WW2 Air war in Europe with a defeated USSR?

[TheMarcksPlan]

why would Hitler wwant to attack Spaain?

To close the Med?

Only if he has to; Spain probably joins the Axis if it's that or war with Germany. Franco probably would have done so in 1940 actually. I read his asking Canaris whether Hitler planned to attack as that of a pretty scared dude.

I love how everyone always focuses on Ike's butthurt in spring-summer 1942.

Not Ike. As my other thread shows, everyone in U.S. leadership from FDR to the JCS viewed beating Germany as unlikely if SU collapsed in '42. Maybe it's different due to path dependence post-Casablanca.

Now its a "sudden...collapse" in 1943. Why? Yet again the whole timeline seems murky.

I already made that point! Again not my ATL!

[Richard Anderson]

To close the Med?

I thought it was already closed, at least up to around 8 November 1942? After that, the unlikely event of Germany seizing Spain and the even more unlikely event of Germany seizing Gibraltar, is too late.

Only if he has to; Spain probably joins the Axis if it's that or war with Germany. Franco probably would have done so in 1940 actually. I read his asking Canaris whether Hitler planned to attack as that of a pretty scared dude.

Pretty scared doesn't equate to giving in when it comes to malignant narcissists...c.f. Trump.

Not Ike. As my other thread shows, everyone in U.S. leadership from FDR to the JCS viewed beating Germany as unlikely if SU collapsed in '42. Maybe it's different due to path dependence post-Casablanca.

Sorry, I lose track in the blizzards of threads envisaging the Allies lining up with their collective backs to the Axis and then bending over and kissing their asses goodbye in unison. It doesn't make it a viable what if. FDR had virtually zero real strategic sense, but Marshall, Gerow, Eisenhower, King, et al did. There was a very real fear that a renewed German summer campaign in 1942 would overwhelm the USSR...as it became more and more clear that the Germans only had the resources to execute a renewed offensive on a third of the front of the previous year, quite a bit of that fear began to dissipate. The butt hurt Ike of spring 1942 was a product not of worry over a Soviet collapse, but at the inability to get the British to agree to operations to take the heat off the Soviets. By the end of 1942 it was replaced by the belief on the part of the British that the Germans might suddenly collapse. Neither belief was accurate.

I already made that point! Again not my ATL!

I know! Sure, its not your fault that this scenario is even more of a hand wave than most..."Due to a combination of factors the Germans do a lot better in 1941/42" really does try to cover up a multitude of sins. Do the Silurian Invaders make an alliance with the Nazis and defeat the Soviets with a combination of flying saucers and really nifty ray guns, while the Nazis accept the Lizard People as Aryan brothers?

So then, okay, because the Germans do better, the Allies build unsinkable million ton battleships that fire cruise missiles into Germany, while unloading thousands of 105mm GMC T95 onto the North Sea beaches to overrun Germany. There. Just as viable and detailed a POD and resolution.

[David Thompson]

An unsourced opinion post from TheMarcksPlan, which added nothing of factual interest to the thread, was removed pursuant to the forum rules and previous warnings.

[TheMarcksPlan]

I thought [the Mediterranean] was already closed, at least up to around 8 November 1942?

Uh the Allies moved freely through the Strait of Gibraltar during WW2. Source: Global Logistics and Strategy, 1940-1943 p.423 [discussing that the Allies landed in Algeria directly from the UK, implying transit through the Strait of Gibraltar - something I'm sure you know already...]

[Richard Anderson]

I thought [the Mediterranean] was already closed, at least up to around 8 November 1942?

Uh the Allies moved freely through the Strait of Gibraltar during WW2. Source: Global Logistics and Strategy, 1940-1943 p.423 [discussing that the Allies landed in Algeria directly from the UK, implying transit through the Strait of Gibraltar - something I'm sure you know already...]

Assault shipping in November 1942? Yep. Desperate sorties to launch aircraft to reinforce Malta? Yep. Regular convoys transiting the Med? Nope.

You know, the million tons of shipping Sir Alan Brooke liked to go on and on about?

[TheMarcksPlan]

Assault shipping in November 1942? Yep. Desperate sorties to launch aircraft to reinforce Malta? Yep. Regular convoys transiting the Med? Nope.

You know, the million tons of shipping Sir Alan Brooke liked to go on and on about?

I'm well aware, have discussed at length elsewhere the logistical problems posed by having to sail around South Africa. Source/example: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=238638&start=90#p2293853

What exactly are we disagreeing about? Do you deny that it would benefit Germany for the W.Allies to have no viable sea LoC through the Gibraltar strait (regardless of whether Germany storms the Rock)? If the LW/Heer/KM sits in Tarifa, "regular convoys transiting the Med" are off the table, regardless of what happens in Tunsia. That means no credible threat of Allied invasions of European Med littoral, except via Suez if they hold it. But that's a terrible logistical proposition - a 15,000 mile route.

[Tom from Cornwall]

That means no credible threat of Allied invasions of European Med littoral, except via Suez if they hold it. But that's a terrible logistical proposition - a 15,000 mile route.

Wouldn't the Allies seek to attack the Germans in the Iberian peninsula? I'm pretty sure many of the British commanders would have dusted off their Peninsular War history books and thought they had a chance to emulate Wellington?

Regards

Tom

[TheMarcksPlan]

That means no credible threat of Allied invasions of European Med littoral, except via Suez if they hold it. But that's a terrible logistical proposition - a 15,000 mile route.

Wouldn't the Allies seek to attack the Germans in the Iberian peninsula? I'm pretty sure many of the British commanders would have dusted off their Peninsular War history books and thought they had a chance to emulate Wellington?

Regards

Tom

Nothing would end the war sooner than the '43 W.Allied armies trying to engage the entire Heer - or "just" 80 of its divisions.

[Tom from Cornwall]

Nothing would end the war sooner than the '43 W.Allied armies trying to engage the entire Heer - or "just" 80 of its divisions.

My bad - I thought the German army was deep into Burma and Mozambique by this point? Or demobilised and building Ju 88's and aircraft carriers. It's hard to keep up.

Regards

Tom

[Richard Anderson]

I'm well aware, have discussed at length elsewhere the logistical problems posed by having to sail around South Africa.

I was hoping my remark about Brooke's "million tons of shipping" might have been a clue. The whole million tons of shipping business was a debating tactic on the part of the British Chiefs of Staff. The numbers were a wag, no study was ever conducted to find what the tonnage savings were. In the end, after the Straits were "opened", after TORCH a grand total of 238 convoys sailed through them from November 1942 through June 1945, first to Oran and then to Naples. There were 49 fast convoys of 676 ships and 189 slow convoys of 11,119 ships (troops and cargo). There were also 30 fuel convoys of 206 ships sent to the med from February 1943-June 1944. That is from a total of 47,997 ships escorted in 1,134 principal convoys across the Atlantic between North American and British, Mediterranean, and European ports December 1941-May 1945. The principal savings of opening the Mediterranean was for the US-Basra route, which average 57 versus 82 days. All of 500 vessels took the great circle route from Panama-Australia-Suez after U-Boats threatened the South America-Capetown route from late 1942 to July 1943.

What exactly are we disagreeing about? Do you deny that it would benefit Germany for the W.Allies to have no viable sea LoC through the Gibraltar strait (regardless of whether Germany storms the Rock)? If the LW/Heer/KM sits in Tarifa, "regular convoys transiting the Med" are off the table, regardless of what happens in Tunsia. That means no credible threat of Allied invasions of European Med littoral, except via Suez if they hold it. But that's a terrible logistical proposition - a 15,000 mile route.

Well, aside from the million tons of shipping mythos, I think we're arguing about your overinflated idea of how quickly the Heer and Luftwaffe would be able to redeploy and what choices the German high command might make. I simply doubt after scraping by on an unexplained wing and prayer in the USSR they would immediately seek new enemies on new frontiers in Persia, Turkey, and Spain.

Anyway, by 1943, the KM operating out of Tarifa or Gibraltar are not going to interdict the Straits. They do not have the infrastructure to support any more U-Boot than were already in the Med/Atlantic. Nor does the Luftwaffe have the anti-ship assets to make a credible threat, especially given their bases would be under round the clock bombing from the Allied air forces in Morocco and Algeria. Instead of trying to interdict airfields 600 to 1000 miles away in Tunis, across the Atlas, they would be bombing airfields in Spain, 350 to 450 miles away.

[TheMarcksPlan]

Nothing would end the war sooner than the '43 W.Allied armies trying to engage the entire Heer - or "just" 80 of its divisions.

My bad - I thought the German army was deep into Burma and Mozambique by this point? Or demobilised and building Ju 88's and aircraft carriers. It's hard to keep up.

Regards

Tom

This is about as productive as analyzing WW2 via analogy to Napoleonic Wars. Brilliant. Might as well assume the Franco-German battles go as well as Jena/Auerstadt. Whoops.

[TheMarcksPlan]

by 1943, the KM operating out of Tarifa or Gibraltar are not going to interdict the Straits.

They do not have the infrastructure to support any more U-Boot than were already in the Med/Atlantic.

The strait is 9 miles wide. The weapons platform needed to close it around Tarifa is Tarifa.

Nobody mentioned U-boats.

I was hoping my remark about Brooke's "million tons of shipping" might have been a clue.

As with Ike's views, as with all the other ATL's that have bothered you over the years, you've brought up an argument sua sponte, attributed it to me, and are now arguing with yourself over it. We have enough to discuss productively; no need to create imagined disagreements.

[Tom from Cornwall]

This is about as productive as analyzing WW2 via analogy to Napoleonic Wars. Brilliant.

Who was arguing that there was anything "productive" about threads like this! Certainly not me.

I was just trying gently to point out that the Allies might change their strategy dependent on the situation they found themselves in.

For example, the British had made plans to occupy the Azores if the UK lost Gibraltar to either Franco or Hitler. The British had made plans to demolish all oil facilities in Iraq and Iran. The British had made plans to retreat from Egypt down the Nile and through the desert towards the Gulf; to block and demolish the Suez Canal, etc.

BTW - I do agree with you about the straits of Gibraltar. They aren't very wide and even so, U-boats made it into the Mediterranean suffering increasing attrition - IIRC a large batch were sent there after the collapse of the U-boat offensive in the Atlantic in May 1943. It would be great for the Germans to send down some large warships though - lovely targets for the allied submarines.

Regards

Tom

[Richard Anderson]

The strait is 9 miles wide. The weapons platform needed to close it around Tarifa is Tarifa.

Tarifa is a "weapons platform"? Odd, I thought it was a port in Spain.

Nobody mentioned U-boats.

Uh, yes somebody did mention U-boats, me. Is the Tarifa weapons platform going to close the straits with a gate? No trespassing signs? Dirty looks?

As with Ike's views, as with all the other ATL's that have bothered you over the years, you've brought up an argument sua sponte, attributed it to me, and are now arguing with yourself over it. We have enough to discuss productively; no need to create imagined disagreements.

I'm not a judge and you didn't make a motion, but I would swear you just said, you had "discussed at length elsewhere the logistical problems posed by having to sail around South Africa" and "that's a terrible logistical proposition - a 15,000 mile route", both of which I was pointing out are simply variations of the Brooke "million tons of shipping saved" argument, which had never been shown to be valid. Yes, its been accepted by dozens of historians, war gamers, and what iffers, but with little evidence other than opinion to back it up with. I was simply framing the reality of the argument, which is:

The round Cape Horn route involved about 200 sailings from the US in the last four to five months of 1942, before rerouting via the longer Panama Canal and Pacific route of about 500 sailings...in round numbers about 700 sailings out of 47,997 or about 1.5%. The real difference was a time savings of about one third, so those 700 sailings could have been 900-odd, call it 1,000 to be fair. Now we are up to a 2.1% improvement. It simply isn't an earth shaking savings.

The other savings, the 11,795 sailing from the US, include sailings to Casablanca that were then transshipped in coastal convoys, transshipped overland, and as well as ships then routed through the straits, but those were not to support American and British operations in Tunisia or the Western Desert for the most part, except in 1942 and January-April 1943, but were cargoes that went on to support offensive operations in Sicily, then Italy, and finally Southern France. However, if those events occur differently, the shipping to support them hardly needs to go through the straits if the "No Soliciting" sign at the Tarifa Weapons Platform becomes too frightening, do they?

[Richard Anderson]

BTW, was Brooke talking deadweight tons or measurement tons? DWT would take about 100 Liberty ship sailings. Measurement tons would have been about 228. Brooke's numbers sounded menacing at Casablanca, but they only worked because FDR had insisted Marshall not bring a large support staff to the conference, which severely hampered the Americans in negotiations when Brooke et all starting waving unfounded numbers about like bloody great swords.