How important was Malta?

[Full Monty]

Why write "One only has to look at the statistics and the convoy routes to see that Malta's significance has been blown way out of proportion" if you truly believe that, though ?

Because they show a consistency in the tonnage of supplies landing in North Africa.

Do they? That's not what the figures I have show (see below). I'd be interested in seeing the figures backing your interpretation.

Well the figures I have are similar to those given above, as I have already stated.

Between July 1940 and June 1941 (included), the average cargo delivery rate was 95.2%., the only month where the rate was below 90% being December 1940 at 89.35%.
Following Barbarossa, the Luftwaffe largely pulled out of the Mediterranean and Maltese activity picked up, so between July and October 1941 (inclusive) the delivery rate dropped to 79.9%. So the average convoy was taking 20% losses, that's more than the USAAF loss rate at 2nd Schweinfurt. Curiously enough, Rommel seemed to feel the pinch as he was having trouble building up, which is why he took so long besieging Tobruk.

Percentage figures are meaningless without the appropriate base numbers. In any case I'm working on tonnage landed. Ellis states that on average some 203,000 tons per quarter were landed in North Africa. Even when vehicles are taken out of the equation this still gives a daily allocation of some 800 tons per division per day. ('Brute Force' - pp.251-2) This stacks up pretty well with supplies provided for other Heer formations.

Any history of the desert war will tell you that Malta was out of action when Axis air pounded it, i.e. January to June 1941, and again January to June 1942. In June 1941, the Luftwaffe moved to Russia, Malta got back to strength, and by the time of Crusader Rommel's logistical situation was terrible - which is the reason why he had to pull back.

I'd argue (backed by the Panzer Truppen records) that Rommel had to pull back because the strength of his Panzer Regiments had been worn down by continuous action to the degree that they were no longer capable of decisive action. This is not to say that he didn't have supply problems, but this was a minor contributing factor.

Both sides' armor had taken losses. How come that Rommel's force was "worn down" while Auchinleck's was not? Perhaps the fact that during the month of Crusader - which started in 18 November 1941 - 14 ships out of 22 dispatched to North Africa were sunk, so the delivery rate was down to 37%? In the previous 12 months (November 1940 to October 1941), the average monthly fuel deliveries had been 15,387 tons. The figure for November was 2,471 tons. Oops... So Rommel had to break off the engagement as he was out of tanks, out of fuel and out of ammunition, but the fact that two third of his resupply convoys had been sunk had nothing to do with it?

Auchinleck's armour was pretty worn down, but 8th Army had started the battle with a 4-to-1 advantage in medium tanks. Additionally, Rommel had wasted considerable supplies launching his ill-advised 'Dash to the Wire'. But your point about the supply convoys is questionable, since the Axis army was hardly working on a 'hand to mouth' basis. As as been pointed out, the supply situation at Tripoli and Benghazi was good, the shortfall took time to work through to the forward supply dumps.

Once Tobruk was taken, the shipping routed there avoided Malta but were subject to attack from aircraft and naval assets based in Alexandria. Not only that but Rommels overstretched land supply lines were subject to interdiction from the DAF. There were plenty of supplies in Benghazi and Tripoli but actually getting them to Rommel at El Alamein was the problem, not getting them from Italy to the ports.

Right, and why was Rommel forced to a comparatively inefficient supply scheme? Because the Axis didn't have the resources to defend convoys on several routes (and convoys to Tripoli would have to be run anyway), so they had to concentrate on one route. And why did they have to defend convoys in the first place? Because Malta was active again following the redeployment of Luftwaffe assets to North Africa to support Rommel's offensive. The air assets deployed in Sicily and tasked with keeping Malta relatively under control would have been more than enough to prevent port attacks from unescorted bombers. The Italians had the naval assets to defend against the light harrassing forces sent from Alexandria (though the RAF did most of the work), they just didn't have the fuel to protect the convoys *and* have a sustained naval presence in North Africa (particularly if the enemy had air superiority). Malta again.

That's so one sided it's close to nonsense. The Allies committed vast resources into keeping Malta open. Said resources could have been redeployed into North Africa leaving us with a 'zero sum' argument. I'd like to know what other scheme could have been adopted as a 'more efficient option' to keep Rommel's Army supplied.

Also, you're making it sound as if Egypt-based attacks accounted for most or all of the Axis shipping losses, and that was definitely not the case. Malta had both a direct role, i.e. what Maltese-based forces sank, and an indirect role i.e. forcing the Axis to deploy resources away from the front, the consequence of which was loss of air superiority near the front, the consequence of which was an inefficient supply setup. So it's wrong to say "Malta didn't do anything, the Alexandria RAF and inept Axis logistical arrangements did all the work", because absent Malta the Egyptian RAF could have been neutralized and the Axis could have adopted more efficient schemes (they did try).

Again that's one sided. How would the DAF in Egypt been neutralised, especially with RAF assets being deployed there rather than Malta? Again, what are these 'more efficient schemes'? It's also not just my 'opinion' that it was the inefficient Axis logistical scheme that caused Rommels problems as I have already stated above.

[Full Monty]

Similarly, distance isn't everything. Rommel was fighting Crusader in exactly the same spot as he had fought Brevity and Battleaxe. Distance was the same, but resupply rate was not: the difference was sinkings.

And he had serious supply problems at each.(Ellis pp.252-3)

This isn't to say that distance didn't matter. It was a factor, but one that could be dealt with absent too much enemy interference. For example, coastal shipping could greatly alleviate the burden of the overland supply route. The Germans knew about it, and tried it. It didn't work. Why ? Because of the direct and indirect effects of Malta that I described in my previous post.

And said coastal shipping could have disembarked the supplies where? Their capacity was?

[Davide Pastore]

The attack on Malta that we are discussing in this thread was scheduled in June 1942

Either on 12 July or 10 August (new moon days). In June not enough crafts were ready.

I jump here just to tell to all the people (this category includes someone from the AHF staff) who were (last year ) promised by me a work on the planned ITALIAN [#1] 1942 landing on Malta [#2], that the work is steadily progressing. So far the drafts are 60 (sixty) pages in *.doc format, and the more I write, the more I'm aware of how little I know. I'm planning to go to Rome and do a bit of research in the central archives; and I'm seriously considering going to Malta for a weekend, this summer, to take some picture of the landing zones.

Davide

[#1] With A LITTLE German help

[#2] BTW it was NOT called "Herkules". Correct codename was "C3"

[Bronsky]

Well the figures I have are similar to those given above, as I have already stated.

If they are, then how can you claim consistency of tonnage landed in North Africa?



This graph shows deliveries between December 1940 (when the first losses occurred) and November 1942 (after which the situation was shot to pieces and therefore not representative). Deliveries in blue are expressed as a percentage of the average for the period. The purple area represents losses, so blue + purple is what the Axis planned to send, purple represents the direct contribution of Allied sinkings.

As you can see, deliveries start fairly low. In June 1941, deliveries pick up and the loss rate is low. In the second half of 1941, losses increase (the Luftwaffe has been redeployed to Russia, Malta is more active) so deliveries decrease. This is both a direct effect of Malta i.e. Rommel's convoys are getting sunk, and an indirect effect i.e. less convoys are being sent because this is a danger zone so only heavily-escorted convoys are sent which limits the amounts that can be shipped.

Then starting in January 1942 we have a new low-losses period, and deliveries increase correspondingly. Things reverse again in the second half of the year although in the last four months you can see Rommel struggling to get deliveries regardless of shipping losses so there are very few indirect effects (i.e. the amounts sent don't significantly decrease). This is even more obvious if I format the data in bimonthly increments so as to get a smoother curve, and factor out the reinforcements received during the Spring of 1942 (April 1942 was a record month which gives the whole curve an uglier shape than it could have).

To me, the picture is fairly clear, but I'm taking pains to explain why. If you disagree, you can presumably show where my use of the figures is wrong.
On the other hand, you argue that the figures show a consistency in the deliveries. The way I see it, out of the 24 months examined there are 18 in which a deviation greater than 10% from the average occurred, of which 13 (i.e. more than half) in which deliveries were more than 20% over average or less than 80% of average. That, to me, is not consistent for a supply chain.

Percentage figures are meaningless without the appropriate base numbers. In any case I'm working on tonnage landed. Ellis states that on average some 203,000 tons per quarter were landed in North Africa. Even when vehicles are taken out of the equation this still gives a daily allocation of some 800 tons per division per day. ('Brute Force' - pp.251-2) This stacks up pretty well with supplies provided for other Heer formations.

203,000 divided by 90 days in a quarter is 2,255 tons which is about a quarter of the daily allocation that you mentioned (depending on how much you count an Italian division was worth in terms of supply).

The Italian official histories give a reasonably close figure for the quarterly average, apparently Ellis' figures is 1941 and 1942, he leaves out 1940. Fair enough, so here are the quarterly deliveries. Each time, the figure is tonnage delivered followed by the percentage of the average figure (204,041) to measure consistency.
Q1/41: 221,020 - 108% Q2/41: 275,879 - 135% Q3/41: 213,745 - 105% Q4/41: 142,549 - 70%
Q1/42: 172,723 - 85% Q2/42: 269,155 - 132% Q3/42: 220,672 - 108% Q4/42: 116,585 - 57%

Remember that the percentage figures are based on the historical deliveries i.e. an insufficient amount to begin with. So when you read 100% it doesn't mean that supply was satisfactory, just that it was parr for the course including the disastrous months of December 1942 etc. These figures show that the situation was satisfactory in the second quarter of each year i.e. when Malta was on the ropes. At the end of each year, Malta was active again and the Axis supply line interdicted and, lo and behold, this coincided with the greatest Axis defeats.

Auchinleck's armour was pretty worn down, but 8th Army had started the battle with a 4-to-1 advantage in medium tanks. Additionally, Rommel had wasted considerable supplies launching his ill-advised 'Dash to the Wire'. But your point about the supply convoys is questionable, since the Axis army was hardly working on a 'hand to mouth' basis. As as been pointed out, the supply situation at Tripoli and Benghazi was good, the shortfall took time to work through to the forward supply dumps.

Rommel had to withdraw because he hadn't just run out of tanks but he also lacked fuel and ammunition for those tanks that he did have. And the 'dash to the Wire' burned some fuel but practically no ammunition. Also, he was close enough to Benghazi at the time, and yes, Axis logistics were hand to mouth according to him, Mellenthin and various other records.

In crisis situations, he had to beg for practically every convoy as a matter of emergency.

That's so one sided it's close to nonsense. The Allies committed vast resources into keeping Malta open. Said resources could have been redeployed into North Africa leaving us with a 'zero sum' argument. I'd like to know what other scheme could have been adopted as a 'more efficient option' to keep Rommel's Army supplied.

The resources that the Allies committed to keep Malta open couldn't have helped shape the situation in the desert. The resources that the Axis committed to keep Malta down were also needed in the desert. For the Axis, it was an either/or situation, as for example when Rommel captured Tobruk and he successfully argued that he should keep the Luftwaffe assets temporarily attached to him for the Gazala offensive, instead of releasing them for the scheduled operation against Malta.

The same planes were supporting Rommel at the front or keeping Malta down (or going to Russia). So if the British had lost Malta, their Pedestal forces would have been freed to do something else. Great. The main force didn't venture within range of Axis land-based air anyway, so what could it have accomplished in that theater? Pretty much nothing. On the other hand, the British could presumably have resumed convoys to Murmansk, but that's another story. That's why it's not a zero sum argument. Also, geography makes a difference: Malta was within easy attack range of Axis convoys, Alexandria was not. Malta-based attacks could strike at various points, requiring air patrolling of a vast area (or serious air action to suppress the island), whereas Alexandria-based attacks would come from a limited sector and could be more effectively defended against.

Regarding keeping Rommel's army supplied, without the need to heavily escort convoys then more convoys can be run more often making better use of the available port capacity. As things were, the ships had to spend minimal time in harbor and in certain cases returned to Italy without having completed unloading. The historical convoys also forced the Italians to send several under-loaded ships under heavy escort, which was grossly inefficient in terms of fuel (escorts) and shipping. Sending 5 ships with 1,000 tons each makes sense when you have 5 berths to unload from and want to cut your losses in case of attack as well as minimize the time spent in harbor. But if that imperative decreases, then you can send fully-loaded ships which is more efficient in terms of shipping availability, fuel and port capacity (less down time between convoys).

Again that's one sided.

Better one-sided than zero-sided, though...

How would the DAF in Egypt been neutralised, especially with RAF assets being deployed there rather than Malta?

Tobruk and Benghazi were out of escorted bombing range from Egypt, so if you deploy the Malta interceptors to Alexandria they can't be as effective against Axis convoys as they were around Malta where they were in range. Ditto the short-ranged and most effective attack aircraft. Longer ranger means less time to search for targets, longer reaction times between when a target is spotted and an attack force reaches that point, less time on target, less payload, etc.

It's also not just my 'opinion' that it was the inefficient Axis logistical scheme that caused Rommels problems as I have already stated above.

Yes, but Axis logistics weren't inefficient because the Germans had been genetically engineered to be logistical idiots. The Germans could, and on occasions did, run efficient logistics. When you read the German reports of the time, they were fully conscious of how wasteful their system was, but they were forced into it by the tactical situation, of which Malta was the single most important component.

Bronsky wrote:

Similarly, distance isn't everything. Rommel was fighting Crusader in exactly the same spot as he had fought Brevity and Battleaxe. Distance was the same, but resupply rate was not: the difference was sinkings.

And he had serious supply problems at each.(Ellis pp.252-3)

Rommel fought off Brevity and Battleaxe without running into a logistical crisis. He didn't really lose Crusader on the ground but found himself unable to continue with the battle because his logistics couldn't keep up. In the first case, his LOC was relatively uninterrupted, in the second case it was down to 1/3 average efficiency. This makes it kind of difficult to ignore the connexion, doesn't it?

By the way, Rommel was able to attack at Gazala, from a position which used exactly the same ports as he had had before Crusader (if we leave aside sub deliveries to the Bardia area at the time of Crusader).

This isn't to say that distance didn't matter. It was a factor, but one that could be dealt with absent too much enemy interference. For example, coastal shipping could greatly alleviate the burden of the overland supply route. The Germans knew about it, and tried it. It didn't work. Why ? Because of the direct and indirect effects of Malta that I described in my previous post.

And said coastal shipping could have disembarked the supplies where? Their capacity was?

Coastal shipping picks up the stuff unloaded in Tripoli and delivers it to small ports that regular ships can't really access all that well e.g. Derna, Tobruk, Mersa Matruh. It's also more fuel-efficient than using a truck-borne LOC. It was tried, the problem was British attacks.

For the two months between mid-July and mid-September of 1942, the average monthly flux was:
Tripoli: 35,669 tons received from Italy, 19,015 tons loaded on coastal shipping.
Benghazi: 60,500 tons from Italy, 11,090 tons from cabotage, 13,980 tons sent further east on coastal shipping.
Tobruk: 47,071 tons from Italy + 17,655 from cabotage, 10,471 tons loaded on coastal shipping.
Mersa Matruh: 1,927 tons from Italy + 10,030 tons from cabotage.
Figures from an article, "Quartermaster's Nightmare", by Dario Benedetti and provided by Mauro de Vita.

10,000 tons are 5,000 truck-loads, not counting fuel and spares for the trucks, so figure about the whole truck complement of Panzer Armee Afrika would have been needed to reach that figure. And that was with RAF interdiction.

(edited to try and make the stupid image display, the url works when I type it in my browser but it won't display here. Moderators are welcome to edit my post so as to make the picture visible, or display it in one of their own posts, I'm not spending any more time trying to fix that )

[Bronsky]

I jump here just to tell to all the people (this category includes someone from the AHF staff) who were (last year ) promised by me a work on the planned ITALIAN [#1] 1942 landing on Malta [#2], that the work is steadily progressing. So far the drafts are 60 (sixty) pages in *.doc format, and the more I write, the more I'm aware of how little I know. I'm planning to go to Rome and do a bit of research in the central archives; and I'm seriously considering going to Malta for a weekend, this summer, to take some picture of the landing zones.

As I'm doing the same on another topic (though I have started archival research), I wanted to let you know that I know exactly how you feel and sympathize...

[Jon G.]

Let's look at how many sinkings of Axis ships were caused by Malta-based British forces.

Please look at the table* below, re-posted from my now deleted post earlier. This table shows Italian ship losses caused by torpedo bombers only, along with information on where those torpedo bombers ('aerosiluranti') were based. The table is in Italian, but reading it should not be too difficult.



...and then compare to this and this list of total Axis merchant losses on the Libyan convoy route. Again, rudimentary linguistic instinct is required, but also the German tables should be easy enough to read.

I've concentrated on six months of the North African campaign - namely September, October and November 1941, that is, losses during those months affected Rommel's supply status during the Crusader battles and the planned assault on Tobruk, and August, September and October 1942, months which affected Rommel's logistic situation up to and during the Alamein battles.

In September 1941 the Axis lost nine ships on the Libya route. 3 of those ships were sunk by aircraft operating from Malta. A further 5 ships were sunk by RN submarines, some of them no doubt from the Malta-based 10th Flotilla. The last ship was sunk by a mine.

In October 1941 seven Axis merchant ships were lost - all of them sunk by Malta-based Swordfish torpedo bombers if the Italian table above is to be believed. If you instead place more faith in the German tables I've linked to, it's one loss caused by submarine and 'only' six sinkings by Malta Stringbags.

After October 1941 the Malta-based torpedo bombers disappear from the statistics, and apart from a single reappearance in January 1942, they only become active again in June 1942. But Malta still plays part in the onslaught on Axis supply ships:

In November 1941 12 Axis supply ships are lost on the Libyan route. Two losses are caused by non-torpedo (!) airplanes, one ship is sunk by a sub, and nine Axis ships are sunk by surface ships from the Malta-based Force K. Seven of the merchantmen sunk by Force K are sunk in an action off Cape Spartivento, the remaining two are sunk W of Crete.

In August 1942 the Axis loses 11 merchantmen on the North African route. Four of those ships are sunk by Malta-based aircraft, six others are sunk by submarines which may have been operating out of Malta again at this time. The last ship is sunk by a mine.

Note, by the way, how the number of tankers ('Cisterna') sunk rises from August 1942, reflecting faster and better British reading of Enigma traffic. It could be that this better intelligence allowed a more efficient use of Egypt-based aircraft.

In September 1942 the Axis loss rate drops to eight ships. Three are lost to aircraft, at least one of them flying from Malta. The remaining five ships are sunk by subs, which potentially all could have been operating out of Malta. Note how the number of ships attacked rises dramatically from this month on.

Finally, in October 1942 the Axis loses nine ships on the North African route. The Italian and German tables are in disagreement over loss causes; according to the former six ships are sunk by aircraft, two sinkings shared with subs; Malta-based aircraft have part in three of those sinkings. The German table maintains that only three ships were sunk by aircraft in this month. If we allow for 'shared' sinkings to be listed as sub sinkings on the German table there still is a discrepancy of one ship. In any event the balance of Axis merhantmen sunk during this month appear to have been destroyed by submarines.

* thanks DrG for providing me with this table!

[Jon G.]

Further to my post above, I have plotted available data on sinkings of Axis transports into the graph below, made with this free Graph-making program.

Note that this graph only credits Malta-based torpedo aircraft and the Malta-based Force K with 'Malta sinkings'. Axis ships sunk by submarines make part of the 'total losses' green line on the graph. I have not been able to find definite data for the sinkings of the RN 10th Flotilla while it was based at Malta, hence they have been ignored. Also, the Italian table I posted above somewhat bizarrely omits sinkings done by aircraft using other means than torpedoes. In other words, the table below represents a very conservative estimate on sinkings caused by Malta-based Allied forces.



This graph is very much a work in progress, comments and corrections are warmly welcomed.

[JonS]

New review of an old book:
The War against Rommel's Supply Lines, 1942-1943, by Levine. The title is a bit of a misnomer, but the book itself looks wery wery interestink. Even the review packs in quite a bit of info relevant to several ongoing discussions here regarding logistics in the African campaign.

You can also Search Inside this book.

Jon

[Bronsky]

The War against Rommel's Supply Lines, 1942-1943, by Levine. The title is a bit of a misnomer, but the book itself looks wery wery interestink. Even the review packs in quite a bit of info relevant to several ongoing discussions here regarding logistics in the African campaign.

I've been on the fence regarding that book, though as its price keeps going up I suppose that I should buy it now before it costs me over $120...

For example, the introduction says that Britain only had 200 obsolete aircraft against 1,500 operational Italian planes, but the Italian figure is the total for the Regia Aeronautica, not the number of planes that was going to fight the British (unless Churchill decided to land in Italy).

For example, monthly port capacity figures are given as 45,000 for Tripoli, 2,700 for Benghazi and 2,000 for Tobruk. Not only are the latter two a typo (though a significant one IMO) for 27,000 and 20,000, these figures are peacetime estimates which wartime experience proved that they could be improved upon. I'm not breaking any new ground: taking the figures for deliveries to North African ports and matching them with these port capacities shows that the ports could handle 2-3 times as much (and that despite being damaged by Allied attacks).

Other good books to read in English on this topic are the histories of the Italian Navy written by Sadkovich and Bagradin.

[Andy H]

One of the main positives for the Allies in the usage of Malta against the Italian-NA supply roots, isn't just in the tangable amount of tonnage sunk but the amount of scarce fuel reserves the Italian Navy had to use to provide escorts.

With my books in storage I can't give any meaningful figures from memory but the % of fuel used by the Italian Navy far outweighed that used for fleet operations

Regards

Andy H

[Jon G.]

New review of an old book:
The War against Rommel's Supply Lines, 1942-1943, by Levine. The title is a bit of a misnomer, but the book itself looks wery wery interestink. Even the review packs in quite a bit of info relevant to several ongoing discussions here regarding logistics in the African campaign.

You can also Search Inside this book.

Jon

From the review alone it looks like a book worth reading, but it's disappointing if it contains typos on such key subjects as Axis port capacity. Two other books that I and JonS have earlier recommended are:

Aerial Interdiction by Eduard Mark and Air Interdiction by John W. Vogt Jr.

Both links will lead you to pages where you can download pdf versions of these two titles perfectly legally. Particularly Mark's book is well worth reading - he uses primary sources for both sides, not just official histories. Mark's numbers on port capacity and Italian naval losses appear to come from Bragadin, though.

[JonS]

I've been on the fence regarding that book, though as its price keeps going up I suppose that I should buy it now before it costs me over $120...

Mmm, all his books seem a tad overpriced, compared to what else is available. You could wait till the paperback comes out, or do a sneaky sneaky with 'Search Inside'

FWIW, I have little-to-no intention of getting it at that price.

For example, the introduction says that Britain only had 200 obsolete aircraft against 1,500 operational Italian planes, but the Italian figure is the total for the Regia Aeronautica, not the number of planes that was going to fight the British

Without looking in to it in any great detail, it strikes me that that probably cuts both ways, since the AO for Middle East Command was absolutely immense with a/c scattered across the whole thing.

Regards
Jon

[Jon G.]

I came across this 1994 paper, recently digitalized and made available for the public via the CARL treasure trove:

Comparison of the invasion of Crete and the proposed invasion of Malta By Maj. Steven L. W. Kavanaugh.

The abstract reads thusly:

In 1941, after the conquest of Yugoslavia and Greece, senior German military leaders were considering two airborne operations, one for the invasion of Crete and the other for the invasion of Malta. The invasion of Crete was executed from 20 May to 1 June 1941 with heavy German losses. The invasion of Malta never took place even though the senior military leaders in the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) recommended invading Malta over Crete because of its strategic importance, but were overridden by Adolf Hitler. A year later, while the North Africa campaign was being conducted, another invasion was planned for Malta, but within a few weeks of executing the plan it too was postponed and eventually cancelled. The primary focus of this research is to establish why in 1941 Crete was invaded, but Malta was not. The secondary focus is to establish why one year later a second planned invasion of Malta was rejected and abandoned, and what were the strategic repercussions of not invading Malta. The Axis never captured Malta, and the offensive capability of Malta was never destroyed, thus leading to the defeat of all Axis forces in North Africa.

I haven't read it yet because I just found it, but it looks extremely interesting.

[StuG32118]

The real lost opportunity would have been for the Duce and Hitler to have coordinated a Malta attack say in August 1940, then send a German armored division and maybe 2 infantry divisions before the September attack. At the time Britian only had about 30,000 troops and a few tanks. With this force Egypt would have fallen before the end of 1940, and the Italian navy would control nearly the entire Mediteranian.

[Bronsky]

The real lost opportunity would have been for the Duce and Hitler to have coordinated a Malta attack say in August 1940, then send a German armored division and maybe 2 infantry divisions before the September attack. At the time Britian only had about 30,000 troops and a few tanks. With this force Egypt would have fallen before the end of 1940, and the Italian navy would control nearly the entire Mediteranian.

This ignores political considerations.

Mussolini could probably have planned a knock-out blow against Malta as his opening move, without German assistance. Local defenses were pathetic in June 1940, but the Italians expected that the war would soon be over, so there was no point antagonizing Britain too much and making it want to continue the fight. This is an important consideration when discussing the early Italian moves: Mussolini did *not* think that he was entering a multi-year total war, or he would probably have refrained from joining in the first place.

The second political consideration involved is the fact that in August 1940, it looked to Hitler that Malta was not a decisive battleground (and indeed it wasn't) while there was the possibility that the Luftwaffe could bomb Britain into surrendering (oops). So under these assumptions, it made sense to focus on the Channel rather than on the Mediterranean.

Now assuming that these political considerations could be waved aside, I'm doubtful about the logistics. Redeploying force takes time, and I'd certainly like to see a more precise schedule regarding what would redeploy where and when.

Otherwise, this will look like the "the Italians could have invaded Gilbraltar" thread.