Re: German ww2 strategy: why N. Africa or Crete?

Andrew Clark wrote:

At 2nd Alamein, DAK consisted of 4 divisions (15 and 21st Pz, 90 Lt and 164
ID) plus 19 Flak division, corp. artillery, 2 armoured recon battalions and
4 parachute battalions. Their motorised logistic support was considerable.

A large chunk of their motorised logistic support was not Axis-
manufactured, and I thought that the OP was referring to the original
committment.

By October 1942, the Germans didn't really need an extra panzer corps
in Russia, they needed more rail lines there. Also, at El Alamein the
British were fielding an army which was twice as large as that of the
Axis together with a huge infrastructure to support it. One could
therefore consider that, had the Germans written off North Africa
these significant Allied assets would have made themselves felt
elsewhere and forced the Axis to commit resources to match them.

The case that North Africa was a waste of resources is easy to make
for Tunisia, far less so before then.


LC

.