Destroying Suez Canal

[atomicroman]

Hey guys. I'm watching gameplays of Hearts of Iron 4 and I wonder why there's no option of destroying Suez canal infrastructure. Imagine how hard it would hit royal navy if german air forces would destroy suez canal gates. Royal navy after that would be parylazed for many days or even weeks.

 

[keynes2.0]

Imagine how hard it would hit royal navy if german air forces would destroy suez canal gates. Royal navy after that would be parylazed for many days or even weeks.

Well it would probably completely shut down Mediterranean shipping. However I am curious how the Germans would pull this off before Italy enters the war and shuts down all Mediterranean shipping.

 

[JerkyJerry]

I think just a couple of signs should do the trick!

 

[atomicroman]

After conquering Ethiopia by Great Britain, Italy wouldn't have anything to lose. Ships without Suez canal need to sail additional 7500 kliometers. It's a big distance which cost a lot of time to travel. It's big advantage for Japan which without Suez and Panama canal would have supremacy in pacific and Indian ocean.

 

[Mannstien]

After conquering Ethiopia by Great Britain, Italy wouldn't have anything to lose. Ships without Suez canal need to sail additional 7500 kliometers. It's a big distance which cost a lot of time to travel. It's big advantage for Japan which without Suez and Panama canal would have supremacy in pacific and Indian ocean.

Suez is one thing, shutting down the Panama Canal completely different since Japan would have to island hop all the way over to the South East Pacific, build ports big enough to sustain supply to not just invade but to hold that territory and provide enough escorts to keep that supply lane open. Which in game terms if Japan has plausible limitations they would need to probably expend all of their resource's in such an operation as the line would be thin and just one part getting cut off will shut down the entire operation.

Destroying on the other hand I don't think is possible in game as they are basically considered Rivers or Straits and not really buildings that can be destroyed unless someone knows otherwise?

 

[Denkt]

You can capture the canal which will open it for you and close it for your enemy but you can not destroy it.

 

[TheCrimsonMajor]

This would be an interesting feature. Suppose Italy is losing the war in Libya but manages to land a division at the canal. Given enough time (at least a day or two) they could destroy it and hamper British operations greatly. However, it would have to result in a severe relations drop (-100 or -150) with Egypt, Britain, and all Allied powers, and an additional relations hit (-25 or so) with the rest of the world, for destroying valuable commercial shipping infrastructure. You could do something similar with the Panama canal, although I could see a human controlled Japan doing some pretty gamey stuff with that.

 

[potski]

Imagine how hard it would hit royal navy if german air forces would destroy suez canal gates.

There are none. The Suez Canal is entirely at sea level and has no locks. Sea water flows freely in and out of the canal. There really is no infrastructure to destroy.

The southern entrance to the canal at Suez:

It's like saying you could destroy the River Nile.

 

[Raptor83]

This would be an interesting feature. Suppose Italy is losing the war in Libya but manages to land a division at the canal. Given enough time (at least a day or two) they could destroy it and hamper British operations greatly. However, it would have to result in a severe relations drop (-100 or -150) with Egypt, Britain, and all Allied powers, and an additional relations hit (-25 or so) with the rest of the world, for destroying valuable commercial shipping infrastructure. You could do something similar with the Panama canal, although I could see a human controlled Japan doing some pretty gamey stuff with that.

I doubt, that even a division of troops could do enough damage to Suez, for allies to take more than a month or 2 to fix it - likely much less. Its nowhere near as easily sabotaged as Panama canal.

Pretty much only thing you can do to block it is to sink a several large ships - and allies would be able to remove them in about a month.

 

[Raptor83]

There are none. The Suez Canal is entirely at sea level and has no locks. Sea water flows freely in and out of the canal. There really is no infrastructure to destroy.

The southern entrance to the canal at Suez:

It's like saying you could destroy the River Nile.

I agree - people either confused it with Panama, or they are completely clueless regarding this topic.

 

[svennnnnnnnnnnn]

Well using the air force to do damage to the canal itself is unrealistic (as others have pointed out). However ships in the canal should take extra damage from naval strikes since they don't have room to maneuver. A really cool feature would be the option use blocking ships to (admitedly temporarily) close the canal. Also having troops seal the canal the old-fashioned way (i.e. shovels) to block it off for some time until the opposing side employs the same method.

 

[LordOfWar16]

What exactly do you expect your bombers to do? Drop enough dirt or sand in there to fill up the suez?

Jokes aside, you cant really "destroy" something, that is basicly a river without gates or such. If you capture it, it will be blocked for the enemy tho, so you can quiet literally trap the Royal Navy in the mediteranian if you coordinate attacks on gibraltar and the suez. Straits are blocked for the enemies of the one controlling them, but submarines will still slip through tho. Conquering the Suez and Gibraltar also makes italy invurnable to naval invasions, as long as you manage to sink the remaining ships trapped there.

 

[TheCrimsonMajor]

I doubt, that even a division of troops could do enough damage to Suez, for allies to take more than a month or 2 to fix it - likely much less. Its nowhere near as easily sabotaged as Panama canal.

Pretty much only thing you can do to block it is to sink a several large ships - and allies would be able to remove them in about a month.

I hadn't thought of the lack of locks, that's a good point. But what about explosives being used to collapse the sides of it? Or sinking ships...

 

[Raptor83]

I hadn't thought of the lack of locks, that's a good point. But what about explosives being used to collapse the sides of it? Or sinking ships...

sides of channel are not steep enough for landslides - you would effectively be trying to fill it with sand (which wouldnt work to put it mildly). There are also dedicated dredging ships that can clear lots of material from sea bottom (usually used for keeping ports deep enough for shipping).

Sinking ships where would be only a short term issue - this happened in 1967 and after Egypt and Israel agreed to reopen Suez, they were able to clear those sunk ships pretty quickly.

 

[Axe99]

I doubt, that even a division of troops could do enough damage to Suez, for allies to take more than a month or 2 to fix it - likely much less. Its nowhere near as easily sabotaged as Panama canal.

Pretty much only thing you can do to block it is to sink a several large ships - and allies would be able to remove them in about a month.

This - I can't see the tactical benefit of sabotaging Suez - it would take so much effort, that if a force was able to sabotage it in a meaningful way, they'd have to be in a position to hold it in all but the most unlikely of circumstances. Getting ships in to block the canal by sea would be pretty difficult without having the edge on the RN in the area. In either case (land or naval superiority), I'd imagine the canal would be more use to Italy (or whoever else has land/naval superiority) open rather than closed.

 

[Pandoricus]

The Japanese military did have a plan to shut down the Panama canal. They even kinda began to execute it in the days/weeks before surrender. I-400 class submarines were developed as aircraft carriers for three planes that are meant to launch and destroy the Panama canal/it's ability to permit passage. Really cool stuff actually. Largest submarine for even decades after the war. The planes also were using US insignias to disguise them.

 

[potski]

Ships that were sunk by the Egyptians in late 1956 during the Suez Crisis blocked the canal for several months. It's one thing to sink a ship by boarding it and scuttling it, quite another to sink moving ships by planes during WWII. As we discussed recently with the possibility of a Pearl Harbour type attack on Scapa Flow, Germany had very few long-range naval bombers. I don't believe they had the capability to fly all the way across the Med, and hit enough ships to block the canal, in a surprise attack. If you look at the picture I posted earlier you can see the (tiny) white wake of a ship entering the canal. If you sunk that it wouldn't block the canal. You would have to hit several ships or catch one in a narrow section of the canal. There were less than 50 ships passing through each day, so it's not like you would have lots of targets.

You would surely have more chance of causing problems by dropping mines into the canal. But that requires low flying, and it was defended with AA and fighters based in Egypt. Or a St.Nazaire type raid, where an old destroyer loaded with high explosives was sailed directly into the port and blown up.

 

[Pandoricus]

Do you happen to know the smallest width of the Suez canal. I don't really know any specs on it. Panama canal is possible but no idea about Suez.

 

[Pandoricus]

The Suez canal is today a thousand feet at its smallest, meaning you could potentially clog up the canal today, and even back in ww2. Not saying it is easy at all, but like how the US blew up dams in Europe (maybe in Germany) it could have been done potentially but the Germans were focused on other things and Italy was not up to the task. One way trip at best with only weeks of damage. Taking it was more realistic at the time than blowing it up.

 

[Raptor83]

The Suez canal is today a thousand feet at its smallest, meaning you could potentially clog up the canal today, and even back in ww2. Not saying it is easy at all, but like how the US blew up dams in Europe (maybe in Germany) it could have been done potentially but the Germans were focused on other things and Italy was not up to the task. One way trip at best with only weeks of damage. Taking it was more realistic at the time than blowing it up.

there is literally nothing that you can blow up in Suez canal, that would sabotage it. Even for temporary blockage via sunk ships, you would have to be able to move ships there and control their sinking.

btw. dam destruction was done by RAF, not USAAF and this kind of raid would have no effect on Suez.