Should the Axis have tried harder to take Malta?

the RM would "run away"...I'm totally off topic...but One of the bravest and innovatively daring units of the war belonged to Italy...Mini subs of Gibralter. They certainly did not run away in any shape or form. The Italian run away thing is like the French surrender myth...we could just as easily have the British evacuate myth.

 

Just been reading something that may throw a little light on the shortages that existed at Malta, in the Spring and Summer of 1942, during the month of July, right around the time we are debating about.

On the 28th of July, 1942, Lt Col. Ted Strever, a South African from Klerksdorp, was detailed to attack an important Italian supply vessel of 12,000 tons. Escorted by several destroyers, the convoy was making it's waydown the Greek Coast. Strever was the commanding officer of torpedo carrying Beauforts of 217 Squadron, apparently an "aggressive" unit. Taking up the story......

'At 1220 hours, the target was located and Strever pressed his attack, scoring a direct torpedo hit on the merchantman, But his aircraft, and the Beaufort immediately behind him, were both hit by gunfire from the destroyers. The second aircraft sank immediately, but Stever and his crew, after ditching in the sea, struggled from the wreckage into their dinghy. Later they were picked up by an Italian 'Cant' seaplane and taken to a small air base on the Greek island of Levkas, where they were given dry clothes and other comforts. Stever continues the story...

Lt Col. Ted Strever
"The hospitality stunned us....
The four of us were given a huge meal of steak, tomatoes and potatoes. Malta, by comparison was beseiged and there were desperate shortages. Food was rationed and the troops live on a rough, combat diet of bully beef.
Wilkinson joked: 'Why don't we come here more often?'



This is not just a regular shortage that the home front moan about, like Spike Milligan threatening to 'write the war office' to protest the shortage of castor sugar for Milligan's donuts....no.
This is July of 1942, and Strever is describing the food shortage, and others, as DESPERATE.
Their Italian captors seem in a position to be able to offer these four crew members a great big meal of STEAK. Couldn't have had much of a shortage to be doling it out to mere 'captives', especially those that have just torpedoed your important 12,000 ton vessel.

This sort of thing run's throughout the Med War. Italian serviceman were not inhuman as opponents, generally speaking, Yes there is the 'brotherhood of pilots' that makes for good treatment, but contrast this to our low opinions of the Italians. Not the sort of treatment you'd expect on the Eastern Front, to be sure...

Finding this description has more than settled the issue for me. A DESPERATE shortage is in plain English, and it's uninterpretable any other way.

And it's right on target for the period we speak of....July 1942

 

That would probably only have come if the operation was a go. It never got close to that so it's hardly surprising that there weren't any.

Is it? I certainly don't see how.

That's becuase there was little to gain from it. Whether or not it would happen in case of an invasion attempt is a good question. If the British thought they had a good chance of catching either the Italian fleet (or substantial portions there of) or the transports I suspect they would.

That's a pretty long mission though isn't it? Although southern Italy should provide a fair amount of runway space. Coordinating the raids from different airbases might be something of a challenge though.

What you are describing I would consider recon rather than spotting. Certainly arial recon was quite useful but of course you can't rule out the British getting some as well. As far as radar goes here's a list of ships and dates they were fitted with type 284 fire control radar.
Sensor: BR, Radar, Type 284
Note that it is present on not only battleships but many cruisers by the summer of 42.

I agree on that. I wouldn't say their heavy units deserve that either. Given that they had neither the fuel or the force to conduct a sea control campaign they made the rather intelligent choice not to try. There heavy units, at least IMO, were task oriented. If the intended mission was acomplished or no longer possible they didn't see much benefit in staying around to take damage and burn fuel that they might need at a later date.

I think you very much underestimate the difficulty particularly when the mine field is covered by coastal batteries.

 

Just a little more light....

The epilogue to this story is also revealing....
Strever and his crew are put into another 'Cant' seaplane, where the crew is instructed to fly them to Taranto and captivity. On the journey there, Strever and co manage to skyjack the seaplane, and head it for Malta. The unfortunate Italians explain that they had been going on leave, and were detailed at the last moment to transfer Strever and crew with them...

"The four of us did our best to return the hospitality received at Levkas the day before. But it was the Italians who once again came to our rescue....they produced some wine they were taking home for their leave and shared it with us.

Harry Coldbeck has added the epilogue....(H.G. Coldbeck, Remuera, Auckland, 1982)

"When they were asked, the crew of the 'Cant' agreed to show the Royal Air Force how to handle the aircraft on the understanding that it would only be used for mercey/lifesaving missions. This was readily accepted as Malta had no float plane available for air sea rescue at this very difficult time. Moreover, with the imminent arrival of the August convoy, or what was to remain of it, aerial activity was sure to intensify."

So, here we have Coldbeck describing the July situation as "...a very difficult time." Furthermore, Malta is cannot even pick up stranded aircrews by seaplane or otherwise until this Italian crew and their 'Cant' arrive somewhat unorthodoxically.

So, lets add a 'lack of air-sea rescue capability' to the list of reasons why Malta would fall.

 

LWD...

I must extend my personal thanks to you for making this debate such a lively, polite, and creditable learning experience.

Your input is well received from this poster, even if I do disagree. And if theres more to come, I'll be the first to read it and reply.

 

It certainly was that but more on the relationships of the British and Italians than the survivability of Malta.

Of course it was. They were still pretty much surrounded by axis controled territory and under attack by supperior ari forces. That doesn't mean however it's not at all clear that this means Malta was likely to fall if the axis tried invading.

Let's not. The fact that they didn't have any operable float planes is hardly going to have much impact on the survivability of Malta. Nor is it very surprising. Float planes are pretty soft targets vulnerable to even rifle caliber mgs. Did the British even have facilities to get them out of sight when they weren't flying?

 

Just for the record, Malta contained 112 heavy AA guns, 138 Light AA guns. These are described as "All modern weapons, these composed one of the thickest anti-aircraft defenses seen in WW2."

And..."Probably the first to see action if the Italian invasion fleet arrived would be the 37 coast artillery pieces. Some former Naval pieces probably had little effectiveness while one battery, six 6 pounder MkI twin-mounted guns, had very high effectiveness. Seven coast artillery pieces, 9.2" B.L. Mark X, comprised the heavy coast artillery. Presumably these were mounted in barbettes with all-round traverse to prevent an enemy from, firing from the blind side of the island with impunity. This artillery was intended to engage enemy warships.
Also available were about 40 pieces of 'bush' artillery, similar to that field artillery deployed on Crete. Due to their probable one-shot effectiveness these have been incorporated into the beach defense companies. Probably last to see action would be the one regiment of regular field artillery. It was armed with twenty four 25 pounders, a most effective weapon. Finally, the three coast artillery pieces stationed on Gozo Island, (just to the North-west of Malta) would not have had any effect on the outcome on Malta proper.

So there you have it. Just for you, LWD!!! I'm not sure whether our sources conflict, but thats straight from VV Borries...

BTW, can you track down the origin of any armor on Malta. Crete had "16 Light tanks and 9 Matilda heavy tanks. As with the artillery, these were the worst available armor from Egypt. They seem to have been sent because it was known that paratroops would have almost no defense against them . Accordingly they were scattered in small detachments. Armor losses were primarily due to mechanical breakdown."

In the game of "Crete", every time you move an armor unit, you must chance a roll on the breakdown table. The odds are that your tank will grind to a halt, unfortunately.

Any armor present on Malta would have been sent with the same mission in mind, and they would have sent them the worst examples, just as for Crete. Can anyone acertain excatly WHERE any of the armor vehicles present at Malta originated from? If they were from Egypt, bet your bottom dollar they were the poorest examples that could be 'spared'.
Not sure of this, though, so if anyone can help with that, much appreciation....

Christopher

Regards...Christopher

 

Urqh I had as a neighbour Adm. Birindelli, for some years, one of the Gibraltar mini subs operators, little doubts about the man's guts, incidentally he was allso a significant figure in Maltese history as he was the NATO commander that bungled the relationship with Mr Mintoff so badly that we risked Malta becomming a soviet base.

 

IMO they had little chance of either, they may catch some barges that are too slow to get out of the way, but are likeky to loose a lot to air, subs, mines and eboats, all considered attempting it looks a bad decision.
Now if a Doria hits a mine or gets torpedoed slowing it down things get different, but they would still have to be loitering well within axis air range to have any chance to catch her.

They don't need to coordinate, there will be fighters from Sicily over the island and the invasion fleet during all daylight hours, the Crete and Sardinia based aircraft have the role of intercepting the RN if it sorties so must remain there, but I think can still reach Malta with full bombloads if the RN fails to show up. Sicily based planes will only join the naval battle if the RN gets past them.

No matter what you call it was still decisive at least in the Narvik instance, IMO British floatplanes have a survival time of minutes with axis fighters around, there is little difference between a Skua or a Fulmar intercepting a Ro 43 and a Me 110 or Ju 88C intercepting a Walrus of a Sea Fox, the end result is still likely to be a ditched seaplane.

If anyone controlled the Central Med in 41 42 it was the RM not the RN, there was on average a convoy a day to NA, while the RN limited itself to a few "maximum effort" ops, a claim of control by the RN would have the same value of the Germans stating they controlled the Channel in 1942 based on the dash. They had not undisputed control, had they had more fuel they could have reduced losses further by providing stronger escorts, but by merely sitting in port they prevented the RN from attempting more than what were in truth sea denial raids.

I believe the Italians knew the siting of the 9.2" guns and can knock them out from long range 13" fire at very little risk.
The 6lb are more difficult to counter as their positions is not known but they are likely to have a short and interesting life if they show themselves. I expect they will wait for the inavsion not risk almost certain destruction engaging the minesweepers. The same argument applies with more force to the 25lb IMO those guns are the strongest card the British have, the paras would be glad to see some knocked out engaging minesweepers.

 

I think you are underestimating the need for coordination to a considerable extent. If you bombers and transports show up in a single bunch or as piecemeal attacks can make a huge difference in the impact and success achieved. Then there's how many fighters you can keep over the island and fleet.

But recon doesn't negate radar and the British can be flying their own recon from any of a number of places.

That depends a lot on the weather and how many planes of what type are around. The British Recon planes wouldn't have to be floatplanes either.

Historically that didn't work to well and at long range the Italian battleships are quite vulnerable themselves.

Again history doesn't support your position very well. Look at Wake Island for instance. The positions of the guns were hard to hide and not very strong yet the Japanese weren't very successful in taking them out and lost a number of duals with them.
[quote[] I expect they will wait for the inavsion not risk almost certain destruction engaging the minesweepers. [/quote]
How will the invasion go forward if the mines are still there?

Indeed but I just don't see that as very likely, the axis don't have near the firepower that some of the Pacific invasion had and they failed in many cases to silence opposing guns. When they did it was often due to close range fire from DDs but that doesn't work that well vs observed indirect fire.

 

I would be surprised if it came from Egypt but it's possible. Now if it's there to counter paratroopers where would you station it? The obvious danger is paratroopers taking an air field so you station it at the air fields. Even if it's in poor mechanical condition it doesn't have to move far and indeed the airfields are rather centered which means in a pinch it can get to other parts of the island pretty easily.

One thing I haven't seen addressed is what happens to Rommel when most of his air support is pulled back for this operation.

 

Not that much difference if the plan is round the clock (or at least for the 14 hours of daylight) attacks.

Possibly a Sunderland has the range to make it to the Malta area from available bases, nothing else has. It's either the ship's floatplanes or no planes at all.

Not to 9.2" guns they don't have the range.

At Wake the marines had the big guns, the 5"/51 outranged the obsolescent guns on the Japanese ships. The opposit is true for Malta, even the 8" guns of the heavy cruisers outrange them.

Boot is on the other foot, they British have the option of attempting to destroy the minesweepers at the cost of revealing the guns position, if they do and fail to prevents the sweeps there are no guns left to oppose the landings.

AFAIK the Italians or Germans never had that sort of naval firepower concentration, closest thing I can find is the WW1 operation Albion, so there'se little to go by, for the Italian navy you have to go back to the 1911 war against the Turks where they did force the Dardanelles, contrary to the RN 3 years later. Most WW2 axis ETO landings were unopposed. (Norway, Crete, Corsica). 3 BBs with 10 x 13" each is a lot of firepower, th 9.2" are outranged and outgunned. If they prove not enough the Littorios may well join up, they are just a few hours sailing time away though Iachino would be reluctant to load their magazines with HE. BTW the LW proved pretty good at knocking out the same shore batteries that had protected Leros against British attack for two years.


IMO Rommel will stop at the border and wait for the air assets to return, but he is rather unpredicable.

 

There's a huge difference. Dealing with 50 planes every half hour or so is much easier than with raids of several hundred.

That's strange I seem to recall the British having some carriers and also flying planes into Malta from Gibralter. The latter would be risky but still possible.

Really? You mean these 9.2" guns?
Britain 9.2"/47 (23.4 cm) Mark IX
If they haven't had their mountings modified to allow 30 or 35 degree elevations you might be correct but looking at the similar
Britain 9.2"/47 (23.4 cm) Mark X
30 degree elevation will get you out to somewhere between 22,000 and 26,000 yards for naval mountings with the coastal defence guns reaching out to almost 30,000 yards without super charges and well past that which means that they exceed the range of the Italian battleships, and of course it's at that maximum range that they present the greatest threat to the Italian battleships.

They didn't use that range at Wake though and unless they didn't modify the mountings to allow for 30 or 35 degree elevation the 8" guns would likely not have out ranged them and if supercharges were available neither would the battleship guns.

History doesn't support the ability to neutralize artillery that easily especially artillery in hardened positions.

Indeed the fact that they are used to unopposed landings indicates a lack of experiance with opposed ones. It's also not at all clear that the battleships did indeed outrange the 9.2" guns. Indeed:
http://www.fsgfort.com/uploads/pdfs/Public/British Coastal Artillery P.pdf
Implies the mountings probably allowed a 35 degree elevation. Comments elsewhere mention that the supercharges were available for these guns in WWII (a wiki site listed 7 as being deployed to Malta as well but that's wiki).

They also had quite a problem with dispersion from what I remember. Not the best thing in the world for taking out pinpoint targets.

I'm not very familiar with that battle but looking up what I could quickly find on line I didn't see anything to indicate that.

Might have a bit of trouble staying supplied there without the LW to keep the RAF off his supply colums.

 

Marmat...

A few weeks is enough; Park had ordered and defensive preparations were made throughout Eleven group within six weeks of Eden's famous LDV bradcast the week before Dunkirk...

As I've noted before. the aircraft don't actually need to be flightworthy...just have undercarriages Malta had plenty of U/S aircraft for various reasons...

As for assigned offensive strength...don't forget the Fleet Air arm They seem to have shared duties with the RAF on Malta. Plus what's actually ON the island on any given time depends on the date the Germans select for HERKULES

Quite right - there was no Enigma decrypts regarding the HISTORICAL planning stages for HERKULES...

But as happened in every other theatre - once the Luftwaffe began the actual work of preparation for the operation, they'd be firing wireless messages back and forth willynilly. LW preparations would involve the early dispatch of airfield maintenance units to Sicily to find and develop extra strips, movement orders for the massing of the LW's Ju52s from the training schools again and for their staged dispatch BACK to Junkers in Germany for maintenance (happened prior to Holland AND prior to Crete) and then on to Sicily...etc.etc....

Not only were the LW sloppy in encryption, they were TERRIBLY sloppy in what they used radio for. Throughout the war they used it far too much for administrative details...all of which went to building up the ULTRA digests.

 

You don't seem willing to grasp that they have to GET on the ground on the airfields to be able to manhandle aircraft and wrecks away. While the flightlines are blocked - this can't happen.

The potential loss of Malta is a very different case...remember that Churchill turned his back on a chance of peace in 1940 for fear that it would cost him Malta.

Post-POW and Repulse is a different situation from before that....but even off Norway the RN had no compunction about operating under an enemy air umbrella though constantly worrying about/fearing loss. Experience however showed off Norway that the sort of air attacks the LW and RA could deliver were of very limited effectiveness.

No...you forget the RN is going to be able to bombard the Axis positions!

Overcrowding will indeed be an issue; it was an issue historically on Sicily without gathering an extra 1300 aircraft! I'm not sure the load vs fuel consumption figures would allow Sardinia or Crete to be used for the airborne element of the invasion.

After 36 hours the FJ will be "half starved" - half their rations will be gone! Depending, that is, that they actually connect with ALL their materiel after landing! Once again - it didn't work as expected on Crete.

 

1/ Even preparing for coordinating all that would create a HUGE spike in intercepted and decrypted LW radio traffic

2/ The British can do what they did at various OTHER times in the Med war - coordinate themselves...with the Cretans and SOE to attack the airfields on Crete! Historically there were at least three commando raids launched on fields on Crete with great success with the cooperation of the Andartes...at the height of the "air bridge" to supply Rommel in the run-up to Alamein, when the DAK were within range of fields on Crete.

THIS particular aspect has me a bit puzzled, though...

Air traffic control OVER MALTA isn't the issue at all...

The problem is coordination of aircraft heading BACK to Sicily/Southern Italy to refuel/re-arm...and in the case of the transports reload. Coordination is ESSENTIAL for the host of medium and small fields being used....or what sort of a problem do you think there's going to be with a few dozen aircraft showing up at a field that can only accomodate a dozen or so at a time???

A lot of THOSE are going to be damaged...or have next-to-dry tanks It's not as if they can be stacked Heathrow-wise!

And of course - what happens to the great waltz of aircraft in/out again...if a runway is blocked by a damaged aircraft for any length of time?

A proper transfer of LW "black men" to Sicily can deal with the maintenance and refuelling issues the LW experienced duringr MERKUR...but they CAN'T do anything about the effects of enemy AA fire, or blocked runways on Sicily until the fires are put out

 

P.S. does anyone have a map of the airfields historically used during the war in Sicily?

I wonder how many of them are within shore bombardment range???

 

Sounds familiar, I THINK I do(?), check tomorrow. What were you planning to bombard them with? Anything wearing the White Ensign with guns capable of any kind of range, was involved in matters considered more important than Malta, and the Inshore Squadron supporting the Army was just too valuable to risk off Sicily??? Better to have the RAF do it, if it had to be done (as was the case historically, in planning anyway).

 

...considered so because Malta wasn't about to be invaded. Do you think those priorities would remain the same in the event of HERKULES actually beginning? Did for instance the Admiralty's deployments remain the same after 24th May 1941...or did the DNO start stripping convoys etc. of their protection to send ships against the Bismarck after Denmark Strait?...

This thread is, after all, in effect a WI...so we have to avoid the classic pitfall of assuming that after a given POD...only one side is free to make changes to their historical behaviour...

 

Some that come to mind
Comiso (Ragusa)
Fontanarossa (Catania)
Sciacca (Agrigento)
Boccadifalco (Palermo)
Santo Pietro (Biscari)
Ponte Olivo (Gela)
Castelvetrano (Trapani)


Many are on or near the coast but the chances of the RN interdicting them are practically zero, historically the didn't manage to knock out even Pantelleria, for them to come close to Sicily with magazines loaded with HE would require a bout of insanity from their admiral, to get decisive results from shore bombardment you need to linger for hours, and they can't do that and hope to survive.

The large airport complex round Foggia is 650 Km away, not too far for the bombers.
Southern Sardinia is 600 Km away, good for one or even two raids in the long summer days.
Crete is some 950 Km away still within Ju 88 range

The most often quoted figure for the Doria guns is 29.000 meters (not yards) and 42.000m for the Littorio I have dispersal figures for them but not at that range, the British gun positions are practically unarmoured and (according to NavWeaps) apparentlty cannot penetrate even the weak 250mm armour of the Doria above 3000m. Are any details available on the Malta guns, there seems that the 9.2" marks differed widely in performance. IMO they are not going to hold back anything larger than a cruiser.

Interesting table on Spitfire arrivals
[TABLE="class: grid"]
[TR]
[TD]Date
[/TD]
[TD]Codename
[/TD]
[TD]Carriers
[/TD]
[TD]Sent
[/TD]
[TD]Lost
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]7/3
[/TD]
[TD]Spotter
[/TD]
[TD]Eagle & Argus
[/TD]
[TD]15
[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]21/3
[/TD]
[TD]Picket I
[/TD]
[TD]Eagle
[/TD]
[TD]7
[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]20/4
[/TD]
[TD]Calendar
[/TD]
[TD]Wasp
[/TD]
[TD]47
[/TD]
[TD]1
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]9/5
[/TD]
[TD]Bowery
[/TD]
[TD]Wasp & Eagle
[/TD]
[TD]64
[/TD]
[TD]4
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]19/5
[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]Argus & Eagle
[/TD]
[TD]17
[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]3/6
[/TD]
[TD]Style
[/TD]
[TD]Eagle
[/TD]
[TD]31
[/TD]
[TD]4
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]9/6
[/TD]
[TD]Salient
[/TD]
[TD]Eagle
[/TD]
[TD]32
[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]15/7
[/TD]
[TD]Pinpoint
[/TD]
[TD]Eagle
[/TD]
[TD]32
[/TD]
[TD]1
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]21/7
[/TD]
[TD]Insect
[/TD]
[TD]Eagle
[/TD]
[TD]30
[/TD]
[TD]2
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]1/9
[/TD]
[TD]Bellows
[/TD]
[TD]Furious
[/TD]
[TD]38
[/TD]
[TD]1
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]17/9
[/TD]
[TD]Baritone
[/TD]
[TD]Furious
[/TD]
[TD]38
[/TD]
[TD]1
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]29/10
[/TD]
[TD]Reain
[/TD]
[TD]Furious
[/TD]
[TD]31
[/TD]
[TD]2
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]



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