Malta

I3BrigPvSk

The Viking
To get the party going despite the summer time in the northern hemisphere (it's supposed to be summer, but the weather reminds more about fall)


Did the Germans make a mistake when they never invaded and conquered Malta?
 
Either them or the Italians earlier in the War. Huge numbers (for the area) of cargo ships and their supplies were lost due to the failure.
 
We would've kicked their Nazi azzes anyway.
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Malta became the only effective allied base in the Mediterranean between Gibraltar and Alexandria. It became a major thorn in the Axis side allowing the British air and sea forced stationed there to take out > 2300 axis merchant and military ships. By 1942 this effectively crippled Rommel’s North African campaign by reducing equipment and supplies made available to the German - Italion African Corps.

Hitler expected to take out Malta without the need for a land invasion and bombed the Maltese extensively. The Maltese braved the German bombing. The last German air raid over Malta occurred on July 20th 43. This ending nearly 3 year of air war over Malta.

Had Mussolini or Hitler taken Malta early on when it wasn’t well defended, Rommel would have better supplied? This could have had far reaching consequences for the allies in North African. Perhaps allowing for the Germans – Italians to reach and hold the Suez Canal.
 
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I think the importance of Malta is blown far out of proportion.
1) Rommel never ran out of supplies in Tripoli until the British managed to blockade Tripoli itself.
2) Malta was only usable as long as the British held Cairo and Suez so had the Germans put the resources into North Africa instead of Malta it may well have achieved its goals.

The fact is the Afrika Korps received all the supplies it needed into North Africa despite ULTRA and Malta what the Axis forces could not do was move those supplies from Tripoli to the front line forces.

Something worth considering is that the logistics trail from Italy to El Alamein was longer (1700 miles) than the one from Berlin to Moscow (1000 miles).
 
I think the importance of Malta is blown far out of proportion.
1) Rommel never ran out of supplies in Tripoli until the British managed to blockade Tripoli itself.
2) Malta was only usable as long as the British held Cairo and Suez so had the Germans put the resources into North Africa instead of Malta it may well have achieved its goals.

The fact is the Afrika Korps received all the supplies it needed into North Africa despite ULTRA and Malta what the Axis forces could not do was move those supplies from Tripoli to the front line forces.

Something worth considering is that the logistics trail from Italy to El Alamein was longer (1700 miles) than the one from Berlin to Moscow (1000 miles).

They would have received a heck of a lot more supplies had they taken Malta. Over 2000 Axis merchant ships were sunk by British air and sea forces operating out of Malta. That's a lot of ships which would have been a lot more equipment and material for the Africa Corps. it's a fact that by 42 Rommel was often operating on a shoestring. Not so much due to distance issues but due to delivery issues.

In August, Malta's strike forces had contributed to the Axis' difficulties in trying to force an advance into Egypt. In that month, 1⁄3 of supplies and 41% of fuel were delivered. In September 1942, Rommel received only 24% of the 50,000 tons of supplies needed monthly to continue offensive operations. During September, the Allies sank 33,939 tons of shipping at sea.
 
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Rommel would have been better off taking Alexandria than Malta.
According to: Logistics and the Desert Fox by Major Jay Hatton, USMC

Considering the size of the forces in the theater and the unavailability, on average, of 35 percent of his vehicles because of mechanical problems, Rommel would have needed over 5,000 trucks dedicated to supplying his three divisions over a 300-mile line of communication. This figure does not include the vehicles required to support the Luftwaffe. British historian D. Braddock adds, "Fuel, water, and ammunition were sources of constant anxiety to the German commander but his greatest problem was the lack of serviceable transport vehicles without which no army could survive for long in the desert." In typical British style, Braddock understates Rommel's feelings on the subject. To say that Rommel was anxious makes him sound only mildly concerned about this problem; to the contrary, at one point during the campaign the Desert Fox requested an additional 8,000 trucks for his supply columns.

Note that is for a 300 mile logistics line at El Alamein he had a 1300 mile communications line to maintain so while there is no doubt that Malta was a thorn in his side it was no where near the biggest logistics problem Rommel had.

The importance of Malta is blown a long way out of proportion.
 
We would've kicked their Nazi azzes anyway.
m0439.gif

I greatly admire this spirit distaining the Nazi's as much as I do. Kicking there buttes was no small feat. It required virtually all the resources - militaries of the USSR and the allies to do so. (Note: I view the war against Japan as more minor as far as the US and British war efforts were concerned when viewed as their efforts made against the Germans.) This one time fringe group became amongst the largest treats that civilization has faced.
 
Rommel would have been better off taking Alexandria than Malta.
According to: Logistics and the Desert Fox by Major Jay Hatton, USMC



Note that is for a 300 mile logistics line at El Alamein he had a 1300 mile communications line to maintain so while there is no doubt that Malta was a thorn in his side it was no where near the biggest logistics problem Rommel had.

The importance of Malta is blown a long way out of proportion.

The thought is that had they had the supplies, fuel - equipment available to them that was lying under the Mediterranean it would have allowed the Africa Corps to further advance into Egypt taking Alexandria Suez, etc. Instead they faltered.
 
Not really because they still would have lost over 50% of it between Tripoli and the frontline.

Malta would certainly have increased in importance had the Germans captured Alexandria but it would have become untenable had they captured Cairo and cut off the Suez.
 
Wouldn't a neutralized Malta be a greater problem for the British supplies rather than supporting the Axis advance toward Egypt?
 
In September 1942, Rommel received only 24% of the 50,000 tons of supplies needed monthly to continue offensive operations.

Not correct : only 24 % of 50000 tons arrived in North Africa, but it is perfectly possible that Rommel received more than these 24 %.

One should look at how much the stock in Tripoli was .

Fictive exemple :if at the beginning of the month the stock in Tripolis was 50000 tons and,while during that month 12000 tons arrived (24 % of 50000) and at the end of the month,the stock was less than 50000,this indicates that Rommel received more than 12000 ton:if the stock was 40000,the front received 22000 tons,if the stock was 48000,the front received 14000 tons .

One should not be fixated on how much was arriving,as much important (or more important) was : how much was leaving the ports .
 
Not correct : only 24 % of 50000 tons arrived in North Africa, but it is perfectly possible that Rommel received more than these 24 %.

One should look at how much the stock in Tripoli was .

Fictive exemple :if at the beginning of the month the stock in Tripolis was 50000 tons and,while during that month 12000 tons arrived (24 % of 50000) and at the end of the month,the stock was less than 50000,this indicates that Rommel received more than 12000 ton:if the stock was 40000,the front received 22000 tons,if the stock was 48000,the front received 14000 tons .

One should not be fixated on how much was arriving,as much important (or more important) was : how much was leaving the ports .

So what your saying essentially is that the > 2300 Axis merchant and military ships sunk by the British sea and air forces stationed out of Malta had little to due with the Allied victory over the German Africa Corps. I'll have vanilla.
 
NO : supplies for 8 Army were transported via Africa .

So why did the Limeys send convoys from Gibraltar-Malta-Alexandria if the supplies intended for the 8th army were reaching Egypt from other locations on the African continent?
 
So what your saying essentially is that the > 2300 Axis merchant and military ships sunk by the British sea and air forces stationed out of Malta had little to due with the Allied victory over the German Africa Corps. I'll have vanilla.

Question 1:
Lets assume that an armoured division needs 350 ton of supplies a day for operations in the North African desert and lets assume (just for fun) that 1000 ton a day are being sent in order to build up a supply base.

How many tons can be sunk en route before the division loses its effectiveness?

Question 2:
Hans Hun needs 350 tons of supplies a day and Fritz Schmitt is sending 1000 tons of supplies a day but 50% are not reaching Hans Hun.

Is Hans suffering any operational shortfall?

Question 3:
Hans Hun is receiving 500 tons of supplies a day at his base and only needs 350 tons a day to function properly however Jurgen von Kampfwagen the delivery guy has pointed out that he needs 350 tons of supplies a day to shift the 350 required tonnage of supplies to Hans.

So to rectify this should:
A. Fritz and Hans get together an assault a small island that is stealing 50% of the supplies knowing that the evil Ernie Englisher will simply move to another base and continue stealing the supplies (lets call them Cairo or Alexandria for fun)?

B. Capture a base of their own closer to the front with larger capacity thus reducing the volume of supplies Jurgen needs to deliver his supplies?

So yes the loss of supplies caused the Afrika Korps problems but the attacks would have still caused losses no matter whether they came from aircraft and ships based in Malta or Egypt, Syria or Lebanon so Malta was not that critical to the defeat of the Afrika Korps and the bulk of the German supply problems was moving supplies from Tripoli to the front line not what went to the bottom of the Mediterranean.

And once again I will draw your attention back to Logistics and the Desert Fox by Major Jay Hatton, USMC

The role of Malta—the British-held island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea—in disrupting Axis lines of communication and thus defeating German designs in North Africa traditionally has been exaggerated. Instead, two logistics factors played a greater role in the ultimate demise of the vaunted Deutsches Afrika Korps. The first of these was the significant disconnect between German national strategic objectives in the theater and the goals of Rommel, the operational commander. This disconnect created an imbalance between operational ends and logistics means that dogged Rommel's efforts, from his spectacular beginning to his inglorious end. The second decisive logistics factor was the failure of Axis intratheater distribution systems. Careful analysis reveals that this intratheater chokepoint, rather than the intertheater constraints imposed by British control of Malta, was the true Achilles' heel of the Afrika Korps.
 
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So why did the Limeys send convoys from Gibraltar-Malta-Alexandria if the supplies intended for the 8th army were reaching Egypt from other locations on the African continent?

The convoys from Gibraltar were formed to resupply Malta who were running out of food, fuel and ammunition. Convoys were also sent from Alexandria, but losses from both ports were extremely heavy.

My uncle Charlie who was in the 8th Army visited Cape Town while en-route to North Africa.
 
The German Forces were at this time up to their necks in Russia, and had the problems in Garrisoning all the countries that they had over run and they did not have enough men and material to complete the campaign in North Africa. I always thought that had Hitler taken North Africa first before going into Russia the out come of the war could have been very different.
 
When it comes to the desert campaign, the Italians were beaten by the Brits and they got a bad reputation after their shortcomings.

Was the Italian army really that bad? If so, why? Didn't they use the German doctrine? Was their training much lesser than their German colleagues?
 
When it comes to the desert campaign, the Italians were beaten by the Brits and they got a bad reputation after their shortcomings.

Was the Italian army really that bad? If so, why? Didn't they use the German doctrine? Was their training much lesser than their German colleagues?

My uncle Charlie stated that the Italian artillery gunners were very good and remember the Il "Maiale" a two man human torpedo/mine. It took a lot of guts to operate one of those. I think the bad reputation the Italians got was due to poor out of date equipment and poor leadership.

Well worth a read:-
http://www.lifeinitaly.com/history/world-war-2.asp
 
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