Suppose the Axis won in North Africa and controlled the Suez canal...

A strategy is your goal "We are going to encircle the enemy whilst maintaining a consistent flow of supplies"
Tactics revolve more around "Okay we are going to breakthrough the central defense and exploit the holes made from the breakthrough, encircling smaller groups"
That's how my teacher used to explain it, at least.

Tactics happen today, strategy happens tomorrow

>We'll just stroll on through a Soviet force already occupying Iran as of July 1941 that outnumbers the Afrika corps 3:1 in the mountains. It'll be easy!

I mean prior to a German invasion of the USSR. If they had launched an invasion of North Africa and the Middle East in the summer of 1941.

Tactics are little steps, strategy is big step. If you are climbing up a mountain, strategy is the path you decide to take and tactics what rock you will grab onto.

>I mean prior to a German invasion of the USSR. If they had launched an invasion of North Africa and the Middle East in the summer of 1941.
Rommel only arrived in Africa in February of 1941. Battles, even easy battles like Sonnenblume, could and did take months.

If you want to get to the Zagros before the Soviets, you would need to chase the Brits out of Cyrenica, push them out of eastern Libya (those two alone took Rommel over a year), then go on to do what he historically couldn't: Kick the British out of Egypt proper, forge on into Palestine, across the Syrian desert, invade Iraq, and then attack through Iran, all in the space of about 6 months. The idea is idiotic.

Not to mention the absolute hell that would be logistics for the Jerries.

That would involve Germans not being retarded though

...

Do it again hitler

Probably.

But that assumption is unrealistic af. Germany is a central european country with limited access to the sea, a decent but not top navy power and no access to the Med. It's naturally wired for continental war with direct neighbours, not forpower projection over distant theatres. Even though the conquest of Greece and the Balkans gave them a nice strategic platform to project over the East Med, they lacked the means and above all the mentality to do that.

The Afrika Korps consisted of just 1 Panzerdiv and a couple of Mech. Infantry div. That's it. That was all the forces Germany could project and logistically support in a distant theatre -and even that was complicated to do- meanwhile the British could deploy and support large forces almost anywhere in the world.

There's no way Germany could have deployed enough forces to overran Egypt and the Middle East.

I watched an interview with Albert Speer the other day.
He actually saud the german industry would have eventually in 1946.
Not by the lack of oil or rubber but chrome.
The biggest deposits of which lie in terretories of the United Kingdom (South Africa and India) and the USSR (Kazaksthan)

*[...]eventually collapsed

Obligatory PDF for every "what if Rommel did X" thread
dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a348413.pdf

Forgetting about overrunning the middle-east. If Axis took the Suez Canal then that makes only one place British ships can enter the Mediterranean, and blocking that point too would prevent any sort of invasion from the south. No more soft under-belly of the axis that can be exploited.

What about Italy?

There was no rubber and hardly any oil on the other side of the Mediterranean.

Controlling the Suez means that Axis ships can bring supplies from the far east. While the allies would have had to go around Africa.

>Controlling the Suez means that Axis ships can bring supplies from the far east. While the allies would have had to go around Africa.
This is bad even for a Veeky Forums post. I sincerely hope you are trolling.

The idea is not mine originally, I read about it in one of those "What If" books. The author reckoned that if the Germans launched a massive invasion of North Africa and the Middle East in the summer of 1941, it would put them on the Soviet Union's southern border so that when they decided to declare war on them, they would be able to quickly seize their oil fields.

Author reckoned it was the best way they could have won the war against the USSR.

No, it means they can get out of the Mediterranean. Without actual cargo ships capable of making the journey, without suppressing or eliminating British bases between Suez and their resources like Aden, Bombay, Male, Trincomolee, etc, they can't send them, at least not safely. It won't change the fact that the Middle-East wasn't the colossal oil producer it became later, and that places that produce rubber are even further away; and they're all under British control, so you'd need another campaign, probably with amphibious invasions (with what landing craft?) to secure them

Plus, the Allies went around Africa as long as Italy was in the war for trade from places like Australia, Malaya, and India. Shipments through the Med were always to outposts in the Med itself.

>Axis ships can bring supplies from the far east

user, if this is a sincere comment, its so naive its precious

Your author is either colossally misinformed or just wanking. I mean hell, Rommel couldn't supply the troops he had, which is why he left so many of them behind in Tripoli when he went on his offensives. How are you going to give him more without magicking a railroad or some extra ports into existence? And that doesn't even go into the fact that seriously, the British and Soviets overran all that part of the world, not long after historical Barbarossa. You can look it up on wikipedia for god's sake.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Soviet_invasion_of_Iran

Who wrote this nonsense?

>launching an offensive through Iraq, Syria, northern Iran and the Caucasus when you cant even get enough supplies to Africa for three divisions to reach the canal.

Is there any place in Africa that has Rubber that the Axis could have gotten to without amphibious invasions, assuming they controlled the Mediterranean?

No. Even if Rommel miraculously had conquered the entirety of Africa, it would've been impossible to supply the fuel and rubber needs of the axis, as there was no way to secure those territories, supply them, or export extracted resources from them.

Hmm, if the Axis did control the Mediterranean, the allies could have landed troops in Morocco, no?

Why would that have given the Italian Navy control of the Mediterranean or given the Axis access to oil and rubber?

this

You mean like they did historically? Yes. It's also one of the reasons that El Alamein is somewhat overstated as a battle; even if Rommel somehow won, it's strategic effects would have been snatched away by the landings there.

>What about Italy?
>Italians succeeding at anything

I can't recall the name of the book, but it's called something like "Alternate scenarios in WW2" and they sell it in Waterstones (UK).

>And that doesn't even go into the fact that seriously, the British and Soviets overran all that part of the world, not long after historical Barbarossa. You can look it up on wikipedia for god's sake.

Well, I suppose the hypothetical invasion is based on the premise that an invasion of the Middle East would occur before German-Soviet hostilities. Stalin believed that Hitler wouldn't break the non-aggression pact until he had defeated Britain.

Why was Italy so terrible anyways?

That's what happens when Medshits are sent to fight wars

Absolute dog shit tier militar hierarchy based of old farts and people who knew fuckall about war, italian soldiers did as well as any others under german commanders but italian officers have always been dogshit with very few exceptions if any

Explain the spanish then

>all of europe and north africa under the leadership of Comrade Stalin

feels good man

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No Loogi

When was the last time the Spanish won a war?

There were more than 3 divisions though, Italian X and XX Corps also need to be supplied
Against themselves in 1939

Nevermind, I found the book:
amazon.com/Allies-Had-Fallen-Alternate-Scenarios/dp/1616085460

The topic is discussed in Chapter 8, Part A. This part is written by a guy named Harold Deutsch.

I can't get a preview of that section although in another section I can get a preview of it does mention it:

"Although direct German invasion of the British Isles was thwarted in 1940 and would probably have been unlikely in 1941, a broad German thrust through the Balkans into the Middle East (an expanded Mediterranean strategy) in time could have brought Britain to its knees. Such an outcome would have cleared Germany's southern flank and rear and permitted German military planners to adhere to their schedule for an invasion of the Soviet Union in May of 1942 or 1943.

Same can be said about Germany, we're talking in a ww2 context here and Hitler both avoided intervening too much on Spanish affairs on fear having to deal with a guerilla war against the people who invented it aswell as later on being happy that the spanish blue division was fighting alongside the germans despite their lack of discipline

Well, I haven't read the book, and I've never heard of this author, so I can't say much more than I've already said.

The one thing I would point out is that even in this (in my amateur opinion, ridiculously optimistic) scenario, he's positing an invasion a year or two later. Take a quick peek at Soviet military production in 1942, nevermind 1943. Attacking them then would be a very different task than attacking in 1941.

Plus, with that kind of long timetable, you have to start worrying about all kinds of other things; a Torch campaign, the expansion of the strategic bombing war, Staling cutting off trade relations in the meantime, and yes, historical Anglo- invasions of the places that you're hoping to campaign through, making this short easy thrust to Baku anything but.

I'd also be interested in seeing how he thinks that the Germans could have expanded operations in the MTO. The big limiting factor was transport, and the lack of infrastructure in Libya isn't one that is going to go away from greater commitment to the theater.

>Against themselves
The Germans won that war for the Spanish though

Franco could have probably won without outside intervention on either side though, right?

Probably not unsupported against the Soviet/French/American Pinko backed Republicans though.

>96 aircraft and some Pz. I's won the war
Bit of an exaggeration

>Franco could have probably won without outside intervention on either side though, right?

Highly unlikely, at the outbreak of the civil war the navy (although some of its officers did try) remained wholly loyal to the government in Madrid.

The Army of Africa was one of the best trained and equipped forces the Spanish Army had at the time and of they composed roughly a 1/3 of all non conscript men who initially joined the Nationalist coup.

Accordingly at the outbreak of the coup they were stuck along with Franco in Canary Islands. To get around this the British via MI 6 flew franco back to the mainland and the German Air force and Italian Navy transported the rest (as well as later recruits from Morocco)

Add to this they would effectively have no air force and things get much grimmer.

A better chance sure. But I think you may overestimate the advantages. The British would still be in control of the straits of gibraltar, so they could still contest the Med. Also where would this rubber have to come from? The japs didn't capture the British, Dutch and French colonies untill early 1942. By which point the US had already entered the war. so any rubber trade from south-east asia to the med would be short-lived. And the oil production in the middle east wasn't that huge at that point. Only Iraq and Iran had sources of real significance. and untill 1941 oil wasn't that huge of a problem for Germany because of the trade with the USSR, and after the invasion of the USSR any attempt to get oil from Iraq and Iran, either through trade of conquest would be heavily contested byt the Soviets. The Axis would be in a better position, But not hugely so.

Simply put tactics are ways individuals, untis, platoons and divisions operate. Throwing a grenade into a room before entering is a tactic. Having your infantry move up behind tanks is tactics. Using bombers to provide ground support is a tactic. Strategy concerns large scale battle plans and sometimes an entire method of war. The Schlieffen plan (circumventig the French defences on the German border by going to Belgium and possibly the Netherlands) is strategy. Bombing German industrial regions to disrupt their war effort is strategy. And trying to maintain a fleet more powerfull then the next two most powerfull fleets combined is also strategy.

Soviets where the only one who provided significant aid to the republicans. But I would probaly have to agree.

Loogi would've known what to do. Badoglio was a fucking hack