US leaders believed Germany would likely have been invulnerable had it defeated SU

[ljadw]

NO : equivalent metric tons of coal does not mean that Spain did not import oil.These figures give the oil imports converted to tons of coal .Besides, if your figures were correct , Germany would still be unable to supply Spain with the lower figures of oil ,because of the distances, the destroyed Spanish railroad, the weather,shortages of trains,etc

[TheMarcksPlan]

@Peter89 I'm not following the recent discussion closely but it seems to have diverted into your Mediterranean strategy, absent Barbarossa.

Would you mind starting your own thread for that? On the OP topic I'm still occasionally posting research so I'd like to keep this thread on topic.

EDIT - Yes I've taken threads on detours and surely will again, but usually in dialogue with the thread-starter and never over his objection.

[ljadw]

Elephant in the Garden P7 ,Table 6
Oil imports
1941 1,023 million or 0,912 million
1942 0,532 million or 0,837 million
1943 0,908 million or 0,960 million
1944 0,771 million or 0,601 million
1945 0,981 million or 0,888 million
The results of both are 4,2 million in 5 years which is 0,8 million average .
Germany could never have provided Spain with 1 million ton of oil in 1941,even if it had a higher production : the distances were to high, much to high : the distance from the Ruhr to Sevilla ( going and returning ) was more than 5000 km : a train transporting 400 ton of oil would need more than two months to go to Sevilla and to return.

Jesus, ljdaw, did you read it?

The following table compares our estimates at the annual level in equivalent metric tons of coal with the
currently available annual figures. Our estimates seem to be roughly in the same neighborhood, although
there are some substantial differences. We used a factor of 1.75 to convert our annual totals of metric tons
of petroleum products to equivalent metric tons of coal. This was the factor that minimized the differences
in the two sets of estimates. At this time we could only speculate on the sources of the differences.

The actual import numbers are on p 44-45, in the appendix.

I do not have PP 44 and 45 .

[Peter89]

NO : equivalent metric tons of coal does not mean that Spain did not import oil.These figures give the oil imports converted to tons of coal .Besides, if your figures were correct , Germany would still be unable to supply Spain with the lower figures of oil ,because of the distances, the destroyed Spanish railroad, the weather,shortages of trains,etc

I did not say that. What you said was wrong and you simply misinterpreted or misunderstood a data that did not prove your point. In fact, the cca. 0.5m tons of POL products, supplied by the Allies, could have been substituted by the Axis. (0.5m tons of POL represents about half of Hungary's production in the later war years.) That's what I say and that's what I've always said, nothing more.

Because TMP asked me to, I will not dive into the topic of the Spanish railroad system, let's just put it this way: in case of a Spanish join to the Axis, the Germans / Italians could safely transport fuel along the coast with tankers. Btw your numbers with 2 months of turnaround time with railway is complete crap.

[Peter89]

@Peter89 I'm not following the recent discussion closely but it seems to have diverted into your Mediterranean strategy, absent Barbarossa.

Would you mind starting your own thread for that? On the OP topic I'm still occasionally posting research so I'd like to keep this thread on topic.

EDIT - Yes I've taken threads on detours and surely will again, but usually in dialogue with the thread-starter and never over his objection.

Sorry TMP, I'll stop here and now.- EDIT: if others do as well.

(Btw, it's not "my Mediterranean strategy", because I don't have one. But it was a related conversation to a map you posted. T.A. Gardner and Gooner1 questioned its plausability, I simply explained why it was not fantasy or impossible.)

[ljadw]

NO : equivalent metric tons of coal does not mean that Spain did not import oil.These figures give the oil imports converted to tons of coal .Besides, if your figures were correct , Germany would still be unable to supply Spain with the lower figures of oil ,because of the distances, the destroyed Spanish railroad, the weather,shortages of trains,etc

I did not say that. What you said was wrong and you simply misinterpreted or misunderstood a data that did not prove your point. In fact, the cca. 0.5m tons of POL products, supplied by the Allies, could have been substituted by the Axis. (0.5m tons of POL represents about half of Hungary's production in the later war years.) That's what I say and that's what I've always said, nothing more.

Because TMP asked me to, I will not dive into the topic of the Spanish railroad system, let's just put it this way: in case of a Spanish join to the Axis, the Germans / Italians could safely transport fuel along the coast with tankers. Btw your numbers with 2 months of turnaround time with railway is complete crap.

Where would Italy/Germany get these tankers ?
And the 2 months of turnaround with railway is not crap :the distances were enormous, greater than in the east . Have you any idea of the distance between Budapest and Sevilla ?
And, if Spain joined the Axis, Germany would not only to have supply Italy with oil, but also with coal and food .
The situation in Spain was much worse than in Italy .
If it was that easy for Germany and also beneficial to invade Spain ,why did Germany not do it ?
If Germany needed Spain to defeat Britain, this means that it had lost the war .

[Gooner1]

I recall the deliveries did not stop when the Vichy French shot at the British. USA, formally a neutral, would not stop its otherwise not so meaningful deliveries to Vichy France because they'd let the Germans land and refuel in the Levant. I think they didn't OTL; but I have to check the dates for American deliveries to Vichy France. In any case, They definately didn't stop the deliveries after Dakar.

The US policy with the deliveries, which was decided in discussion with the British anyway, was the old carrot and stick approach of keeping Vichy France from getting too close to Germany. Defending themselves against British aggression is one thing, allowing German troops and air forces to base themselves in Vichy territory and supplying them every aid they can, quite another.

No, that's not what we are looking at. What you call a "fully motorised column" was actually a ragtag of forces with little military training, familiarity with their weapons (some units didn't even shoot with them) and durability. Of that 500 vehicles, not one but a sizeable chunk were buses from Jerusalem and Haifa. Buses, flatbed trucks with their civilian drivers carried the supplies for the column.

Their supplies were so low that any stalemate or prolonged (meaning, lasting for more than two weeks) fighting around Habbaniya would mean their end.

Ragtag of forces with little military training? The Household Cavalry and 1st Essex Regiment were both Regular Army units, dunno about the Royal Artillery or Engineer units but there is no reason to think they weren't thoroughly trained, the RAF Armoured Car Company had been in theatre for years and was thoroughly desert savvy and the RASC good enough to drive that wonderful collection of charabancs and jalopies 1000km in seven days.

Sure.

Great, I never knew .. still would they have had to be in modified Ju 52s?

Ju 90 for sure, but probably the BV 222 too.

Tiny number of Ju 90s, not all of which had the cargo ramp I believe. A solitary BV 222 in existence at that time and up in Norway.

Well, I wouldn't call the Kettenkrad a motorcycle, but yes, that was the primary mover for them in these units. Although its towing capacity was limited, it could tow both the 3.7cm PAK and the 2cm Flak - not to mention smaller Gebirgsjäger / Fallschirmjäger guns, including recoilless ones.

Fair do's.

Let's start with a simple notion: before 22 June 1941, there was no British aid to the Soviet Union. If we establish that fact, and take a look at the timeline of the events in the Middle East campaigns, a lot of things gets clear in an instant. The decisive operations in Iraq were over by 22 June 1941. Thus, their delivery to the Middle East is either an opposed landing around Basra, or a more comfy unloading in Egypt - or alternatively, on the eastern edge of the Arab peninsula.

Moreover, 699 aircrafts and 480 tanks were not delivered with their trained crews and ground echelons. For the same reason as why Germany couldn't transfer 1000 planes and 10 divisions to the ME in 1941, the British couldn't do it either.

The relevance of no Lend-Lease to the Soviet Union is only in the context of greater long term supply to the British in the Middle East, not to the Iraqi revolt, which was all over by the end of May.
Britain and the US had the ships (and port space) to send more men and material to the Middle East, the Axis didn't.

Like I said, this is pure speculation. On both sides, actually. We'll never know how a different German strategy could effect the overall situation in the Mediterraneum. What I know for sure is that the British have won in Iraq because they acted swiftly and deciseively, and because Rashid Ali acted so ineptly. Equally important was that the Germans put their Schwerpunkt elsewhere. The balance between the force of arms, the quality of troops, the strategic situation, etc. did not favor the British. This is why, in my opinion, the British string of success in IEA, Iraq, Levant and Iran was their most impressive operational sequence in the war.

How exactly the British go about beating a German bolstered Iraq Revolt is open to speculation, that they would do so rests on the inexorable logic of 5,000 tons a day of supply and increasing versus several hundred tons of supply a day and diminishing.

I think the Eighth Army drive on Tripoli followed by the battles of Medenine, Mareth and the Wadi Akarit a more impressive operational sequence.

[Gooner1]

Besides; I doubt it very much that Franco or the Spaniards would go for an armed resistance. We can talk about it day and night, but the occupation of he Iberian peninsula could have more gains than losses.

Dead by 1945 doesn't seem much of a gain for Franco to me.

[Peter89]

No, that's not what we are looking at. What you call a "fully motorised column" was actually a ragtag of forces with little military training, familiarity with their weapons (some units didn't even shoot with them) and durability. Of that 500 vehicles, not one but a sizeable chunk were buses from Jerusalem and Haifa. Buses, flatbed trucks with their civilian drivers carried the supplies for the column.

Their supplies were so low that any stalemate or prolonged (meaning, lasting for more than two weeks) fighting around Habbaniya would mean their end.

Ragtag of forces with little military training? The Household Cavalry and 1st Essex Regiment were both Regular Army units, dunno about the Royal Artillery or Engineer units but there is no reason to think they weren't thoroughly trained, the RAF Armoured Car Company had been in theatre for years and was thoroughly desert savvy and the RASC good enough to drive that wonderful collection of charabancs and jalopies 1000km in seven days.

If you'd like to continue this discussion, please send me a private message and we can do it. For the sake of the historically correct narrative, and before someone gets a wrong picture about the Habforce (as if it was a properly trained, fully equipped motorized brigade that could easily crush a few thousand hastily airlanded German troops), I'd like to quote Robert Lyman's description of the unit.

Habforce comprised some 6,000 troops cobbled together from the
remnants of troops available in Palestine and the Western Desert. The
main force was based around Brig Joe Kingstone’s 4 Cavalry Brigade. It
was ill trained and poorly equipped. The Household Cavalry had only
recently converted from horses to trucks and had seen no action to date.
This transformation from horse to inferior trucked infantry with paltry
training, and given the label ‘mechanized’, was itself a demoralizing
experience for which the cavalrymen were unsurprisingly not very
enthusiastic, especially when it involved shooting many of their horses.
The problem was compounded by the fact that many of the troops were
not in Palestine at all: the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry was at Sidi Barrani
in the Western Desert and 237 Battery had only recently arrived in Suez.
After recall from the Western Desert, the three squadrons of the Royal
Wiltshire Yeomanry covered 1,200 miles from Sidi Barrani to Habbaniya
in nine days. Their role was to guard the line of communication
between Palestine through Transjordan to Iraq against attacks by
irregulars. As for the gunners of 237 Battery, although equipped with
the fabulous 25-pdr gun, they had had no time to calibrate their
weapons before going into action. The 1 Cavalry Division’s operational
role was internal security in Palestine, and thus found itself poorly
prepared for a 500-mile adventure across the desert to Habbaniya.
In addition, Habforce included No. 2 Armoured Car Company RAF
with eight Fordson armoured cars (modelled on the 1915 Rolls Royce
Silver Spirit cars, with which the armoured car squadron at Habbaniya
were equipped), commanded by Sqn Ldr Cassano, an anti-tank troop of
the Royal Artillery with 2pdr guns, a troop of the 2 Field Squadron Royal
Engineers and a detachment of 166 Field Ambulance. It had no tanks.
On 5 May Cassano’s armoured cars were 1,000 miles to the west,
guarding airfields in the Western Desert. Habforce did not possess
modern machine-guns. Parts of the British Army and most of the Indian
Army were forced to soldier on with the ancient Hotchkiss, a weapon
hated by the troops. The Household Cavalry Regiment was issued with
2-inch mortars — one per troop — for the first time on 9 May, but of
course had no time to practise on them before they were used in anger
against the enemy for the first time later in the month. Other
equipment issued to the cavalrymen included bayonets for their rifles
and one wireless set per squadron. Some of the trucks with which they
had been issued in February and March had solid rubber tyres and
appeared to have been stored in Egypt since the end of the First World
War. With the rapid mechanization of the regiment, most of the drivers
were newly trained. What they lacked in training and equipment,
however, ‘Habforce’ made up for in an infectious though naive
enthusiasm for the adventure ahead.
Equipped with 1915-vintage Lewis guns and equally decrepit Hotchkiss
guns, they travelled in a mixture of civilian Ford trucks and home-made
armoured cars. The Arab Legion was not part of the British Army, but
was loaned to Wavell for the operation. The Emir of Transjordan, the
brother of the Regent of Iraq, had a personal score to settle with Rashid
Ali and his rebels. Habforce was also to be joined by a mechanized
squadron of the Transjordan Frontier Force (TJFF), which, unlike the
Arab Legion, was a British imperial unit, paid for by Great Britain and
led by officers on loan from the British Army.

In a remarkably short time Habforce was gathered together for war,
preparations being made at a furious pace. Whilst the troops had enough
vehicles to transport themselves, those required to carry supplies had to be
requisitioned in Palestine, most of which also retained their civilian drivers.
Every kind of vehicle could be found in the column, from flatbed trucks to
buses taken from the streets of Haifa and Jerusalem. Habforce collected
itself at Beit Lid on 9 May, familiarizing itself with its new equipment and
sorting out orders of march, moving and settling supplies into the various
vehicles, and preparing the thousand and one things needed to get the
operation on its way. This task was made immeasurably more difficult by
reason of the poor state of most of the vehicles inherited or acquired by
Habforce, and huge efforts were expended over the coming weeks to keep
the show on the road. Water was a particular problem. One gallon per man
per day and one gallon per vehicle per day was carried on the trucks, as
were seven days’ rations on the supply trucks together with a further three
days’ rations in each fighting vehicle. Strict water discipline was applied:
water was only to be drunk at halts, by order of an officer. That said, the
quality of the water defied drinking. Some of it was brought from Egypt,
and varied in consistency from black to purple, and it required settling for
ten minutes before the top part could be drunk.

[Gooner1]

If you'd like to continue this discussion, please send me a private message and we can do it. For the sake of the historically correct narrative, and before someone gets a wrong picture about the Habforce (as if it was a properly trained, fully equipped motorized brigade that could easily crush a few thousand hastily airlanded German troops), I'd like to quote Robert Lyman's description of the unit.

Not necessary. No-one has said they could 'easily crush' a few thousand German troops but nevertheless they dealt with the Iraqi Army very efficiently.
Why do I get the impression that if it were the Germans who organized this unit of disparate elements so rapidly into an effective military formation, authors would be extolling their habit of brilliant military improvisation.
For the 4th Cavalry Brigade becoming infantry mounted on trucks is hardly inferior to being mounted infantry on horses. I wonder where Lyman gets the idea that the Yeomanry regiments were poorly trained, 5th Cavalry Brigade had every man trained on both the Bren and the Hotchkiss fex or demoralised about having to give up their horses - it had been on the cards since 1936. The Yeomanry regiments had particularly high quality manpower.

[Peter89]

I sent you a private message.