TheMarcksPlan wrote: ↑20 Nov 2020 19:28
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?