Hawker Fury over Africa

[Arlequín]

My jets were cooled when I realised what was available to keep the Italian lines of supply open in Libya. You have to rewrite the timelines for the reconstruction program the Italian capital ships were undergoing and of course in 1935 the Regia Aeronautica is not what it was in 1941 so even less balance.

Not necessarily, don't forget Britain's forces were not those of 1941 either. Low manpower and lack of a significant budget share was a huge problem for the army. The Navy was predominantly the Navy of 1918. Despite being the golden child of Britain's defence policy, the RAF was quite low on fighters and actual bombers, the Hart and its variants were where all the cash had gone, as they were the primary tool in the 'air police' doctrine of the era.

The Italians actually had more motor transport per man in 1935 than they did in 1940, as while the army had been beefed up, its transport pool had not kept pace. Even if they kept to the concept of a slow advance and building their supply bases as they went, the British only had a brigade at Mersa Matruh and only a battalion's worth of mostly light tanks to harass 10-15 divisions of Italians.

Nevertheless the plan of Operation Compass in 1940 was in fact the updated version of the original plan of defence of 1935. 

Don't write it off, it's far more balanced a scenario than it looks on the face of things. 

[carlos marighela]

The FAA and RAF's role is pretty much as it was in 1940/42. Localised defence over Malta, Alexandria and the fleet. The kit available is quite capable of that.

The Italians failed to take out Malta between 1940 and 42 with better planes and more of them plus having the benefit of assistance from the Luftwaffe. In 1935 I'd be surprised if they sufficient aircraft with the range or weight of ordnance to be more than vaguely annoying and they would lack any experience gained in Spain. As long as the RN is in play the Italian forces in North Africa must whither on the vine. No Italian ships will be getting out via Gibraltar. There are only two, pretty indifferent and under gunned Italian battleships in commission at the time anyway.

The Italians in East Africa are pretty much fucked from the outset, as once the canal closes bye bye all supplies of ammo, POL, vino and spaghetti. Admittedly that's no different to 1940, save for the fact that absent more pressing concerns elsewhere, Britain can now turn the full force of Empire on Benito and friends. In 1940 Britain was a bit busy elsewhere.

None of that factors in what happens if the French become involved and even if they don't, much of Italy's NorthAfrican forces would have to safeguard the Libyan border just in case.

Sorry, I still think it's a fun idea but really absent Britain being suitably distracted elsewhere, it's game set and match in relatively short order.

[Happy Wanderer]

"absent Britain being suitably distracted elsewhere, it's game set and match in relatively short order."

In the end there is no 'slam dunk' answer to this. Burgwyn's book points exactly to Britain being very distracted elsewhere...he says...

"The financially pinched British fleet was already stretched to the breaking point of guarding remote imperial outposts in the Far East against menacing Japanese moves. Low on the list of priorities was the Italian threat to the British imperial lifeline running through the Sues Canal. The Mediterranean fleet was suffering from severe shortages of all kinds, and the British naval lords were not anxious to be drawn into a conflict with Italy. "
Italian Foreign Policy in the Interwar Period, 1918-1940 By H. James Burgwyn

I'm not trying to 'make the case' (as I think I've done that in previous posts on this subject) but the deep digging Arlequin and I did showed that when you pull all the factors together Britain was in no way the all conquering leviathan that could dominate at will...in a naval sense. Whilst we now know that the Italian airforce struggled against Malta in WW2 at the time the British Naval high command had great reservations/fears of a mad-dog Mussolini who would destroy significant elements of their beloved fleet and they were in no way interested in having Mussolini test out Malta's potential to defend itself in 1935.

At a time when budgets were strained the potential for loss was in many ways the reverse of the Italian paranoia of fleet loss in WW2. If you throw in the French fleet as well the RN is in  a very precarious position in 1935 and is largely unwilling to just 'rule the waves' come what may....so much is at stake.

Whilst the easy perception looking back is to assume the the Italians were incapable of taking on the British Med fleet supremacy, things were much less clear back then....and no RN Admiral wanted to lose irreplaceable Captial ships to massed Italian plane attack...so with what the RN has available things look much more evenly balanced as perceived by those of the time....even if we look back now and think or know otherwise.

If one thinks the RN will do whatever it takes regardless of any consequence then, yes, probably the RN does make a huge difference to things...but my own view is the British would be much less bellicose with their naval assets than a theoretical look at assets tallied up on a ledger... without looking at consequences....

Would the British navy really lose significant assets to help poor old Ethiopia?...politicians have got them into the mess and all out war v Italy just might be a step to far...localised colonial conflict to 'leg up' the League of Nations is a more likely scenario, they can manage that, but finding the strategic commitment between fulfilling their international political obligations and going to all out war was a quite difficult balancing act that doesn't immediately point to RN supremacy IMHO.

...anyway, some food for thought...good talk!

Cheers

HappyW

[carlos marighela]

I'll admit I haven't really been following the other thread. If the assumption is that war is somehow confined purely to the goings on in Abyssinia then I agree.The British would probably not risk capital ships to prop up Haile Selassie. I have some difficulty in seeing how any conflict between Britain and Italy would be confined to just the Red Sea.

If there was any sort of escalation that suggested a widening of the war to Egypt and the Canal then clearly Britain's key geo-strategic interests would have been under threat and that would involve the Home Fleet deploying and the interdiction of anything Italian heading south. The fact that Britain reinforced its outposts in the actual circumstances more than suggests that this was under active consideration.

Invincible RN? No, I'm not making that claim. The RN was stretched but it has ever been so. It was even more stretched in the Second World War and the Napoleonic era. It was incredibly stretched in the post war period but was able to make rapid and quite powerful concentrations when the circumstances dictated. Think about Kuwait in 1961 or the Falklands for example. Hindsight is unavoidable in these circumstances so it's hard for me to see how the Italian Navy would do much better, with much less in the way of firepower and experience than they did in WW2. Any threat to the canal would likely invalidate all that footsie under the table stuff Gamelin was engaging in in 1934/35, so Mussolini really does have to contemplate at least a latent threat of French intervention.  You know the  If you can somehow posit how the Regia Marina can prevail against the RN, whilst keeping sufficient reserves to deal with the French, you're a better man than me or the Italian High Command for that matter.

We are probably talking at cross purposes anyway. My point is that if it comes to open and unrestricted conflict, then the odds are very heavily stacked against the Italians. Doesn't mean it couldn't have happened but on a strategic level there's not much 'play balance' for Mussolini's side IMO. Your mileage may vary and that's entirely OK with me.

[Arlequín]

I feel like we're tag-teaming you now... but the testing of what we came up with is appreciated all the same. We thrashed many of these concepts out between us as it was, but fresh perspective and opinions is invaluable too.   

I agree entirely that Britain has the potential to defeat Italy long-term, but in 1935 it is very much a paper tiger until it can mobilise its assets. As it stands just Britain versus Italy in a short term conflict over Abyssinia, even if it includes action in Egypt-Libya, will be a win for Britain eventually, although things could be 'sticky' to say the least in Egypt.

ME Command was confident that it could hold the L-E Border, keeping Italian Bombers out of range of Alex and Cairo. Besides the position at Mersa, they could rely on naval gunfire on top of the assets there. In Abyssinia they would be largely supporting the Ethiopians, or causing problems in Eritrea. Combined with closing the Canal and naval operations in the Med, Britain would prevail... which is why we brought in the French on Italy's side. They too can't commit their whole might, but they can balance the odds to make the scenario far less favourable to Britain and leave the eventual outcome more fluid.     

Look at WWII, it was an uphill struggle just to get the BEF together and in 1940 it still had untrained battalions in France, wooden guns on some of its tanks, while at the same time trying to retro-fit BESAs with no manuals or training. In 1936 they had to admit to the French that they only had a division and a half immediately available instead of the ten it was supposed to have. In 1936 the bulk of the 1.5 divisions were committed to Palestine, making a bad situation worse. Truth told the British had fewer ready troops than they had in 1914. The reinforcements they actually did send in the real crisis included personnel borrowed from other units in the UK to bring them up to strength.

A lot of digging around was a bit of an eye-opener for me to be honest, I thought Britain was a lot better off. As HW says we tried to look at it from a 1935 viewpoint not that of 2015. In 1939 even selling WWII to the dominions was hard going, the Canadians were no problem, Australia was keen, but when it actually came to getting volunteers for foreign service they really struggled at first. Half of the South African Government even appeared like they would prefer to side with Germany... I imagine there would be far less enthusiasm across the Empire to support Abyssinia.

If we were looking at WWII as a 'what if' rather than history, we might be inclined to scoff at its possibility. "No, Hitler was too shrewd to push his luck at Munich, it would end him if it failed", "France and Britain would never back down and stab the Czechs in the back" or "No way would Germany invade France, the French have more than them of everything", stuff like that.

The only thing against our version of Abyssinia happening (or another version where Italy pulls out) is largely that Eden second-guessed himself on the oil embargo, which in later years he said was a mistake on his part. That Britain did not make a stand against Italy essentially surrounding its route into and out of the Canal, tends to say to me that in 1935 they were far less confident of winning. We know the Italians would be struggling, but they went with the information they had at the time, which was largely Mussolini's blustering, bravado, propaganda and threats. 

[draxx66]

Reading an interesting book at the moment, I've now got to the point where there the Italians have invaded Abyssinia.

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1844158454?keywords=letters%20from%20the%20horn%20of%20africa&qid=1456318451&ref_=sr_1_1&sr=8-1

[WillieB]

Aeroclub makes a Hawker Demon in 1/48th Scale. Not the easiest of kits but do-able.
http://oldmodelkits.com/index.php?detail=21206&page=2&newlist=1
Conversion to a Hart is relatively simple.

[Vintage Wargaming]

Hannants have the Airfix Fury on offer for £7.47 so no better time to buy one