The UK by herself basically was able to barely keep herself fed while holding the Germans in the Middle East by the skin of their teeth - and only because Hitler was so busy obsessing about the Soviet Union that he never put the forces that could have won the Middle East for Germany into action in Africa - if you take a look at the history of the fighting in the Middle East in 1941 and mid 42 you see just how close it was for the British - if the New Zealand troops hadn't broken out at Mersa Matruh Rommel might have broken thru at First El Alamein
and the only reason the British didn't get their fleet exterminated in the IO by the Japanese was that they got damn lucky and didn't get spotted - otherwise Nagumo would have put three aircraft carriers and 5 battleships on the bottom of the IO instead of just Hermes and two heavy cruisers and you can pretty much kiss the British fleet outside of Home Waters and the Med goodbye
(now this is fun - been years since I last had a good WWII discussion - where is Roel and RN7 when we need them?)
|