Imperial Overlord

For Churchill personally, now is not the tangle of fighting or not fighting, but the question of how to continue fighting.

His life is to live for the war to continue, and he is a person who is so stubborn that people can't laugh or cry.

Roosevelt once commented on Churchill, he described Churchill as "a stubborn donkey". This stubborn donkey has been stubborn all his life and has been "fighting" for Britain all his life.

Now, the biggest problem facing this stubborn old man is that the Mediterranean route is almost completely blocked now, and a batch of materials could have been transported through the Mediterranean regardless of the loss, but in a few days, a ton may not be able to be transported.

The Axis powers in the Mediterranean are not strong, and the core is the fleet of the Italian Navy, but what this naval fleet has been doing is to contain the British Mediterranean Fleet.

To be clear, everything this Italian fleet has done is to attract the attention of the British Royal Navy's Mediterranean Fleet, and try not to let the British Mediterranean Fleet go to the Axis' Mediterranean route.

In fact, even the task of containing the British Mediterranean Fleet, the Italian naval fleet was reluctantly completed.

In real history, Cunningham led the British Navy's Mediterranean Fleet to attack Taranto, which severely damaged the Italian Navy's fleet.

After the Battle of Taranto and until the end of World War II, the Italian Navy was unable to pose a real threat to the British Mediterranean Fleet.

If it wasn't for the help of Li Le, who had traveled through, the Italian navy would have avoided the losses at the Battle of Taranto and killed the British battleship Resolve along the way.

Because of the accident of Li Le, the transmigrator, the British lost the crucial Malta in a confused way, and caused a series of changes in North Africa, which made the Axis countries really make waves in the Mediterranean.

However, even if the Axis Allied Forces achieved a series of victories in North Africa and the Mediterranean Sea, and avoided a series of losses and losses, the original belly is still the belly, which cannot be a hard support.

The Italian fleet is now barely able to compete with the British Mediterranean Fleet. It is a whimsical thing for them to take the initiative to attack and block the British Mediterranean route.

The arduous task of blocking British routes in the Mediterranean was still completely on the shoulders of the Luftwaffe on the island of Malta in September 1940.

Stationed here are 80 me-109e fighter jets of the Luftwaffe and 60 Stuka bombers.

Looking at this air force layout, it can be understood that the ability of the Luftwaffe deployed here to intercept maritime targets is really very limited.

The Stuka bombers and me-109e fighters have poor range. They are deployed on the island of Malta. At night, they can only watch the British transport ships fly away. British ships also seemed a little powerless.

There are also some problems with the type of aircraft. Most of these German aircraft are me-109e fighters responsible for air combat, and only a small number of Stukas are used as sea attack weapons.

Most of the pilots on these Stukas were also Air Force pilots who had bombed ground targets, and let them attack sea targets, but the actual effect was not very good.

The most deadly problem occurred in the ammunition. The island of Malta was occupied by the German army not long ago, and there was not much time to replenish the reserve ammunition above.

The Air Force lacks aerial torpedoes to attack targets on the sea, because the delivery of materials to the islands is really small, which makes people laugh and cry.

The typical tragedy of letting the horses run and not letting the horses graze The recent transport forces in Germany and Italy are really powerless to Malta.

Maybe many people will think, isn't it just transporting some gasoline and torpedoes to an island, what's so difficult? A few ships have sailed past, isn't the supply coming? What's more, the transport route to Malta is completely within the combat radius of the Air Force's protection. Isn't this easy?

In terms of supply difficulty, there is no difficulty in transporting supplies to the island of Malta, and it can even be said to be a very simple process.

But the problem lies in the transportation link: Italy, or France, has no strength in the Mediterranean, and has invested in supplementary transportation to the island of Malta.

In addition to maintaining the daily consumption of soldiers on the island and the maintenance of air force aircraft, Germany can no longer provide extra ships to strengthen the island of Malta.

The ships leased from France, the ships recruited from Italy, everything, are serving the construction of Libyan oil fields.

It is also for this reason that despite taking the lead in storming the island of Malta, the Axis powers really have no strength to make use of this island...

In terms of transportation capacity, or the difference in the ability to utilize the ocean, the land powerhouse Germany and the Mediterranean fish belly Italy, in any case, with the Sanyo metamorphosis America and the maritime hegemony England, there is a world of difference.

When Germany, Italy, and even France were frowning on raising the Mediterranean shipping line, they did not even have half of the shipping capacity on the British to American route with the shipping capacity they worked so hard to mobilize.

In order to make Rommel invincible on the African battlefield, in order to make the construction of the Libyan oil field go a long way in Malta... Let's idle it for now.

This is the German high-level positioning of Malta's position, that is, the island is in our hands, and it is enough!

As for using this island to block the British Mediterranean route, sorry, we are not ready! You have to ask when it will be ready, after October 1941, don't ask me why, it's just so willful and doesn't explain.

We have to wait until Libya's construction investment starts to cut, until Libya's oil output is large enough to feed the island of Malta, and until the British Navy's Mediterranean Fleet loses its advantage...

Every time they heard these preconditions, or requirements, Li Le and the Air Force executives deeply felt that it would be more "reliable" to rely on Rommel's African Army to cut off the Mediterranean route.

After all, Rommel's Afrikaans had already captured Alexandria and Cairo at this time, and the Suez Canal was only a few days away from the attack.

If the British team retreats and abandons, then this attack time can be shortened to one day! Yes, just how short. If there was no interference from the British defenders, the Germans rushed to the Suez Canal, and one day was enough!

Rather than waiting for the Malta interception to begin to work, wait for Rommel to stop directly at the Suez Canal before that.

In terms of effectiveness, it is also Rommel who won the Suez Canal once and for all. After all, no matter how high the interception efficiency of Malta is, it will not be 100% intercepted, right? Intercepting in the Suez Canal is a real 100% interception efficiency!

Therefore, from Li Le to Goering, from Brauchitch to Kesselring, from Mussolini to Garibaldi... Everyone has selectively forgotten Malta, the one that once blocked countless Axis powers. strategic points.

Sometimes things are so strange. Malta, which was in the hands of the United Kingdom, eventually became the sore that defeated Rommel. The same island was in the hands of the Axis powers, but it was just an **** aircraft carrier that was not very useful...

Because Malta's successor is weak, British transport ships often choose to force their way through the Malta blockade, and the probability of success is very high, even to the extent that the British executives are very pleased.

As a result, the British executives also selectively forgot Malta and this important strategic stronghold.

However, in October 1940, when Rommel's armored forces entered Cairo, this selective past was finally remembered helplessly.

Churchill knew that he could no longer use the Mediterranean route, which would be permanently closed if Rommel was not defeated near the Suez Canal.

Not to mention the huge consumption of detours around the Cape of Good Hope, the material delay brought by the long journey is enough for the British mainland to drink a pot.

Not everyone can afford a big navy. The UK maintains a navy scale of more than a dozen battleships. The heavy fuel consumed by each attack is an astronomical figure.

The loss of the Mediterranean route indirectly made it difficult for Britain to supply oil. And this is the beginning of the Navy losing its active offensive material base, a beginning that the British Navy is unwilling to face.

"The Greek side is asking for more assistance, and the pressure they are facing has risen to a critical point with Rommel's entry into Cairo~www.wuxiaspot.com~ The British Foreign Secretary looked at Churchill and said decadently. Balkan diplomacy.

He is now powerless over the entire Mediterranean situation, the collapse of the strategic environment, and the retreat of military operations, all of which have made Britain's influence in the Balkan countries continue to decline.

At this time, Greece opened its mouth wide, and extortion and extortion began to "ask prices in the sky", but because of the unfavorable war situation, the British side was increasingly unable to provide the assistance that Greece requested.

The British troops in the Balkans did not strengthen at this time. On the contrary, in order to support the Suez Canal, another infantry division was transferred to the Egyptian theater that was already collapsing.

Instead, the British dropped a large number of small arms to Greece, supported Greece with 10 infantry divisions, and hoped that these infantry divisions would hold the Balkans.

Of course, in the face of dozens of divisions in Italy and Germany, it is an almost impossible task for Greece to win this defensive battle. Historically, the Balkans have not been able to do this.

Facts have proved that the guerrillas in the Balkans are much more efficient than their government forces. Of course, how the guerrillas perform in this life is still unknown.