Bumping this because subject has come up in another thread.
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=251596#p2289483
Avalancheon wrote:I've talked to our resident expert on railways, Der Alte Fritz, and he thinks the Wehrmacht could potentially go as far as 600 km before their logistics break down.
I assume he means truck logistics would break down? In Barbarossa it was 300km max in planning and in experience. Here there's maybe 20% of the divisions so doubling the truck-based logistical reach seems a bit conservative.
If they choose to fight on, then I think the Germans would be limited mainly to slow advances along the railways.
In Barbarossa they regauged the rail lines at >20km/day across a huge front. If they committed the same railroad troops to Turkey they'd almost certainly re-gauge faster along only 2-3 lines at once. 20km/day gets you from Izmir to Ankara in a month even after all the bends in the road.
https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Ankara, ... d38.423734 Call it two months, still a short war.
Granted the re-building in Barbarossa was cheaply done, limiting Ostheer's supplies. With 20-30 divisions instead of >150, however, even a cheap/quick rail rebuild should be fine.
Izmir is about as close as [the British] can reasonably get, before their precious ships get threatened by aircraft, ships, and submarines.
I find it inconceivable that the British would send naval vessels, let alone slow troop transports, anywhere in the Aegean amidst a LW/KM/RM buildup for a Turkish invasion. Approaching Izmir requires 300nm exposure to concentrated air/naval power without any air cover in range (unless RN risks all its carriers and even then they'd be overwhelmed). Any heavy British units could be lost to KM/RM torpedo boats alone - and the Italian boat crews were really aggressive.
To access Izmir the British would have to take Crete and/or Rhodes, set up airfields, then hop northwards. As a practical matter, it'd all be over long before that, even if Britain scrapes together the forces to hold the Tarsus line.
------------------------------------------
I appreciate your calling this discussion "young" upthread - I'm only beginning to form thoughts on how this would go. IMO this discussion has so far ignored Axis control of the Aegean and its implications for the invasion. As discussed in the linked post, the Aegean and RM/KM/LW control over it makes at least Western Anatolia indefensible.
Once the Axis has taken Thrace and Western Anatolia, can take several routes to emerge onto the Anatolian Plateau, after which there's no secure geographic line until the Tarsus Mountains (Anatolia is not
that mountainous). Getting only halfway there removes all of Turkey's small industrial base, most of her population/agriculture, etc. At that point it's an Axis-Wallies theater regardless of whether Turkey continues fighting
de jure.
Unless we're talking 1944 or later, the W.Allies can slow Germany but can't stop it: shipping the Torch forces ~4,000 miles from US and ~2,000 from UK took so much shipping it reversed the Bolero buildup. Shipping the Torch forces round the Cape to MidEast would probably require ending all Pacific offensives. If the 50 or so free divisions required to hold a determined Heer somewhere in Eastern Anatolia actually existed, shipping/supplying them would require the British economy massively to cut back imports.
--------------------------
During the Nazi-Soviet talks in November 1940, the Germans were actually willing to partition Turkey between them, and make revisions to the Montreux convention. (This was a treaty that prevented the USSR from having unrestricted access to the Bosphorous and Dardanelles)
If Molotov (and by extension, his boss) hadn't been so greedy and unreasonable at the conference, this actually might have ended up happening. Theres lots of ramifications from this. Among other things, it would solve the perennial Russian problem of having limited access to the oceans.
You're referring to Soviet demands for influence/guarantees re Yugoslavia and Bulgaria? And probably other issues. If Hitler hadn't just ignored the post-conference inquiries about a settlement, German presence in those countries would have been a fait accompli. Stalin would probably have been happy to get bases on the Straits, return of Kars province, plus reciprocal guarantees/neutrality for Bulgaria.
--------------
EDIT - I forgot that the OP specifies a mid-'41 timeline. Anything inconsistent with that can be ignored (too lazy to change everything).
IMO Germany wouldn't have done this as quickly as the OP implies (May '41?). Even when planning for a quick campaign like Barbarossa, Hitler/OKH/OKW made sure their ducks were in row: the massive rail investment program up to the Polish border, the belated crash armaments program for Barbarossa, etc. Germany/Axis (inc. Bulgaria for Adrianople?) would have paused a few months, probably asked for passage to the real objectives (Syria and beyond), then invaded from well-prepared footing on Thracian and Aegean fronts.