Please give me a short description/green text on what made the Brits victorious in North Africa, and what tactics they used
>Guile
>Perseverance
>Sherman tanks
>>1055636
>It's an Anon too lazy to do his homework episode
>>1055636
To understand the North African campaign, you have to grasp one central fact about Libya in WW2.
There were no railroads. Not a single kilometer of track connecting any two cities. If you wanted supplies, reinforcements, water, spare parts, anything, you had to ship it to a friendly port, and then haul it out to wherever the front line was, by either truck or camel. Trucks carried their own problems, because the trucks need things like fuel and spare parts, which cannot be obtained locally, and if you want to use trucks to move your shit, you run into the "rocket fuel" problem, that the more trucks you have, the more of your logistical resources have to go into simply maintaining your logistical apparatus.
Consequently, it was a theater of war that while it allowed for enormous mobility on a tactical level, made it much more easy to defend than it was to attack on a strategic level. The Brits charge against the Italians in Compass, shove them all the way back to El Aghelia. Rommel lands with reinforcements, attacks, shoves the Brits all the way back to Tobruk. Then he's the one who is overextended, the Brits counterattack during Crusader, and knock him back to El Aghelia, where he has more troops and supplies waiting, which allows him to shove the British back all the way to El Alamein. And then, surprise surprise, he's overextended once more, and the British shove back once again, this time breaking the Afrika Corps.
It's far more the logistics than the tactics which made the British victorious in North Africa. They could constantly resuply via the Indian Ocean, where the Axis raiders couldn't get at, whereas everything sent from Italy had to run a gauntlet of British raiders. They had some railroad development in Egypt, at least out to Alexandria, where the Germans and Italians had nothing comparable. They also just had more resources in the form of things like fuel to deal with the necessary friction you get when you fight in the desert.
AA gun drive bys
>>1055636
>Italians attack British Egypt after the fall of France
>they get BTFO because Italians and the Brits overrun Italian Lybia
>Mussolini asks for help, Hitler sends in Rommel with Afrika Korps
>he is told by Hitler to just push the Brits out from Lybia
>Rommel goes nuts, decides to invade Egypt. That's because Operation Barbarossa started already, and he has the insane idea that he can completely push the British out of Africa, then blitz through the whole Middle East and attack Russia from Iran.
>actually, he barely has enough supplies to reach Central Egypt
>regardless, he is a good tactician, wins several battles, but sustains losses that he can't replenish due to his overstreched supply lines
>Rommel is supplied by the Italian navy, but the Allies gain the advantage at sea, sink many of his convoys, making his situation even worse.
>Montgomery becomes the commander of the British troops in Egypt, takes up a defensive position at El Alamein
>USA enters the war, starts supplying Monty with Sherman tanks
>Rommel arrives, but by that time is outnumbered and is facing fortified positions
>Monty waits several more weeks until he has several times the number of tanks Rommel has and defeats him
>Rommel retreats, Monty follows him, but only reluctantly, so the remaining Africa Korps slips away into Vichy-ruled French North Africa
>>1055636
Rommel's favorite tactic
>we're in a desert, let's just outflank their defenses and hit them from the back with my tanks
>le tactical genius
Monty's tactics
>Let's just overwhelm the germans with our numerical superiority until they run out of ammo and supplies
>le tactical genius
North Africa was a fucking sideshow which is desperately blown out of proportions to its significance by the British, because it was the only land theater they could realistically engage the germans in
British commanders were awful and to make themselves seen less incompetent, they hyped Rommel as this epic Desert Fox, because it doesn't look too bad if you lose to a good general, rather than mediocre one.
>Ruskies draining the germans on the eastern front
Why do people pretend like it was just the british fighting alone in Africa? The vital US support is never mentioned. It's like it's some meme to save face and show that they really could beat germany alone.
>>1055636
British air, naval and armoured units superiority and easy logistics as opposed to shit axis logistics and the Germans "helping" the Italians in that front with a grand total of 3 divisions.
>>1055772
They kinda did fight them alone, at least in Libya and Egypt.
>>1055787
Not true at all. Since their first victory at el-alamein they had offensive support.
>>1055811
>First victory
>El Alamein
uwotm8?
>>1055811
And by then the campaign was already pretty much over.
>>1055759
Just like the pacific was a sideshow,the Japanese didn't care about the Pacific at all because they had a million men in China.
>>1055863
But that's wrong.
>>1055859
Go look up Operation Crusader.
>>1055636
>Fighting Italians for the first part
>Limited German involvement
>Fighting a Generalfeldmarshchall not as committed to total war as the Eastern Front leadership was
>limited interest in the front from Hitler, limited reinforcements and equipment transfers. Everything went to the war in the east.
>Malta and Gibraltar interfering with supply lines
>Spain more or less protected Gibraltar and after the fuck up at Greece, the Italians couldn't be convinced to start any more offensive movements
>Massive fucking build up in the east, stripping units away from the Asia war
>When Field Marshall Autismo took over, he dedicated much of his tenure to overwhelming superiority over a handful of German divisions.
>It was the only European oriented front the British had left.
>>1055787
Americans fucked up in Tunisia as well
>>1055753
exactly this
>>1055687
How do we keep retards off of /his/?
>>1055759
Far too biased there m80
Monty is overhyped but was a fundamentally solid General, taking lower risk options and ensuring you have the best chance of winning before taking the offensive isn't a sign of a bad leader at all. Rommel being a risky motherfucker is what lead him right into Based Mont's trap at El Alamein.
>>1056069
I think both generals are overrated as fuck.
While I think Monty did nothing wrong in North Africa. Saving up your forces to have the advantage was the logical thing to do. His fuck ups in Western Europe (Caen, Market Garden) and his terrible ego makes me want to hate him.
Rommel was just overrated by the Western Allies and Hitler. He was a good Panzer Commander, but should have never been entrusted with a higher command than a Panzer Division. Dude had no mind for the strategic objectives and logistics.
![cine-oro_cinco-tumbas-al-cairo_los-tres[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/oDKLOVm.jpg "cine-oro_cinco-tumbas-al-cairo_los-tres[1].jpg")
When and why did perceptions of Rommel change?
In Five Graves To Cairo (1943) he's a straight up evil Nazi fucker. By Patton (1970) he's le-misunderstood-military-genius
>>1056271
Probably when the war ended
Monty fingered a bunch of young boys
the end
>>1055759
Go on then. Give us an example of who you think is a good general and why.
>>1056283
>being a judging Jane
Lots of people fingered boys in the olden days. It wasn't such a big deal back then
>>1056339
Erich von Manstein
Heinz Guderian
George S. Patton
Chester Nimitz
Georgy Zhukov
>>1055636
>what made the Brits victorious in North Africa
American tanks.
>>1056703
>posts the ''coffin for seven brothers''
>>1055687
So here's my theory people.
Rommel was a fairly smart guy, he was also sort of anti nazi, what if he knowingly over extended in order to make the nazis waste as much resources as possible because he didn't approve of the regime and this was his only way to damage it?
>>1059428
Rommel was definitely a nationalist and loved his country. He just though that Hitler wouldn't win and things would turn out shit for Germany. He would not intentionally cripple his own nation. He was part of the plot to assassinate Hitler because he thought Hitler would bring Germany to ruin, and the only way to save Germany was to eliminate Hitler and sue for peace.
And the allies weren't even that fond of that idea anyways, because the allies really did not want the way to end with a German empire.
>>1059428
Read his memoirs, he wanted to win and be a hero, he's the classical Prussian commander even without being ethnically Prussian
>>1055702
> muh SAS
>>1055678
M8, sometimes you like to hear from people you like. You like the way they explain things.
>>1059428
You know for such an anti nazi he sure was buddy buddy with good old Adolf.
>>1055636
>Incompetence of Italian Armor regiments (minor factor)
>Insufficient replacements for German armor (major factor)
>Numbers advantage of British and Commonwealth forces. (Montgomery takes credit)
>>1055753
>>Rommel goes nuts, decides to invade Egypt. That's because Operation Barbarossa started already, and he has the insane idea that he can completely push the British out of Africa, then blitz through the whole Middle East and attack Russia from Iran.
The absolute fucking madman
>>1060797
>I'll just ignore the logistical issues which prevented more German reinforcements.
>And Rommel's deliberate ignoring of such.
>And how the British outnumbered the Germans worse at Gazala than at El Alamein
>And how Rommel actually got quite badly outmaneuvered at El Alamein, running his trademark tank flank attack straight into about 50% of the British's dug in anti-tank guns.
>>1060797
>Churchill being a fucking twat and sending half the army to Greece and getting it fucked
>>1056361
>Patton
>Zhukov
Intothetrashitgoes.webm
