Axis Evacuation Tunisia April 1943

[Catspoke]

Lets suppose that the March 43 Hitler assasination attempt succeeds and a military junta takes over in Germany suprisingly easily. In reaction to this turn of events, and seeing no good future, Mussolini flees to Spain (Badoglio is named prime minister by the King).

Rommel (back in Germany at this time) joins the junta and convinces the its members to evacuate Tunisia. The new Italian government agrees if the evacuation is 50/50 German-Italian.

Instead of a OTL April 43 effort of further reinforcement of Tunisia by land and sea, this now becomes a major evacuation effort, with a major commitment of the Italian Navy, and a major commitment of small civilian craft. The Italian military and civilian leadership shows suprising energy in rescuing their soldiers from Musollini's African adventure and a major effort is the result. The Italian military leadership would like to leave the war with honor and a successful evacuation would give them this chance. Plus the extra experienced soldiers might be handy for Italy to protect itself when its time to leave the Axis.

A plan is put in place, the first few nights the evacuations would increase gradually, but eventually the remaining axis forces would retreat to the Cape Bon peninsula and attempt to evacuate with light craft. If some misty/rainy weather develops then any major sea effort will happen then.

What happens?????? I bet most people think lots of drowned Germans and Italians. But assuming you evacuated by air transport (people no equipment) only at night and the Siebel ferries were loaded with supplies on the way in but with just people without any equipment on the way out, and if all the Italian destroyers made quick night trips and loaded up people (no equipment) on their decks, what percent could have been evacuated????

P.S. I came up with the Hitler assasinated/ Mussolini gone time line since that is the only way I see those guys agreeing to evacuate Tunisia (i.e dead and gone).

 

[Color-Copycat]

Even flying out by air was rather risky, since most of the Junkers troop flights went without escorts across the Mediterranean, and they were usually stripped of defensive guns in order to increase their passenger capacity.

 

[Catspoke]

Even flying out by air was rather risky, since most of the Junkers troop flights went without escorts across the Mediterranean, and they were usually stripped of defensive guns in order to increase their passenger capacity.

You would have to airlift at night. OTL the tried air supply by day even though night flights could have worked almost just as well because the didn't figure on Allied Intel giving warnings on the flights. Here with full transports leaving easily watched Tunisia airfields and a major evac obvious underway they would figure the Allies would intercept forcing night transport from the beginning.

However since only 25,000 wounded were evacuated during the whole Stalingrad airlift so assume 25,000 is possible by air.

You could put 200 plus on a destroyer deck on a fast night run though. 10 destroyers a night is 2,000 per night, 10 days of that is 20,000 people.

40 siebel ferries running back and forth for 10 days with 200 soldiers on board is 8000 per night, every other night for 10 days is another 40,000. THe OTL attrition rate on Siebel ferries wasn't unreasonable and they could pick people up on any beach.

With other random sea craft capacity Ill throw out a 100,000 total number.

 

[Paul V McNutt]

How much does this move up the invasion of Sicily?I assume with Mussolini gone Italy gives up sooner.

 

[Catspoke]

How much does this move up the invasion of Sicily?I assume with Mussolini gone Italy gives up sooner.

A bunch depends on the political situation. In this time line Tunisia falls on April 20th, but you have lets say an extra 100,000 unarmed evacuees in random Italian ports and airfields. Assuming the Italians are still in the Axis and a OTL size Husky invasion, the invasion gets moved up 3 weeks or so. The Germans and Italians try to get their evacuees reequipped and reorganized before then.

Of course if an Italian goverment was willing to make peace early, the Allies could move in with much smaller forces which could move much earlier.

If the Italian government picks this time (May 1) to make peace would a German militay junta invade Northern Italy????? Probably, depends on how their own peace negotiations are going. If both the Allies and Soviets are still insisting on unconditional surrender its likely the Germans will occupy Northern Italy just the same.

 

[CalBear]

You would have to airlift at night. OTL the tried air supply by day even though night flights could have worked almost just as well because the didn't figure on Allied Intel giving warnings on the flights. Here with full transports leaving easily watched Tunisia airfields and a major evac obvious underway they would figure the Allies would intercept forcing night transport from the beginning.

However since only 25,000 wounded were evacuated during the whole Stalingrad airlift so assume 25,000 is possible by air.

You could put 200 plus on a destroyer deck on a fast night run though. 10 destroyers a night is 2,000 per night, 10 days of that is 20,000 people.

40 siebel ferries running back and forth for 10 days with 200 soldiers on board is 8000 per night, every other night for 10 days is another 40,000. THe OTL attrition rate on Siebel ferries wasn't unreasonable and they could pick people up on any beach.

With other random sea craft capacity Ill throw out a 100,000 total number.

The Japanese tried the whole "fast destroyer" system at Guadalcanal. Very expensive. The ships are very vulnerable to interception by fleet units or even by MTB equipped with radar.

The best time to REALLY cut the heart out of the enemy's morale is during some sort of retreat. The troops are already feeling beaten and if you can get in and cause havoc (and ideally a lot of losses) it can break an army. Doing it while the forces are utterly helpless (like packed on board ship) is a miltiplier.

You might get 100k out, doubtful but possible. 80K would have such severe PTSD that you coundn't mix them with your remaining forces.

 

[wormyguy]

The Germans were able to evacuate 1 million+ soldiers and civilians by sea in 1945: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Hannibal

Of course, that was in the Baltic, not the Med, and over a period of several weeks.

 

[iddt3]

The big difference here is how friendly those Seas are. I think the Baltic evacuation was also a rather shorter distance.

 

[Dilvish]

The Japanese tried the whole "fast destroyer" system at Guadalcanal. Very expensive. The ships are very vulnerable to interception by fleet units or even by MTB equipped with radar.

The best time to REALLY cut the heart out of the enemy's morale is during some sort of retreat. The troops are already feeling beaten and if you can get in and cause havoc (and ideally a lot of losses) it can break an army. Doing it while the forces are utterly helpless (like packed on board ship) is a miltiplier.

You might get 100k out, doubtful but possible. 80K would have such severe PTSD that you coundn't mix them with your remaining forces.

IJN destroyers making the night runs in the Med? Sounds like an interesting ASB scenario. Time to get out my War at Sea minis. Those night runs to and from Guadalcanal were expensive for the IJN and the USN.

It would be interesting if Italy and Germany made a big naval effort to evacuate North Africa. The Allies should be favored if they try to block the evacuation, though I wouldn't be surprised if the outcome favored the Axis.

 

[Catspoke]

80K would have such severe PTSD that you coundn't mix them with your remaining forces.

In cases like Korsun and Falaise pockets the Germans only got a percentage out but it was certainly worth doing and better than staying in place and should have been started sooner. This situation is much the same. Reorganization would take time but if you could pull out the fighting elements of the 90th light and the paratroopers these would be useful someplace again.

 

[Blackfox5]

If Mussolini is overthrown, Italy is looking to get out of the war, not to prolong it. It's very doubtful they are going to risk their ships being destroyed simply to prevent troops being POWs. Far easier solution is to open negotiations with the Allies behind the scenes and see what terms will be offerred. If Italy intends to join the Allies, they'll get those POWs back soon enough anyway. They'll certainly not want to bring more German units into their country that they'll need to disarm or possibly fight.

As Calbear said, a night time destroyer evacuation is going to lead to some nasty naval battles once the Allies realize what is going on. They may get a few ten thousand out at most, and only at heavy cost.

The British could evacuate Dunkirk and Greece because they enjoyed naval supremacy or superiority (The Germans enjoyed the same in the Baltic in 1945). The Italians don't.

What US and British ships are in the immediate vicinity? It seems to me that if you can put 1 BB, a few CAs and CLs, and destroyers at night, they'll rip any destroyer and ferry force to shreds.

 

[Deleted member 36284]

So this would be like a German Dunkirk?

How many Italians would really heed the call though? the distance is much further then England to France.