No, they couldn't prevent the
invasion - but they could do more and quicker to reinforce the island's garrison than was attempted in Crete. The garrison wouldn't be the exhausted Anzacs from Greece with about a quarter of their automatic weapons, the garrison had had
years to prepare for invasion in some form, not three weeks. I'm assuming Malta by 1942 was like Tobruk earlier in the year when British forces trudged BACK from Cyrenaica - lots of empty trenches and emplacements, all built "against the day" of various invasion scares LOL
What I'm saying is that
enough warning - which they would have - would allow them to ram reinforcements thru in SOME form to Malta. It's still going to come down to a fight ON the island okay, but not short of automatic weapons or specialist troops, and hopefully NOT making the same c@ck-ups over counterattacks, non-deployment of reinforcements and reserves, unanchored flanks etc. that the Freyberg's officers made.
The decision on whether or not to reinforce the garrison
enough as to make a proper defence would depend on
1/ was Malta worth deploying forces to that
could be lost? Did ULTRA provide enough useful data on Axis Mediterranean ops that required the the cover story of "aerial recce from Malta? Did air and submarine assets from Malta do
enough damage to Axis naval tranpsort?
2/ If the answer was yes - COULD reinforcements be sent without betraying the existence of ULTRA? (as described)
3/ What was available - and where - that could be sent?
4/ What further mechanised assets could be sent? And HOW could they be sent?
5/ Could
enough damage be caused to the attacking airborne forces to force their capitualation? Could they be prevented from extending their bridgeheads, or bringing in further reinforcements?
Remember - Crete was not only a series of failures on the part of the defenders, but ALSO Ringel taking over command of the operation and putting reinforcements on the ground by Ju52 at Maleme even when the airfield was still under fire. If he hadnt taken that decision, the operation was within a few hours of being a failure from the Axis side.
I'd say - a Crete replay without the mistakes
To win, the Axis forces would simply have to slog it out and overpower the defenders who were in a much better and more matured set of real defences than on Crete. They would have to put MORE on the ground in the first wave than on Crete, so as not to rely as much on the arrival of later waves. They'd have to minimise the losses and disruption on landing, both in numbers and to the chain of command of whole units. SOMEHOW they'll need to pick better, clearer dropping zones for the parachute elements than on Crete...in a landscape with a higher percentage of stone walls enclosing smaller fields! More broken ankles, legs and backs
AND defensive-wise - think Bocage minus the hedges; dry stone walls, banked ditches and sunken lanes in a landscape that looks like the squares on a chessboard. They'll have to have learned the lesson of jumping with weapons - I know they were training but it would have to be rolled out to everyone. AND make sure they landed enough rations and especially water - Malta is IIRC perenially short of water in high summer, more so than Crete - with the first wave, or have a far better system of air drops and way of ground control in place than laying out coloured panels. Do all
those and the LW will have removed the mistakes THEY made on Crete.