Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "The Drydock - Episode 294" video.

The RN's situation, in the eastern Med in May 41, adds to an alt history scenario that I worked on a few years ago: after overrunning Greece and Crete, Axis forces land in Vichy controlled, Axis leaning, Syria, and drive to the oil fields in Iraq, which was then ruled by an Axis friendly dictator. That scenario fell apart, when, by chance, I heard an audio recording of Hitler talking with a Finnish General. In that recording, made in 42, Hitler says that his meetings with the Soviets in late 40, during the preparations for the invasion of England, left him with the impressions the Soviets wanted a war with Germany, and were looking at overrunning Romania, threatening a major source of oil for Germany. Hence Hitler pivoted from trying to invade England, to invading the Soviet Union in June 41. So much for my scenario of Axis occupation of Syria and Iraq, to get at Iraqi oil production.
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@88porpoise yes, you are right, the timeline is pretty tight. Allied troops evacuated mainland Greece by about April 30. The coup in Iraq, with the backing of Germany and Italy, was on April 1. Luftwaffe personnel and aircraft were operating in Syria. British intervention in Iraq unhorsed the junta on May 2. The British then invaded Syria on June 8. Crete fell June 1. The unknown is if German resources were not being allocated to Barbarossa, how much faster would the Greek campaign have gone? To make the Syrian landing viable, the Germans would have had to move immediately to suppress offensive operations in Crete, and Cyprus, while the landing and supply convoys steam by, to Syria. Then it's a matter of whether the Germans can drive from Syria to Baghdad faster than the British can make the trip from Palestine.
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@88porpoise you could be right. The Axis was never able to really suppress Malta. But then, the forces in Malta and Alexandria took quite a while to strangle the Italian convoys heading for North Africa. The Beaufort torpedo bombers operating out of Malta took frightful losses until they started bringing some Beaufighters along to strafe the ships, to suppress AA fire.
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@colinhunt4057 I agree that Sea Lion was probably postponed, iirc it was not officially canceled, due to the lateness of the season, rather than entirely due to the resilience of the RAF, as some narratives claim. And, as you said, the river barges that had been commandeered for the sea lift needed to be released to resume their commercial hauling. At the moment, I am reading a speculative alt history of Sea Lion, that draws a lot from German preparations and planning for the invasion. I think it was serious, as England was very much back on it's heels, due to the loss of equipment in France. iirc, Ian on Forgotten Weapons, noted some 90% of army inventory of Bren guns had been lost in France, along with vast numbers of tanks, artillery, and anti-tank guns. Have you seen the sort of things being issued to the Home Guard? Some folks were handed a length of pipe, with a WWI bayonet welded on the end. What changed my thinking about the motives for invading the Soviet Union was my chance hearing of that recording of Hitler from 42. According to Hitler's statements in that recording, the negotiations in late 40 were an attempt to pull the Soviets into the Axis. Hitler was proposing the Soviets would be allocated Iran and India. Apparently, the Soviets also wanted the Balkans. The way to get to the Balkans from the Soviet Union, was through Romania, which threatened German oil supply. Hitler said that, by the time Molotov headed back to Moscow in November 40, he was sure the Soviets wanted a war, so he acted proactively and attacked first. Of course, that left no resources for invading the UK.
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@colinhunt4057 there are a few inconsistencies in that narrative. -Fearmongering about Communists was standard Nazi boilerplate, but then the Nazis negotiated a treaty with the Soviets. -Why the sitzkrieg? There was some action at sea, and trade embargoes against Germany, but little engagement on the western front. Why didn't the Nazis keep moving east? Would the western powers become exercised, if the Nazis and Soviets went at it, before the western front heated up? -Why were the Nazis and Soviets still negotiating, after France fell, and the Luftwaffe was trying to exterminate the RAF?
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