Post by HaydnPost by Geoffrey SinclairThe RN lost 4 merchant ships and 2 destroyers from the Harpoon
convoy from Gibraltar, one destroyer being disabled by gunfire
the sunk by aircraft. 2 merchant ships made it to Malta.
... with 15,000 tons of payload (out of 43,000 tons, the rest was sunk).
Yes.
Post by HaydnAn amount far below the level Malta needed to be adequately resupplied for
operational purposes.
Yes, but it seems enough for it to hang on in terms of food.
The use of the fast minelayers and the submarines to ship in key
supplies helped as well.
Post by HaydnPerhaps they expected to get both the eastern and the western convoy
through with negligible losses?
Given the situation no sane person could expect negligible losses
on those convoys, they expected to get some of each through,
certainly not all.
Post by HaydnPost by Geoffrey SinclairThe
threat of surface action was one factor in the decision to
scuttle the damaged tanker.
Surface action was decisive in that it forced the convoy back and delayed
its course long enough for the air strike forces to finish off the
freighters (except the two survivors).
Harpoon had 6 merchant ships.
1 was sunk on 14 June in the same attack that badly damaged
Liverpool, the retiring cruiser became the focus of Italian aircraft
for a while, easing the threat to the convoy.
1 more was sunk and 1 damaged by air attacks on the convoy
on 15 June while the main RN destroyers were trying to keep the
Italian surface forces at bay. The convoy had turned away from
Malta, after the air attack they changed back towards Malta, they
had been moving away from safety for up to 90 minutes The
damaged ship, the tanker, was left behind under tow.
Another merchant ship was sunk after the turn around despite
a Spitfire escort.
Post by HaydnBTW on that occasion the Italian ships shot much better than their
opponents, scoring 12 hits vs. 1. One AP shell pierced through a fuel tank
of cruiser Cairo, but it did not explode.
The book I have says the British scored two hits, but apart from
the number of hits how many shells were fired by each side?
The British ships were out ranged for much of the battle.
Post by HaydnPost by Geoffrey SinclairAll that sailing backwards and forwards meant when the Italian
Battleships turned away from an intercept there was only about
a third of the AA ammunition left, the convoy had to return.
Vian's saling backwards and forwards was exactly the consequence of Vian's
(understandable) unwillingness to come within range of the Italian
battleships and cruisers.
Not quite, he was being managed from Egypt by an Admiral who
seemed to be hoping an airstrike or a submarine hit would force the
Italian ships to turn away.
Post by HaydnWhen he assumed or hoped the Italian force had been crippled by torpedo
attacks or had just given up, he marched forwards. Then news come in that
the Italian fleet is around there, and Vian turns back.
Vian was worried about AA ammunition before he learnt of the
Italian fleet at sea. He asked Egypt if it wanted him to retire after
the sighting reports.
The order from Egypt was turn around at 02.00 on the 15th, thanks
to an expected intercept around 07.00 that morning. The change in
course is partially blamed for S-boats being able to torpedo a
cruiser.
Then the order from Egypt came to turn around again, which occurred
at 07.00. Followed by an order to keep going if the air attack fails.
..
Then came the sighting report of the Italian battleships, and the convoy
was ordered to turn around again by the RN command in Egypt, which
it did at 09.40, heading back to Egypt.
At 11.51 the order came to turn back towards Malta as the RAF was
reporting torpedo strikes on a cruiser and a battleship. The order
arrived at 13.45, after an air attack clearly aimed at the warships.
A further signal from Egypt, sent at 12.45, received at 14.20 gave
Vian discretion about what he should do. Vian kept heading for
Egypt given the reports of the size and position of the Italian fleet.
At 16.25, having learnt of the Italian battleships turning away, Egypt
sent another signal, asking the fuel status and suggesting the
AA cruiser and Hunt class destroyers take the convoy to Malta
while the other cruisers and destroyers retired.
Vian responded with the report he only had about under a third of his
AA ammunition left.
Post by HaydnIn the meantime his ships were of course the target of steady air raids.
Yes, but mostly on the way back to Egypt.
All up 2 merchant ships, 1 cruiser and 3 destroyers lost.
The cruiser to a U-boat, 1 destroyer to an S-boat, 2 to air attack,
the merchant ships to air attack.
Post by HaydnPost by Geoffrey SinclairPost by HaydnThe eastern convoy turned around and sailed back to Alexandria (being
mangled by air attacks all the way back) to avoid contact with
superior Italian forces.
The RN decision was based on AA ammunition stocks.
That's not what even just a cursory statement of facts tells.
No it is what happened, see above.
Post by Haydn01:45 15 June, upon being informed the Italian fleet "set sail" Vian turns
back towards Alexandria, hoping aircraft and submarines would take a toll
of the enemy ships and drive the Italians back.
This was a decision taken in Egypt, after knowing the Italian fleet
had left Taranto on the 14th and meant to delay any contact until
late in the day, given the Italian fleet's problems with night actions.
Post by HaydnAbout 7:00 Vian gets to know an enemy heavy cruiser has been torpedoed and
heads for Malta, assuming the Italians are going to retreat.
No, the RN command had not yet heard of the air strikes, rather
they decided to try and run the risk, essentially having delayed any
surface intercept until later in the day.
Post by HaydnAbout 9:40 Vian is informed that the Italian fleet is still moving in the
direction of his ships. Again he turns back.
The order was from Egypt.
Post by HaydnAbout 2:00 pm the Italians halt the pursue, but they are ordered to stay
off western Greece in case the British sail due west again.
Actually more like 15.15 and they were 110 miles away at the time.
Post by HaydnThey finally head for Taranto at sunset, after waiting in vain for Vian to
come on again.
That would be a rather bad assumption, reversing course after
nightfall was a possibility.
Early on the 16th Littorio is hit by a torpedo, minor damage.
Post by HaydnAbout 7:00 pm Vian is told the Italians have quit pursuing and he can
resume his route to Malta. By then however he's low on fuel and most of
all on AA ammunition, and has no option but getting back to port.
Correct.
Post by HaydnSo in the final analysis it was the fleet action, not the aircraft, that
led to abort Vigorous.
The aircraft did most of the sinking, the AA ammunition caused
the retirement according to Vian. So without the air strikes they
can keep going, without the ships they would have kept course
for Malta, the axis combined threats share the credit.
Post by HaydnAs with Harpoon, the surface threat allowed the air forces (and
submarines, U-205 in that case) to pound away at the ships causing major
damage and losses.
Except the reality is those air strikes were going to happen no matter
what course the convoy was on.
The reality is the threat of the fleet stopped the attempt to push the
convoy through. Unlike the eastern convoy it did not draw off escorts
making the AA screen lighter.
Post by HaydnPost by Geoffrey SinclairAir attacks
had done their damage before the final retirement...
Yes, they had done their damage as Vian was sailing back and forth to
avoid a firepower he had little to cope with.
to 02.00 towards Malta
02.00 to 07.00 towards Egypt.
07.00 to 09.40 towards Malta
09.40 onwards towards Egypt.
Not sure I would call that sailing back and forth, unless you include
the original sailing towards Malta.
Post by HaydnPost by Geoffrey SinclairShreds is a third of the cargo?
Two in six may not be mere shreds, I concede. But one intact and one
damaged cargo out of 17 in two convoys may be termed as shreds... because
17 cargo ships were the *entire* cargo that was supposed to make it to
Malta.
No one believed all the merchant ships would make it to Malta,
they certainly expected more would.
Post by HaydnPost by Geoffrey SinclairThe air power that attackehd both convoys could also attack Malta, the
concentration of air power was already there.
Not so easy.
Air power flies out of airfields, and through WWII operational range
limits implied that forces deployed to counter a convoy sailing across
Western Mediterranean (based on airfields in Sardinia and western Sicily)
had to be redeployed to eastern Sicily and Italian mainland airfields in
order to face an eastern threat or attain a concentration on Malta. Doing
that took a little time and some logistical effort. Italian airfields,
though numerous, were not immense and did not abound in facilities.
However the Luftwaffe was doing most of the effective strikes and
it was known to be able to move aircraft at short notice.
The Sicilian airfields were large enough and stocked enough, given
their use in raids on Malta. Even though day strike sorties had stopped
the Luftwaffe still flew around 600 fighter sorties over Malta in June 1942.
The problem was Malta had an active air defence, air strikes near
it would need fighter escorts.
Post by HaydnWith such infrastructures, managing a strike force of several hundred
planes, partly German with their own logistical tail, and shifting units
from air zone A to air zone B to have them operational a.s.a.p. was not a
soft snap.
Except the Luftwaffe had trained to do such things from pre war.
Except there were never several hundred planes, the Luftwaffe
bomber force was around 200 to 250 aircraft, not all were
available or serviceable.
Rommel was attacking at the time.
Post by HaydnPost by Geoffrey SinclairGiven the need of German support in early 1941 do the same
conclusions apply to the Italians, they lost their Mediterranean
war in 1940?
In 1940 - early 1941, prior to the arrival of the Germans and even after
the Taranto torpedo raid, the routes between Italy and Libya were
relatively safe and substantially unimpeded by the RN.
Zero losses to November 1940, 10% losses in December 1940, 3% in
January 1941, 1.5% in February, around 8% March to May, 6% in June,
then it really climbs before falling in 1942.
Post by HaydnThe Italian Army and Air Force lost the campaign, but the Navy kept the
central Med routes open
The Italian merchant ships stuck to their task to the end of the
North African campaign, something Admiral Cunningham
acknowledged.
And my reading is the axis airpower was the reason the convoys
were doing well in the early part of the Mediterranean war. Malta
needed to be built up but Cunningham had a fleet he could take
the Italians on with, but only did so when the objective meant it was
worthwhile to run the risks of air attack.
Post by Haydnand even the isolated and cut off Aegean Sea outposts were kept (barely)
supplied by blockade runners.
Showing how little supplies they needed as long as they were not fighting.
Post by HaydnOn the ground and in the air, the situation had reached a stalemate. To
break it, march on Tripoli and shut the North African front down, the
British would have needed another massive forces buildup (O'Connor and
others were quite optimistic on that point but logistics need more than
optimism to run, and that applies not only to Rommel).
And given a purely Italian force in North Africa that seems like a good
possibility, more so if Hitler stays out of the Balkans.
Post by HaydnOver time they would have built the required force up and they might have
got to Tripoli, and once there what next? An amphibious invasion of Italy
was out of the question with the forces the British alone could muster and
the amphibious invasion technology available until 1943.
It partly comes down like all what ifs to what else has changed, is
Greece still fighting? Does Japan attack?
The British would probably start taking various islands in the
Mediterranean, working up to landing on continental Europe.
Post by HaydnAnd the destruction of the Italian Navy as a combat force would have been
prerequisite for an invasion. Not an easy thing to do, as facts proved.
Cunningham tried in July 1940 and failed.
You mean the Italian fleet would retire even if there was an invasion
convoy behind the RN ships?
Post by HaydnThe Taranto raid "changed the balance of naval power" for no longer than a
few hours, since nothing came out of it in terms of British control of
central Med sea lanes.
So let me understand this, running convoys to Malta with light losses
is not proof of control of the sea lanes, but running convoys to Libya
with light losses is?
Simply put in 1940 neither side was in a position to effectively interdict
Mediterranean convoys.
The loss of 1 battleship for the war and 2 others for some months
was quite useful to the British, enabling them to redeploy ships
and sail convoys.
Post by HaydnI think it's fair to say in 1940 Italy had painfully lost two major
campaigns, but she was still in the game and driving her into surrender
would have still been a long haul for the British.
Yet this is only the case given the German support in 1941.
Yet the idea the British still in the game in early 1943 is
considered a loss
Post by HaydnConversely, without the American intervention, first as UK's war megastore
and then with combat units on the ground and in the air, in 1942 the fate
of Malta would have been sealed and with it the entire British campaign
for the Mediterranean and the Middle East.
Simply no, the logistics situation in North Africa was such the
axis always had major problems projecting power into Egypt.
Malta made it worse. Mussolini declaring war before the overseas
merchant fleet made it back meant significantly reduced the
tonnage available for the North African campaign and meant
losses hurt more.
There were no US ground units in action until November 1942
and the convoys that are considered to show the siege had been
lifted came from Egypt where the ground combat units were
non US, as was most of the airpower.
Post by HaydnItalian strategists were not completely stupid and knew they could never
have beaten the world's top naval power on a global scale. Their ideal
goal was trying to help break the back of the British Empire by staying in
the game long enough to force the British to commit large forces to the
Med. theater and 1) suffer disproportionate losses in the process, 2) suck
vital combat power away from the other fronts to pour it into the Med. And
letting the Germans and the Japanese do the major job of cutting the
British to pieces.
So the British lose because other axis powers attack it, they
also lose when the US helps it.
So the British lose.
Post by HaydnOne must say the plan in a way got close to realization as the British
effort in the Med and the expense and losses (and sheer wear and tear)
they incurred contributed to the downfall of the British naval (and
financial) supremacy and the slipping of Britain from top rank to that of
a second tier power post-war.
This rather ignores Europe as a whole moving from number 1 to
something less, replaced by the USSR and USA, and it starts
with WWI. You cannot kill that many and destroy that much and
expect to avoid a big fall.
Simply put the British were on the way out as world number 1 at
the end of the 19th century, places like Germany and the US
could use the technology and had a bigger population.
The Empire would need to evolve into something more like the
Dominions for Britain to stay at number 1, including the industrial
development.
Post by HaydnWithout US shipping the British could never have kept all of their fronts
supplied, just to make an example.
Actually the situation is more complex than that given the allies pooled
the merchant ships and the size of US forces deployed overseas.
The British controlled around 17.8 million tons of ships 1,600 GRT
or larger when war was declared.
In December 1941 that had climbed to around 20.4 million tons.
Some of this is US ships leased or built, a lot is European fleets of
countries Germany and Italy invaded.
At the end of the war the British merchant fleet was down to 19.5
million tons, including 4.3 million tons of chartered ships from
foreign (non Dominion) countries, or about the same amount
of chartered ships as it had in mid 1941.
US merchant ship building was about half of Britain in 1940,
about 70% in 1941, and about 4 times as much in 1942.
Then the US production system really kicked in, around 13 million
tons of new ships in 1943 and 12.3 million in 1944.
A further complication is the civilian needs, the basic reason
the per war merchant fleets were there in the first place.
There is no doubt the US helped Britain move war supplies, how
much exactly is harder to find, and how much that mattered ends
in a what if.
Post by HaydnPost by Geoffrey SinclairThe reality is the US military force commitment to the Mediterranean
was a minor part of the forces engaged until 1943, and the siege of
Malta was lifted at the end of 1942.
Well, in referring to "US intervention" I don't just mean the troops on
the ground. I mean the whole picture of the "special relationship" from
Cash & Carry and Lend Lease on.
So the idea is buying weapons from other countries means you have
lost the war?
The same applies to the supplies the Italians received from Germany?
Noted the use of German merchant ships to supply North Africa?
Post by HaydnLet's imagine a desert campaign without Grant and Sherman tanks, and
without P-40 fighters... ouch... that hurts. :-)
Given British leadership at Gazala and tank tactics the reality is
the US aid was not used effectively.
Actually the British had the numbers most of the time in the desert
war, thanks to the axis supply difficulties. Neither side's aircraft did
much to each other, the axis easily won the average air combat
given the Bf109 had better altitude performance, usually better
trained pilots and no need to engage unless the situation looked
good.
It took until the late 1942 and early 1943 battles for the RAF and
British Army to really work together effectively.
Simply put the US aid was useful, not as decisive as you are claiming,
the impact of the German forces was more.
To the end of 1941 it looks like 1,123 Hurricanes, 508 Tomahawks
and 177 Kittyhawks had arrived in the Middle East.
By the end of 1942 1,025 Kittyhawks had arrived. It looks like
Hurricane imports were over 2,000.
Post by HaydnBut actually, it's even hard to believe there would ever have been a
campaign anywhere from 1942 on without US shipping carrying shiploads
around the world.
The trouble was the losses on the US eastern seaboard in 1942 was
a major negative for the allies, it meant they spent 1943 recovering
the merchant shipping deficit. It was 1944 when the US began to
dominate.
Then comes the reality the Pacific absorbed more shipping per person
because of the distances.
The monster liners, (Queens etc), could make three round trips per month
across the Atlantic carrying 15,000 men each at a time and ultimately
carried
24% of the US troops shipped to Europe. Some 21% of all US troops sent
overseas to all theatres were moved by British Ministry of War Transport
Ships.
The British had some important merchant ship assets but overall from around
1942 onwards the US helped the British more than the other way around.
Post by HaydnThe British merchant navy just didn't have enough ships left for the task.
Actually the British had quite a lot of ships, thanks to things like the
Dutch, Norwegian and Greek ships joining the fleet. Germany and Italy
seemed to go out of their way to push countries with large merchant
fleets to join the British.
The US forces came with a long logistic tail requirement given how
far from home they were fighting.
It would be more correct to say how much the US dominated
amphibious assault shipping production in 1942 and 1943 and later,
something that was important to almost all allied campaigns. Later
again came the fact the US merchant fleet primacy as it ended up
towards twice the size of the British controlled one.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.