How come Malta was not invaded? (1 Viewer)

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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?
 
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.
 
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
 
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.....
 
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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