Question. Could the UK defend itself against a France-Germany-Italy Axis without the help of the USA?

Question. Could the UK defend itself against a France-Germany-Italy Axis without the help of the USA?

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea_Lion_(wargame)
39-45.org/alainadam/SEELOWE/home force sept 40.pdf
mr-home.staff.shef.ac.uk/hobbies/seelowe.txt
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea_Lion#Chances_of_success
sci-hub.la/10.1080/13518040590914136
dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a348413.pdf
dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a220715.pdf
jmss.org/jmss/index.php/jmss/article/view/236/251
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

Someone’s been playing hoi4 lately :^)

Which year?

Long term or short term?

...

Ai

1940

Both

What year and for how long?

We're posting pointless spin-off boards that we didn't need when Veeky Forums was good, right?

You need to define era for us to be able to give any kind of decent answer.

Although there was a wargames a few years back, a few surviving British and German generals from the second world war getting together and going over the offensive and defensive plans relating to Operation Sea Lion, the invasion of Britain across the channel.

Their conclusion, assuming ideal conditions for the Germans, was that the invading forces would have never reached London, there were just too many layers of entrenched and hidden defences the Germans weren't aware of that would have slowed their advance for too long, letting the Royal Navy retake the channel and cut off their supply lines.

It'd be unlikely they would be invaded. France, Germany, and Italy all lacked the kind of naval landing forces required for that kind if operation and probably wouldn't have it ready for a couple of years. However, without USA's help, England would have a high risk of being starved out through a prolonged blockade. Provided of course, that the Italians could unfuck their leadership long enough to get their navy to actually contribute.

The important detail is if the Soviets are in the war. If they are, even with France helping Germany and Italy, they would eventually be ground down by the Soviets and that would eat up a ton of troops and material needed to knock out Britain.

No.
There is a reason why Brits sunk French fleet as soon as French capitulation happend.

That isn't the reason. And it's not like the fleet at Toulon can be getting out of the Mediterranean as long as the Brits hold Gibraltar.

Depends on how do you look at it and what year it is. But assuming it's the most plausable time ('40, follow-up to Dunkirk), Brits are fucked. This also assumes French Navy is seized by Kriegsmarine or simply cooperates on its own. Up until late '41, Brits would have a really hard time defending their own island, assuming anyone would manage to land there. And this isn't really that hard if you combine amphibious assault with para-drop.
The real problem here is about distribution of forces. Germans spend most of the time after fall of France on mustering troops for Barbarossa. They would have to completely change focus of their military plans to even consider Seelowe for real. Then comes the problem with Soviets preparing themselves to invade Germany (Barbarossa pretty much intercepted Soviet invasion plans by roughtly 2-3 months), so assuming Germans are busy in/with Britain, there is a lot of opportunities on Soviet border going.
And then of course is Yugoslavia, Geece and North Africa, too.

tl;dr it's a feasible scenario, as long as you remember about exposing your flank on Soviet border.

Britain couldn't have been taken but they might have been starved out. It's also possible that the Germans could've developed the nuke first if the Americans weren't looking into it.

I'm curious about how you reach your conclusions. Have you seen en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea_Lion_(wargame) before, and what about your assessment differs from theirs?

Ever occured to you that the reason why Brits were capable of keeping Gibraltar (and Malta, too) was lack of ships IN Med and inability to send ships from OUTSIDE Med? In other words: both of those places could be easily knocked out of the picture in case of more than just Regia Marina being a threat to Royal Navy in Med. Which Brits were fully aware of and really paranoid about, thus first attack on Mers-el-Kebir and then strong aggitation for Toulon self-scutteling.
There is also the even more paranoid option that Franco would simply let German troops in. In such case, Gibraltar is out of picture within hours.

>Geece
Heh. And the Italians really fucked that one up.

The answer is: Yes, if the plan is still to preempt a Soviet attack. It's not the US that saved England. It was the looming Stalin threat. Hitler attacked because he feared that the Soviet Union would close the advantage the 3rd Reich had in a few years.
If however the Soviets are not a threat, then not even the USA could save England, especially if there's a sufficient supply of oil. The bridgehead is too far away from the US and too close to continental Europe. A lost cause.

>Ever occured to you that the reason why Brits were capable of keeping Gibraltar (and Malta, too) was lack of ships IN Med and inability to send ships from OUTSIDE Med?
No, beause that's retarded as all fuck. Amphibious invasions require a hell of a lot more than just having ships to sail up to your opponent's port and then get sunk by mines, coastal batteries, and whatever aircraft they have lying around.

Not to mention that the Regia Maria was considerably bigger and better gunned than the Kriegsmarine.

> both of those places could be easily knocked out of the picture in case of more than just Regia Marina being a threat to Royal Navy in Med.
No, they couldn't. They couldn't even openly approach Gibraltar, and Malta was held under siege for almost 2 and a half years.

>There is also the even more paranoid option that Franco would simply let German troops in.
Yes, Franco is going to actually ACT to turn himself into a puppet by inviting a couple of hundred thousand Germans in that he can't make leave again. It's certainly a paranoid sounding delusion all right.

>I'm curious about how you reach your conclusions
Which one? About Brits being unable to defend their island in case of invasion happening? Or the date where invasion could be stopped or at least contained in any way or form?
Because it's pretty simple. The more time since Dunkirk, the more guns and vehicles build anew and more planes developed, all even without land-lease. The closer till Barbarossa, the less interested Germany is, along with simply not having enough troops and resources to do both fronts at the same time (Soviet Union really is huge). By summer '41 the invasion would be highly unlikely and by autumn it would be simply impossible.

And sorry, never heard about the game.

Why would France join the Axis?

Not him, but I'm pretty sure the one about the Brits being unable to stop a Sealion even in 1940, why you think the British would have a "Hard time defending their own island", considering they had considerable forces there and the paltry state of the German sealift capacity.

Consider how the overwhelming transport capcity of the combined English and American navies could only lift about 9 divisions by sea for D-Day. The Germans have a hell of a lot less, they'd be lucky to lift one, maybe two.

The British have well, you can see for yourself as of September 1940. 39-45.org/alainadam/SEELOWE/home force sept 40.pdf

It's hard to see how any force that does manage to land doesn't just get dogpiled on the beaches.

>Amphibious invasions
I never specified invasion, especially since naval invasion in case of Gibraltar isn't even possible to begin with. But what's much more possible is continous bombing campaign combined with naval blocade and shore bombardment. Those are, after all, VERY small and very isolated targets. You can get rid of them by forcing capitulation OR turning them into pile of rubble.

And you can always join the war, get some retarded pieces of colonial garbage guaranteed and Gibraltar returning as "Spanish clay". Something that was planned for most of '41 and didn't come into existence solely because suddenly Gibraltar stopped being important due to a lot more resistance than expected in Soviet Union.

> This also assumes French Navy is seized by Kriegsmarine

We sank it.

For anyone curious, beyond the wikipedia article, this is the full log of the wargame that was conducted in the seventies using the plans from both sides and surviving officers- mr-home.staff.shef.ac.uk/hobbies/seelowe.txt

> But what's much more possible is continous bombing campaign combined with naval blocade and shore bombardment. Those are, after all, VERY small and very isolated targets. You can get rid of them by forcing capitulation OR turning them into pile of rubble.
Except of course, that no position in the history of WW2 was reduced to inoperability by such. I mean, after all, Malta WAS bombed for years and kept sending out raiders. And you don't even have any fighters that can reach from your airbases to Gibraltar, so any bombers you send will be going in unprotected and probably get slaughtered.

>And you can always join the war, get some retarded pieces of colonial garbage guaranteed and Gibraltar returning as "Spanish clay".
Why is Franco so stupid that he's going to be suddenly unable to see that letting the Germans have a military presence inside his country turns him into a complete vassal of Germany, something he very much does not want? What can you possibly offer him in the way of territorial concessions that will mean a damn when he knows that signing this pact means that Hitler can depose him more or less at will?

If France is actively participating on the Axis side, Britain and Russia are both fucked.

I'm curious as to how a single wave of transports managed to push in 90,000 men. That's roughly 3/5 the size of the D-Day landings, and the Germans most definitely did not have 60% of the transport capacity used in those

>British win in a British wargame

Wow, who could have predicted that!?

Perhaps, but you'd have to use the frenchies only as infantry..their tanks were well armored but had garbage guns and mobility of an actual bunker.

Yes. The attackers do not have the fleet needed to invade the UK and the RAF defeated Germany in the Battle of Britain. In addition, the UK had many defences, pillboxes, defences ditches and the like which were being mass produced. The UK was not short on manpower but equipment. The country would survive starvation for a few years on its own and could hold out the invasion in 1940. If Germany invaded the Soviets, then the pressure would be of the UK and while it would not be able to counter-attack, it would survive. Remember, all the while this is going on, the UK and the Commonwealth were happily repelling Germany and Italy in North Africa before the US got involved. Remember, even without the US, the UK has the Commonwealth so if Britain can hold out a couple of years (which it can), the Commonwealth will be able to put pressure on other fronts. Without the US, the war will just be longer and might end differently, but the UK is not lost.

>considering they had considerable forces
Armed with WW1 stock and older, with almost no artillery and tanks.
The problem at hand is two-fold. On one hand, it's the super-desperate situation of British army right after evacuation, since it was underequipped and undersupplied. On the other hand, it's complete inability of Germans on their own to even TRY to land, not with both Royal Navy and RAF still operational.
So to even consider Seelowe, you would have to win Battle of England (perfectly doable, since it was lost by Germans due to openly stupid tactical decisions, not insufficient forces or some sort of British superiority in any field) and get French navy, or at least French ships, as cover for invading forces.
Once said forces land, it's pretty much game over. But they would have to land first, and that's the part that would be problematic. Technically you can consider para-drop to seize any given port and then just use all your naval forces to stall for time while you are shipping troops over Channel, but that would require an excessive coordination and concentration of troops, meaning in total a massive gambit that could go wrong on many different levels

Tl;dr Seelowe is possible, but highly unlikely to be successful as a landing operation. Any time past spring '41 is too late to even bother, any time before would require a lot of things that got fucked IRL going smooth for Germans.

I am British and lose almost every 40K game.

It was held in Britain, but it had both sides working together on keeping things fair and evaluating the result.

From wikipedia, it's assumed they were pressing any potential vessel that could carry troops into service, rather than just using dedicated troops transports, including civilian shipping vessels.

The French had some great tanks that were hampered by doctrine. And assuming this lasts longer than a few months, they can start producing new designs.

You sank shit. French scuttled it themselves. All Mers-el-Kebir did was showing how great of "ally" Brits are, a bunch of people getting killed and single battleship down.
French navy scutteling ships in Toulon achieved much more and nobody died in the process.

The real game changer here is French Navy, and even more importantly, free access to French resources for German industry. Even if traded for, that's still easier and better than just overpaying Stalin between 38 till mid 40 or being constantly hapered by shortages. The actual use of manpower or any type of French army would be mostly meaningless when compared with unhampered access to resources and simple cooperation

>it's assumed they were pressing any potential vessel that could carry troops into service, rather than just using dedicated troops transports, including civilian shipping vessels.
Which, if you think about it, was how those things were done by pretty much anyone until late into the war.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sea_Lion#Chances_of_success

Relevant

Yeah, it's a pretty reasonable assumption, but that was the basis for their estimation of their transport capacity.

>(Barbarossa pretty much intercepted Soviet invasion plans by roughtly 2-3 months)

From what I recall, all the historic research firmly points towards Stalin expecting the treaty to hold at that point, with him not having any plans to invade within that time period.
He might've tried it a couple of years down the line, yeah, but not at that point in time.

Literally no. Germany can't hope to compete with the Royal Navy. Operation Sea Lion was planned with fucking river barges. Even if they achieve total air supremacy (which they wouldn't) they'd never make it across the channel with enough men and materiel to make meaningful gains.

>All Mers-el-Kebir did was showing how great of "ally" Brits are
>Surrender the moment Paris is threatened
>Refuse to sail your ships into British or even neutral American ports to prevent the people you're surrendering too from tripling the size of their fleet overnight
>WAAAAAAAAAAH EVIL ANGLO ATTACKED INNOCENT FROGS ;___;

The Vichy commander was even given the option up until the last moment before the guns fired to just surrender his ships, he chose to let his sailors get needlessly shelled.

Expecting an ally you have betrayed by not only surrendering to, but also collaborating with the enemy to also allow you to hand over a huge amount of military hardware to said enemy is ludicrous. In making this accusation, I can only assume you're a child who gets his historical knowledge from History channel """documentaries""" with lots of footage of explosions and an excited American narrating everything to make it sound like a Michael Bay movie.

The reality is that for all claims that the Vichy French never planned to hand over their fleet, from a British perspective it looked like that was exactly what they were planning to do, the assumption being they'd use it to negotiate for benefits from the Germans, and the British military, not being clairvoyants, acted on what they saw.

>Armed with WW1 stock and older, with almost no artillery and tanks.
bullshit. Please provide a source. I would like an explanation as to how armored divisions don't have tanks.

>So to even consider Seelowe, you would have to win Battle of England (perfectly doable, since it was lost by Germans due to openly stupid tactical decisions,
This is also wrong. British fighter strength went UP every month of the Battle of Britain. They build more planes, trained more pilots than the Germans did. They also have the immense home field advantages in the form of better pilot recovery and shorter flight time, which is very important considering the meager fuel tanks of 1940 front line fighters. And you need COLOSSAL amounts of aerial bombardment to weaken a nation in WW2, far more than the Luftwaffe was capable of delivering. See pic related for how much the allies dropped on Germany, which failed to either force a surrender or even keep their war economy from working.

>and get French navy, or at least French ships, as cover for invading forces.
And when they all sink on minefields in the strait of Gibraltar?

>Once said forces land, it's pretty much game over
No it isn't you idiot. The British hold 26 divisions. The Germans can land 1, maybe 2 at the most. In real life, with complete command of the sea and sky and almost unlimited sealift to work with, it took the Allies almost 2 months to go from "landing on the beaches" to "ready to break out". It will take the Germans longer, because the local odds are much worse, and they do not have unconstested control of the sea and sky. They'll be lucky not to be stomped on the beaches.
1/2

>with him not having any plans to invade within that time period.
And supply dumps and stockpiles all over Soviet border that Germans were all too eager to seize were just decoys, right?
Said above, the "official" Soviet plans were for spring '42, late April/early May, BUT that was assuming Germans themselves did something stupid and didn't have their forces concentrated on the border, thus making it an attack of opportunity. Otherwise, no plans for attack.

>. Technically you can consider para-drop to seize any given port and then just use all your naval forces to stall for time while you are shipping troops over Channel, but that would require an excessive coordination and concentration of troops, meaning in total a massive gambit that could go wrong on many different levels
Technically, you have to land your ONE division of paratroops, hope they don't get shot down, hope they don't land too dispersed to be able to be effective, and then engage in a city combat (name a city combat in WW2 over in less than a week), while the British apparently sit around with their thumbs up their asses and don't reinforce wherever you attacked, and do all of this without the defenders wrecking the port before losing. You know, like they would go on to do in places like North Africa when Rommel swept through.

tl;dr. Seelowe is not possible short of magic. To even consider this requires either colossal ignorance of WW2 combat, advanced wehrabooism, or just fucking idiocy. I'm not sure which applies to you.

>Veeky Forums - Traditional Games

>From wikipedia, it's assumed they were pressing any potential vessel that could carry troops into service, rather than just using dedicated troops transports, including civilian shipping vessels.
Oh, the "unpowered river barges" thing. Do they explain how they don't get sunk by a passing torpedo boat's spraying water in its wake while moving to fire on whatever ship is towing them?

Read this. sci-hub.la/10.1080/13518040590914136 Or better yet, Stumbling Colossus. Also, the Soviets kept forward supply dumps on the border with Manchuria all throughout the 30s and 40s. That's why you needed to have the Americans pressuring them to attack the Japanese, they were so clearly planning to attack.

>I know jack-shit about surrendering navy: The Post
French Navy was sure Germans will allow them to just surrender with honours (which they fucking did). The fucking surrender treaty guaranteed that.
Also, that attack happend before Vichy France was even formed, you absolute idiot.

So like he said, all that operation achieved was reminding French why they they disliked Brits. Something that both Vichy government and Germans themselves used extensively for propaganda purposes. And let's not forget this lead to diplomatic isolation of Vichy France (since it break relations with Britain, and thus in the process - all Allies), making it all that easier to use it for Germans.
Nice job, Nigel!

Seelowe wasn't happening. Ever. The Luftwaffe lost the Battle of Britain (and no not because big dumb Hitler had them switch to bombing London), so no air superiority. The Kreigsmarine and French Fleet combined aren't competing with the Royal Navy, and are certainly not going to be able to establish the kind of local supremacy needed for a large amphibious invasion. Even without direct US support the Brits are going to be able to supply themselves indefinitely from the colonies.

Why don't you just use your mod powers to delete the thread?

As part of the wargame, a good many of them do get sunk. It's actually an interesting read.

>Didn't read the post
>Doesn't know anything about the subject
>Still tried to argue

>The Kreigsmarine and French Fleet combined aren't competing with the Royal Navy
The year is '40, Nigel. They are competing pretty well, especially since half of Royal Navy is at this point in Asian colonies.
And Japs would have time of their life if it was removed from there.

>Post stupid shit that jumps to conclusions not even suggested or implied
>Surprised people don't even bother with said post

>surrender with honor
>to Nazi Germany
>who will most assuredly uphold the terms of their treaty, because Nazi Germany is well-known for honoring treaties
This is a meme right?

No, they aren't. The Kreigsmarine was hilariously incompetent. For reference, see how they managed to lose 1/3 of their entire surface navy attacking fucking Norway.

Is war not the most traditional game of all?

If you would check actual data rather than posting memes yourself, you would realise they've sticked to the letter of 2nd Compiegne as long as Vichy government was sticking to it too.
Amazing, right?

>They are competing pretty well, especially since half of Royal Navy is at this point in Asian colonies.
Yes, the Home fleet's Ark Royal, Furious, Illustrious, Argus, Eagle Hood, Nelson, Resolution, Revenge, Warspite, Barham, Malaya, Ramilles, Renown, Repulse, ROdney, Royal Sovereign, Valiant, Edinburgh, Fiji, Manchester, Norfolk, Southhampton, Belfast, Birmingham, Berwick, Cornwall, Cumberland, Devonshire, Dorsetshire, Exeter, Glasgow, Gloucester, Newcastle, Sheffield, Sussex, and York is MATCHED by the, oh wait, they only had 1 light carrier, 0 battleships, and 10 cruisers of all weights out in the Asian colonies.

Do you have a historical knowledge problem, or a counting problem?

>B-but they were inefficient!

Is Veeky Forums really so ignorant of the historical consensus? Fuck, even most of the German military at the time didn't believe they could actually do it.

How is this moving goalposts? The Kreigsmarine was demonstrably trash. They weren't in a position toncompete with the Royal Navy. Being inefficient is a pretty big strike against you when you absolutely need local supremacy to launch any kind of invasion

>the Kreigsmarine can beat the Royal Navy
>nope, and here's an example of it taking extreme losses to a vastly weaker nation which should give you an idea of how well it would fare against an actually prepared and experienced enemy
>nuh uh, you're moving the goalposts (by directly responding to the argument and providing evidence to the contrary..?)

Ok user

Don't you know that Veeky Forums just fucking loves alt!his settings that are entirely based on utter ignorance of facts?

Not him, but for local navy superiority all you need is air superiority and large SAG. Even if your doctrine is shit and your officers incompetent, your numbers alone means the other side can't just engage you with better tactics alone - they need to bring their own navy and in the same time try to intercept invading forces.
And since OP asked for German-Franco-Italian Axis, you've got (on paper) an equal naval force. Doesn't matter it's outdated and/or badly commanded, because there are still ships on sea

Did Germany really do everything they could to protect the coast from D-Day? I've seen some sources claim otherwise.

France had a fuckhuge navy which would've probably dominated the mediterranean with Italys help. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the north african war will be won by the axis. What this could lead to would be interesting.

The battle of Britain will be won by the axis in the short term but lost in the long term.

Operation seelöwe will fail spectacularly if they try.

I mean, I'm not against alt history. Changing things enough that you could get a different result, and extrapolating from there, can lead you in cool directions. It's the ignorance of actual real world history which is strange for me.

Is it odd for me to feel like most of the people arguing that side are probably Americans, or at least non-Europeans?

>No, beause that's retarded as all fuck

>what are Norway and Crete

>the eternal anglo at work
holy shit, you guys are worse deniers than wehraboos

Anyways, this thread is (as expected) full of armchair generals on both sides and completely unsalvageable. I'm posting a couple cover for an alt-his comic about UK vs. Fr ww2, and then I'm out.

...

Ok, let's be blunt:
Veeky Forums loves to indulge in shitty, completely impossible and irrational alt!his

>It's the ignorance of actual real world history
>most of the people arguing that side are probably Americans
Those two go in tandem, you know

Except no, they didn't. The territory that they promised not to occupy in the armistice treaty was occupied in 1942, and the Vichy military was forcibly disbanded

There are always incremental tactical improvements they could have made, but at the end of the day, the Western Allies have more force, better intelligence, and thousands of kilometers of coastline to work with. Strengthening one area without strengthening them all just means that the LZ gets moved somewhere else. And strengthening everything is going to be more expensive than Germany can afford, or has the manpower to staff.

>I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that the north african war will be won by the axis.
I'm going to suggest you read some papers on the subject.
dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a348413.pdf
dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a220715.pdf

Even if the Axis have complete naval supremacy in the Mediterreanean, that doesn't change the fact that Libya is underpopulated, poor, and has no rail infrastructure worth mentioning. The Germans couldn't unload enough supplies to keep 7 divisions in an offensive posture in North Africa, nor could they move those supplies out of Tripoli with any degree of ease. Meanwhile, the British have an actual railroad network in Egypt, and can ship in their supplies through Suez where they're untouchable. With France as an active Axis participant, they might be able to hold the French colonies indefinitely (far better developed), but they're not going to throw the British out of Egypt.

Not part of your discussion chain, but as one of the more vehement voices citing papers to support my points as to how Sealion is impossible, I find that "American" being used as a synonym for "ignorant" to be a bit insulting.

I'm not sure I'd call any alternate history completely impossible, it's just a matter of how far back you need to go and how many changes you need to make to get to the desired endpoint in a way that's believable. Although I do agree with your general point, that a lot of the time the people behind them just don't bother to actually do their research or think it through.

>what are Norway and Crete
Amphibious and paradrop operations, not ones where ports were silenced by bombardment and naval gunfire. And while Malta could conceivably fall to paratroopers, it's too far for a Ju-52 to make it to Gibraltar from your airbases. Malta, in any case, has a grossly overstated relevance to the North African campaign, see the links in

>Ctrl+F 'Auxiliary Units'
>0 results
The Brits legitimately had systems in place to turn every single group of people down to 20-man villagers into insurgencies with an estimated life expectancy of 12 days. German occupation of England would have been pretty much impossible even if they somehow managed to get an invading force onto the islands.

I didn't mean to tar all americans with the same brush. I know plenty of yanks who are excellent and well informed in these matters. But I also know plenty of Europeans and otherwise who are similar.

Meanwhile, when it comes to the alternate perspective... Americans and the occasional Russian has been my experience.

I'm not convinced. The Luftwaffe can't ensure air superiority against the RAF, certainly not over the channel and the isles, and the Brits had an equal force of generally better ships, including much better carriers. I don't think Germany has any chance of maintaining superiority long enough to execute an invasionx especially since they entirely lack specialized landing craft and well-trained naval infantry.

>what are Norway and Crete

Operations where Germany took extremely severe losses against woefully inferior forces?

Which goes back to the initial conclusion: invasion is off-limit, but the Isles got starved. Mostly because Suez is out of picture, thus making entire Med impossible for colonial convoys to go through. Which them even more shipping close to what is today Sierra Leone, far away from British air coverage and making it easier to hunt down, while in the same time making it twice as hard to support troops in India.
You know, things would eventually go the same way as they did historically, but with single exception:
Since shipping to India is so much harder, it makes shipments for Jiang Jieshi in China even harder, meaning KMT is out of supplies around early '41, if not faster.

So the question is really "how massively do we have to stack the deck in their favor for the Axis to win in Europe?"

>name a city combat in WW2 over in less than a week
pic related

If I was a mod you would be banned

>The Luftwaffe can't ensure air superiority against the RAF,
I didn't said it did or could. I said that quality of your navy is a tertiary factor to both sheer number of ships and having air superiority. Which Germans clearly didn't.

On the side note, British had grand total of THREE carriers in '40. One of them in Singapore. And none of them capable of mounting more than 50 planes. Considering how close possible combat would be to shores, land-based airbases would be of much greater importance here than carriers. I'm not saying carriers wouldn't be useful, just pointing out this would be all probably well within reach of land-based airforce.

Great papers!

"The supply problem was the decisive factor - not only because of the difficulties of the desert, but because of the British Navy's command of the Mediterranean."
We're just speculating here but with a total french domination of the western and central mediterranean they would probably invade Malta and get rid of the damned submarines there. That would reduce the amount of cargo ships sunk. Rommel would've been greatly aided by this. Since the US can't help the allies there will be no massive shipment of cool new tanks for the british to aid them in Africa.
I'm not convinced that the axis are doomed in north Africa, Egypt can still be taken. This would of course be highly unfortunate for the jews since a division of Waffen-SS was in standby for in Greece in 1941 if Rommel took Cairo.

Let's give them their wunderwaffen and occult magic.
Maybe they'll not die to Russia.

>Which goes back to the initial conclusion: invasion is off-limit, but the Isles got starved.
How would they? jmss.org/jmss/index.php/jmss/article/view/236/251 The German submarine blockade was largely ineffective.

> Mostly because Suez is out of picture,
The Germans wouldn't take Suez.

>thus making entire Med impossible for colonial convoys to go through.
Can you show me a SINGLE convoy going through the Med (i.e., not supplying something inside the Med) before Italy surrendered? I can't think of any.

>Since shipping to India is so much harder, it makes shipments for Jiang Jieshi in China even harder, meaning KMT is out of supplies around early '41, if not faster.
Lending to China was tiny, and the bulk of the (mostly American) issued supplies to Chiang were never actually issued to troops, who were forced to make do with local stuff.

stop guys you're making me want to start collecting ww2 minis and get into ww2 wargaming

My bad then. Your post made it sound like you were saying that the Kreigsmarine (+French and Italian navies) could match the Royal Navy and enable a successful invasion, which I do not think is the case.

Are you implying the north african war would carry on all the way to India? I think Hitlers master plan was
>invade Egypt
>get to the caucasus somehow and link up with the eastern front guys

>Operation Sea Lion was planned with fucking river barges.
Because all other resources were in preparation for war in the East. Hitler didn't give a fuck about England. Your fucking Navy means jackshit because you don't have short supply lines in a war of attrition against continental Europe. The first thing you do is lose air superiority.

That wasn't a combat, that was a con.

No, it was really the desert.

>As long as no unforseen explosions wrekced the quays and hte largely local labor force was not driven off by air raids, the capacity amounted to approximately 45,000 tons per month.

>In Libya now totaled seven divisions, which when air force and naval units were added, required 70,000 tons per month. This was more than Tripoli could handle effectively, so additional ports were required.

>but he was unable to bridge the enormous gap from Tripoli to the front, so his supplies piled up on the wharves while shortages arose in the front line.

>the Mediterranean."
We're just speculating here but with a total french domination of the western and central mediterranean they would probably invade Malta and get rid of the damned submarines there.
The submarines aren't the problem. Moving your shit from Tripoli to Tobruk (or even farther) is a much bigger one.

>Since the US can't help the allies there will be no massive shipment of cool new tanks for the british to aid them in Africa.
What? Literally WHAT are you talking about? All tank shipments went the long way around.

>France joins the Axis
>France, the country that possessed Morocco in 1940
>MOROCCO
>"it's too far for a Ju-52 to make it to Gibraltar from your airbases"
At this point, whatever, really, dude. I think you've illustrated the level of the thread perfectly.

>Navy means jackshit in a war with an island nation
>RAF losing Battle of Britain
>river barges successfully landing troops

Ok user

everyone had garbage guns and mobility in 1940. The french had literally the best tanks of the early war.

>UK vs France + Germany
UK loses.
>UK vs France + Germany + Italy
UK has a chance.

But muh Kruppstahl

>Moving your shit from Tripoli to Tobruk (or even farther) is a much bigger one.
The causes were many.
>bad infrastructure
>not enough ports
>raiding submarines sinking axis cargo ships
>royal navy fucking axis shit up
>long supply lines
What I'm saying is that with naval superiority/supremacy several of these problems would've been mitigated or reduced in size which maybe would've handed the axis the upper hand.

Also, about the tank thing, in 1942 when the britts lost Tobruk and it seemed Rommel would win and conquer Egypt Eisenhower gave Churchill a fuckload of tanks as a consolation prize.

Of course Britain could defend itself, they'll have Italy helpng them.

>user 1 mentions how French cooperation could make North African campaign successful for Axis
>user 2 rolls with it and points logical conclusions of it
>Eternal Anglo shows up to screetch, disregarding points of user 1 and assaulting user 2 for things he never said

And about China - that "tiny" was literally all Chang-kai Shek had. Americans didn't even issue their land lease until '42 (and that was the stuff stockpiled, since they were mostly sending rifles - Brits were simply trading ammo, and ammo was used the moment it was there). Meanwhile, Burma Road was operational since '38 and by end of '38 it was the only way to get supplies into China at all, unless you wanted to send planes.

tl;dr - stop being such annoying britbong.

Not him, but the plan for North Africa was always the same - get to Suez, help Italians in Horn of Africa by providing them supplies. All in effort to establish Axis presence in Africa, fuck up Iraq convoys and MAYBE even seize some (utterly useless) land in Kenya and Sudan for Italy. All in all, the only real strategic value it could have would be about psychological effect on knocking Allied presence off Suez and successfully convincing Iraq to switch sides. But reality was much more down to Earth, with Italians fighting the war for retarded imperialism goals, with no real strategic importance.