(01-24-2015 02:15 PM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  Here is one with the potential to have changed the outcome of a major war...

What if the Germans had listened to their Italian friends and captured Malta instead of allowing Rommel to strike out into Egypt?

Malta was a thorn in the side of the Regina Marina for the entire war, situated right in the middle of just about every serious Italian supply convoy to Africa. It was a perfect unsinkable base that allowed the Royal Navy to harass supply convoys and keep a perfect watch over the Regina Marina.

The Italian repeatedly suggest capturing it but were continually refused. The Italian military is often lampooned for their performance but the one area where the Italians had far greater expertise than their German counterparts was in dealing with the Navy.

I think that capturing Malta would have been massive. The Regina Marina wrestled naval superiority away from the British and Americans even without Malta. If they had captured it then it is almost certain that the Italians would have dominated the Med. and that would have been lights out for the Allies in Africa.

Malta would have made Crete look like a picnic for the Fallschirmjägeren, but it would have also made more strategic sense. The Luftwaffe covering ever Axis convoy from Sicily to Benghazi would have made things a lot different than the Royal Air Force attacking those same convoys the whole way.