Should the Axis have tried harder to take Malta?

Does anyone know what the typical jump parameters for the FJ were? I.e.
Jump height.
Seperation (seconds)?
Were the canisters kicked out first last or in the middle?
Speed of the planes at the time of the jump?
Fall rate? or Time from jumping to ground for a known height?

 

Jump height: between 120 and 150 meters
Fall rate: is at 4-6m/sec.
Speed rate of the airplane: 160 - 180 Km/h
Seperation of the FJ´s : 20 - 60 meters on the ground
Seperation in air: theoretical each 0.8 second followed the next one
Canisters: not sure

 

I believe that Malta is just about all built up, making it that much more difficult for landing and I imagine the streets of Malta are quite narrow making a tank attack quite difficult. Plus on the Italian navy remember enigma and the good chance that word of the invasion getting through.
I am not saying it cannt be done, just that it would be a difficult operation. Im just doubtful that everything will go exactly right, especially the reinforcement phase and it would take one critical failure to ruin the operation.

 

Thanks. A seperation of .8 seconds in jumping translates to ~38m apart if the plane is traveling 170km/hr.
Just looking at google maps a lot of the fields in Malta are something under 50m by 100-150m so depending on direction you could end up with 1 paratrooper every two fields to as many as 4 per field. If the canister goes out first they could possibly maintain that spacing otherwise it's likely to be seperated by a bit more.

 

Thats it!

 

Not sure if they would use it in that case, but the lowest jump height was 90meters maybe they would have thrown them out at 90 meters. for the reasons you´ve mentioned

 

Where would those mines come from ? There are no stocks on the island that I know of.

Where did you find that? Found nothing similar in Italian archives, they were short of fuel but not that short that they couldn't sortie in strength if the RN came into their backyard, and until it does most of the ships can stay at Taranto there are no British naval surface forces less than two days steaming away, ample warning. Any RN force that tries to get to a contested Malta will have to leave most of it's destroyers behind or loose them, they don't have the range to get back, a really bad choice to make as there are plenty of axis subs around.

My bad here, I typed RN but meant RM for Regia Marina, British ships lingering in the area long enough to provide fire support is absurdunless the axis has already lost the air battle, even more so as they have no procedures for getting targetting data from the ground troops. The Italians could, but no procedures seem to be in place except for the San Marco, IMO will not risk anything more than a destroyer and even that only after the coastal batteries are out of the picure.

There are both advantages and disadvantages to a night drop, but IMO navigation is not one of them, the weather in the central Med in summer is such that wind is not an issue.

Paratroopers are trained to operate isolated for a few days, air resupply is perfectly doable, the Germans were rather good at it (though not good enough to pull it off at Stalingrad).

AFAIK on most of the island there is very little cover besides the houses, the "stone walls" are terraces more often than not and those provide practically no cover.

This is the OOB for C3
Overall comand would be admiral Vittorio Tur:
Folgore parachute division (2 or 3 regiments) The 185 was removed from Folgore it to create the core of another para unit
7th German parachute division (3 Regiments).
6 Italian infantry division (two regiments each)
Friuli
Livorno
Assietta
La Spezia (air mobile)
Superga (mountain)
Napoli
San Marco marine regiment
A special blackshirt landing force of four batallions
A firefighters batallion (???)

IIRC one division was earmarked to take Gozo.

Wiki puts the German air transport element at
500 Ju 52,
300 DFS 230 gliders
200 Gotha 242 gliders
24 Me 321 gliders
Not the most reliable source but the numbers look reasonable when we look at the air bridge to Tunisia.
So it looks like the 7th would not need a third lift, just the gliders can carry some 7.000 assault troops. (not counting the 321 as they would probably carry tanks, putting a whole company in a single plane was considered too risky. Folgore would need two waves as well (one regiment each) and La Spezia would make up the third and fourth wave. IMO that amount of gliders means a day landing was planned, the first wave would be glider borne so they will have heavy weapons from the start and very little dispersal. The British force is outnumbered by the time the second wave lands, and it will be most likely be unable to concentrate enough force to mount a credible counterattack even against the first wave.

 

one major issue is that once a glider is down it cannt be used again, so that leaves only the JU's for reinforcing and resupply and they will likely face losses themselves. Im not sure how the gliders can be used for reinforments. In the Eben assault 10 df 230 carried only 78 men according to this link it could only carry 10 men
DFS Invasion Glider | Aircraft |
according to Wiki the Gotha could carry 23 men
the gigant could carry 130 men or a pz4 Italeri. 1115 - ME-321 B-1 GIGANT

adding up you can get 7000 men, but what about the equipment and supplies and you are assuming that every glider will land on place and intact.

 

Assault gliders are one shot affairs, Apart from the 321 that apparently had He 111Z dedicated tugs the rest would be mostly towed by the Ju 52, though the ones towing the DFS could probably carry a full load of paras or supplies as well, so the initial maximum theoretical assault force is close to 10.000 German paras, 7000 is realistic, plus whatever the 321 carry (my choice would be 24 pz IV even a few would make a big difference early on) plus the Italian contingent. I think supply cannisters are already in those numbers, otherwise the nearly 50% reduction in carry capacity for paras over equipped soldiers is unexplainable, parachutes don't weight that much. There will be losses but the most likely result is still several thousands paras on the ground after the initial drop (BTW it's likely some gliders will be reserved for the non jump qualified airlanding troops) so not all of the first wave is gliders.

Not sure but Folgore was probably a 3 regiment unit at the time of C3 though it went to NA as a 2 regiment division, but the carry capacity for the Italians is about one regiment. So unless somethong goes really badly wrong the axis should put on the ground a force that 4 dispersed brigades are unable to much about. At Crete the paras had 1:3 inferiority in numbers if not worse, though many allied troops lacked heavy equipment, at Malta they would have initial parity and a marked superiority once the second wave arrives.

 

I quess we disagree on how effective the attack might be, but then the lack of supplies means that the British will have the time they need to build up forces in Africa.

 

The point is that taking Malta in Summer 1942 is ... pointless, I believe it could be done but would be too late to allow Rommel to get to Alexandria and do nothing to delay Torch. Gambling, like Rommel did, that he could keep the British off balance long enough to get to Alex actually made some sense as waiting for C3 would give them breathing space. The right time to attack was 1940 but the axis missed the chance. Loosing Malta early would go a long way towards negating ULTRA, knowing where the convoys are is no use if you don't have forces near by to attack them with, and having forces 1000 miles away "getting lucky" too often would give the game away fast even if it worked, without Malta for repairs damaged ships in the central Med are in big trouble. So the axis should have attacked the island as soon as possible, 1942 was way too late.

 

Thats right TOS, the assault on Malta should have taken place in 1940. With a victory at there, the british supplies for Africa had to come from India or the long way around Africa. That would have made a German victory at NA possible.

 

The British did have to send supplies around once France fell in May.
I thought of some questions for a German air drop. How many places do the Germans need to seize, are there suitable spots to land nearby, can the naval reinforcments land on beaches, especially the heavy equipment, or is a port needed.
The only way Egypt could possibly be taken is if Barbarossa is cancelled and even then there is a question if the Germans can supply an expanded assault and the loss of Egypt would not be a fatal blow to Britain,

 

The loss of Egypt wouldn´t be a fatal blow to the Britains but the loss of the Suez Canal would have been a bigger strategical problem. As i have to admit only if the Germans haven´t attacked in Russia. The problem would be that if the Axis Germany-Japan had cooperated in that case the British territories at India would have been in danger. Thats a long shot and we all know that this wasn´t the fact, but if the war hwere running in a different direction instead to Russia, it could have been more dangerous to the british.

 

That would seem to be a strange omission for a defencive force but certainly possible. On the other hand they were used extensivly in North Africa which would make the ommission even stranger. Given sufficient warning, which I think likely, the British could certainly deliver some in any case.

Actually it resulted from a bit of misreading one of the sources I linked. Here's what it says:
Axis History Forum • View topic - Fallschirmjäger availability to invade Malta

So apparently the single sortie was if they got the additional fuel from Germany. Now the above are not very well referenced but the following tend to support it:
Oil Fuel Shortage

Mediterranean

https://sites.google.com/site/mezeviris/rapidadvanceofrommel

So without additional fuel it looks like the naval part is in doubt. But there appears to have been no way to move the fuel quickly either thus providing a bit of a warning flag for the British.

Note also the quote about the water requirements. I suspect that they are greater in part than your estimates becasuse the forces may be greater than you were thinking of.

How about show up at night and simply fire on the invasion beaches. Given the way invasions work those beaches should be pretty dense with targets for several days after the landings.

 

But what would they use to take Malta in 1940?

 

Hmmm......maybe the same like they had to use if they did it in 1942?

 

Did the Italians even have any paratroopers at that time? If so how many? and what was their lift capacity?
The Germans had lost huge quantities of Ju-52's in Norway and Holland and were planning on using at least some of the FJs in Sea Lion. What's left?
The LW and Italian airforces weren't close to what they were in 42 either especially in regards to antishipping capability.
The there's the problem that Il Duce didn't want and didn't think he needed any German presence in the Med or North Africa.

 

My estimates of the fuel supply was based on what the fleet actually did in 1942, IMO fuel shortages were a bit amplified by the admirals post war as an excuse and during it to get more oil from the Germans. Would be interesting to look at those 40.000t in terms of the bunker capacities of the ships. IMO some 30.000t plus plus full bunkers on the ships is two sorties at least.
The Me 321 is not what you should look at, the DFS 230 had a rather short braking run and probably the Gotha was closer to the small glider than to the huge 321. There was not much difference between Cesare and Doria as far as AA went, the 90mm on the Doria class had a lot of problems, 30 x 13.5" guns is a lot of firepower there are a number of coastal guns to knock out, but most are pre ww1 9.2" that cannot penetrate even the weak armour of the old Italian ships. British cruisers arriving a D+2 match my estimates, but IMO D+2 is way too late to help and to be there at nightime they have to run the gauntlet of Crete based planes by day, the Med fleet has no carriers or BBs, Force H has both but faces a similar situation with Sardinia based planes. A Dido or a Fiji was good for 3480 miles at 20 knots, the "commerce protector" Arethusa were much longer ranged, but most RN destroyers were a lot shorter legged.

That post contains some strange things, though Cernuschi is usually reliable. I don't see a repetition of the Genova raid as a threat, if the fleet is at Taranto it's unlikely be able to relocate North fast enough to do anything but there were two brand new 15" batteries operational a Genova... Also air units in Sardinia are a threat to a force sailing North of Corsica and some other air units may be able to relocate fast enough, all considered a big risk for little gain.

While the initial attack may well include 90% of available planes availability is going to drop steadily after that, this doesn't mean losses just operational attrition from working from overcrowded bases where repair crews will be at a premium. Another strange thing on that post is the two regiment Folgore AFAIK the 185 regiment was still part of that division in early 1942 giving her 9 batallions for C3.

AFAIK the 1940 plan called for a sea landing, probably possible in late 1940 after the four Littorio and Doria join the fleet as the RN cannot match that force without weakening the Home fleet beyond what is acceptable, the garrison at the time is so weak and spread out something like the assault capture of the Norwegain airfields may have worked but i don't seen the Regia Areonautica comming up with that sort of tactics.

 

An airborne invasion of Malta seems to me to rely on too many things going right. Sicily again is much larger then Malta and look at how many men went into the sea and I wonder how many actual landing sites are available in Malta. As far as the sea invasion, do the Italians actually have ships or boats that can land heavy equipment? Also its great to say bombardment will help, but as in Monte Cassino and Stalingrad ruins make wonderful places for defenders.