On Tue, 2 Dec 2003 18:15:25 -0000, "Keith Willshaw"
wrote:



They also needed to hold the Middle East oil fields and
Suez canal. Allowing the Germans to seize those would
have altered the whole strategic balance. A third Reich
with unlimited oil supplies doesn't bear thinking about.

By the time Third Reich would be able to bring these wells into the
production (repairment, building of tanker fleet), it would have been
too late. Americans would be in fight for real.


This was true of much of the Axis war strategy. The capture of Norway
and Denmark were pyhricc victories as they tied down 20 or more
German divisions to hold down nations that had been effectively giving
them everything they wanted anyway.

If it weren't for German invasion of Norway, British were going to
land sometime in Spring 1940. Germans could not allow for Britain to
sit in Narvik. Troops deployed in Norway were not first class anyway,
most of them were either coast defense troops or 7xx class divisions.
Fighting troops deployed in Norway took part in the war against Soviet
Union.


Drax