" Comparison of the invasion of Crete and Malta." Topic

Comparison of the invasion of Crete and the proposed invasion of Malta.
"In 1941, after the conquest of Yugoslavia and Greece, senior German military leaders were considering two airborne operations, one for the invasion of Crete and the other for the invasion of Malta. The invasion of Crete was executed from 20 May to 1 June 1941 with heavy German losses. The invasion of Malta never took place even though the senior military leaders in the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) recommended invading Malta over Crete because of its strategic importance, but were overridden by Adolf Hitler. A year later, while the North Africa campaign was being conducted, another invasion was planned for Malta, but within a few weeks of executing the plan it too was postponed and eventually cancelled. The primary focus of this research is to establish why in 1941 Crete was invaded, but Malta was not. The secondary focus is to establish why one year later a second planned invasion of Malta was rejected and abandoned, and what were the strategic repercussions of not invading Malta. The Axis never captured Malta, and the offensive capability of Malta was never destroyed, thus leading to the defeat of all Axis forces in North Africa. "
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Very interesting. Thank you. I've often thought of how an attack on Malta, rather than Crete, would have changed the course of the war.

If the Italians would have taken a slight risk and bombarded Malta, Comino and Gozo with their battleships they could have easily plastered the place into submission. The ships had the gun range to cover the whole of the islands and there was no artillery on the islands large enough to seriously harm a battleship.

Because capital ships in the Mediterranean are quite vulnerable and the Italians would not have risked British capital ships or submarines.
Bombarding a place does not capture it. Someone still has to land and o that.

This is one of the comparisons I like. I would have liked to have seen how the 10 Beute KV-1s,KV-2s and the T-34s would have done against the Matilda IIs . Robert

Looks like there were Valentines there too. I love the camouflage on them. Robert

There was a recent article on the Malta tanks in Military Modelling magazine, around 18 months ago. It gave detailed breakdowns on tank types, numbers etc.

One problem with the German plan to land tanks was that their chosen beach was at the base of a cliff, with no real route to get them off the beach….. Strategy & Tactics ( I think) did a comprehensive review of the plan a few years back.

I have that issue somewhere in my collection. I'll have to see if I can did it out. Robert

Very interesting facts,some of my favorite periods / campaigns Desert,Italy and Mediterranean hence the name…
Leros is also a good read.

One of my favorite old Avalon Hill board games was the Air Assault On Crete/Invasion of Malta game. Robert

Yeah, I was doing really well, holding off my brothers FJ assault, (favourite moment happened when he rolled for the scatter roll and the best part of an assault engineer regiment drowned), then he rolled lucky and the best part of a German division coming storming in from the beaches!

TOAW III, has a Malta invasion scenario, but suffers from its depiction of naval combat. The TOE's are well researched though, and break down the battalions into individual squads and support weapons.

PART FOUR THE SEIZURE OF CRETE (Operation MERKUR)
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I've found a version of the Air Assault On Crete/Invasion of Malta game.It's a hypothetical invasion of Cyprus. Robert

Cyprus variant for Avalon Hill's "Air Assault on Crete"

"Originally published by the game designer in the Avalon Hill magazine (The) General (issue 18, vol 4). This is a very nice and MUCH smaller scenario to get your feet wet on than either the Crete or Malta drops"
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