Alternate history- no Barbarossa, Operation Sealion instead. - Page 6 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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The Second World War (1939-1945).
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#14620798
This has been said a million times by now, but the main issues with Germany victory was time, practicality and a feasible end-point.

Capture of Egypt was more important than ever capturing Britain and certainly a hell of a lot more practical than going after the Russians. With the defeat of France in 1940, all Germany had to do was actually supply Rommel with adequate number of troops and secure oil supplies in Egypt. Then regardless of what Churchill preached, establish a Cold War front with Britain and be done with it.

If after you have those securities you still want to go East, stop at Ukraine.

Obviously never declare war on America. The United States wouldn't care to participate in Europe even after Pearl Harbor if there was no way in Africa.

It's really all about greed.
#14621436
It's pretty much impossible to give Rommel more forces, he could not supply adequately the forces he had. Increasing the amount of troops Rommel had would be logistically unfeasable. Even more supplies would not help, there were bottlenecks in shipping and port capacity he simply could not unload more supplies. And then there transporting to the front in Egypt, with almost all the load going in fuel to supply the trucks. Facing the British at AL Alamein Rommel was at the end of very very small overstretched logistical pipeline. The British very very close to an incredibly large one. The British always had more forces either in theatre or close to that could easily be redeployed to meet any larger force of Rommel's. To build up better forces in North Africa , firstly the ports need to build up, and railways build, and taking out large Italian non mobile divisions and replacing with smaller more mobile harder hitting forces. It needs better Italian co-operation (it's hard to see them agreeing to the Germans really taking totally over) and better long term strategic planning than the axis were copyable of. And the Build up would take a lot of time.

Even if Rommel takes Egypt was does that actually give the access, while a large moral victory it actually does not give the Axis any more resources to make war with or the Allies any less. It's a long long way from Suez to any oil which is mainly on the Persian Gulf. The campaign from Suez to the Persian Gulf is as problematic as the one from Tripoli to Egypt. While the Port capacity problem would generally be solved, the shipping lines would be much greater and would be have all the same trucking problems. The British would be able to ship in and support large forces on the Persian Gulf with a large logistical pipeline so again Rommel would be fighting at the end of a very long very small logistical pipeline against a very large pipeline.

Even if Rommel gets to the Persian Gulf how does the Oil get back to Europe?
By Sea , the axis did not have the tankers and running them past lot's of British bases like Aden, with an hopeless inadequate escort forces. Not going to work.
By Rail, there is none. Take 2 years to build.
Pipeline. there is a small one, but it a certainly to be demolished. The SAS, LRDG, quite possibly aided by the Arab Legion and Zionist Guerrilla forces could pose a enormous threat to any pipeline, railway construction and axis logistics.

It's hard to see anytime line of a south/east to Oil strategy the has a shorter timeframe than 2 years at least, before even if things go brilliantly that the Axis would get anything for the investment large amounts of resources.
#14621528
If I remember right, the Soviet union and GB invaded Iran and placed the prince/Heir onto the throne to keep the country firmly on the allied side, and it was Iran that was the nearest source of oil to the Nazis outside of the USSR and those fields already within the Axis (Romania). Taking Egypt the Suez would impede British movement and their ability to attack Italian possessions in North Africa. It would also hinder (stop?) supplies to Malta and Greek/Yugo partisans, but I dont know what else it would achieve. Without Barbarossa, Im not sure if an invasion of Italy would have been planned or emphasized.
#14622149
Rommel was a fool, he should have listened to his superiors and should have maintained a defensive posture in Africa rather than going on silly adventures and dreaming about capturing Suez which was an impossibility as Pugsvile in his last post shows.

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