Gibraltar - the supply problem

[Edwin P.]

"(jbrôl´tr) (KEY) , British crown colony (1995 est. pop. 32,000), 2.5 sq mi (6.5 sq km), on a narrow, rocky peninsula extending into the Mediterranean Sea from SW Spain. Most of the peninsula is occupied by the Rock of Gibraltar (Lat. Calpe), one of the Pillars of Hercules, which guards the northeastern end of the Strait of Gibraltar, linking the Mediterranean with the Atlantic. The town of Gibraltar lies at the northwest end of the Rock of Gibraltar. The peninsula is connected with the mainland by a low sandy area of neutral ground. West of the peninsula is the Bay of Gibraltar, an inlet of the strait. There is a safe enclosed harbor of 440 acres (178 hectares). The rock, of Jurassic limestone, contains caves in which valuable archaeological finds have been made. It is honeycombed by defense works and arsenals, which are largely concealed. A tunnel bisects the rock from east to west."

"During the Second World War, the Royal Engineers (originally the Artificer Company during the Great Siege) including a Canadian contingent, achieved wonderful feats of engineering, adding some 30 miles (40Km) of tunnels."

[Edwin P.]

Dear JerseyJohn,

Web Site: http://www.cosmosite.net/239-175-gibraltareng.htm

Looking for Backup:

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Web Site: http://www.feldgrau.com/july.html

July 5th

July 5th, 1940: In retaliation for the British action at Mers-el-Kebir, Vichy French warships based at Dakar capture 3 British merchant ships, while French aircraft stationed in Morocco attack British shipping off Gibraltar.

[Bill101]

John

Maybe this will help:

Standard infantry division during WWII (ok it's abstracted and obviously not always correct).

3 British battalions = 1 brigade; 3 brigades = 1 division.

3 German (and many other nationalities) battalions = 1 regiment; 3 regiments = 1 division.

If British sources are talking about a British regiment which had more than one battalion, then they will write something like this in an order of battle:

42nd Highlanders (2 battalions).

If you see this:

42nd Highlanders

Then assume that there was only 1 battalion.

In the British army the battalions of the same regiment will often be serving in totally different theatres. That way if it all goes wrong in one theatre you are not losing the whole regiment, and transfers from the other battalions in the regiment will help to form a core of experienced soldiers to start rebuilding the shattered battalion.

[JerseyJohn]

Edwin

It still becomes confusing, not concerning the structure so much as the erratic ammount of manpower that made up these units at different points in the war for different countries.

Brigades and regiments often blurred, usually a brigade was an independent command not tied to a division, but not always!

In manpower, German divisions were generally around 10,000 with American divisions between 12,000 and almost 20,000 in some instances, depending upon the number of support personnel required. Russian divisions were the smallest, generally around 5-8,000 and practically all of them combatants with seperate units for support duty.

Generally the U. S. and Brits had the largest number of men per unit. Units like airbourne would have the smallest number of support staff as generally they'd be pulled to the rear for reorganization after the regular infantry and armor caught up with them; at least that was the original idea but toward the end of the war most countries used them as regular infantry divisions.

In the case of fortresses, such as Gibraltar, it becomes especially confusing because the garrison would have consisted of parts of divisions stationed together rather than a single homogenous unit.

What I'd like to find out is exactly how many troops were stationed there during the war!

I'm still searching for that figure. I take Shaka's adhoc brigade estimate to be somewhere between 6-10,000 troops.

I suspect at least some of this lack of uniformity was intentional.

Thanks for the info, though. A strange system, dividing a unit's battalions and sending them to different parts of the globe!

[Edwin P.]

1. One item to keep in mind is that Gibraltar is small, very small. This size puts a physical limit on the number of troops that can be stationed there.

2. Its relatively easy to defend. Imagine one big mountain surrounded on 3 sides by water and on one side by realtively flat terrian - one big kill zone.

[JerseyJohn]

You mean, something like this! (Photo below)

Yes, the only hope is to reduce it by heavy artillery bombardment and/or starve the garrison or cut their water supply. It's the cliche of all impregnable fortresses.

[Shaka of Carthage]

Great picture of the Rock.

Thanks for the info, though. A strange system, dividing a unit's battalions and sending them to different parts of the globe!

I think I can answer the why to that.

The British recruited manpower for a regiment within a specific area. Majority of the British soldiers would spend thier entire career within one regiment. Its one of the reasons that the smaller British units have superior unit cohesion than American units.

So, a regiment suffering huge losses not only lost men from the same area, but had to obtain replacements from that same area. If you don't do it right, your civilian morale will drop badly.

The closes analogy I can think of, is to imagine each graduating class from High School, being responsible for forming a combat battalion. Imagine if that battalion suffered 80% losses, the effect it would have on civilian morale.

[Bill101]

Exactly Shaka!

In the first world war many "Pals battalions" were formed in Britain from volunteers who all lived in the same area and often worked together. Given the horrendous casualties at the front the effect of losing so many people from one area, at once, was devastating, and their memory still lingers on today.

Part of the poignancy is of course the naive enthusiasm with which many of them went off to war.

[JerseyJohn]

Shaka, Bill,

True, it happened particularly hard during the American Civil War when local militas were routinely mustered into volunteer regiments, both North and South. In many instances entire counties were left decimated with each major battle.

The most extreme case would be the Sullivan brothers who were all killed when their ship went down in the Pacific (the eldest survived but went mad and swam away from the lifeboats, drowning in search of his brothers).

But the thing is, in the United States, for example, all the different parts of a division fought in the same theater, and in the same vicinity, the divisions themselves weren't broken up. Usually they tried to distribute family members into different units and even different branches, if possible.

So, any guess as to how many troops were actually defending Gibraltar?

What I'd like to see as a fortress buster in SC2 would be heavy siege guns, simulating the German 80cm Dora, which would be especially effective when working with special units such as paratroops, marines or rangers.

In SC we've got a situation where putting three armies against Gibraltar is better than putting two, etc., but as we can see from that photograph, additional numbers would count for nothing, the place would need to be busted with heavy bunkerbusting fire followed by specially trained troops.

Glad you like that photo Shaka, I've got to admit it's the only one I recall seeing of Gibraltar from the land side (upper right, actually, not quite in the picture) and also the one that most graphically illustrates it's formidability.

[Bill101]

Originally posted by JerseyJohn:

Shaka, Bill,

What I'd like to see as a fortress buster in SC2 would be heavy siege guns, simulating the German 80cm Dora...

I always visualise SC1's rockets in that role, as a correct simulation of V1s and V2s would probably only allow them to inflict damage on cities and resources. Maybe this will change for SC2?

[JerseyJohn]

Bill

True, I've also seen them in that fortress busting capacity and they are useful that way, particularly as you've said, at Gibraltar and also Leningrad and Sevastopol -- they can be good hitting London or Malta as well. Except you need three or four of them to have it make any sense.

Historically the Germans had only one at Sevastopol, Dora, and probably only one during the entire war -- the second was assembled but I don't believe it was ever used.

Huge railroad guns are, like liquid fuel rockets, an exclusivly German technology (historically).

Dora required a very large crew, approximately 5,000 men, and normally wasn't worth the expenditure, but it was an excellent siege gun.

I'd like to see railway guns as an absolute fortress buster that would be very expensive and time consuming to build (training the crew was also very time consuming).

Placing it two hexes or tiles away from the target would only be an abstraction as no artillery piece of the time --and, other than Ball's never completed super gun or the US Army's Atomic Cannon -- ever had a comparable range. But placing it behind an infantry or armor unit would be accurate enough for game purposes.

The U. S. Army's Atomic Cannon of the early and mid-fifties designed for the firing of tactical nuclear projectiles. It was quickly rendered obsolete by smaller and more mobile battlefield missles.

[Jordy]

There were some other "railroad guns" used by the germans, Anzio Annie comes to mind.

The germans destroyed it after the allied broke out of the Anzio beachead. The gun was actually a railroad gun hidden in a mountail while it was being loaded and then driven out to be fired. There may of been two of them but I can't remember.

Just thought I'd give some more info into the conversation.

[JerseyJohn]

Jabbazilla

Glad you did, thanks.

I believe Anzio Annie was the American name for Dora.*

Germany did build two of them, but the second was always malfunctioning. By the time it was ready to use it had to be destroyed.

*My mistake, very glad you made that posting, here's an entry about Anzio Annie

'Anzio Annie' K5(E) railway gun of 28cm caliber that shelled the Anzio beach head. In total, Germany had over 25 of these weapons.

At 28cm this type of gun would have been a very small relation to the pair of 80cm giants!

Thanks again, I hadn't known Germany had so many of the smaller monsters.

[ October 16, 2004, 08:07 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]