VDKMS......Where would the Americans have landed in North Africa. Gibraltar would have been under Axis Control and with the heavy guns there would have closed it up. Much of the north eastern coasts of North East Africa making it very difficult for them to do any thing in the Med

1) The British never captured Tripoli, the Italians did invade Egypt, but without enough tanks, cannon and airplanes simply dug in over 100 km from Mersa Matruh, where the British were waiting for them. Had they had the equipment and leadership required, they would have beaten the weak British forces. Therefore, it was not impossible to supply a motorized army from Tripoli, Benghazi and Tobruk, Much less from Alexandira once it falls.

2) Again there was plenty of oil from the USSR (sold on credit to Germany) in 1940 and we are counting on some oil from Persia by the time of Barbarossa in May 15, 1941.

The poduction figures are irrelevant, The US was the largest producer but in 1940 it supplied little of the British demand. The important fact is that the American and Venezuelan oil had to be paid in cash, which a bankrupt Britain could not afford, while the Persian oil was in part delivered as payment for the refinery in Abadan drilling equipment, etc, So if Britain lost Persia it could not recover its investment and if it lost access to the Mediterranean it could not defend its colonies not get food, soldiers, etc from them. Like I said without Lend-Lease Britain was lost and there would definitley not have been any lend-lease after a string of debacles and with the US losing access to the Mediterranean and Red Sea if it backed Britain.

It is false that GB stopped importing oil from Persia in June 1940. Persian oil for GB was not all for use in GB it was also for Palestine, Egypt, Malta, the East fleat, Asia, South & East Africa, etc, its loss in 1940 would be devastating. The oil was so important that Britain and the USSR in 1941 wantonly invaded Iraq and Iran to ensure that that oil remained in allied hands, instead of falling to the axis and that the USSR could be supplied through Persia (over 5 million tons of mostly American goods flowed to the USSR through Persia). The loss of Persia in 1940 would have precluded all this.

Originally Posted by samneanderthal

1)
The oil was so important that Britain and the USSR in 1941 wantonly invaded Iraq and Iran to ensure that that oil remained in allied hands...

I don’t believe the USSR had anything to do with this “invasion of Iraq”. Forces in Iraq rebelled (with some Axis support) against the Brits, laid siege to a Brit Air Base, and they (the Brits) relieved the siege. How can you “invade” a country you are already occupying?

The British had a Flying school in Iraq, not an occupying force. Iraq decided to expel them and they couldn´t. The British invaded Iraq with Indian troops, which also invaded Abadan, etc, to secure the oil. The Soviets invaded the rest of Iran. They deposed the Shah, who was strongly pro German, as was the Iraqi leader. The Brits and Soviets invading Iran and Iraq doesn´t mean that both aggressor countries have to invade both victim countries separately.

stalingarad and the battle of kursk naji warmachines were devasteted by those two wars and the remaining ones are only the skeliton of what it had.

Originally Posted by samneanderthal

The British had a Flying school in Iraq, not an occupying force. Iraq decided to expel them and they couldn´t. The British invaded Iraq with Indian troops, which also invaded Abadan, etc, to secure the oil. The Soviets invaded the rest of Iran. They deposed the Shah, who was strongly pro German, as was the Iraqi leader. The Brits and Soviets invading Iran and Iraq doesn´t mean that both aggressor countries have to invade both victim countries separately.

As Britain and the SU were winning the war,they could not be agressors,only the loosers can be agressors .

As the Iraqi leader had overthrown the legal government by a coup d'état,one can argue that he was not the legal leader of Iraq,and that Britain was nor agressing Iraq,by fighting against this dictator .

Originally Posted by samneanderthal

1) The British never captured Tripoli, the Italians did invade Egypt, but without enough tanks, cannon and airplanes simply dug in over 100 km from Mersa Matruh, where the British were waiting for them. Had they had the equipment and leadership required, they would have beaten the weak British forces. Therefore, it was not impossible to supply a motorized army from Tripoli, Benghazi and Tobruk, Much less from Alexandira once it falls.

2) Again there was plenty of oil from the USSR (sold on credit to Germany) in 1940 and we are counting on some oil from Persia by the time of Barbarossa in May 15, 1941.

The poduction figures are irrelevant, The US was the largest producer but in 1940 it supplied little of the British demand. The important fact is that the American and Venezuelan oil had to be paid in cash, which a bankrupt Britain could not afford, while the Persian oil was in part delivered as payment for the refinery in Abadan drilling equipment, etc, So if Britain lost Persia it could not recover its investment and if it lost access to the Mediterranean it could not defend its colonies not get food, soldiers, etc from them. Like I said without Lend-Lease Britain was lost and there would definitley not have been any lend-lease after a string of debacles and with the US losing access to the Mediterranean and Red Sea if it backed Britain.

It is false that GB stopped importing oil from Persia in June 1940. Persian oil for GB was not all for use in GB it was also for Palestine, Egypt, Malta, the East fleat, Asia, South & East Africa, etc, its loss in 1940 would be devastating. The oil was so important that Britain and the USSR in 1941 wantonly invaded Iraq and Iran to ensure that that oil remained in allied hands, instead of falling to the axis and that the USSR could be supplied through Persia (over 5 million tons of mostly American goods flowed to the USSR through Persia). The loss of Persia in 1940 would have precluded all this.

1)Saying that the British never captured Tripoli is nonsens :the 8 army entered Tripoli on 23 january 1943
2)Saying that Britain was bankrupt is wrong :it was not bankrupt,but was short on $dollars .
3)There was no way that the Germans could enter Persia in 1940
4)It was almost impossible to supply a motorized army from Tripoli,because the infrasrtucture in Libya was almost NON EXISTENT :roads,railway ,harbours were primitive,while the British had in Egypt a developped system of railways,roads and harbours .

Hi lljadw,
Britain and the USSR were definitely losing the war in 1941. Besides, aggressor is anybody invading a country. Deposing a dictator does not justify invading a country. In the end Obama, the senate and congress are corrupt dictators put in power by the 5% of Americans who own 90% of the wealth, but if the Chinese invaded the US to depose them, they would still be aggressors.

Nobody said they never invaded Tripoli, I said that in 1941 Churchill sent the troops to Greece and Sudan instead of invading Tripoli and that he didn´t need to invade Tripoli if he had captured Sicily and Sardinia.
Britain was so bankrut that America had to conceive the Lend Lease program in 1941 lending it money at low interest to pay in 60 years and paying ridiculous prices for invaluable supplies. Had Roosevelt not acted like Santa Claus for the Brits and Soviets and sent the Brits 31 billion dollars and the Soviets over 11 billion dollars they would definitely have lost the war. Moreover, in spite of having 170 million people in the USSR and nearly 450 million people in the British empire, they could not defeat 88 million Germans with much fewer natural resources, even with the massive American help, so the US had to destroy by far most of the 1,000 German planes lost per month in 1944 in the western front and send troops and more than 100 million dollars of its own equipment to fight the Germans, while it dealt almost singlehandedly with the Japs in 1942, 43 and 44.

1)It was Germany that was losing the war in 1941
2)Saying that Obama was put in power by the 5%of the Americans possessing 90 % of the wealth,is
a) nonsens:I don't think ypu know anything about the tax plan of Obama
b)totally of topic