. Crete is also a shield to protect convoys to Malta. Maleme to Malta is 840km. Churchill wanted to turn Suda to a "second Scapa". Impractical and grandiose yes, but the Admiralty had recognized from the very start its strategic significance. If I remember correctly the fist Sunderland reached Suda 1 day after the Italian invasion of Greece, to deliver officers to scan the anchorage. If it didn't have a significant military value, the Luftwaffe wouldn't have finished the 2 airfields and built 2 more in a matter of months. Crete was extremely important to the Axis lines to Benghazi and Tobruk for both the use of Suda and aircover. At the same time, the Luftwaffe used cretan airfields to launch attacks to the Med Fleet and british shipping.

Malta on the other hand is solidly plugged onto the shortest Axis supply route from Italy

This map have been posted many times in the forum- I think.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...es,_Summer_and_Autumn,_1941.jpg?1569446543170

Suda bay and Navarino bay were the locations where convoys formed to steam towards Benghazi and Tobruk. It's not an argument from my part, its a fact. What Malta was for the Tripoli-bound convoys, Crete was for the Cyrenaica-bound ones.

The Ploesti air defenses are not going to be breached from Crete

They won't. I couldn't agree more. You know it, I know it. German policy makers in WW2 didn't know it. The Germans invaded Greece to preclude any RAF bomber bases. In some talks over the 1940-141 winter they discussed the option of capturing just northern Greece to have a buffer for Ploesti. The talks about the British presence in Greece were mostly around the possibility of threat to the oilfields. The very same was about Crete. Hitler didn't envision Crete was an offensive base towards the Eastern Med, but as a defensive bastion for Ploesti. In a somewhat similar situation, the Germans were worried that Crimea can be a platform for the Soviets to bomb Ploest and thus its capture became even more important.


I know the Greeks, they would not stop with sledgehammers and a building.

What do you mean?
 
Wasn't that why they put a 3in howitzer in some tanks as a close support variant?
But only gave it smoke rounds as explosive shells were the business of the Royal Artillery not the Royal Tank Regiment or Cavalry. Sheer utter stupidity that got good men killed for no reason.
 
My stuff is naval and it is the Pacific, but from what I have learned so far, I can suggest the following.

1. There were a lot of armed Italians and colonial askaris in the AOI (Italian East Africa); about 300,000 of them. I think the Anglo-South Africans were outnumbered about 4-1 at least.
2. At least 1 veteran motorized formation who knew what they were doing would be necessary in the Sudan (north). The SA troopers were extremely good (south), but most of them were "amateurs" and they had to cross Ethiopia.
3. Sudan is on the way to Ethiopia, and the British were correct to be worried. Far too few troops and an extremely HOSTILE anti-British populace Note that the British had to put down several rebellions and they lost a whole army (Gordon 1885) in the Sudan less than 55 years earlier. It was also not certain the Italians could march up the Nile and make trouble.
4. Compass was an exploitation of a raid. Whether Tripoli was possible, I give it a 45% chance. Well worth the risk for the strategic dividends to be gained.
5. Surt as a fallback was possible to hold. Rommel at that stage was reckless and knew nothing about the desert. He could have been bagged as he was almost during Crusader and that op was just as bungled as anything O'Connor was likely to [not] screw up as Cunningham and Gort actually did during Crusader.
6.

(^^^) That warms the sea-power cockles of my heart. You know the RN was absolutely great at doing almost everything at what it did well and does, but those guys sure have major WW II issues and horrendous mistakes that British WW II historians gloss over. Technical stuff like air defense, aircraft carrier operations, early ASW and so forth is either misrepresented or distorted, but the thing that really hurts a factored balanced view of the RN is its failure to support the British desert army by being the sea guard, it should have been.

I also cringe when I see the accounts of the risks the USS Wasp ran in the Mediterranean to ferry planes and cover shipping to Malta, only to note the Spitfires she ferried are destroyed on the ground as they land at Malta or all those freighters get sunk. This not only happened with Wasp but many a British flattop risked her all and saw similar efforts go to naught because the Malta air and sea defense was not up to snuff.

One more reason to try for Tripoli. Or at least MINE the port!

It's a shame that Park did not get sent to Malta Earlier

Sadly there were two schools of thought with regards to managing an air defence network

Dowding/Parks methodology of attacking every bomber formation with whatever can be sent as quickly as possible

And the Mallory school of forming up larger formation and then attacking en mass - after the bombers had dropped their bombs - other wise known as the wrong one.

When Park arrived in Malta the airfields were a mess due to consistent bombing - he simply asked the question "Why don't you stop them?" When he took over he did - the loss rates of Axis bombing raid became unsustainable and so were called off with malta then able to become the base of operations.

It took until 2010 before the man got a statue in London. There is a crime for you.

As for AAA - early war 'no one' had decent AAA. No one.
 
Pride has nothing to do with it. Crete is a shield for the RN to operate in the East Med. Crete is also a shield to protect convoys to Malta. Maleme to Malta is 840km. Churchill wanted to turn Suda to a "second Scapa". Impractical and grandiose yes, but the Admiralty had recognized from the very start its strategic significance. If I remember correctly the fi[r]st Sunderland reached Suda 1 day after the Italian invasion of Greece, to deliver officers to scan the anchorage. If it didn't have a significant military value, the Luftwaffe wouldn't have finished the 2 airfields and built 2 more in a matter of months. Crete was extremely important to the Axis lines to Benghazi and Tobruk for both the use of Suda and aircover. At the same time, the Luftwaffe used Cretan airfields to launch attacks to the Med Fleet and British shipping.

if you cannot achieve air superiority over the Peloponnesian airfields, all of this (^^^) means nothing. The RAF could not, and did not, so even staying on Crete was militarily illogical. You are just going to achieve nothing.

800px-Radius_of_action_of_Allied_aircraft_from_Malta_in_relation_to_Axis_shipping_routes,_Summer_and_Autumn,_1941.jpg


Let's do a USN number on that situation...

A20BismarckSea.jpg


More to the point, the A-20s were available. What was not available was FIGHTER COVER. The British had nothing with reach, so the anti-ship function was not practically possible.

RIKKO-Med.png


At least not efficiently.
A20BismarckSea.jpg


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Suda bay and Navarino bay were the locations where convoys formed to steam towards Benghazi and Tobruk. It's not an argument from my part, its a fact. What Malta was for the Tripoli-bound convoys, Crete was for the Cyrenaica-bound ones.

So bomb and MINE the bays. You do not need Crete to do it. (See Map.) The British have Havocs. Just be prepared to lose a lot of birds.

They won't. I couldn't agree more. You know it, I know it. German policy makers in WW2 didn't know it. The Germans invaded Greece to preclude any RAF bomber bases. In some talks over the 1940-141 winter they discussed the option of capturing just northern Greece to have a buffer for Ploesti. The talks about the British presence in Greece were mostly around the possibility of threat to the oilfields. The very same was about Crete. Hitler didn't envision Crete was an offensive base towards the Eastern Med, but as a defensive bastion for Ploesti. In a somewhat similar situation, the Germans were worried that Crimea can be a platform for the Soviets to bomb Ploesti and thus its capture became even more important.

The Soviets actually might have been a real threat. They were willing to take 50% losses per raid and make the right kind of multiple low level strategic attacks *(at least a dozen 400 machine attacks) based on their ruthless CAS support operations (Sturmoviks and Pe-2 raids.) to put Ploesti out of business for good. Name me a western air force willing to pay that price? (2400 bombers and 10,000 men). Not even the IJN was that crazy in the air. OTOH, I regard Luftwaffe air tacticians as incompetent beyond the CAS and air defense missions which they handled well. They tended to vastly overestimate air bombing effects. They are not alone. The RAF and the USAAF were NTBs when it came to strategic air campaigns as well.

Greeks.

What do you mean?

Greek partisans took every opportunity to kill Germans and Greek collaborationists. The Greek civil war of 1944-1945 was not waged by nice guys on either side. I mean those partisan guys make Tito's people look like bourgeoise. It still stains Greece down to the present because I have a feeling the "wrong" side won the civil war.
 

formion

Banned
First of all, thanks for the map, its very helpful !

if you cannot achieve air superiority over the Peloponnesian airfields, all of this (^^^) means nothing. The RAF could not, and did not, so even staying on Crete was militarily illogical. You are just going to achieve nothing.

Why? Indeed, the RAF could not establish superiority over the Peloponnese airfields in May 1941 for the following reasons:
i) They didn't have a single proper airbase in Crete
ii) More importantly they had to face Fliegerkorps VIII.

Indeed, the British couldn't have established air superiority if the Luftwaffe made a continuous effort against Crete by a whole Fliegerkorps instead of using it in Barbarossa. What are the chances for it? They can move of course Fliegerkorps X as in OTL, but that means Malta gets a respite. There were simply not enough assets to cover both areas. In June 1941 there were 267 planes of all types in the Med.

Come on, you have studied the Pacific War in a great detail. How many squadrons did the Allies used to suppress Rabaul for a long period of time?

So bomb and MINE the bays. You do not need Crete to do it. (See Map.) The British have Havocs. Just be prepared to lose a lot of birds.

Then why do you need even Malta? You can mine everything with Stirlings or other bombers. You disregard naval bases that are placed in the middle of the enemy's communications just for an argument.

Greek partisans took every opportunity to kill Germans and Greek collaborationists. The Greek civil war of 1944-1945 was not waged by nice guys on either side. I mean those partisan guys make Tito's people look like bourgeoise. It still stains Greece down to the present because I have a feeling the "wrong" side won the civil war.

Hold your horses. What kind of fallacy is this? Where did I mention the civil war of 1944-1945? I demonstrated the willingness of the civilian population in 1941 to help the Allied cause. I talked about five guys with sledgehammers solving a logistics issue in a few hours. (Here is a photo of the offending building, apparently it was a 5 square meter room.

suda pier.JPG

A future civil war has nothing to do with infrastructure in Crete in 1941. In the same spirit there was an inactive narrow gauge railway in Heraklion that was not utilized at all during the half-hearted attempt to expand the civilian airfield. Still, a letter to the local mayor wouldn't have anything to do with a potential civil war in the future. Apples and oranges.

Even though the Cretans were republicans they worked pretty well with the monarchist regime in OTL. Not a single incident happened in April-May 1941.

By the way the implication that if you give sledgehammers to Greeks to tear down a building would lead to brutally murder each other ( "they wont stop"), I find it as a Greek who lost relatives in the civil war in poor taste at best.
 
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With 2 additional fully leaded Infantry Divisions and an armoured Brigade still capable of reinforcing Cyrenaica and not having lost all of their heavy equipment in Greece and Crete - Rommel delays his attack.
Unless I'm mistaken, if the Oz divs are held in the Mid-East, it's likely to butterfly Sonnenblume & DAK entirely.

The diversion to Greece weakened the effort against the Italians; if that doesn't happen, Italian effort in North Africa collapses in the face of British attacks. Thus Hitler has nothing to support, & so Rommel ends up attacking Baku or someplace, & he's a virtual unknown.

What happens to Mussolini is unclear; does he fall?

Does Winston start calling for an invasion of Italy as early as 1942?:eek:
 
Throwing away a corps in Greece in 1941 was idiotic.

Except 90% of it was evacuated, albeit largely to Crete. But the decision was made in late 40 and executed in response to a request from an allied government that then failed to deploy its own army as agreed and left hanging.

Persia, let's just jolly well drive across those mountains and that plateau and get that oil?

And what pray is to stop them? In 42 the Persian population is if anything pro German ( well pro not being occupied by the Brits and Soviets) and the Iraqi arab population has just had a revolt suppressed.

(Guadalcanal Radar was the fingerprint and giveaway clue.).

You man the one assessed as having tubes made by GE. You do realise that the Japanese did have a radar programme and had a working cavity magnetron in 37.

Airpower is very mobile, easy to concentrate and disperse and much the fastest kind of military power to concentrate and move. 30-40 day LW campaign to wipe the British out in Greece and then fly off to Rumania (2 days) to wipe out the Red Air in the southern front for Barbarossa (2 weeks). That actually happened, so your conjectures are not sustained by the RTL events.

Yet somehow they won?

Your comment was the British Had three reinforced corps and afford to pull a division out. In fact they had two trained divisions and a hodgepodge of brigade level forces.



No aircraft are very mobile, but tied to their bases airpower is dependent on having the ground bases and logistics to arm, fuel and repair the aircraft. It moves at the speed of any ground based logistics element. Hence the German problem in Barbarossa of outrunning their initial bases and having to displace forward. The wiped out Red Air Force btw forced the redeployment after Kiev to be conducted largely at night to avoid attack and detection.

It grew beyond a spoiling attack. Happens. Exploitation is the term for follow up planning and execution. One should plan for it. Somebody seems to have tried RTL because COMPASS was exploited.

Except your supposition is that a spoiling attack with limited forces against a numerically very superior army should be supported by the logistics of a multi corps offensive, which simply are not available at the time. COMPASS was exploited to the full, with the available forces, but the end point is far short of Tripoli, with a very limited force holding a picket line at El Agheila. Again Mid East command has no good options at this point nor would it until Crusader because its armour is the pre war deployed set from EAF.

Non-sequitur. Those airpower circles are Beaufort radii of action. You can pass through Malta Convoys under RAF fighter air cover, too, if your airfields are close enough to cover. You have to take them, though.

The first Beaufort Squadron is deployed in August 42. Now the Takoradi route has already been surveyed and proven but the air reinforcement becomes much more feasible after March 41 when Lend Lease is passed and the EATS starts producing crew. But that applies as much to a Aegean set of bases as Tripoli.

Can't mine if you can't reach. And BTW, the British op-sec at Alexandria, Gibraltar and the canal was a joke, so any argument that the RM could not hit them if the British succeed in Greece is not viable. Greece does not defend the Canal. Immobilizing the RM (see map) does.

Its Cunninghams argument, which hold water because it had been done ( by the Italians) and could use magnetic mines and he has no degaussing station.

Rhodes btw is well within reach of Suez for the Italians.


Dare I say, Cunningham did not know what he was doing, or talking about? Maybe the RN needed a Nimitz. WATCHTOWER went in against more odds stacked against it and succeeded.

Hardly. The Initial Japanese Garrison is under 900 construction troops vs 11,000 marines and any reinforcement has to deploy down the slot and complete the mission in darkness unless Henderson is Suppressed. Thereafter from the air perspective, which is the only one that matters the US could deploy and maintain a force far more easily than Japanese. Both are operating at the edge but the US has a large air and sea base in the New Hebrides already completed well beyond range of Japanese interdiction and within ferry range of Henderson.

You are proposing attempting to supply by sea a force operating in range of the much larger Italian and German Air forces ( even with the Barbarossa Deployment) flying from pre war permanent fields and depots in Sicily where you supply ports are basically fishing villages.


End of the Great War AH collapse that was.. This, however, is the Wehrmacht at flood tide and the Balkans after a generation of political bushwhacking and petty wars. Not the same situation geopolitically, technologically or even geographically at all.

Your comment was Greece is a the bottom of a sack going nowhere. The Wehrmacht at flood tide is going into Russia. If its got troops in the south its not having those forces in Russia. The upshot of the all this Balkan manoeuvring is a pro allied Yugoslavia, a Romania that switches sides as soon, as and a Bulgaria that does not participate in the invasions of Yugoslavia or Greece (although it does occupy parts after the fact). In fact it maintains diplomatic relations with the USSR throughout and does not declare war on Britain until December 41 ( when it also declares war on the US). So actually a much more favourable situation for the Allies than WW1.

Once you take the Foggia air complex, you can make that argument. You can make it for Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica from the airpower PoV, as well, but as a land campaign beyond the Foggia objectives, Italy is a complete Allied logistics and tactical disaster. So the case for Italy is "iffy".

Not so the land campaign once again uses allied forces not realistically deployable elsewhere and bear in mind that Italy is co belligerent with the Allies and under German Occupation. you cannot get replacements for these forces, nor can you support them onshore anywhere else until 44 because of lack of sealift. Its a theatre where the allies can support them and control the attrition rate at a point where are comfortable. Once again 20-25 of the entire German mobile forces are stuck in a backwater losing every time the allies chose to mount an offensive.


If you have a wharf, OR FLAT BEACH you can land tanks and infantry. Again I refer to Guadalcanal. It does not require LCVPS and LSTs. Just a standard barge lighter which Turner did not have. Those and AKs the RN (Cunningham) has.

OFC it helps if you own the only airfield and resupply that way and the enemy is in the same boat not using a major port like Tripoli.

Might want to take a look at the South African Air Force.

All 94 aircraft. Mainly Gladiators and Hartbeests. Effectively used but not sure of your point.

Again what about the units burned up in Greece? (6th Australian Division, the New Zealand 2nd Division and the British 1st Armoured Brigade.)

Again you point was that these could be used to attack to Tripoli, mine is they are not ready until late March, when they go to Greece so any movement into North Africa requires deployment from Egypt. There simply are not the troops available until after DAK has landed.

The distillation of seawater for a WARSHIP is for her boilers. Far more than "600 men".

And its achieved by using the waste heat from running the boilers in the first place. 2 pints per man per day drinking water.

They should have tried for Libya when they had the means, motive and opportunity.

Which at no point exists. Your argument boils down to take Tripoli using divisions which are not available until March (when they have to go through 5 Italian inf Divs, 1.5 Pz Div and an Italian motorised corps, who enjoy air superiority and armour superiority ( until Tiger the following year) to get there, because aircraft which are not available until August ( of the following year) will supress the RA in Sicily by being supplied from LST which have not been built yet because a year later operating 800km from a major supply base the USN could maintain corps sized force around an airfield while the IJN could not feed a series of Bde size forces while operating 1200km from its supply base.

don't wash.

As I said Middle East command has no good options. But in March 41 there is a certainty that the Germans are about to attack the USSR which is going to need help to survive ( UK estimates of Soviet strength are based on Winter War performance) , there is certainty that lend lease will supply massive air power but not that the US will enter the war. In that context continuing to support the Greeks - the decision was made in October/November the previous year, so while its a wrong decision, and a risky one, its not actually a stupid one at the time it was made.
 
You do realise that the Japanese did have a radar programme and had a working cavity magnetron in 37.
Japanese had advanced electronics research, but didn't have the ability to mass produce the results. They had the tech to make really decent field radios, but didn't do that either, and the their aircraft radios were almost uniformly terrible.

Yagi Antennas were better known in the USA and UK than Japan, once again the Army/Navy divide roadblocked their use in Japanese Radar till they starting capturing sets using that antenna.
 

Dave Shoup

Banned

Throwing away a corps in Greece in 1941 was idiotic.
Except 90% of it was evacuated, albeit largely to Crete. But the decision was made in late 40 and executed in response to a request from an allied government that then failed to deploy its own army as agreed and left hanging.


Ten percent of the personnel? More like 20 percent:

"The British losses totaled 11,840 men, including prisoners of war, out of the 53,051 who formed the expeditionary force at the time of the German attack. The British suffered most of their casualties in the course of the hasty evacuation during which twenty-six ships were sunk by air attacks," according to the US Army. Plus "all their tanks, heavy equipment and trucks were abandoned," according to the BBC. Add in the air and naval losses, and 60-90 days of opportunity costs, plus the obvious weakness of the British forces in Africa that led to the loss of Cyrenaica in 1941 - much less the subsequent losses and costs it took for the British to move forward to Tripolitania in 1942-43 - and the judgment is obvious.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/timeline/factfiles/nonflash/a1057556.shtml

https://history.army.mil/books/wwii/balkan/intro.htm

https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/war-Balkans
 
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First of all, thanks for the map, its very helpful !

You are welcome. it is what I do to make clear in my own mind the basis for my conclusions.

RAF vs LW in Greece.

Why? Indeed, the RAF could not establish superiority over the Peloponnese airfields in May 1941 for the following reasons:
i) They didn't have a single proper airbase in Crete
ii) More importantly they had to face Fliegerkorps VIII.

If you cannot control the skies, the other guys has 4 moves to your 1. That means he can bomb you, immobilize you, blind you and cut off your supplies and reinforcements. You get chopped to ribbons in the resulting land warfare exercise..

Indeed, the British couldn't have established air superiority if the Luftwaffe made a continuous effort against Crete by a whole Fliegerkorps instead of using it in Barbarossa. What are the chances for it? They can move of course Fliegerkorps X as in OTL, but that means Malta gets a respite. There were simply not enough assets to cover both areas. In June 1941 there were 267 planes of all types in the Med.

The opponent chops you up where he can get at you. Malta can wait as he, the German, bombs you, immobilizes you, blinds you, cuts you off and sinks or blows up your supplies and reinforcements where you foolishly exposed yourself in Greece. You gave him a birthday present when you should have thrown him a birthday party in N. Africa..

Come on, you have studied the Pacific War in a great detail. How many squadrons did the Allies used to suppress Rabaul for a long period of time?

Short version: the Rabaul air campaign was initially to suppress IJN/IJA counter-missions against CARTWHEEL. AirSols and 5th AAF between them had variously 300-500 aircraft depending on casualty replacements and mission attrition rates. The air campaign did not change to neutralization until the closing stages of CARTWHEEL by late 1943-early 1944. Then it was to knock out the remaining Japanese air and surface naval forces on MacArthur's flank as he had largely bypassed the base. All in all the air campaign was hideously successful killing over 3,000 Japanese aircrew and ground maintenance personnel, damaging or destroying 2 Japanese SAGs, wiping out an air complex, and costing the Japanese close to 800 aircraft for the loss due to all causes of about 150 Allied aircraft and 500-600 aircrew from Australia, New Zealand, and the United States. You could actually call it a battle of annihilation. 100,000 IJN soldiers were wiped from the board as if they had been POWs. CARTWHEEL itself killed an estimated 40,000 of them in the bypass operations, so it was a devastating campaign of how to use air and sea-power, and probably MacArthur's chief claim to being "competent" as a general.
Then why do you need even Malta? You can mine everything with Stirlings or other bombers. You disregard naval bases that are placed in the middle of the enemy's communications just for an argument.

Because Malta has runways and harbors and those assets are geographically situated, to make what the mines missed, come within reach of single engine attack aircraft, fast attack boats and subs. It is a choke point.
Hold your horses. What kind of fallacy is this? Where did I mention the civil war of 1944-1945? I demonstrated the willingness of the civilian population in 1941 to help the Allied cause. I talked about five guys with sledgehammers solving a logistics issue in a few hours. (Here is a photo of the offending building, apparently it was a 5 square meter room.

YOU asked me what I knew about the Greeks.

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A future civil war has nothing to do with infrastructure in Crete in 1941. In the same spirit there was an inactive narrow gauge railway in Heraklion that was not utilized at all during the half-hearted attempt to expand the civilian airfield. Still, a letter to the local mayor wouldn't have anything to do with a potential civil war in the future. Apples and oranges.

Greeks fight. BTW, how was the NGR supposed to be used? Where's the rolling stock and Locomotives?
Even though the Cretans were republicans they worked pretty well with the monarchist regime in OTL. Not a single incident happened in April-May 1941.

Now that is a fallacy. What has that to do with the British being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

By the way the implication that if you give sledgehammers to Greeks to tear down a building would lead to brutally murder each other ( "they wont stop"), I find it as a Greek who lost relatives in the civil war in poor taste at best.

I lost a grandparent at Salerno, so what has my bitter feelings about MONTGOMERY and his delay during HAYSTACK have to do with what happened when his inaction allowed the Germans to savage Clark and got my grandfather killed? IOW, that is not logical to note a fact about the Greek Civil War's savagery and call it poor taste. I cannot help your relatives and I cannot help my grandfather. You are entitled to your feelings and I respect them. But history is what it is. The Greeks are incredibly tough. That is what I meant about the savagery involved.

Except 90% of it was evacuated, albeit largely to Crete. But the decision was made in late 40 and executed in response to a request from an allied government that then failed to deploy its own army as agreed and left hanging.

"War is not a moral exercise. It is brutal efficient mass murder intended to convince your opponent to bend to your will."

Raymond Ames Spruance

IOW... "Doing something stupid aids your enemy."

And what pray is to stop them? In 42 the Persian population is if anything pro German ( well pro not being occupied by the Brits and Soviets) and the Iraqi arab population has just had a revolt suppressed.

Iran is politically split and run by bandits. (See previous commentary about Yugoslavia.) The Iranians may be "pro-German" at the government level, but they are not pro-invader anybody. This applies to Germans. How? The regime in Berlin has a known habit for making enemies of allies.

You man the one assessed as having tubes made by GE. You do realise that the Japanese did have a radar programme and had a working cavity magnetron in 37.

Others have answered. Design in hand takes years off development program. If you want an example, I refer you to the Tizard Mission.

Your comment was the British Had three reinforced corps and afford to pull a division out. In fact they had two trained divisions and a hodgepodge of brigade level forces.

Not mine, but if you have four fronts in progress, don't open another one until you have cleaned up some of the other four.

No aircraft are very mobile, but tied to their bases airpower is dependent on having the ground bases and logistics to arm, fuel and repair the aircraft. It moves at the speed of any ground based logistics element. Hence the German problem in Barbarossa of outrunning their initial bases and having to displace forward. The wiped out Red Air Force btw forced the redeployment after Kiev to be conducted largely at night to avoid attack and detection.

So the Germans redeployed. The point is that they did.

Except your supposition is that a spoiling attack with limited forces against a numerically very superior army should be supported by the logistics of a multi corps offensive, which simply are not available at the time. COMPASS was exploited to the full, with the available forces, but the end point is far short of Tripoli, with a very limited force holding a picket line at El Agheila. Again Mid East command has no good options at this point nor would it until Crusader because its armour is the pre war deployed set from EAF.

AIRPOWER. Britain has it. Use it to cover the desert army and do the four moves on 1, that actually made COMPASS possible in the first place.

The first Beaufort Squadron is deployed in August 42. Now the Takoradi route has already been surveyed and proven but the air reinforcement becomes much more feasible after March 41 when Lend Lease is passed and the EATS starts producing crew. But that applies as much to a Aegean set of bases as Tripoli.

You have Havocs, too. Use everything.

Its Cunninghams argument, which hold water because it had been done (by the Italians) and could use magnetic mines and he has no degaussing station.

1. Build one.
2. Frogmen.

Rhodes btw is well within reach of Suez for the Italians.

And thus becomes a priority for an assault.

Hardly. The Initial Japanese Garrison is under 900 construction troops vs 11,000 marines and any reinforcement has to deploy down the slot and complete the mission in darkness unless Henderson is Suppressed. Thereafter from the air perspective, which is the only one that matters the US could deploy and maintain a force far more easily than Japanese. Both are operating at the edge but the US has a large air and sea base in the New Hebrides already completed well beyond range of Japanese interdiction and within ferry range of Henderson.

The Japanese have the ships, planes, oil and the logistics and the RIKKOs (Rabaul). The Americans do not... yet.

You are proposing attempting to supply by sea a force operating in range of the much larger Italian and German Air forces ( even with the Barbarossa Deployment) flying from pre war permanent fields and depots in Sicily where you supply ports are basically fishing villages.

Sure am. WATCHTOWER shows it can be done, even with incompetents like Turner.
Your comment was Greece is a the bottom of a sack going nowhere. The Wehrmacht at flood tide is going into Russia. If its got troops in the south its not having those forces in Russia. The upshot of the all this Balkan manoeuvring is a pro allied Yugoslavia, a Romania that switches sides as soon, as and a Bulgaria that does not participate in the invasions of Yugoslavia or Greece (although it does occupy parts after the fact). In fact it maintains diplomatic relations with the USSR throughout and does not declare war on Britain until December 41 ( when it also declares war on the US). So actually a much more favourable situation for the Allies than WW1.

It is going to have troops in the Balkans anyway. (See above.) Wave a Fortitude at the Berlin Maniac and he'll bite.

Not so the land campaign once again uses allied forces not realistically deployable elsewhere and bear in mind that Italy is co belligerent with the Allies and under German Occupation. you cannot get replacements for these forces, nor can you support them onshore anywhere else until 44 because of lack of sealift. Its a theatre where the allies can support them and control the attrition rate at a point where are comfortable. Once again 20-25 of the entire German mobile forces are stuck in a backwater losing every time the allies chose to mount an offensive.

Why spend lives and resources at 3 to 2 when 1 to 1 is preferable? Chew off as much of Italy as you need and use the resources saved for other operations like Normandy. The stuff you saved by not mounting ANZIO could have paid dividends at ANTWERP when lack of assault shipping and small craft means the Canadians get chopped to bits. You have to think ahead and be smart about your logistics, especially your lift.

OFC it helps if you own the only airfield and resupply that way and the enemy is in the same boat not using a major port like Tripoli.

He cannot use Tripoli if you are in bombing range.

All 94 aircraft. Mainly Gladiators and Hartbeests. Effectively used but not sure of your point.

Again you point was that these could be used to attack to Tripoli, mine is they are not ready until late March, when they go to Greece so any movement into North Africa requires deployment from Egypt. There simply are not the troops available until after DAK has landed.

Check your calendar again, I think you are off by 30 days. Also... Untrained for Greece is the same as untrained for N. Africa, so your point is moot that way, too.
And its achieved by using the waste heat from running the boilers in the first place. 2 pints per man per day drinking water.

You have the capability which was what was argued did not exist, when it did. Now that the British did not do it well? That is another matter.

Which at no point exists. Your argument boils down to take Tripoli using divisions which are not available until March (when they have to go through 5 Italian inf Divs, 1.5 Pz Div and an Italian motorised corps, who enjoy air superiority and armour superiority ( until Tiger the following year) to get there, because aircraft which are not available until August ( of the following year) will supress the RA in Sicily by being supplied from LST which have not been built yet because a year later operating 800km from a major supply base the USN could maintain corps sized force around an airfield while the IJN could not feed a series of Bde size forces while operating 1200km from its supply base.

Uhm, the Germans are still at regimental strength with command confusion and short of equipment and supplies. The DAK really does not get going until APRIL.

don't wash.

Actually dry cleans nicely. :cool:

As I said Middle East command has no good options. But in March 41 there is a certainty that the Germans are about to attack the USSR which is going to need help to survive ( UK estimates of Soviet strength are based on Winter War performance) , there is certainty that lend lease will supply massive air power but not that the US will enter the war. In that context continuing to support the Greeks - the decision was made in October/November the previous year, so while its a wrong decision, and a risky one, its not actually a stupid one at the time it was made.

It was a stupid one. See my five questions below?

But at the time Greece and Yugoslavia represented another 450 thousand and 700 thousand Soldiers (had they mobilised in time) respectively with which to oppose the fascists.

I would have asked the British IGS these questions before we ever started Greece;

--"Can we sustain these new allies?"
--"Can we gain air superiority and keep it?"
--"Can we guarantee our sea lines of communication?"
--"Will this force diversion hurt us in the Mandate, Syria, Iraq, Iran and our forces in Egypt?"
--"Can we reinforce faster in Greece than the Axis?"
 
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formion

Banned
it was a devastating campaign of how to use air and sea-power, and probably MacArthur's chief claim to being "competent" as a general.

I asked it as a rhetorical question because you are pretty well versed in the Pacific War. To supress Rabaul, the US invested significant resources over a long period of time. Either in the Pacific or the Med, you have ato invest a lot of resources to shut down a major base. After May 1941 there were only 240 planes of the Luftwaffe in Greece. In contrast in April May 1941 there were about 650. Of these 240, 30 were M-110, the rest bombers and recon. In OTL the twin engine fighters were mostly used in North Africa. If now they are used against Crete, Rommel has fewer air assets during Crusader.

Simply they are not enough german assets. Nobody sane would move a fliegerkorps from Barbarossa to suppress Crete. So until December 1941 there are only 240 Luftwaffe planes in the whole Med. If RAF can establish 3 Hurricane squadrons in Crete, then the air is contested. Luftwaffe cannot pull a Rabaul. If they get really serious they can only siege either Crete or Malta not both, and that after 8 months.

Logistcs are better for the Allies in Crete than the Japanese in Watchtower. Rabaul, the Solomons and New Guinea didn't have the food production of lets say Java. Crete produced enough food for its population and was able to export fats (olive oil) and high calorie foodstuff (raisins, dried figs). Granted, there was no significant beef production but the civilians and the army can eat more mutton than bully beef.

Lastly, as you said, the IJA used tens of thousands to garrison Rabaul. Crete would be rather cheap in manpower needs. In OTL only 80 Greeks were evacuated from Crete. Nevertheless, 6 infrantry battalions and 2 artillery regiments were formed in Egypt from a brigade that escaped through Turkey and expats. In an ATL there will be an extra 9 infantry battalions of regulars and 3 extra ones from reservists in Crete. So only during 1941 there can be at least 18 battalions of Greeks in Crete. The Commonwealth will have to provide only RAF personnel. radar stations and other specialists. The ANZACS and the British can evacuate rather early on. With escapees from Greece and more Cretan manpower, there can be up to 4 divisions by 1944.

I lost a grandparent at Salerno, so what has my bitter feelings about MONTGOMERY and his delay during HAYSTACK have to do with what happened when his inaction allowed the Germans to savage Clark and got my grandfather killed? IOW, that is not logical to note a fact about the Greek Civil War's savagery and call it poor taste. I cannot help your relatives and I cannot help my grandfather. You are entitled to your feelings and I respect them. But history is what it is. The Greeks are incredibly tough. That is what I meant about the savagery involved.

First of all, a POD with an Allied held Crete most certainly will butterfly the Civil War. Almost every knowledgeable member in greek political history can agree on that.

I didn't complain about losses of respective families in WW2. I found in poor taste a comment about a supposed greek savagery. That if you give sledgehammers to greeks they wont stop on a building but continue on butchery. You didn't comment on the woes of a civil war. You attributed characteristics to a nation. I am sorry to see that you stand about your opinion and reflect the argument towards family losses in WW2. I cannot help such misconceptions.
 
I asked it as a rhetorical question because you are pretty well versed in the Pacific War. To supress Rabaul, the US invested significant resources over a long period of time. Either in the Pacific or the Med, you have to invest a lot of resources to shut down a major base. After May 1941 there were only 240 planes of the Luftwaffe in Greece. In contrast in April May 1941 there were about 650. Of these 240, 30 were M-110, the rest bombers and recon. In OTL the twin engine fighters were mostly used in North Africa. If now they are used against Crete, Rommel has fewer air assets during Crusader.

Never understood why the Germans ever built the BF-110. It was garbage like most of Messerschmidt's designs when one tears into them. But that comment aside, the Germans never figured out sea-air-power, so it does not surprise me that they did not know what they were doing in the Mediterranean or why air campaigns take the shapes they do. In reference to the comment about using air assets during Crete, that was the whole point of Operation Merkur. Take Crete by ground assault to knock out British airpower. and free up LW assets for N. Africa.

Now I have mentioned that neither the allies nor the axis have a true long endurance in the air fighter that can bodyguard burdened bombers used in the anti-ship strike role? This hurts both sides in a battlespace where anti-ship strike means the difference between victory and defeat in N. Africa. Put it this way... every tonne sunk of supply that does not reach Malta is 1 tonne that does not sustain the garrison or supply the attack assets based there to sink Rommel's supplies. The reverse is that every tonne of supply sunk that does not reach Rommel is 1 tonne that he cannot use to keep fumble-dorking the British with his repeated right hooks. We are not discussing large quantities here, either. A difference of as little as 1,000 tonnes lost in a 30 day period has severe consequences for either side.

Simply they are not enough german assets. Nobody sane would move a fliegerkorps from Barbarossa to suppress Crete. So until December 1941 there are only 240 Luftwaffe planes in the whole Med. If RAF can establish 3 Hurricane squadrons in Crete, then the air is contested. Luftwaffe cannot pull a Rabaul. If they get really serious they can only siege either Crete or Malta not both, and that after 8 months.

The RAF cannot stay there. Their supplies have to be shipped in. Stukas, and BF 109s and FW 190s can RIKKO from the Peloponnesus. It is Malta on steroids. Sure it could take 8 months, but the odds are that the 3 Hurricane squadrons you postulate. (About this time that would be 36 to 48 machines.), will be wiped out in mere days by an opposing Geschwader or Gruppo (The Geschwader had between 120-125 aircraft, in the case of a Jagdgeschwader, whereas the Kampfgeschwader had about 80-90 on hand. Italian Gruppo, it depends, because the Reggia Aeronautica tended to used mixed squadrons with a recon section, a fighter section and an attack or bomber section, so one sees weird compositions of 4-6 recon, 6-9 fighter, and 4-9 bombers is their WW II norm though on paper a "squadriglia" was supposed to be 7 recon, 9 bombers and 12 fighters. Their Gruppos were about as strong as a USN air group, (USN=60-90 machines, in a fighter, scout, attack, and torpedo/bomber squadron mix of 12-24 planes each). By 1942 everybody, smart, (Not the RAF apparently.) fights on the base 2/4 air formation basis. So lets add those 4 Gruppo to the Greek airpower mix?
Logistcs are better for the Allies in Crete than the Japanese in Watchtower. Rabaul, the Solomons and New Guinea didn't have the food production of lets say Java. Crete produced enough food for its population and was able to export fats (olive oil) and high calorie foodstuff (raisins, dried figs). Granted, there was no significant beef production but the civilians and the army can eat more mutton than bully beef.

Come again?

USA-P-Rabaul-3.jpg



The Allies had to napalm the Japanese truck farms and blast everything down to a rowboat to starve the IJA out. These were TOUGH resourceful clever peasant farm boys who could grow anything anywhere and fish if they were given half a chance. I doubt the Americans could have done a quarter as well in similar circumstances. In fact, from American experience with their own Nisei shoved into concentration camps, the Americans should have expected this kind of Japanese resourcefulness, as the American Nisei, the first chance they got, started truck forms in the middle of freaking high plateau deserts!

Lastly, as you said, the IJA used tens of thousands to garrison Rabaul. Crete would be rather cheap in manpower needs. In OTL only 80 Greeks were evacuated from Crete. Nevertheless, 6 infantry battalions and 2 artillery regiments were formed in Egypt from a brigade that escaped through Turkey and expats. In an ATL there will be an extra 9 infantry battalions of regulars and 3 extra ones from reservists in Crete. So only during 1941 there can be at least 18 battalions of Greeks in Crete. The Commonwealth will have to provide only RAF personnel. radar stations and other specialists. The ANZACS and the British can evacuate rather early on. With escapees from Greece and more Cretan manpower, there can be up to 4 divisions by 1944.

Except, you are getting the kind of British "performance" in Crete that you will see show up again in Singapore. NTG.

First of all, a POD with an Allied held Crete most certainly will butterfly the Civil War. Almost every knowledgeable member in greek political history can agree on that.

Probably, but not the way that either of us can predict with certainty. I know that it was very very messy and the British actually compounded the situation RTL. Americans did not help matters, either. YMMV should and could vary. Mine does, because PoDs just butterfly in all directions.

I didn't complain about losses of respective families in WW2. I found in poor taste a comment about a supposed greek savagery. That if you give sledgehammers to greeks they wont stop on a building but continue on butchery. You didn't comment on the woes of a civil war. You attributed characteristics to a nation. I am sorry to see that you stand about your opinion and reflect the argument towards family losses in WW2. I cannot help such misconceptions.

Human beings do weird things in weird environments. It is not cultural or "national", because "savagery" is a circumstantial general situational human condition that knows no national or political boundary or time. The Greeks are not unique except in the situation wherein they found themselves with the added caveat that they were and are not pussycats when they are provoked. Let me give you an American example from that nation's history circa 1855-1865 for a similar "situation".

The terms "border ruffian" and "Jayhawker" remain known down to the present, along with the massacres, murders, mayhem and savagery that lay at the origins of the terms. Those "vermin" (Jesse James, Cole Younger, William Quantrill; for example.) make anything else done in the American civil war look like a picnic. I'm talking whole frontier towns burned to the ground and whole districts (Missouri counties.) depopulated by forced exile (Necessity enforced by the Union army to create a buffer or demilitarized zone between the two sides to prevent even more Jayhawker massacres and revenge pogroms.) along with the mayhem, rapes and murders committed by these banditti.
 
The British have the lift. They should have used it better.
Agree with that. However, do they have the capacity to put force ashore? LC were a persistent problem...

If the Brits do clear the Italians out, I see three possible outcomes:
  1. Hitler, seeing Italy about to collapse (& correctly predicting it will lead to Mussolini swinging from a lamppost), sends three armored divisions, two or three infantry divisions, & a couple of Geschwadern, instead.
  2. Hitler doesn't send anything in time, and Winston decides to invade Italy, ending any hope of ending the war before about 1947
  3. Winston decides to invade Germany throuh Greece & Yugoslavia, in the name of liberating them; Wavell (inexplicably) backs him up.
I count Option 2 the most likely...but the diversion in shipping makes the Battle of the Atlantic even more nightmarish, because it's now supplying an army in Italy and trying to build up for Neptune.

What Marshall does after 7 Dec, I can only guess, but I have real doubts he'd look favorably on joining the Brits (& Commonwealth) in Italy--never mind the Balkans...:eek::rolleyes:

Have I read the situation wrong?
Wasn't that why they put a 3in howitzer in some tanks as a close support variant?
Except the definition of "close support" was "fire smoke rounds"...:rolleyes::confounded:

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Not so the land campaign once again uses allied forces not realistically deployable elsewhere and bear in mind that Italy is co belligerent with the Allies and under German Occupation.
And there were twice as many Allied troops in Italy as German, which I don't count a success. They all had to be supplied. So did the Italian civilians. It all took precious shipping Britain could not spare.

What should have been done is turn Italy hostile to Germany. Support an Italian Resistance. Raid up & down the coast with commandos (blowing up everything they can), MTB/MGBs (sinking everything afloat they can & shooting everything ashore within reach of their guns), & using fibos to stage "Super Strangle" with a termination date of VE-Day (or VI-Day, when von Kesselring pulls out, your choice). Force the Germans to suupply the (pissed off) civilians. Force the Germans to pacify & control the pissed off civilians. Use a couple of thousand men, instead of hundreds of thousands, & (virtually) damn all shipping.

Meanwhile, build up in Britain for Neptune.

Recall: the goal is defeating Germany, not invading Italy. Invading Italy is slightly less stupid an idea than clearing China before invading Japan, & about as stupid as clearing the DEI first.
 
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If firing smoke was ineffective one wonders why did it and persisted to do it?

You are into the nuances of fire support and subtle differences between modes of suppression, or Suppression & Nuetralization.

Smoke is a method of suppressing momentarily enemy fires. In many context its very useful in others not so much. The ke here is temporary. 'Nuetralization' is usually understood in WWII Brit artillery speak, or later NATO language as a longer term rendering of the enemy target ineffective. Shock/morale, casualties, perhaps even some material damage making the target unable to effectively fire or maneuver for a length of time after you fires on it cease. In the usual usage the effect of suppressive fires cease when the fire ceases. Smoke can only suppress, HE rounds fired in a small number can only suppress as well. But, in larger numbers HE rounds hove potential to Nuetralize a enemy for a period after the fire on them ceases.
 
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If firing smoke was ineffective one wonders why did it and persisted to do it?

Sometimes firing smoke is the right choice. Most other times it's HE.

But with the UK, that was the Royal Artillery flexing it's bureaucratic muscles to the detriment of everyone. They were the only country to hobble their Army in such a way

It's almost better to think of the 3" QF Howitzer as a low angle, breech loading Mortar.
It weighed roughly a hundred pounds less than the US 75mm howitzer, but only had a 2000 yard range vs 9000, even though it was an L25 vs an L16 Caliber tube

The Replacement of that 3" Howitzer was with the 95mm Howitzer, a Frankenstein of 3.7" barrel, 25 pounder shell and Breech, and 6 pdr recoil gear improved things slightly, but was almost as heavy as the US 105mm L16 M3 Howitzer that fired a 36 pound shell as far as the 95mm could fire a 25 pound shell.
 
We were trained to use the WP only for emergency smoke missions. There was not much of it in the common or basic ammo load. Specifically it was for marking things with single rounds.

Having said that there are example of US tank crews knocking out Tiger tanks with the WP. The German crews could not always cope with the toxic smoke from Phosphous stuck burning on the tank hull and would abandon the vehicle. There was a risk of actual fire starting inside the tank as well.
 
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