Milo, you evil one, now you have forced me to read up up on that area (Syria etc) for the time-frame. You evil you, and spank you!
(Links are well accepted, since this is all quite interesting)
As for the distances (for Die Hard), I guess I will have to do some explaining.
Some while ago, and more than once, there were debates about WW2 being mostly and exclusively fought out and brought to conclusion on the eastern front. The word was, that what the western powers brought to the table was rather little. (This was before Boroda got banned).
Anyway, it so happens that the MTO completely denied Axis access to the Black Sea, which they very much wanted. Secondly, the MTO demanded quite much resources from the Axis at crucial moments in their fights with the USSR. Stalingrad has the same time-frame as Torch. Kursk has the same time-frame as the fight for Sicily.
There was quite some mocking words on those threads, noteably about the incompitence of the western allies and how small-scaled their campaigns were in comparison with the huge doings on the Russian fronts.
I brought N-Africa into comparison. While the battles were by no means large in comparison with i.e. Stalingrad, what was behind them, - i.e. operation Torch (and El-Alamein right before) were actually really big, - because of the distances and logistics involved. After all, you have everything relying on monthts of pre-planned naval transport over vast and insecure distances, and when summed up, there were impressing numbers at work.
It sort of got on my nerve that the western allies efforts and noteably successes on that LONG front in N-Africa were being laughed at, if you see what I mean. Toss around numbers by the way, when the Axis had to back off in Stalingrad, there were down to 300m left down to the waterfront, meanwhile they lost 300.000+ as POW in...Tunisia....
