North Africa Axis Question

What do you mean w. another Panzer Division ABWorsham?..I’m curious :-)…The DAK had only 2 Panzer Division on Paper, they were no true PD’s cuz the 21st for example was the former 5th Leichte PD so it had not it full strength and potencial…Hitler Often declared leichte PD’s being full strength and Operational PD’s but most of the time those Division had one Tank Regiment less and/or no Medium Tanks like PIV 's…Hitler did that to fool his enemys and his own Generals maybe :-D…let me know

I understand now where you coming from…
IMO a good established supply route would have help the best way to lead the DAK to victory, but to have a good Supplyroute you need Air protection/superiority and Naval protection/presence…so Malta needs to be taken along w. Gibraltar to eliminate the bigger threats… a Plus for another Fliegerkorpse…but you have to exchange the leader in the headquater as well since he did no pay to much attention to the African theatre… :-D

@i:

i think at most rommle only had 100-150 panzer IIIs or IVs

close call but Rommel had only around a 100 Panzer II, Panzer III and Panzer IV in the 15th & 21st PD together ( Except schwere Versuchsabteilung 501 w Heavy Panzer VI Tiger I tanks). Excluded all Command Tanks and Tankhunters and so on…. 8-)

@ABWorsham:

@aequitas:

What do you mean w. another Panzer Division ABWorsham?..I’m curious :-)…The DAK had only 2 Panzer Division on Paper, they were no true PD’s cuz the 21st for example was the former 5th Leichte PD so it had not it full strength and potencial…Hitler Often declared leichte PD’s being full strength and Operational PD’s but most of the time those Division had one Tank Regiment less and/or no Medium Tanks like PIV 's…Hitler did that to fool his enemys and his own Generals maybe :-D…let me know

I realize that the 21st Panzer, the former 5th Light, was not an original Panzer division. I was trying to make the point that without the ports Benghazi or Tobruk to support his operations no amount of tanks were going to win Rommel Egypt. What good are tanks without fuel, just an immoble blockhouses?

as much as Fighters since they run on fuel as well… :-D

The italians tried 3 times to show their combat skills and it didn’t worked out that well…First time when Italy engaged in the late Phase of the France campaign to “help” Germany out but were not able to defeat the remainings of the france Army near Andorra,
Second Time Mussolini started to crush Greece starting from Albany but failed so Hitler had to turn all his Tanks arround to help brother Mussolini again and of course Africa when Musso tried to defeat the Frenchies starting in Lybia but again resulted in a disaster and Hitler had to aid his comrade again…well like you can now imagine he was some sort of irritated of Mussolini and his fighting skills that this might maybe another reason why Hitler did not pay to much attention to Africa as well and missed out on the opportunity to gain the oilfields in Iran and meet w. Heeresgruppe Sued to finish off the Caucasus the easy way!!..

@aequitas:

The italians tried 3 times to show their combat skills and it didn’t worked out that well…First time when Italy engaged in the late Phase of the France campaign to “help” Germany out but were not able to defeat the remainings of the france Army near Andorra,
Second Time Mussolini started to crush Albany but failed so Hitler had to turn all his Tanks arround to help brother Mussolini again and of course Africa when Musso tried to defeat the Frenchies in Lybia but again resulted in a disaster and Hitler had to aid his corade again…well like you can now imagine he was some sort of irritated of Mussolini and his fighting skills that this might maybe another reason why Hitler did not pay to much attention to Africa as well and missed out on the opportunity to gain the oilfields in Iran and meet w. Heeresgruppe Sued to finish off the Caucasus the easy way!!..

I don’t know, but the french italian fights never reached Andorra? (as it is located on the Spanish/ French border…)  Lybia was already Italian owned, and they attacked the British in Egypt. But that was after France had surrendered.  Also they had already succesfully occupied Albania in April 1939! I think you mean the war againts Greece, in which Germany had to help.  But it is the same conclusion their war efforts didn’t turn out that great…

I modified it, (was in a hurry when I typed it in) you are right w. Lybia and Greece and it was this what I was trying to point out…Since Mussolinis goal was to get to Andorra, I left it as is…should have mentioned that Italys Army was able to cross the Alps and was held off by the remainings of the french Armies…thanks for the reminder Micoom!.. :-)

i wonder what would of happened if italy wasnt so sad in WWII(hope i didnt afend anyone)

This was a tough poll. I really wasn’t sure which really applied, I agree with those who say supply was the key. Rommel could have all the tanks in the world but without fuel and ammo who cares?

The Italian Navy was really the key. The British navy established that it was going to do battle in the Med and not back down no matter what, the Italian’s tried to counter them but after a few painful defeats, and particually after Tarranto and the air attack forced the Italians to move the fleet farther north and away from the action, the Axis in N. Africa were for all practical purposes cut off from the amount of supplies they would need.

The British were willing to risk capital ships to win, the Axis navies seemed adverse to losing ships, but that was the difference in experience.

I agree that the lack of coordination between the Germans and Italians, particually the German Luftwaffe and the Italian navy was unacceptable. When they wanted to get a convoy through, they did. But that dedication was not always present.

An Italian AC would have been a big target that the Brits would have made every effort to take out. You can’t just invent Naval aviation you have to know what you are doing.

Simply put the Italian Navy tried, sort of, to control the Central Med and when it did not come easy they seemed to lose stomach for the fight.

A modern example is the Falklands War of 82. When the Argentinian Navy lost the Belgrano, its big cruiser, to the sub stike, the Navy which had a key part in the plan to defend the Falklands, lost heart and retreated to their home waters. Giving the Brits free run of the battle zone. The Argentinian Air Force did what it could and fought bravely but given the flying distances it had to operate and the lack of coordination between the services they had to deal with, it was not enough.

Germany were too mean to everyone else, should of got more allies in the West, and should of sent rockets at Washington once they entered the war.

@ABWorsham:

Who was going to join an allience with Germany? Spain? An Irish revolution?

I guess, or get relationships in Asia and South America and stuff.

I really don’t think any of the choices would have made a significant difference.  IMO, the best alternative would be for Franco to permit Hitler (as Hitler had requested) overland transport of his troops to take Gibraltar.  This would have closed the western Mediteranian and as such, the allies would have had no significant reason to hold the Malta or the eastern mediteranian.

A reasonable second alternative would have been if the Axis could have convinced Turkey to join them.  Turkish forces, reinforced by the German armaments could have initiated a drive down the Levant in a attempt to close the Suez canal.  Not sure if this would have been sucessful but given the British were hard-pressed to stop Rommel in the West, they wouldn’t have had many reserves to be able defend the east at the same time.

The period of June 1940-June 1941 I call the lost year for the axis based on the utter waste of operations that they undertook.

After finishing off Poland and France as well as many other smaller nations the only thing they did was take Greece and Yugoslavia when the last 10 months before they accomplished alot more.

Hitler never really committed to a Mediterranean strategy as Admiral Raeder recommended, instead relegating that area for Italy to deal with. If he went after Greece early the British would not be as prepared to defend Crete and cost Hitler heavy loses taking that island, of which would have finished off Malta. Having a clear shipping lane to get his army to Africa could have made the difference against England and exposed the entire middle east to Hitler and given him the oil and probably made it possible to postpone his attack against Russia as he had compensation from these conquests.

He might have put pressure on Turkey to have a go against Russia ( old enemies).

This is a tough one, I picked the Italian AC option, but its not that simple. I picked that one to represent not only having the AC, but also for the Italian navy to have a different mind set in general. Had the Italians been of the mindset to have naval avation, and been more agressive after their earlier set backs, it would have been a different ball game, so to speak.

Now the point has been made, but it always bares repeating, the fall of malta is key to a real Italian victory. An Italian AC would, of course, go along way to help the Italians in a victory here as well.

I’m new but have been reading the threads for a while and i choose “another Luftwaffe Fliegerkorps added to the theater” because it would have permitted the German air power to kill the UK convoys and take out Malta. It might of even taken out the USS Wasp or HMS Ark Royal on their missions to bring fighters to Malta which would have altered the course of the war.