WWII what-if: BEF destroyed before it can evacuate, 1940

[Stuart]

[We were told in school that Hitler told his troops not to advance further - because he did not want to antagonize the british. It never made sense to me then, and i did some research, but mostly without getting any better information - no great reseach skills at that time.

The myth that Hitler didn't want to antagonize the British is pretty thoroughly discredited by Brian Bond in his book Britain, France and Belgium 1939-1940. pages 104 - 105. "Few historians now accept the view that Hitler's behaviour was influenced by the desire to let the British off lightly in hope that they would then accept a compromise peace. True, in his political testament dated 26 February 1945 Hitler lamented that Churchill was "quite unable to appreciate the sporting spirit" in which he had refrained from annihilating the BEF at Dunkirk, but this hardly squares with the contemporary record. Directive No. 13, issued by the Supreme Headquarters on 24 May called specifically for the annihaltion of the French, English and Belgian forces in the pocket, while the Luftwaffe was ordered to prevent the escape of the English forces across the channel."

I think there was also a subtle psychological factor here. The German military has never understood sea power or what it can mean. They see the seas and oceans as giant rivers that block the way. To them, a British Army on a beach has an insuperable obstacle behind it and has nowhere left to go. The British understand sea power, to them the seas and oceans are open highways to be used as they wish. A British Army on the beach with it's back to the sea is provided with an open door through which it can leave at any time it wishes

Actual question: How was Dunkirk perceived by the british

As a miracle which, proved that God is British - again

french

Proof that the British will fight to the last Frenchman - again

germans

Scheisse. Oh well, on to Paris - again.

rest of world?

[/quote]

(fondly) why those whacky Brits. What will they think of next.

Seriously, the British took a lot of heart from the rescue and how it was done. Not just getting the troops out but the way it was done (my father by the way, came out on the Ramsgate lifeboat). the idea of amateur sailors in their small craft giving the finger to the German Army was quite irresistible. On realistic level, it convinced the Royal Navy that it could operate under intense German air attack without excessive loss. The RN lost five destroyers, all sunk in harbor.

To the French it proved that the British would cut and run when things got bad. That was a significant contributor to their collapse.

I don't think it really affected the Germans one way or the other. It was annoying that the BEF escaped but not really important. The strategic center of mass was the French Army. That was the only one that really mattered.

As to the rest of the world, it was a defeat amongst many, no more, no less than that. In the US, it led to doubts over whether the UK was going to stay in the war (those doubts remained until the BoB) and led to the formulation of war plans envisaging the bombardment of Germany from bases in the USA. I think it probably made Stalin a little more determined to delay the war as long as possible. But the truth was, compared with the destruction of French military power and the occupation of northern France, the escape of the BEF was really of very little importance.

[Force Lord]

Thanks for the info Stuart. Your post was very illuminating.

[Simon_Jester]

I, also, thank Stuart for his analysis. While none of his conclusions surprised me very much, I'd never thought them through in anything like that level of detail.

But a little oil is better than no oil, which is what I'm getting at. The Germans needed all the help they could get on that front; they simply did not have enough oil. Any extra supplies they could have secured would have improved their strategic situation, though probably not by a decisive margin.

Assuming the Axis wins in North Africa, assuming they can take the Middle East quickly, assuming all the oil fields are intact. Where is the infrastructure to move the oil to Europe going to come from?

Is Italy going to magically be able to build a fleet of tankers? Would a hypothetical Turkey joining the Axis cause an oil pipeline to Germany to spring up from the desert? Will a fleet of thousands of trucks appear on Hitler's birthday to give him a gift of oil?

It would take years for the Axis to construct the necessary infrasctructure for it to be worth a damm, and in having to do so they'll be using up what oil/fuel they have that is already needed elsewhere.

Point; at the time most of the infrastructure that existed in the oil regions flowed south, not north, as I understand it. I am honestly not sure whether there were, say, usable rail lines that could have brought fuel to the Mediterranean coast, or how much tanker capacity the Italian merchant marine had available, or any such specific points.

I think that the Axis could probably have jury-rigged together enough transport to at least come away from the situation with more oil than they burned getting it, but that is a purely intuitive guess, and not a serious statement that I intend to hold to in the face of someone who has actually studied the problem.

Have you?

[Stuart]

Have you?

Oh yes. In fact I have maps that I use quite frequently that show the oil transmission and electrical power generation grids across the entire region. Very detailed maps

Now, there are four ways one can move crude oil (or refined oil products) around in bulk. These are

• Pipeline
  Ship
  Rail
  Truck

If we go to 1940, there are two pipelines that run from the oil fields in Persia (the only ones that matter at this time). One goes across Iraq and northern Syria to Haifa, the other follows the same route mroe or less (it's further north) and ends up in Beirut. The first was built and run by the British, the second by the French. Botha re dependent on a chain of pumping stations that are numbered along the line (for example, on the southern line they are H-1 to H-9, the H standing for Haifa). Over the years these have developed into significant communities, H-5 is - or was - for example a major Iraqi military base area. Note that these pipelines terminale on the extreme eastern edge of the Mediterranean. It is a rock solid certainty that neither pipeline would survive a German invasion. Both would be blown up along with their pumping stations. As a casulat estimate, it would take at least five years to rebuild them and the oil still only gets to the eastern edge of the Mediterranean. To get the oil any further, the Germans would have to build a pipeline through Turkey, around the Black Sea, through the Caucasus and then hook up with the existing pipeline net. This would take at least ten to 15 years and predicates the conquest of the appropriate areas of Russia - which is, as the Germans found out, easier said than done.

This takes us to ships. Specifically tankers. These were rare commodities in the 1940s, in fact tankers were a major bottleneck for everybody except the German. Why were they not a bottleneck for the Germans? Because they didn't have any and one can't have a bottleneck in a supplyline that doesn't exist. The few real tankers the Germans had were being used as supply ships for their fleet. So, the Germans would have to switch most of their naval construction effort to building tankers, lots of them. That clobbers their warship construction programs very hard and there isn't much slack. About the only programs that could be cut would be the U-boat effort and the minesweeper effort. So, to get the tankers the Germans need, they would have to slash the U-boats and that takes the pressure off the Brits and their minesweepers and that means their ports get dangerous to use. Having accepted that cost, how do the tankers get used (and, by the way, we have to decide that before building them - I'll come to why later). The oil is in Persia. To tanker it back all the way means going down the gulf, down the coast of Africa (one can take for granted teh Suez Canal is either blocked or access denied), around the Cape, back up the coast of Africa, around Europe, through the Channel or North Sea and then to ports either in France or Germany. The Royal Navy mighty have something to say about that. In fact, a handful of submarines stationed in South Africa would cut that lifeline stone dead. The other option is to pipeline the oil to the east coast of the Mediterranean and tanker it from there to ports in southern France and Italy. Now this is a lot shorter and simpler. It's probably less dangerous. But, here's the catch. It needs a fundamentally different type of tanker. Going around the Cape needs a big, long-range ship with large fuel supplies and a sea-kindly hull. That kind of ship is limited in what ports it can use. To work in the med,w e need a small tanker with very limited own-fuel supplies and limited crew facilities. It doesn't go far after all. It's a much cheaper tanker to build and use, only it cannot do the Cape run. So teh Germans have to decide which type of tanker to build - and they have to decide that a year of so in advance. If the Germans opt for the Cape tankers, they have a small fleet of large ships that are very uneconomic to operate in the Med. If they go for teh Med tankers, they have a large fleet of small tankers that cannot operate anywhere else. Then the pipelines get blown up. Ouch. We also have a "number of tankers" problem

From the Gulf to ports in Northern France is 8,283 nautical miles (that right there means a big tanker just to carry the fuel for the trip). The return trip, therefore is 16,566 nautical miles. Back in the 1940s, a tanker did around 8 knots, some fast tankers did twelve but they were expensive beasts and most of them ended up as unreps or got converted to carriers. So, to do the round trip required 16,566/8 = 2,070.75 hours or 86 days. Say, one trip every three months allowing for loading and unloading. According to "The Strategic Bombing of Germany", Germany required to import 968,000 tons of oil per month. One of these big tankers carries around 25,000 tons of crude oil. Therefore, German needed 38.72 tankers per month to arrive in its ports. But, each tanker needs three months to do a round trip. So, a total fleet of 116.16 tankers is needed to keep Germany supplied with oil. Call it 120 to allow for down time and retrofits. It takes around a year to build each tanker and there are ten shipyard slips in Germany and France capable of building ships of this type. So, it will take twelve years to build the tanker fleet.

So, let's try by rail. Problem. There are no rail lines. They'll have to be built. This is not easy. We're not speaking of jury-rigged lines here for passenger transport. Narrow-gauge singkle track lines will do for them. We're talking about heavy-duty, double-track lines a capable of carrying massive freight loads. Those who live in the States, look at an American freight train; that's the consist we're talking about. This will be a massive construction effort. The lines have to be driven north to hook up with the existing freight network and there's rough ground in the way.

Roads next. There aren't any. There are tracks and gravel roads but they won't take the hammering handed out by heavy trucks (again, remember this is 1940). Heavy trucks back then carried 10 tons of cargo, equal to 73 barrels of oil or 4,015 gallons of oil. Now, it's roughly 1,250 miles from the oilfields to the rail network. That's a 2,500 mile round trip. Trucks that existed then on that kind of road got around 8 miles to the gallon (if they were lucky. So, they burned 300 plus gallons of fuel just to make the trip, reducing deliveries to around 3,750 gallons or 9.3 tons of oil. This means 104,086 truck loads of oil need to arrive in Germany every month. However, to make the 2,500 mile round trip, a truck takes 10 days (driven continuously). In fact that can't happen. Truck availability varies but assuming its 1/3, we can assume that each truck makes one round trip per month. So, we need a total of approximately 100,000 trucks to keep the supply line open. But, trucks wear out. (Ships and trains don't, not in the timescale we're looking at). A truck lasts, on average, 100,000 miles and given the hammering we're talking about here, that's really generous. That's 40 trips or 40 months. So, to support the truck fleet, Germany is looking at building 2,500 heavy trucks per month just to keep the supply line running. German heavy truck production was around 7,000 per year or just under 600 per month. So, they would have to quadruple their heavy truck production and derpive the army of all its heavy transport just to get the oil from the oilfields to the railways.

Aha one says. Why use heavy trucks, why not use smaller ones? Well, the cargo capacity of a medium truck is around 2.5 tons or roughly 1,000 gallons of oil. That means they can deliver only 700 gallons or 1.75 tons of oil. The fleet needed would be 553,142 trucks and a production rate of 13,828 medium trucks per month. German medium truck production was around 28,000 per year or (very approximately) 2,500 per month. (By the way, the German Army lost 109,000 trucks during the Battle of France 1940). So teh medium truck shortfall more than five times production.

So, teh Middle East oilfields do Germany no good at all. They can't get here from there.

[Simon_Jester]

Have you?

Oh yes. In fact I have maps that I use quite frequently that show the oil transmission and electrical power generation grids across the entire region. Very detailed maps

You're not the you I addressed the question to, but I'm happy enough to hear about it from you.

The other option is to pipeline the oil to the east coast of the Mediterranean and tanker it from there to ports in southern France and Italy. Now this is a lot shorter and simpler. It's probably less dangerous. But, here's the catch... [discusses catch]

This was one of only two methods my vague intuitive guess even bothered to consider. I hadn't quite thought through the full magnitude of the catch, which revolves around the pipelines to the Mediterranean being wrecked to the point where they'd take years to repair.

Back in the 1940s, a tanker did around 8 knots, some fast tankers did twelve but they were expensive beasts and most of them ended up as unreps or got converted to carriers.

What's an unrep?

So, to do the round trip required 16,566/8 = 2,070.75 hours or 86 days. Say, one trip every three months allowing for loading and unloading. According to "The Strategic Bombing of Germany", Germany required to import 968,000 tons of oil per month. One of these big tankers carries around 25,000 tons of crude oil. Therefore, German needed 38.72 tankers per month to arrive in its ports.

Note that I am not seriously considering Germany importing enough oil from the Middle East to fully meet its own needs; only the possibility of it slightly easing their crippling fuel shortages.

So, let's try by rail. Problem. There are no rail lines. They'll have to be built. This is not easy. We're not speaking of jury-rigged lines here for passenger transport. Narrow-gauge singkle track lines will do for them. We're talking about heavy-duty, double-track lines a capable of carrying massive freight loads. Those who live in the States, look at an American freight train; that's the consist we're talking about. This will be a massive construction effort. The lines have to be driven north to hook up with the existing freight network and there's rough ground in the way.

This was the other possibility my guess took seriously, not knowing the state of the rail lines in question. In your opinion, would putting in the rail capability be a "this would take two or three years of massive effort" thing, or a "this would take a decade of massive effort" thing?

So, teh Middle East oilfields do Germany no good at all. They can't get here from there.

At least, not in sufficient quantity to solve the German oil import problem. Which I expected. What I'm not sure about is whether it could provide a reasonable return on investment on a small scale- supplying some oil, if not enough. The truck option sounds like a joke; I never would have guessed it could be done. I would expect them to try rail, but that was based on my not knowing the state of the railroads, and not being in a good position to estimate how much effort it would take to install them.

[Stuart]

You're not the you I addressed the question to, but I'm happy enough to hear about it from you.

Ah, sorry.

This was one of only two methods my vague intuitive guess even bothered to consider. I hadn't quite thought through the full magnitude of the catch, which revolves around the pipelines to the Mediterranean being wrecked to the point where they'd take years to repair.

The pipeline problem is an interesting one; essentially pipelines are extremely vulnerable and when damaged, they take a long time to repair. Iraq found that out the hard way. Technically, the pumping stations are the best targets, just blowing up a section of pile is fun and causes a serious pollution problem, but they can be fixed relatively easily. Take a pumping stationout and the result is a world of hurt, not least because nearly all the replacement kit comes from the United States

What's an unrep?

Underway replenishment Ship; a fast tanker that runs with the fleet and keeps the warships topped up. Most fast tankers ended up doing this.

Note that I am not seriously considering Germany importing enough oil from the Middle East to fully meet its own needs; only the possibility of it slightly easing their crippling fuel shortages.

The 968,000 is the difference between minimum needs and internal production. Just slightly easing the fuel shortage is't going to help matters. What that will constitute is a massive military operation for very little gain. The only way to justify a military operation that big would be completely filling oil demands and that's got a world of problems.

This was the other possibility my guess took seriously, not knowing the state of the rail lines in question. In your opinion, would putting in the rail capability be a "this would take two or three years of massive effort" thing, or a "this would take a decade of massive effort" thing?

Probably three or four years of massive effort, then another massive effort to run it. By the way, I did a quick BoE calculation and running trains of oil from the Persian fields to the Ruhr would require 35 percent of Germany's total rail rolling stock and 25 percent of its locomotives.

At least, not in sufficient quantity to solve the German oil import problem. Which I expected. What I'm not sure about is whether it could provide a reasonable return on investment on a small scale- supplying some oil, if not enough. The truck option sounds like a joke; I never would have guessed it could be done. I would expect them to try rail, but that was based on my not knowing the state of the railroads, and not being in a good position to estimate how much effort it would take to install them.

The real killer is the scale of the operation involved; it's every bit as massive as Barbarossa and it has to be run through a handful of ports that are little better than fishing villages. Even getting an Army as far as Alexandria is going to be really rough; there is a reason why Rommel stopped at El Alamein. Getting the rest of the way from Alexandria to Persia is a nightmare to contemplate. Every pound of food, gallon of water and round of ammunition would have to be trucked from Alex. By the way to give you a handle on the problems involved, it took five times as many trucks to support an armored unit in North Africa as it did in Russia. Now, to suggest that undertaking an operation that massive in order to effect a margin change isn't going to go down well. The proponent would have to push a "total solution" and is going to run head on into logistics calculations get very scary very quickly.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Would conquest of the Caucasus actually alleviate the German oil problem? I have a nagging suspicion no, but I'm not sure how to substantiate it.

[K. A. Pital]

Would conquest of the Caucasus actually alleviate the German oil problem?

Short answer: depends on how much they took. Taking only Grozniy, with devastated and pre-damaged oil wells wouldn't solve the problem. Taking over Azerbajan? Would solve the German oil problem completely. It was the largest source of all Soviet oil (~70%). And the USSR produced more oil than Germany, and had greater capacities for oil production too. If Germany managed to take over the fields and actually keep them long enough to exploit them for several years, it would solve it's oil issues.

The Caucasus would solve the issue for 3-5 years only though. After that the damage to wells caused by extreme level of exploit would lead to dwindling supplies, but not earlier anyhow.

So yes, it would. If they did it in 1942, the damage caused to wells would probably disallow them from making anything more than 10 million tons by 1943, but that's still a massively huge boost to Germany's oil needs. In fact, per Stuart's given estimates of Germany's excess oil needs (which I believe are quite sane) 10-12 million tons per year would completely solve the German oil issue.

[PainRack]

With regards to the BEF, wasn't there signs of a rout as forces began looting and pillaging? There were also several ancedotes of troopers rushing for the evacuation, abandoning positions and the like, which was played up by the media.

[atg]

I think that the Axis could probably have jury-rigged together enough transport to at least come away from the situation with more oil than they burned getting it, but that is a purely intuitive guess, and not a serious statement that I intend to hold to in the face of someone who has actually studied the problem.
Have you?

So you admit that you havn't bothered to actually study the problem, but were willing to spout crap about it?

At this stage I believe Stuart has covered the pertinent points quite thoroughly.

[Simon_Jester]

So you admit that you havn't bothered to actually study the problem, but were willing to spout crap about it?

At this stage I believe Stuart has covered the pertinent points quite thoroughly.

I guessed. You may not have realized this, but I never seriously considered my guess to be a fully acceptable substitute for numbers. But since unlike Stuart I am not a professional military analyst with the relevant records at his fingertips, I have no idea where to go for the numbers and felt that my guess was at least sane enough to mention.

You might note that at no time did I adopt such an absurd and simplistic position as "Middle East has oil -> Capturing the Middle East gives infinite oil;" at best I thought that capturing Middle Eastern oil supplies might alleviate some of Germany's severe crippling oil shortages, to some unknown and non-estimable (to me) degree.

If the level of guessing I actually did qualifies as spouting crap, then yes I spouted crap. Maybe that doesn't bother me as much as it should; if I restricted myself only to subjects where I have full and detailed professional knowledge, as opposed to varying levels of amateur knowledge, I'd be so overspecialized I'd barely be able to live.

[K. A. Pital]

Um... guys, we don't punish asking questions here in History, and a question of "Would Middle Eastern oil alleviate Germany's oil problem" is not one easily answered by fucking Google, all right? It's a question serious enough to warrant a reply here, and an informative one. No matter if a person asks it in an affirmative form or non-affirmative - it was essentially a question, not a "I KNOW IT'S SO". He said as much, by putting an underlined "I think" before his post.

Allright? That concerns atg - stop attacking Jester over an essentially conceded issue. Stuart laid out the numbers, no need for further attacks.

History is a very informative forum. Let's keep it that way, okay?

[atg]

Um... guys, we don't punish asking questions here in History, and a question of "Would Middle Eastern oil alleviate Germany's oil problem" is not one easily answered by fucking Google, all right? It's a question serious enough to warrant a reply here, and an informative one. No matter if a person asks it in an affirmative form or non-affirmative - it was essentially a question, not a "I KNOW IT'S SO". He said as much, by putting an underlined "I think" before his post.

Allright? That concerns atg - stop attacking Jester over an essentially conceded issue. Stuart laid out the numbers, no need for further attacks.

History is a very informative forum. Let's keep it that way, okay?

Jester made several remarks regarding how Middle East oil would help the Axis, before the "I think" without giving any indication of how this would actually be feasable and without anything to back his theory up, e.g.:

Getting a secure land link to even a relatively minor oilfield makes more difference to a power that was starving for oil to begin with.

But a little oil is better than no oil, which is what I'm getting at. The Germans needed all the help they could get on that front; they simply did not have enough oil. Any extra supplies they could have secured would have improved their strategic situation, though probably not by a decisive margin.

I do not see how such statements constitute a 'question' regarding the subject, rather, to me, they appear as if a statement of supposed fact.

As for attacking Jester, following Stuarts post I made one further post calling Jester out on his statement regarding his lack of study in the area involved in direct response to his post questioning me on the very same, then conceded that Stuart had covered the issue quite thoroughly.

On reflection my post(s) could have been worded less confrontationally, and if at any point my remarks have offended anyone then I appologise to those involved.

[K. A. Pital]

You see, he said:

I think that the Axis could probably have jury-rigged together enough transport

That's a hypothesis. Sure, it was refuted, but that doesn't mean he didn't have the right to make it in History. Uneducated guess is only punished when the issue is clear as day. Otherwise, the History forum wouldn't strike even threads with a false premise or statement, because they serve an educatory function for both the one who made the erroneous claim, and all readers.

Hope I was clear enough.

[atg]

You see, he said:

I think that the Axis could probably have jury-rigged together enough transport

That's a hypothesis. Sure, it was refuted, but that doesn't mean he didn't have the right to make it in History. Uneducated guess is only punished when the issue is clear as day. Otherwise, the History forum wouldn't strike even threads with a false premise or statement, because they serve an educatory function for both the one who made the erroneous claim, and all readers.

Hope I was clear enough.

Thats fair enough, the earlier posts unduly influenced my reply.

[Scottish Ninja]

Would those changes be enough to keep France in the war? They might just have been. In that case, we see WW1 recreating itself, oddly along almost exactly the same line as twenty five years earlier.

If so, what happens next? Would there be a point fairly soon where one side might be able to overwhelm the other? And what of the Soviet Union? I imagine that the arguments against starting a two-front war would be more convincing to Hitler when he still has the French and British armies to deal with (IIRC Hitler pushed for Barbarossa in @ on the grounds that Britain at that point was largely contained, and the Soviets would only be growing stronger). But Stalin too was planning eventually for war with Germany. Might we see stalemate in the west until, say, 1943, when the Red Army surges over the border?

There's also the USA to think about. With the Germans stalled in Europe, that could conceivably lead to a greater degree of isolationism, since the Wehrmacht won't seem a nigh-unstoppable, all-conquering force, and particularly if the war remains largely static, it will evoke strong memories of the Great War, which had become rather unfashionable in the United States.

Japan, however, might not change any plans - with an even less prepared America and Britain thoroughly distracted in Europe and Africa, they could make the same gains in the Pacific. In that case, would

A. Germany declare war on the United States?
or
B. the US declare war on Germany?

Regardless, it seems like Germany's options after taking Dunkirk would be universally bad.

[K. A. Pital]

But Stalin too was planning eventually for war with Germany. Might we see stalemate in the west until, say, 1943, when the Red Army surges over the border?

Yeah, eventually if Germany grows weaker, the USSR may throw it's lot with Britain. Or, it may just do nothing. The Soviet government (including Stalin and his immediate administration) left all options on the table.

[Elfdart]

Stuart covered the problems with transport, but there's something I'd like to add about the use of pipelines: Graziani had a ridiculous amount of manpower devoted to building and maintaining a pipeline to extend across Libya and had rather piss-poor results that continued even after the Germans joined in the fighting in North Africa. In fact, the additional German troops added more strain to a system that never did meet the needs of the Italian Army.

That pipeline system was for water.

The result was that Axis troops suffered from all sorts of diseases as hygiene took a big hit, as well as dehydration from a lack of drinking water. The idea that the same bunch that couldn't provide enough water for their men would be able to build another system -only much larger- for oil is absurd. Alexander Cockburn mentioned this in humorous fashion in his column. Money quotes:

The English have always had a soft spot for him, the Desert Fox, the Good German outgeneraled by Montgomery and then forced to commit suicide by Hitler. Actually Rommel was outgeneraled by the Matrons who ruled over matters of hygiene at the schools attended by the British officer class.

It was these matrons, so I was recently reminded by Mark Harrison in my Christmas issue of Oxford Today, who instilled in British officers in North Africa and elsewhere importance of hygiene. In the Western Desert of Egypt in 1942, Harrison writes in his essay "Medicine and Victory", because of "proper waste management" the British Army "enjoyed a marked and consistent advantage over their opponents, as sickness rates were 50-70 per cent lower than in the German forces. By the time of the climactic battle of El Alamein, the Afrika Korps carried the burden of 9,954 sick out of a total strength of 52,000." Out of 10,000, the Panzer division had slightly less than 4,000 men fit to fight.

All this gives fresh resonance to the phrase "dirty Germans". Colonel H.S. Gear, assistant director of hygiene in the British Army, claimed the Germans' defensive positions were "obvious from the amount of faeces lying on the surface of the ground the enemy appears to have no conception of the most elementary sanitary measures". The official historian of the campaign, F.A.E. Crew wrote that "It is not improbable that the complete lack of sanitation among both the Germans and the Italians did much to undermine their morale in the Alamein position." Matron won!

[Simon_Jester]

Stuart covered the problems with transport, but there's something I'd like to add about the use of pipelines: Graziani had a ridiculous amount of manpower devoted to building and maintaining a pipeline to extend across Libya and had rather piss-poor results that continued even after the Germans joined in the fighting in North Africa. In fact, the additional German troops added more strain to a system that never did meet the needs of the Italian Army.

That pipeline system was for water.

What, specifically, were the major problems they encountered in the construction process? Just out of curiosity.

The English have always had a soft spot for him, the Desert Fox, the Good German outgeneraled by Montgomery and then forced to commit suicide by Hitler. Actually Rommel was outgeneraled by the Matrons who ruled over matters of hygiene at the schools attended by the British officer class.

Hmm. An intriguing variation on the old line "The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton..."

[Elfdart]

Stuart covered the problems with transport, but there's something I'd like to add about the use of pipelines: Graziani had a ridiculous amount of manpower devoted to building and maintaining a pipeline to extend across Libya and had rather piss-poor results that continued even after the Germans joined in the fighting in North Africa. In fact, the additional German troops added more strain to a system that never did meet the needs of the Italian Army.

That pipeline system was for water.

What, specifically, were the major problems they encountered in the construction process? Just out of curiosity.

I can't remember the title of the book, but it was about the Italian Army in Africa. I don't remember much detail over why the Italians couldn't maintain water to their troops (I don't think there was much detail on the subject in the book), but I would imagine that it's simply a matter of having to cover hundreds of miles of desert, which would have been difficult even if the British weren't trouncing Mussolini's forces at the time. The British had a bitch of a time with supply in North Africa and they had (a) more ports and better ones (b) a rail system in Africa (c) a navy that could actually fight and (d) relatively secure supply lines from most of the Commonwealth and the USA. The Italians couldn't keep lines open from Italy to Libya.

[Stuart]

I don't remember much detail over why the Italians couldn't maintain water to their troops (I don't think there was much detail on the subject in the book), but I would imagine that it's simply a matter of having to cover hundreds of miles of desert, which would have been difficult even if the British weren't trouncing Mussolini's forces at the time. The British had a bitch of a time with supply in North Africa and they had (a) more ports and better ones (b) a rail system in Africa (c) a navy that could actually fight and (d) relatively secure supply lines from most of the Commonwealth and the USA. The Italians couldn't keep lines open from Italy to Libya.

Most of the problem was that the Italian Army was desperately short of trucks. Notoriously, in pre-war military parades they would rent civilian trucks due to the specified issue of military trucks not being available. Then, they lost pretty much all of what they had in 1940/41 and were behind the curve from that point onwards.

Remember there was no railway line along the North African coast so supplies have to be trucked from the nearest port (up to 600 miles away) to the troops. Now, there is no significant supply of fresh water between Tripoli and Alexandria so water supplies have to be trucked. In the North African Desert, the allocation of water per man was between two and three gallons with about a quarter of that for drinking. The German Army actually tried to enforce a ration of one liter per day which is below the minimum needed to sustain life under those conditions, the result being that troops were suffering from extreme dehydration, poioning from drinking water contaiminated with gasoline or diesel and parasitic infestations from drinking water contaminated with worms or flukes. The reason for teh low ration was that teh German high Command thought that the troops would get acclimatized to low water availability The Italians were a lot smarter, they knew how much water troops needed even if they couldn't supply it.

Anyway. Three gallons per man. That's 24 pounds in weight. The most common Italian truck was a Fiat that had a three-tonne capacity. So, completely loaded with water, that truck carried enough to supply 250 men for one day. The Italian Army in 1940 had around 200,000 men so supplying that lot with water would require 800 truck deliveries per day. The problem is the distance from ports; by the time the Italians got to Egypt they were 600 miles from a port. A truck could drive around 10 mph in convoy on the dirt roads that existed then so it's a 60-hour drive - followed by a 60 hour return drive. 120 hours = 5 days. So, teh water convoys alone need 4,000 trucks.

That's why Graziani wanted a pipeline.

[Simon_Jester]

The reason for teh low ration was that teh German high Command thought that the troops would get acclimatized to low water availability The Italians were a lot smarter, they knew how much water troops needed even if they couldn't supply it.

The Italians had at least limited desert warfare experience against the tribes of Libya. The Germans had effectively none, except perhaps for colonial wars in Namibia, and I'm not sure they would have learned anything from there even if they did have to deal with the problem there.

Anyway. Three gallons per man. That's 24 pounds in weight. The most common Italian truck was a Fiat that had a three-tonne capacity. So, completely loaded with water, that truck carried enough to supply 250 men for one day. The Italian Army in 1940 had around 200,000 men so supplying that lot with water would require 800 truck deliveries per day. The problem is the distance from ports; by the time the Italians got to Egypt they were 600 miles from a port. A truck could drive around 10 mph in convoy on the dirt roads that existed then so it's a 60-hour drive - followed by a 60 hour return drive. 120 hours = 5 days. So, teh water convoys alone need 4,000 trucks.

That's why Graziani wanted a pipeline.

Yes, that's not the hard part to understand; the hard part (or at least the part I'm curious about) is figuring out what difficulties they ran into trying to build the pipeline. Manpower? British LRDG teams raiding the line? Lack of suitable pumping equipment or pipes?

[Stuart]

Yes, that's not the hard part to understand; the hard part (or at least the part I'm curious about) is figuring out what difficulties they ran into trying to build the pipeline. Manpower? British LRDG teams raiding the line? Lack of suitable pumping equipment or pipes?

My guess would be materials (all the pipe would have to come in from Italy by ship and then be trucked forward to the pipeline head. By the way, most of the water came from Italy as well. That's another little bit people forget; Egypt is a water source. Then, the pipeline would have to be laid; pretty much flat, I don't think the pipes can undulate with terrain. Pumping stations are needed at regular intervals, probably every 100 miles or so. That's a lot of machinery and a lot of labor to put them together. I'd also guess that the heat would cause problems with vapor locking.

For all that, a pipeline is a better bet than trucking the stuff around. All of which goes to prove that the Gods did not mean humans to fight wars in North Africa

[Sea Skimmer]

Railroads did exist in Libya in WW2, not much, but they could have been expanded had the Axis committed more air power to the Mediterranean and thus been able to get more material across safely.

Lines ran from Benghazi-Barce and Benghazi-Soluch with a total of about 200km of track. Other lines ran westward from Tripoli towards the Tunisian boarder. All track was 950mm gauge. The Italians used mostly steam engines, but a number of German built diesels were shipped over during 1942. The Benghazi-Barce line was most important and heavily used by the Axis and the British.

The British meanwhile eventually extended there own standard gauge system all the way to a point only 10km short of Tobruk harbor in early 1942 using the no ballest as the desert was hard and rocky enough to support track without it. Rommel uses this line to support his final offensive. It was estimated by the Germans that it could move 1,500 tons per day, but due to British sabotage and lack of rolling stock it actually moved more like 300 tons per day. The British were able to move 2,000 tons per day over it at the peak of use. That rail line meanwhile connected into Egypt and systems that went all the way to Syria. So if the Axis had gone all out to take North Africa, they would need to build 350-400km of track to link everything up. That’s no small amount, but its not that staggering either and I’m sure you could find plenty of old branch lines in France to loot the rails from.

BTW, this was too hilarious to pass over, while I was looking up the railroad details I found a link to the Italians airdropping live sheep into Ethiopia.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0gDRKLTu00

[Serafine666]

What makes you think the German Army will win that particular battle? The terms "German Army fights" and "German Army wins" are not synonymous. For your information, the allies were not just sitting on the beach with their thumbs up their ass waiting to be overrun.

Of course, this is quite true. Fairly basic military strategy dictates that if you are cornered on defensively superior terrain with a ready and well-secured line of retreat, gun can be made again and are thus expendable... so dig right in. But all of this reasoning that the BEF forces dug in and inflicted major losses is predicated on their reaching Dunkirk first with sufficient strength to repel initial assaults. On May 24, Rundstedt and the panzers of Guderian and Reinhardt were preparing to cross the Bassee Canal and roll into Dunkirk ahead of the BEF when they were pulled back; the BEF had not yet reached Dunkirk. With German forces occupying Dunkirk as of May 24, how do you propose that the BEF (which at this point was in retreat) would have broken through the perimeter and pushed the German forces back across the canal bridge that you brought up earlier? They certainly had the advantage of numbers but their approach to Dunkirk would have been limited by German control of the Bassee Canal bridge and forced them to approach on a predictable route and predictable routes make for very easy counteroffensive or defensive postures, something else that you correctly pointed out when considering how the Germans would have been forced to advance via the predictable route of the aforementioned bridge.

Now as to the effects? Not particularly easy to predict. As you pointed out, the BEF had been written off by the British and the propaganda line could easily have shifted from "I'm OK, Jack" to "our brave soldiers resisted heroically to buy us time." Overtly or not, the Americans were starting to put a toe into the bloody waters, leading to the occupation of Iceland, the Greer and Kearny incidents, the issuance of a "shoot on sight" order in American territorial waters, etc. Whether or not they got the BEF back, the British still had little to fear from German sealift capabilities which were nonexistent. Moreover, British morale could not have helped but be boosted by the futile (for the Luftwaffe) Battle of Britain. In "what if" history, this is called a second-order counterfactual: an assumption that despite a major change in events, history will ultimately resume its previous course.
On the other side of things, however, it was not inconceivable that the Luftwaffe could have won the Battle of Britain although it would have been largely pointless without being able to also destroy the Royal Navy that formed a virtually invincible wall of naval steel between the continent and the island. To have seriously harmed or destroyed the Royal Navy would have required the type of naval focus in mines and submarines to rival the army focus in tanks and the air force focus in CAS planes and fighters; needless to say, the Germans never planned such an investment. The ultimate importance of the escape of the BEF was probably incidental since its loss would have done little harm to a Britain that could call upon its massive Commonwealth population and had a means of getting resources from all over its Empire. It would have had to have been combined with other superior strategic decisions to have had any impact and as the order pulling the panzers back from occupying Dunkirk ahead of the BEF shows, such decisions were in short supply from central command (which in this case is synonymous with Hitler himself).