# How come Malta was not invaded?



## RAGMAN (Sep 17, 2005)

I have always wondered why Germany (and Italy too) didn't invade Malta as they did to Crete? I know that the paratroopers suffered heavy losses on Crete but they overcame tremendous odds to capture the island.I always thought that an airbase in reach of Italy,Africa and the supply routes would be more of a concern than Crete.  Just wondering...


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## trackend (Sep 17, 2005)

I would imagine that it has to do with the size R-man it is a lot smaller than Crete so easier to defend if a sea borne invasion was attempted the RN presents would have made it a real non starter also there are even fewer beaches on Malta than Crete and they are all tiny, everywhere else is very rugged and unsuitable to land troops as for airborne the AA defenses on Malta where very extensive even when Faith Hope and Charity where the only land based planes on the Island. However at sea was a fair sized fleet with two carriers and any paratroop carriers in the area would have been decimated.
The only real strategic value of the Island was too the allies with its Valletta dry dock facilities for the axis forces it did not hold the same use as they had Italy so the general attack on Malta was to deny the habour as a viable repair base. Although operations from the airfield increased later at the time when an invasion would have been practical, air strikes against the axis land or sea forces did not originate from Malta, most where carrier based or before its capture, from Crete. 
Later Alexandria, Hal Fah etc where used but Malta still enabled the fleet to remain on station disrupting Rommel's Africa corp supplies in the middle east and effecting the out come there quite considerably.


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## plan_D (Sep 17, 2005)

One of the major reasons Malta was not invaded was Rommel. The request was made to Rommel to move some of his air support away to attack Malta and either destroy it or invade it. The Rommel denied the request and invaded Eygpt, claiming he could take it with Malta still intact. 

As we all know, he failed at El Alamein and then freed some of his air support to attack Malta. A little late by then because the RAF had already stationed Spitfires there.


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## RAGMAN (Sep 17, 2005)

OK, I kind of figured a that a small area is easier to defend. But If the Luftwaffe Paratroopers attacked Malta instead of Crete do you guys think it would have made a difference? I know hindsight is 20/20, but I would have attacked Malta instead of Crete.


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## plan_D (Sep 17, 2005)

That's a question that has been asked for 60 years. Personally I believe it would have made a world of difference. Malta was on the exact route between Italy and Tripoli, the major supply route for Rommel. Malta was almost spot on halfway between Alexandria and Gibralter also. This provided a great staging post between the two major ports. 

Crete was far off from the supply route compared to Malta. If the German forces had landed on Malta before Crete and taken it, it would have certainly made a difference. Would Germany have been able to take Malta? I don't know. The Fallschirmjager suffered up to 50% casualties taking Crete and their seaborne invasion didn't have an easy time, the entire first wave was wiped out including the escort destroyer Luzo. And this is on an island with no air defence aircraft and practically nil AA defence.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Sep 17, 2005)

If Malta had been taken out, Rommel may have been able to get his supplies to defeat the British in N. Afrika. Also it would have allowed the Germans to interfear with the British Supply lines somewhat.


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## schwarzpanzer (Sep 17, 2005)

Maybe it was to not offend the Italians (they seem to get on well with the Maltese(rs  )

What I want to know is why the PzIV's were up-armoured for it?


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Sep 17, 2005)

Dont ask me, I dont know much about armour.


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## plan_D (Sep 18, 2005)

How would it offend the Italians? And that has nothing to do with it.


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## schwarzpanzer (Sep 20, 2005)

Just made me wonder if it was for diplomatic reasons.

Do you have any ideas on the PzIV question PlanD?

What was the best anti-tank gun in Malta d'ya reckon?


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## plan_D (Oct 9, 2005)

I haven't a clue on the Pz.Kpfw IV issue. Have you got any information on the up-armouring of the Pz.Kpfw IV for Malta? I know the Pz.Kpfw IV Ausf G was up-armoured with seven-hundred being superior in armour protection to the other five-hundred or so. But that was a general improvement that was made due to improvements in Allied armour rather than precisely for Malta. 

I would think Malta would have at least a few OQF 6pdr. If not I know it had some AA battalions whose AA cannon would take out a Pz.Kpfw IV with relative ease. Especially the automatic Bofors 40mm.


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## Glider (Oct 9, 2005)

I don't think the Pz 4 was up armoured due to an attack on Malta. They were always updating the armour and the Germans in the Pz 4 had a tank that could easily take the extra weight.
I don't know about the anti tank guns but Malta certainly had some Matilda tanks which were based around the airfields, no doubt they had 2pd anti tank guns as well. I don't know how the Germans would have transported tanks to the island so the Anti Tank weapons would have been a smaller issue
An airborne attack is an infantry attack and with the heavy AA defences on Malta the attacking aircraft would have received heavy losses. The AA guns would have taken a heavy toll of the transport planes and the infantry on the ground. The Germans were stung by the losses on Crete and Malta would have been a tough nut to crack.
It should also be remembered that the defences would have learned the lessons of the loss of Crete and their morale was high. No evacuation would have been possible and they would have fought to the end.
As to why they never invaded, I am not sure but the Germans transferred large numbers of plane to prepare for the invasion of Russia and I expect this to have been an influence. That plus the time needed to replace the losses of Crete might have been a factor.
Had the Germans done it then we would have lost the Middle East and the course of the war would have changed.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Oct 9, 2005)

Yes I to personally dont think it had to do with Malta, but like I said I dont know.


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## schwarzpanzer (Oct 10, 2005)

Only a small piece on Achtungpanzer website:



> In preparation for the planned Invasion of Malta in March of 1942, 12 PzKpfw IVs with 80mm frontal plate were requested and produced.





Glider said:


> They were always updating the armour and the Germans in the Pz 4 had a tank that could easily take the extra weight.



I know that the PzIV's main weakness was the front bogie wheels, so an increase in weight made it worse and got the JgdPzIV the nickname 'Guderians duck' - even though he never wanted it built in the 1st place!

Even with 80mm though the 6pdr would be able to get it @ about 500m, the Bofors as PlanD mentioned even better.

Though the Matildas would likely have been no match.


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## Glider (Oct 10, 2005)

I don't know if they had the 6pd on Malta but I would be suprised if they did. 6pds were is very short supply at that time and my guess is that Matla would be a low priority as the armies in the Desert would have had first call.
Re the use of Bofors, I don't think that they would have been effective against armour as they lacked AT ammunition. In addition they are large guns visible at some distance and easily knocked out by the HE from the PzIV.
There is no doubt that the PzIV could take the extra weight as its development history is well known. I think you will find the the PzIV at Bovington is an early version that was uparmoured to much later standard. 
Had the PzIV got ashore then we would have been in trouble, but I still don't know how they were going to get them onto the Island. That would have been Malta's best chance.


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## plan_D (Oct 11, 2005)

A few Bofors 40mm did have some credit of knocking out Pz.Kpfw IVs in their service life. Despite the fact they did lack AP ammo, the constant impact of HE shells tended to either scare the crew to abandon or cause some damage. I'll try and find the story I had of some AA crews. 

And, schwarz, I wouldn't take that site as the ultimate source of information. It has been known to have been wrong.


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## Gnomey (Oct 11, 2005)

I am reading a book on the seige of Malta at the moment and I just read the bit about the possible invasion (see quote below). A plan was drawn up to invade either Malta or Crete. All the German chiefs of staff voted for Malta as crucial to the securing of the supply line to North Africa (which it was). However Hitler overuled them and order the invasion of Crete because he wanted to secure his southern flank in Russia and he was worried about his Rumanian oil fields and thought that Britain could launch bombing raids on them from Crete.



> In fact the Germans _had_ seriously considered invading Malta. That spring (1941), Section L of the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) had been asked to prepare an appreciation of whether it would be better to invade Malta or Crete. All officers in the section - from the Army the Navy and the Air Force - unanimously agreed it should be Malta, as this seemed to be the only way to secure the sea-route to North Africa permanently. But despite this, Hitler overruled them, insisting it should be Crete because he still feared British air-strikes on the Rumanian oilfields and mistakenly believed the Island could have far-reaching possiblilities for the Luftwaffe


Taken from "Fortress Malta : An Island under Siege 1940 - 1943" by James Holland (P157 Paragraph 2)

The failure to invade Malta was just another one the occassions when Hitler overruled his Generals. Just think how different the war would have been if they had had more control over the objectives.


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## RAGMAN (Oct 12, 2005)

the idea of bombers hitting the ploesti oilfields kind of make sense...


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## starfish1 (Oct 12, 2005)

You guys are giving too much credit to a possible defense of malta.Late in 1940/early 1941 the defences on the island were almost non-existant(saw it on World at War I believe)only a handful of planes,literally and almost no troops(a few battalions?)And if invaded b4 crete,than no lessons to learn from that loss by the allies right?As for AA,who says you HAVE to invade the most heavily defended point?Remember,the allies invaded the areas AROUND the ports in N.Africa during operation Torch,then took the cities themselves.And with way more infantry(and air dropped artillery/mortars you could pin down the available defenders,then pick your spots to set up your own small manuverable guns and pick off whaterver AA guns the defenders had,right??


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## plan_D (Oct 12, 2005)

An island as small as Malta would provide quick reaction times for the Allied forces there. No matter where the Germans landed, the Allies could react quickly. Had Germany invaded Malta instead of Crete it's likely they would have won the battle, however we must remember that the Royal Navy were in ownership of the Med. Any naval fleet would be smashed out of the water, just like the first wave of Crete's invasion fleet was (including Italian destroyer Luzo). Malta was much more heavily defended by AA than Crete was, and Crete's invasion Fallschirmjager suffered a loss rate of almost 50%!


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## starfish1 (Oct 13, 2005)

sorry but I still think you are wrong...small size equals quick response time?also equals less "strategic depth",quicker to overrun.The forces sent to crete would have overwhelmed the small garrison on malta very fast.As for naval forces...didn't the luft sink aircraft carriers,battleships etc that tried to defend crete?Send in the Roayl Navy...fight...lose ships..lose the land battle too.Sound like fun for the Germans,esp since the ships lost at crete were mostly little coastal transports,easy to replace,and the ships the brits lost were capital ships,very hard to replace.Right?


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## plan_D (Oct 15, 2005)

Unless the Germans could muster invasion forces capable of surrounding Malta and invading all around it at one time, then the British forces would be able to throw everything on the island at the pinpoint of the German invasion fleet. The only way to disrupt this is to use airborne troops which they did on Crete which suffered an astounding 50% loss rate against an island with little AA defence. 

The invasion of Crete suffered heavily and the garrison on Crete wasn't equipped for war. It was at the mercy of attacks from the air and most of the 40,000 on the island didn't have any weapons. 

The Royal Navy lost a few Cruisers during the evacuation from Crete. The Luftwaffe aiding an invasion of Malta would have to deal with land based fighters from Malta as well as much heavier AA cover than what was encountered of Crete. 

The German and Italian ships lost at Crete were not really easily replaced and they were also full of troops ready to invade Crete. Of whom, none got ashore. As well, the Italian Destroyer Luzo was destroyed. If Crete had more AA battalions then the invasion would have most likely failed, or at the very least suffered even more than the already terrific losses they did suffer. Malta did have more AA battalions than Crete, it also had land based fighters which Crete did not have. Not even one.


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## reddragon (Oct 17, 2005)

I was under the impression that Malta was not invaded because Italy would not use it's fleet in the operation, claiming they didn't have enough fuel.


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## MaltaFTW (Nov 12, 2009)

I'm from Malta and i frequently hear my grandma telling me about World War 2 . Yes malta was invaded. It was bombed. Bombs came from Italy and Germany. When the air raid sound came off, all those people outside trying to cook what ever they got left and they look at the sky, all they saw was hundreds and hundreds of italian planes. They were so high up that they were like dots! They didn't cause that much damage. Thye caused but not as much as german planes. They bombed us from a very low position. Turturing us. Luckily we had the english soldiers back then. All the supply ships were destroyed by the german planes. Only one survived. The 'Ohio' it came in half sunken.
They really didn't need to invade Malta but they were headed for south (Egypt) and they said 'Why not? and bombed us. It lasted 4 years. Extra thing: Miraclously the Cospicuan Parish didn't fall although they tried, one time a german plane crashed landed and we grabbed all we had and killed the pilot xD


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## parsifal (Nov 12, 2009)

The Axis needed to achieve a total blockade and total suppression of the Malta defences, in order to undertake an invasion of malta. They had just about achieved those conditions by March 1942, although the conditions were never complete, and were "near achieved" at the wrong moment in time, since the invasion was set at no earlier than July 1942. By that time, the blockade had been broken and ther was no chance for the invasion being a success. 

The other thing is that there are often criticisms about taking Crete and not Malta. Some argue that Crete should never have occurred. However, whilst Malta was a far more important target, because of its location and the facilities that existed on the island, if Malta had fallen and Crete retained, the centre of operations by the allies in the central basin by the allies would simply have shifted from Malta to Crete. The strategic aim behind the capture of Malta (the securing of the sea communications to North Africa) would not have been achieved if the British had been allowed to re-establish themselves nearby. 

To achieve security for their sea communications to North Africa, the Axis had to fight their war much smarter than they did....they had to:

1) capture Malta
2) capture Crete
3) Maintain strong defences on Sicily and Sardinia
4) Occupy Tunisia, to get control of the ports in that territitory. 

Fundamental to the overall failure in the theatre was thel lack of committment to the theatre. People have often tried to blame just Hitler, but really it was a systemic failure to appreciate the importance of the theatre by the whole German High command. Germany's view on operations was always eurocentric. They never really got it that the war was a truly global conflict.....


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## tomo pauk (Nov 12, 2009)

The right time to conduct invasion of Malta was 2nd half of 1940, when the defences were not that tough, and Italy possessed an intact fleet, air force army.
Now, Italians decided to attack both Greece and Egypt (= The Commonwealth). And we know how that ended...


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