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Post by Max Sinister on May 1, 2024 22:27:03 GMT
Currently I'm thinking about how the Axis might have taken the defiant island group. I already feared I might have to study at least half a dozen books, but luckily the first one was already pretty helpful. I'm talking about "Siege: Malta, 1940-1943" from 2003 by Ernle Dusgate Selby Bradford.
Some useful infos I got: - The limestone wasn't just very useful to build stable houses, but for the tunnels as well. And for putting big blocks on free spaces so parachuters won't be able to land on them.
- Pre-war, the fascists had tried to take influence in the country's politics. Italian irredenta and all that.
- Of seven attacking fliers, five were discovered, three attacked, and two shot down. Almost 30% loss rate!
Also, it's important to know: If the Axis has Sidi Barrani, flying from Malta to Egypt becomes impossible for the Allies. Simply too far.
My thoughts: - With enough bombings, the Axis might destroy all planes, airstrips, harbor facilities and whatnot. And all approaching ships. Air supremacy would be essential for an attack on the island after all.
- However, nothing of that will help to make landings any easier. On the first glimpse, one may think "If they Axis could take Crete, much smaller Malta will be a cakewalk" - wrong. The ground is too hard, there are fortifications almost around the whole island, the fields are divided by many small stone walls...
- Starting an earlier round-the-clock bombing might help to starve the island nation (sorry!). If they started it in 1940 or early 1941 instead of 1942, maybe they'll win after a year? Ten months without a big convoy coming in was very hard, to put it mildly: having to eat less than 400 grams of dark bread, even cats; fishing was impossible either due to bombings; diseases like beriberi, ascorbic, Tb, typhoid... in May 1942, they had about 2,000 tons of oil left, which they needed for the wells too! The population had already started to shrink, from 250,000 going down 2,000. Far from Leningrad levels, but still.
So I'm thinking about new approaches: - Maybe it'd help to start at the smaller islands, Gozo, Camino and whatnot? Gozo is the "market garden" of the island, it seems to be the softer target. If the Axis had one Maltese island, they could put artillery there to shoot at the other ones.
- Bashing the WW2 Italian navy is often done, but at least one part of it did something: The Decima Flottiglia Mas. Frogmen, human torpedoes, miniature submarines, explosive motor boats with ejection seats (reminding of kamikaze fliers!)... Maybe they can find a way? IOTL they tried to attack Manoel Island with its submarine base, but Teseo Tesei and Pedretti didn't find the way into it.
- Then there's the wild card of the Abwehr. If they got the right British/Maltese PoW who'd help them to find the one or other weakness... but which one?
One thing is sure: If the Axis starved Malta enough to make them give up, that might be seen as a kind of bad omen for another island nation dependent on food imports.
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Post by Max Sinister on May 1, 2024 22:50:31 GMT
Sorry, forgot another approach: WI the Axis occupied Vichy's Tunisia, for whatever reason (part of a peace, pressure applied, earlier Operation Attila)? Sending convoys to Malta was hard enough when they had to get as close to Tunisia as possible to avoid Sicily. But if they had to run a gauntlet of Sicily AND Tunis, I really don't see a way how convoys might get through.
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stevep
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Post by stevep on May 1, 2024 23:16:38 GMT
It would be far from impossible to starve Malta out, especially if the pressure came earlier as the island was very weakly defended when Italy joined the conflict. The famous 3 Gladiators showed how weak the air defence was and a lot of the ground defences were also a lot weaker as well. This would definitely be easier if the Germans had twisted the French arm enough to get bases in Vichy Tunisia - or possibly given something in return, such as lower reparation charges or releasing some of the POWs they kept throughout the war. This would seem to be the easiest and more secure way of capturing the island. Plus it could possibly do a fair bit of damage to the RN when trying to supply it. [Although an early fall of Malta would relieve the RN of such a costly and difficult task so its likely it would reduce the burden on the RN in later years by a considerable amount].
An invasion would be more risky, again unless it was done very soon after June 1940 although it seemed neither Mussolini nor Hitler were that serious about such an attack until at least a year or two later and by that time the German para/airborne forces were greatly weakened by the losses in Crete and the invasion of the USSR consumed so many resources. Possibly a successful invasion of Gozo as you say if that could be used as a base for attacking the main island would have helped although were there facilities on Gozo that would have supported such operations?
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575
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Post by 575 on May 2, 2024 19:34:31 GMT
The Italians had very little numbers to do an early go at Malta - 3 Para battalions and a couple of Marines or so.
The Germans had the Para's and Airlanding badly mauled in Netherlands though the Para's did fight on in France.
Starving out the islanders with more aggressive Italian Navy (?) or descending on Tunesia early on to cut the Med in East and West would probably be a better option but Hitler thought he might get something out of Vichy by treating them nice.
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Post by Max Sinister on May 4, 2024 0:57:23 GMT
It would be a horrible waste to attack Malta with 70,000 soldiers as some have suggested. Especially as that may remove the threat for supply ships for good, but won't make the North African harbors any bigger - and that was the lynchpin after all. This fellow has written an interesting-looking TL where the Axis land on the smaller island of Gozo first. |
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Post by Max Sinister on May 9, 2024 0:30:51 GMT
Now I've gone through several books and thought about these possibilities: - The Axis might win if they were so lucky to destroy the only tanker in the convoy. Malta is lacking water, so they need wells - but to power them, they need fuel, which also was scarce. - The really big convoys (think June and August 1942) only had a chance during the time when the Arctic sun was up, so they'd need fewer ships up there. Also, before Midway or its equivalent, sparing the necessary ships would be harder. - (Edit:) The ever-popular heart attacks as PoDs: Would lesser commanders than Cunningham and Gort have done as well as they did?
Of course, that's again many coincidences. |
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Post by Max Sinister on May 11, 2024 21:26:06 GMT
Now I'm pretty sure that the earlier the Axis attacks the island, the bigger their chances will be. But then there's the question: If starving Malta is the only way to win, how long would that take? IOTL they managed to (barely) hold out during ten months without a convoy. But if the Axis had attacked one year earlier - would the Maltese rather have lasted longer (because they're still healthier and had to suffer less) or shorter (because they are less accustomed to it)? I rather guess the former...
For comparison: Operation Halberd happened in 9/41 IOTL. In April 1942, they had to ration even basic food like rice, pasta and tomato sauce, and slaughter most livestock. In June, they ran out of fuel for heating homes and cooking, so they had to chop off all trees and birn their furniture. In August, Operation Pedestal was a success, but definitely not too late.
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nomommsen
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Post by nomommsen on May 12, 2024 0:35:55 GMT
"The earlier the easier." With that in mind I would regard another approach aöso feasible. A combined land-sea landing on Malta but ... why always lookibng only at the sites determined IOTL for the 1942 action? There are some nice and swallow and for smaller crafts well accesable beaches in the northern parts of Malta: 1. The bay named "Il-Baja tal-Ghadira north of Melliha. Fromkthere runs a nicely flat strip of land almost straight to the west. ... flat enough for gliders or even some Tante Ju (if a few parachuters might have cleared whjatever small stonewalls there might be between the fileds) 2. there's the St.Pauls Bay a wee bit more southernly (Ir-Ramla tal-Pwales) which has a similar flat land strip extending to the west as mentioned above. Not to forget that San Pawl il-Bahar could also serve as a first port of supply at least for small, flat running trawlers or other ships. It served as the british harbour during their fights against the french in late 18th century. 3. South of said city there's a plateau that could be similarly 'prepared' to serve as a filed land strip as mentioned above. In summer/autumn 194 as well as early 1941 the british garrison as well as its air arm was rather ... managable for a more dedicated an ital-german air-fleet(Group or however you might call such a formation stationed on Sicily. Air-superiority in this time frame was IMHOrather well achievable with the effect of keeping down any possible countering by the then even smaller british complement of forces there. Even with the rather small harbours given it won't take too much time to land troops well outnumbering the british From San Pawl il-Bahar southwards would be a 'well known' land action methjodically advancing towards southern Malta with its 'centers'. Thuis might result in some siege of said harbours and installations but ... the british command would have to prioritize and therewith 'open up at least St-George harbour at the southern end making support of the landing troops even easier. With Sicily 'near enough' any attempt of relief by convoy would be a 'welcomed' prey. ... aside probably not being availabe in sufficient strenght and time.
... there was somewhere (not here) a rather detailed account of what bristish troops were on the isle at what point of time ... ... can't find it ...
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stevep
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Post by stevep on May 12, 2024 14:11:14 GMT
I would agree that the sooner the better for the Axis but I see two problems.
a) The issue of timing, It needs the Axis leaders to decide that Malta is important. However both thought that after the fall of France the war was all but over. Once Hitler realised Britain wouldn't make peace he was fixated on forcing Britain to surrender by a direct attack, either by winning the Battle of Britain or if necessary following that up with an invasion. After that failed, Hitler was obsessed with Barbarossa with a secondary aim to help Mussolini out and secure his southern flank by controlling the Balkans and also in Libya after the collapse of the Italian position there. Possibly instead of Rommel going to Libya - especially if the Germans realised that Britain had dropped the ball 1st by switching forces to E Africa and then also Greece - some of those forces could be allocated to an invasion of Malta. Although given the Italian losses at Taranto this might need a lot more Luftwaffe than Hitler felt like sparing?
Similarly Mussolini could probably have occupied Malta fairly easily given its lack of defence in 1940, especially since initially there was some interest in coming under Italian rule although that ended fairly quickly with the Italian bombing of the island hitting civilian targets. However he was fixated with his grand offensives in N Africa and against Greece. That is probably the best option for Italy to do an early invasion on their own. Before the island had any real defence.
b) After 1940 I think it would have needed German support but that would have been unlikely before Operation Compass and the defeats in Greece gave Mussolini an outbreak of reality. Until then not only did the Germans not want to get involved but Mussolini saw the Med area as his region for expansion and glory and would have opposed any ideas that Italy needed German support.
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nomommsen
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Post by nomommsen on May 12, 2024 19:50:01 GMT
... a) The issue of timing, It needs the Axis leaders to decide that Malta is important. However both thought that after the fall of France the war was all but over. Once Hitler realised Britain wouldn't make peace he was fixated on forcing Britain to surrender by a direct attack, either by winning the Battle of Britain or if necessary following that up with an invasion. After that failed, Hitler was obsessed with Barbarossa with a secondary aim to help Mussolini out and secure his southern flank by controlling the Balkans and also in Libya after the collapse of the Italian position there. ... ... However he was fixated with his grand offensives in N Africa and against Greece. That is probably the best option for Italy to do an early invasion on their own. Before the island had any real defence. ...
... that's the 'beauty' of alternate history: the 'main actors' may have some change(s) of mind to fit the authors narrative  (esp if you have actors known for ... 'sudden inspiritations' like AH and Musso)
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