All out war between Germany and Britain after Fall of France

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Gooner1
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Re: All out war between Germany and Britain after Fall of Fr

#166

Post by Gooner1 » 25 Feb 2013, 16:45

BDV wrote:@ Gooner
You say Crete, I say Dodecanese, you say Compass, I say Gazala. It would be a seesaw, but while tactics favor the Axis, the supply situation favors the British, until such time that Alexandria falls to the Axis (if maybe). Merkur had the promise of solving the Crete issue schnell, which given what was about to kick off in June 1941, was a must. The Dodecanese campaign shows what Germans were capable of with proper time and airsupport.

Whether Balkans go down as historically to begin with is highly debatable, but of course that in turn alters how thing shape up in Tripolitania and whether Rommel can effect his historical breakout, or is reduced to a slogfest.
Eh? The Dodecanese were already in Axis hands. If you're talking about Axis amphibious and airborne actions in the Med. there are pretty limited choices.

The Germans went into Greece because the British were there, if the British weren't there there's a chance they might have been in Tripoli instead.

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Re: All out war between Germany and Britain after Fall of Fr

#167

Post by BDV » 25 Feb 2013, 17:09

No, the little known german Dodecanese Campaign of 1943, (here is the wiki page) demonstrated that germans could engage in effective amphibious operations, as long as they had the time and support required, which would be the case here, one supposes.
Nobody expects the Fallschirm! Our chief weapon is surprise; surprise and fear; fear and surprise. Our 2 weapons are fear and surprise; and ruthless efficiency. Our *3* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency; and almost fanatical devotion


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Re: All out war between Germany and Britain after Fall of Fr

#168

Post by Gooner1 » 25 Feb 2013, 18:00

It's a pretty well known campaign. One that took place very near German bases and a long way from Allied ones and took place, sensibly enough, before the British could get their feet under the table.

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Re: All out war between Germany and Britain after Fall of Fr

#169

Post by phylo_roadking » 25 Feb 2013, 18:07

...and one where the British had virtually no air cover/support.
A Britain+RKKA scenario (with US funding, which the OP gave no reason for interruption of) is pretty much like historical, maybe with a 10-15 division BEF (CEF?) in Kuban/Southern Ukraine, with softer conditions to the Romanians and Finns if they flip somewhere in say '43 Fall - '44 Spring. Still, with Russians busy, what keeps the samurai-junta from pulling their fatal stunt against US?
There is no British OR American funding or aid or anything for the USSR/RKKA UNTIL Barbarossa or the ATL equivalent starts ;) The longer it is put off...the longer the British have to use/combine U.S. origin arms and aircraft into their OWN forces rather than transhipping them to the Soviets, and ditto british equiopment that was shipped in larger quantities ;) No Barbarossa = no Arctic Convoys!
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Dodecanese

#170

Post by BDV » 25 Feb 2013, 18:19

phylo_roadking wrote:...and one where the British had virtually no air cover/support.
Well, they had it, UNTIL they lost it. Same holds true for ATL Crete and for ATL Malta.

There is no British OR American funding or aid or anything for the USSR/RKKA UNTIL Barbarossa or the ATL equivalent starts ;) The longer it is put off...the longer the British have to use/combine U.S. origin arms and aircraft into their OWN forces rather than transhipping them to the Soviets, and ditto british equipment that was shipped in larger quantities ;) No Barbarossa = no Arctic Convoys!
So North Africa becomes a huge campaign on both sides - which obviously suits British&Commonwealth just fine, even at the cost of temporary Axis successes.
Nobody expects the Fallschirm! Our chief weapon is surprise; surprise and fear; fear and surprise. Our 2 weapons are fear and surprise; and ruthless efficiency. Our *3* weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency; and almost fanatical devotion

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Re: All out war between Germany and Britain after Fall of Fr

#171

Post by phylo_roadking » 25 Feb 2013, 19:46

Well, they had it, UNTIL they lost it. Same holds true for ATL Crete and for ATL Malta.
IIRC the issue was range and then politics; only P-38s and Beaufighters could reach the Aegean within combat radius and back to any Allied field. They lost the P-38s before the campaign even began - leaving the RAF to try and support it on a shoestring.

There were a couple of flights of a South African Spitfire squadron flew out of Kos for a time, then a second RAF Spitfire squadron...until Kos was lost :P But according to Tony Rogers, the Allies faced some 360+ LW combat aircraft in the Aegean by the start of October '43! But as well as flying from fields on the Greek mainland - the Germans had of course taken over Rhodes from the Italians pretty sharpish, and were flying sorties out of there :(

And of course - not only did the aircraft on Kos suffer very badly from air attack...they also suffered the rigours of having to fly a permanent daylight standing CAP :(
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Re: All out war between Germany and Britain after Fall of Fr

#172

Post by Marcelo Jenisch » 25 Feb 2013, 21:15

But the Germans didn't wanted to defeat Britain in this scenario? They would have the luxury of have big aerial contingents in the Mediterranean and Africa and also attacking Britain? :P

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Re: All out war between Germany and Britain after Fall of Fr

#173

Post by phylo_roadking » 25 Feb 2013, 21:22

But the Germans didn't wanted to defeat Britain in this scenario? They would have the luxury of have big air contingents in the Mediterranean and Africa and also attacking Britain?
What "luxury"? Aircraft can't actually be in two places at once; even without BARBAROSSA, BOTH camapigns...a North African campaign and a renewed BoB, would overpower the LW in short order. Not only are there the aircraft losses and aircrew losses - there's also the horrendous unserviceability rates of combat aircraft used in the desert, and the LW's "black men" being overloaded across Western Europe AND North Africa trying to keep aircraft flying for the sorties rate required for those two high-intensity campaigns.

There's ALSO the additional operational burden of operations in North Africa having to be supported from across the Mediterranean - fuel, ordnance etc. shipped from Italy, or flown from Italy or via Crete...and the fact that the LW was ALSO having to bear the burden of supporting Rommel's ground forces by air supply! If you search, you'll find that this aspect has been discussed quite a lot in rcent years on AHF.
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Re: All out war between Germany and Britain after Fall of Fr

#174

Post by Marcelo Jenisch » 25 Feb 2013, 21:27

http://www.historynet.com/did-russia-re ... ermans.htm
Particularly important for the Soviets in late 1941 were British-supplied tanks and aircraft. American contributions of the time were far fewer. In fact, for a brief period during December 1941, the relative importance of British aid increased well beyond levels planned by the Allies as a result of American reaction to the outbreak of war with Japan; some American equipment destined for the Soviet Union was actually unloaded from merchant vessels and provided to American forces instead.
. By the end of 1941 Britain had delivered 466 tanks out of the 750 promised.
A steady stream of British-made tanks continued to flow into the Red Army through the spring and summer of 1942. Canada would eventually produce 1,420 Valentines, almost exclusively for delivery to the Soviet Union. By July 1942 the Red Army had 13,500 tanks in service, with more than 16 percent of those imported, and more than half of those British
.

That means that the Soviets already had more than 2000 imported tanks by mid-1942. :o
A total of 699 Lend-Lease aircraft had been delivered to Archangel by the time the Arctic convoys switched to Murmansk in December 1941. Of these, 99 Hurricanes and 39 Tomahawks were in service with the Soviet air defense forces on January 1, 1942, out of a total of 1,470 fighters. About 15 percent of the aircraft of the 6th Fighter Air Corps defending Moscow were Tomahawks or Hurricanes.
Once again, raw figures do not tell the whole story. Although British shipments amounted to only a few percent of Soviet domestic production of machine tools, the Soviet Union could request specific items which it may not have been able to produce for itself. Additionally, many of the British tools arrived in early 1942, when Soviet tool production was still very low, resulting in a disproportionate impact. The handing over of forty imported machine tools to Aviation Factory No. 150 in July 1942, for example, was the critical factor in enabling the factory to reach projected capacity within two months.
I don't know how to convert the LL itens in their practical utility, but certainly the material help to the Soviets was significative, and without the Soviets in the war it would be all avaliable to Britain.

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Re: All out war between Germany and Britain after Fall of Fr

#175

Post by Marcelo Jenisch » 25 Feb 2013, 21:29

phylo_roadking wrote:
But the Germans didn't wanted to defeat Britain in this scenario? They would have the luxury of have big air contingents in the Mediterranean and Africa and also attacking Britain?
What "luxury"? Aircraft can't actually be in two places at once; even without BARBAROSSA, BOTH camapigns...a North African campaign and a renewed BoB, would overpower the LW in short order. Not only are there the aircraft losses and aircrew losses - there's also the horrendous unserviceability rates of combat aircraft used in the desert, and the LW's "black men" being overloaded across Western Europe AND North Africa trying to keep aircraft flying for the sorties rate required for those two high-intensity campaigns.

There's ALSO the additional operational burden of operations in North Africa having to be supported from across the Mediterranean - fuel, ordnance etc. shipped from Italy, or flown from Italy or via Crete...and the fact that the LW was ALSO having to bear the burden of supporting Rommel's ground forces by air supply! If you search, you'll find that this aspect has been discussed quite a lot in rcent years on AHF.
I know that, Phylo. I actually agree with you. I just wanted to say that the LW is being tasked of things that it hardly could do. Just the offensive against Britain would occupy most of it.

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Re: All out war between Germany and Britain after Fall of Fr

#176

Post by phylo_roadking » 25 Feb 2013, 21:34

That means that the Soviets already had more than 2000 imported tanks by mid-1942.
1/ NONE of which were sent until AFTER BARBAROSSA began....

2/ ALL of which are instead avilable to the British for arming their OWN forces :P
I don't know how to convert the LL itens in their practical utility, but certainly the material help to the Soviets was significative, and without the Soviets in the war it would be all avaliable to Britain.
THIS however is a statement you need to be careful of...Only the British-made tanks and aircraft (or supplied to the British first by the Americans then pawned off on the Soviets :P ) equipment would be wholly available to the British...
some American equipment destined for the Soviet Union was actually unloaded from merchant vessels and provided to American forces instead.
...as after December 7th 1941, I'd guess the Americans would actually need a hell of a lot MORE of that!!!
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Re: All out war between Germany and Britain after Fall of Fr

#177

Post by Marcelo Jenisch » 25 Feb 2013, 21:46

phylo_roadking wrote:
THIS however is a statement you need to be careful of...Only the British-made tanks and aircraft (or supplied to the British first by the Americans then pawned off on the Soviets :P ) equipment would be wholly available to the British..
I undertand. But even so, the Soviets had more than 2000 tanks for example, received by 1942. In case the British needed they would have those tanks, as they would not be sent to the USSR. That's the obvious point, as well as they would have the planes and the other LL itens.

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Re: All out war between Germany and Britain after Fall of Fr

#178

Post by Carl Schwamberger » 19 Mar 2013, 11:17

Marcelo Jenisch wrote:.... But even so, the Soviets had more than 2000 tanks for example, received by 1942. In case the British needed they would have those tanks, as they would not be sent to the USSR. That's the obvious point, as well as they would have the planes and the other LL itens.
No time here to dig out the threads & links, but more than one earlier discussion touched on a British inquiry about obtaining Soviet weapons and material. This initiative taken in the wither of 1940-41 included the question of Soviet made tanks for British use in the Middle East.

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Re: All out war between Germany and Britain after Fall of Fr

#179

Post by Marcelo Jenisch » 19 Mar 2013, 17:08

The Allies exaggerated what Germany could produce and field in terms of equipment, as this is a standard procedure after a initial estimative of the enemy numbes. Even so, it didn't take long for the Allies notice that they had much more equipment produced than Germany.

While we have the myth that the German economy was "undermobilized" until 1943, I really doubt that Allied planners belived in this bulls***.

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Re: All out war between Germany and Britain after Fall of Fr

#180

Post by phylo_roadking » 19 Mar 2013, 19:26

The only problem with THAT is because of shorter lines of communication etc. - the lines that actually moved materiel around Europe...or around the world!...it would have appeared to Allied planners that the Germans had more and could produce more on the battlefield than otherwise might have been anticipated from simple industrial output figures ;) This was one of the major advantages the Germans enjoyed for some considerable time - the ability to "fire brigade", shift forces from West to East, East to West and produce large forcees on a given front in a relatively short time - FAR shorter than it took the Western Allies to, say, sail them round the Cape to the Delta, or later through the Med to Italy etc..

Decimated divisions could be withdrawn from one front - and in a few short weeks re-equiped and appear on the other side of the "Third Reich "world" fully formated again...re-equiped as it passes through Germany, basically! 8O
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