Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: agent 009 on April 22, 2005, 10:19:43 PM
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What happens to Malta if Germans take coastal areas of Portugal & Spain, Gibralter & Morrocco? Supplying it becomes very difficult no?
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wrong forum really, but i dont think there was ANY way for germany to take Gibralter.
by sea it would have been impossible
by air its out of range
by land would mean going though spain... and even though spain was fascist and, "happy" with germany due to its help during the civil war, it wouldnt have allowed that, because that would have ment war with the UK....and later the USA.
but really, taking Gibralter wouldnt have helped the germans that much...i mean how could they seal the med? they didnt have the reasources to fill it with DD's CL's, CA's or BB's.
however its a great idea... doing that would have left egypt to fall to the italy, or germany. That would mean the middle east will have lost its supply line and Japan would have got much further into india etc......
alot of what ifs tho ;)
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Is the AH bb writing your ww2 history essay for you? It sure feels like it:)
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There was some article or book written theorizing about just this course of events, namely bGermany focusing on taking the Mediteranian, Egypt, and the rest of the Mid East from the British instead of attacking Russia.
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Hitler being more rational in general would have been a nightmare for the allies. The applications of that are endless.
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Spain wouldn't have allowed that? How could they have stopped it? Besides it is possible that Germany would have taken part of it like was done in France.
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Napoleon tried taking spain, it was nearly his undoing. It would be like the US annexing Canada in the middle of a war. Yes we are friendly now, but the first truckload of troops over the border would change that.
Plus have you ever looked at spain?
All those mountains, terriblle place to try to move troops through quickly.
At the same time a wonderful place for an unhappy populace to use guerilla warefare against an intruder.
To truly seal the Med Hitler would have had to have captured ships of either France & Italy, plus captured Gibralter itself.
Germany itself simply lacked the ships to do the job, and what ships it had were locked in place up North.
Once done what does he really gain. Granted he'd of been better able to resupply North Africa. But North Africa really brings no wealth of resources along with it.
If you want to "what if" Look instead at what would happen if Hitler had used a bit of paitence. Say he didn't move against poland until 43, or 44 when he was really ready. France & the low country's fall shortly after. He's had several years to build uboats, & surface ships, so now he is truly able to starve England into submission.
With no foothold for the US troops to muster he can now turn his attention to Russia.
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Originally posted by GRUNHERZ
There was some article or book written theorizing about just this course of events, namely bGermany focusing on taking the Mediteranian, Egypt, and the rest of the Mid East from the British instead of attacking Russia.
im playing a Civ3 mod just like that.....all of africa is mine MUHAHAHAHA
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Originally posted by agent 009
Spain wouldn't have allowed that? How could they have stopped it? Besides it is possible that Germany would have taken part of it like was done in France.
germany did ask spain if they could move german troops through spain to take gibralter, spain said no.
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& Germany could have done it regardless.
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Originally posted by agent 009
& Germany could have done it regardless.
what makes you think that?
why would it do that to a semi-ally?
why would it want to control somewhere thats just been through civil war and has NO value to them?
all it would mean is extra resources needed, and more troops needed to defend, almost useless terrority.
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Just by the end of the civil war (1936-1939), Spain military was composed mostly by veterans. Not a good idea to mess up with them in a so difficult terrain.
On the other hand, Spain was helping Germany in the East front, Blue division was used as a storm unit against Leningrad, as well as some air units.
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Spain had plenty of value. Spain recieved milloins in bribes from Britain to stay out of an alliance with germany. Gibralter is the 1st obvious "value" in occupying parts of Spain. Natural recources as well. More atlantic coastal area is has obvious value.
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The Royal Navy ensured that Germany didn't invade Gibraltar.
I wonder what part Portugal played in the scheme of things ?
wipass
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WTF???
Stop it.
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Originally posted by agent 009
Spain had plenty of value. Spain recieved milloins in bribes from Britain to stay out of an alliance with germany. Gibralter is the 1st obvious "value" in occupying parts of Spain. Natural recources as well. More atlantic coastal area is has obvious value.
what value does having more atlantic coast mean? its more of a negative value because they'd need to defend SO much more coastline. and taking Gibralter wouldnt have done much for them because they have almost NO ships... and any ships they do have, they was affraid to bring out into the seas
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Well, Gibraltar would have been tougher than Malta, and Malta was tough enough.
Basically the Med campaign was quite costly for the Germans, and it happened at a bad point, - the biggest ops in the med coincided with Stalingrad (Tunisia) and Kursk (Sicily).
The mop-up in Tunisia for instance left some 300.000 Axis Pow's, and inflicted crippling losses to their airborne transport.
The Amphibious landings at Sicily were bigger than the Amphibious landings at Normandy BTW.
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Originally posted by Angus
Well, Gibraltar would have been tougher than Malta, and Malta was tough enough.
Basically the Med campaign was quite costly for the Germans, and it happened at a bad point, - the biggest ops in the med coincided with Stalingrad (Tunisia) and Kursk (Sicily).
The mop-up in Tunisia for instance left some 300.000 Axis Pow's, and inflicted crippling losses to their airborne transport.
The Amphibious landings at Sicily were bigger than the Amphibious landings at Normandy BTW.
really?
i always thought history books say normandy was the biggest ever? hmmm
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Normandy = biggest total landing
Sicily = biggest amphibious landing
AFAIK.
Was a bit baffled myself when I read up on Sicily. Hadn't known how big it was.
Normandy, of course had a much bigger muscle behind the initial landing anyway.
BTW, Okinawa was really big too.
One little fact also. The Axis armies, save the Japanese, never did much of this.
And another one, look at the length of supply lines it took from Britain to N-Arica vs from Italy/Sicily to the same location. Awesome difference isn't it. Tells one all about how really hard pressed the Axis were already getting in 1942/43.
From the Geographic point of view, they should have won.
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all about supplys tho... not a unlimited supply like we have in AHII ;)
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A big boulder would do the job.
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Did you see DAS BOOT?
Cool when they were getting through the strait, the current being with them meant there was no way back submerged.
But still, there were aces of the deep in the med as well. I recall a British Aircraft carrier being sunk very close to Gibraltar. Ark Royal?
Well, anyway, Gibraltar was an important strategig front. Now, being supplied only by sea, the Germans would have seen very much trouble, had they grabbed the pie.
BTW, Spitfires flew from Gib to Algiers with a slipper tank for fuel.
(double range approx.)
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Originally posted by john9001
germany did ask spain if they could move german troops through spain to take gibralter, spain said no.
Canaris told Franco to say no ;)
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Hitlers focus was east.
If you have troops in spain then Gibralter is more like corrigigor then malta. Very hard to take from a disance but not so hard from 5? miles away.
I dont think that taking gibralter was neccesary to take Malta though. They could have taken malta with the troops they wasted in crete.
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Well Overlag. Taking Gibralter means no British ships in west med. That means resupplying Malta & Egypt is done by going all the way around Africa. This alone is great value to German war effort.
I don't believe taking Gibratler is harder than malta as Malta has to be taken by air, & Gibralter by land.
As for Germany having no ships. Sharnhorst, Gneisenau, Prinz eugen, Admiral Scheer all went into Atlantic. As did the numerous raiders & blockade runners. Gibralter would make a great base for these ships.
German destroyers operated off French atlantic bases. Having gibralter offers even better base for such operations as it is far away from British bomber bases on south british coast.
Having extra coastline means more safe places to land captures, ( captured ships ), as well as more resupply bases for surface ships & U-boats. Condor bases could also be built along coast of Spain & Portugal.
It also means possible landings in Azores can be done with more ease.
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http://www.gibnet.com/texts/hitler.htm
http://www.columbiagames.com/resources/3008/eurofrontstrategy.shtml
http://www.usveterans.com/books/Military_History/Hitler_Stopped_by_Franco.html
http://www.fpp.co.uk/books/Hitler/1977/html_chapter/11.html
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Wow, good stuff Blauk. read through it, not every word, but very informative. Hitlers invasion of Ireland ploy was amusing. How does Finnish Chocolate stack up to Swiss?
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"Fazer blue" chocolate is superior IMO, but it is a matter of taste ;)
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Yes ETO chocolate is superior. Finland vodka among best in world.
Wish there were a site on the Finnish 109 that was in the works when war ended.
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VL Pyörremyrsky ??
http://frhewww.physik.uni-freiburg.de/~jaensch/109/wvl.htm
http://www.saunalahti.fi/veijju/ma00.html
Some german text:
http://www.airventure.de/tips_luftfahrtmuseum_mittelfinnland.htm
and pics
http://www.airventure.de/tipps_zentralfinnisches_luftfahrtmuseum/Museum_Finnland_VL_Pyoerremyrsky_1.jpg
http://www.airventure.de/tipps_zentralfinnisches_luftfahrtmuseum/Museum_Finnland_VL_Pyoerremyrsky_2.jpg
http://www.preservedaxisaircraft.com/Finland/images/P_myrsky.jpg
http://www.preservedaxisaircraft.com/Finland/images/Py%20Cockpit.jpg
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That was way cool.
Finnish Spirits