Comments by "Steve Valley" (@stevevalley7835) on "The Drydock - Episode 097" video.

The RM the biggest threat to the allies, at any point? Even given abundant fuel and leadership? The RM was bottled up in the Med. Can't get past Gibraltar without taking a lot of damage. If the Brits had to pull back out of Egypt, they would scuttle every ship they could find in the canal, making it impassable for years. The Med could be an Italian lake, but still a landlocked lake. The Allies can land on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, free of interference by the RM and push east, as they did, but why, if the Brits had already abandoned Egypt and the canal, and pulled back to the Persian Gulf? The problem was in Berlin. Skip the entire Med campaign and hit Normandy a year earlier?
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@f12mnb I have read that at Tsushima the Japanese did exactly that: blanket the Russian's superstructure with fire from their secondary armament to disrupt the Russian's aim. Ultimately, though, you need to punch through the other guy's armor to sink him.
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@konst80hum the Axis could have gotten into Palestine or Syria anyway via amphibious landings anywhere in the eastern Med, flanking the Brit lines in Egypt. RAF airpower on Cypris could impede such an invasion, but the RM, and airpower based on Crete, could make reenforcing and supplying Cypris as costly as holding Malta. If the Brits were forced to pull back to the Persian Gulf, holding those oil fields, they could be supplied with food, clothing and refined fuels from India. Only manufactured goods: weapons, vehicles and ammo, would have to be shipped from England. The only real downside to the Allies of evacuating the Med, is they would not be able to bomb the oil fields and refineries in Romania. On the other hand, by skipping landing in Morocco, campaigning all the way across North Africa, landing on Sicily and the Italian mainland, the clock could be advanced by a year or more on the Normandy invasion, aimed directly at the heart of the conflict, in Berlin. If Churchill laid it out that way: giving up Egypt, so that force can be concentrated on Berlin to end the war sooner, he would be OK.
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