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Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM |
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This Day in Alternate History Blog
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Yet Another Mediterranean Twist © Final Sword Productions agingcow2345@hotmail.com
The Med is one of the theaters in WW2 where small decisions have large
consequences. One of those was
Hitler’s response to the Allied Torch landings.
In an irrational fit, he poured more forces into Tunisia than he sent to
relieve Stalingrad. But if…
Dates matter greatly in this: 5 Nov 1942
– Rommel defeated at 2nd El Alamein 8 Nov 1942
– TORCH landings 11 Nov 1942
– French cease resisting TORCH 24 Nov 1942
– Stalingrad surrounded 21 Dec 1942
– Manstein’s relief force within 40 km of city, closest approach This is the
historical chronology we will now play against. We begin the changes on 11 Nov
1942. The Germans will still send a force to secure Rommel’s rear in Tunis and
Bizerte. They will still occupy the
unoccupied zone in France. However
the rest of their Mediteranean strategy will change. In OTL Hitler
sent some 60% of his multiengine aircraft [transports and bombers] to the
Tunisian operation. He also sent
more than double the number of mobile divisions to Tunisia than he sent from the
reserves to save Stalingrad [this counts rebuilding Rommel’s four divisions as
essentially new forces to which are added 10th Panzer, Herman Goring
Panzer, and a parachute division that was a de facto Panzer Grenadier Division].
We will limit the forces sent to the German parachute division, an
Italian airborne division and the division-sized kampfgruppe that was called
Assault Division Rhodes. Berlin
will realize that fighting a battle of material in the Med is not in their
interest. So Ahrim will be given a
glorified corps whose mission is to screen Rommel’s rear until he can be
pulled back to defend Sicily. The
Tunisian campaign will end in late January 1943 with all Axis forces out except
a [very] few rear guards of mostly
Italian infantry. The Herman
Goring division will be given a different mission.
In OTL Legality Adolph only used the German army on his own allies once
– the Castle Hill coup to keep Hungary from defecting Christmas 1943.
Italy, Rumania, Bulgaria and Finland were allowed to defect as the Nazis
stayed extremely scrupulous of the sovereignty of their allies.
Here the HG division will give backbone to those elements of the Italian
Fascist Party who in OTL created the Salo Republic [1943-45].
Mussolini will be kept as a figurehead as he was in OTL.
The less stalwart higher Fascists and the Royal Family will be taken to
Germany for ‘safekeeping’ [to eliminate a focus of a countercoup and to keep
the Italian royalist officer corps fighting].
Presume some defections to the Allies and some partisan activity in
Italy. Both will be minor compared
to the disaster the Italian side switching was in OTL. Given a Rome
government firmly in the Axis camp Germany does not lose two Panzer armies and
the bulk of their multiengined aircraft in an African suicide mission.
Italy still loses the troops actually lost at El Alamein [Rommel’s
Germans took all the transport, often at gunpoint, and left the bulk of the
Italian infantry and artillery to surrender] and on the retreat.
The core of the five mobile divisions get out.
From a morale standpoint Italy faces a Dunkirk but not a disaster.
Germany will not need a further two armies to defend Italy in 1943 plus
an additional Army Group to replace the Italian occupation forces in France and
the Balkans. We will give
Manstein 2/3rd of the multiengined aircraft not used in Tunisia [some
will be needed to move the corps over yo Tunisia
and to effect the retreat of the Axis from North Africa].
This doubles his bomber and transport force.
We will give him 10th Panzer Division and miscellaneous pieces
that amount to another mobile division [all sent to Tunisia].
This doubles his strength AND improves the logistics of the trapped 6th
Army. The situation is still insane
and still horrid but he does cover the last 40 km and makes a corridor.
Given an escape route Paulus and Hitler between them could not have held
the 6th Army in place. It
will collapse back down Manstein corridor.
Losses of men and equipment will be heavy but say 75% of the men and 50%
of the heavy equipment will get out. Now many
writers claim that 6th Army lacked the fuel.
However this is based on the official supply reports.
The logistics of the Germans in the East were such that everyone kept a
private reserve. The actual events
of 1943-45 repeatedly show units executing moves that they supposedly lacked the
fuel for. Shortages of fuel
ruined training by 1944 and actual combat by 1945.
Even in the Ardennes it was not shortages of fuel that doomed the attack
but rather inability to get it to the front through the traffic jams [to which
must be added a too successful deception plan such that the bulk of the German
fuel reserves were on the East bank of the Rhine]. Manstein will
still be driven back through Rostov as the armies on the flanks collapse one by
one. However his backhand blow offensive will be far stronger and will pinch out
the Kursk Salient in this ATL. So
June of 1943 will find the Germans in far better shape in the East and the
Russians in somewhat worse shape [I realize this is not symmetrical but in OTL
Germany lost more in the winter of 1942-43 than Russia gained].
Germany was essentially at peak strength while the Soviets were still
mobilizing. In the Med,
the Axis retreat from Tunisia and Libya will leave the Allies with the
unanswered question of what to do next.
I will not play with variant Allied options too badly.
I will presume we just get an earlier Huskey.
I will even let it go roughly historically, two allied armies versus an
Italian army backed by a good German corps.
However, there is no way this invasion comes off before April-May of
1943: logistics as usual. This
gives Rommel [recovered now and defending the island] a chance to do a Normandy:
very good beach defenses and a slow fighting withdrawal.
Ike was an inept field commander and Monty was worse.
They will waste the summer and fall of 1943 driving him back into a
pocket around Messina. It
will take until the winter of 1943-44 to lever him out of Messina and the
Italian toe. And there the
Med war will end. Sardinia, Corsica
and the bulk of Italy will stay in Axis hands until war’s end.
Neither Ike nor Monty will be chosen for Normandy.
Second Panzer Army will not have been pulled out of Russia to occupy
Yugoslavia. German Tenth and
Fourteen Armies will have been available to reinforce the Eastern Front in 1943,
making the Ukrainian campaign slower and more costly.
Rommel will fight his entire war in Italy.
He will not have been sent to oversee the Atlantic Wall in late 1943.
The massive beach defenses he created with not face the Allies in May of
1944 when they invade [without a bigger Italian campaign and Anzio the invasion
CAN keep the original date]. Without
Rommel the panzer reserves will be far to the rear so the Monty replacement
[Alexander?] will take Caen by day 2 if not day 1.
So the Ike replacement [Devers?] doesn’t expand the lodgment as slowly
as OTL but there is no massive breakout. The
campaign goes more in the manner of what SHAFE planned – it takes them a year
to reach the Rhine. A big part of
this is the Germans NOT getting the traction to form a hard front in Normandy so
they don’t blow the bulk of their army when the crust breaks.
Another big part is that with the different Med history there is no
landing in southern France to get Marseilles intact. So from a few
changes in Tunisia we have a WW2 in Europe that will take an extra year to year
and a half. Double Anglo-Saxon
casualties. Kill off another 5-10
million Soviets and SovietAllies [Poles, Czechs, Rumanians, Bulgars, Yugoslavs,
Albanians]. Do the same with the
Germans and again with the citizens of occupied Europe [a slower German retreat
means more people are trapped in battle zones and die instead of quick pursuits
passing over them; also another year of air war including nuking of German
cities; also more time for massive starvation as Germans grab all food for their
Aryan selves; finally an extra year for the death camps to do their thing]. Spillover in
Pacific is that there is no attempt to invade Japan.
We don’t have the manpower. So
after Okinawa comes Pusan in Korea and then we bomb /blockade/ starve them back
to early Neolithic. Also no Russian
blitz in Manchuria. Interesting
sidelight is that the effect on the
shipping situation 1943-44 of the
Med opening more slowly will kill millions more in the Bombay famine and
probably preclude Slim’s 1945 recon quest of Burma.
Figure better than half the population of Japan and another
10-20 million other Asiatics die. So
do all the POWS and internees the Japanese held.
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