I'm curious, what makes you think the Benghazi railway was of very low capacity? The thread confirms that the Axis were moving significant quantitys of supplys by rail, even though they only had three locomotives and a shortage of railway workers (not to mention the damage to the lines themselves).
''On 16 April the first shipment of 140 tons of ammunition was transported, with each train having a capacity of up to 150 tons. In twenty working days during April 1,306 tons of goods and 114 passengers were carried, an average of about 65 tons per day, in spite of the primitive conditions.''
''The special advantage of the railway was its proximity to Benghazi harbour, so that fewer trucks had to be used to transfer goods from ship to train.''
''During June 1942 1638 tons of ammunition, 1744 tons of fuel, 95 tons of provisions, 35 tons of other goods, 986 tons of Italian goods and 638 passengers were carried by the Benghazi-Barce railway.''
This was a respectable achievement considering the circumstances at play. The Benghazi railway was a useful asset that could be expanded considerably.
pugsville wrote: ↑21 Dec 2019 22:37
Well he has his opinion and i have mine. The Removal of Malta would at best remove only 50% of Shipping losses.
Malta only did 60% of the damage and more than half the Malta damage in early 1941 was submarines.
The Royal Navy was not that risk averse. Supplying Malta cost the Royal, Navy quite a bit, the same resources put into raiding is gong produce SOME result.
Again, you keep coming back to the number of ships sunk by Malta. Thats losing sight of the big picture.
Anyway, what do you think the Royal navy will do after Malta falls? What kind of activitys can they do in the central Mediterranean?
pugsville wrote: ↑21 Dec 2019 22:37
Resources are not instantly transformable one thing to another.
How? Designing and building specialty ships is years.
Running merchant ships through the channel around Spain is not exactly super easy either,
I wasn't specifically talking about merchant ships. I was thinking the Axis could build more storage facilitys at the ports, get more lighters and barges to unload ships, more dock workers and equipment, etc. These issues were mentioned in the article I linked to.
https://rommelsriposte.com/2011/06/01/c ... ours-1941/
pugsville wrote: ↑21 Dec 2019 22:37
Well the Germans were not a major naval power experienced in Naval landing operations. The Germans also had a real blind spot in logistics, they simply did not make logistics central to their operational planning process the way the allies did.
No argument there. The Germans have always had a 'land bound' mindset. They fought very well on the ground, but not so much at sea.