FLG Wrote:SG, I don't want to get dragged into gentlemen's discussion here but something confuses me.
If the Germans couldn't fight to Alexandria from Tobruk because of supply movement issues, how did the allies manage to do it 3 times, though obviously only the final time from all the way back at Alamein.[/align]
There was a rail line from Alexandria to Alemein. Was the presence of this railway line a significant a decisive factor in winning the Campaign for North Africa?
The Allies rail line actually extended all the way to Mersa Matruh at the beginning of the war, and after Crusader, they extended it all the way to Tobruk. A standard steam engine of that era consumed about 55 pounds of coal, per mph, per/km of train, and in that km of train can move over 3 million pounds of cargo, or about 700 pounds of coal per hour for a train moving at 12-13 mph. Yes the rail line was, in my opinion, decisive in the Allied war effort in the Western Desert.
The only Axis attempt to activate the rail line ended in futility when a transport carrying 2 small locomotives across the Med was sunk, and never attempted again. So someone on the Axis side realized the importance, but not enough to try again.
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