El Alamein Choke Point Reasoning

[Emperorheinrich]

Hey everyone,

First of all I have to say I'm really excited about Death or Dishonor and one of the features I'm looking forward to are the wastelands in the Sahara and elsewhere around the world. I think they will add a lot to the combat and make fighting in Africa a lot easier. That being said I'm curious why El Alamein was made a chokepoint in North Africa. I realize its historical significance but was there a specific geographic reason why the Axis had to advance through the city rather than going around?

 

[TK-XD-M8]

Here's a screencap of a google map of the area (blacked out area is personal stuff). Appears to be some mountains / hills to the south.

EDIT: and,of course, the Libyan Desert is there to the south as well.

 

[Fryslan0109]

Directly south of El Alamein is the Qattara Depression, which, as described by Wikipedia, "has the shape of a teardrop, with its point facing east and the broad deep area facing the south west. The northern side of the depression is characterised by steep escarpments up to 280 meters high"

Essentially, it was impassable for any motorized vehicles, forcing any army using tanks/automobiles to stick to the coast.

 

[TK-XD-M8]

Directly south of El Alamein is the Qattara Depression, which, as described by Wikipedia, "has the shape of a teardrop, with its point facing east and the broad deep area facing the south west. The northern side of the depression is characterised by steep escarpments up to 280 meters high"

Essentially, it was unpassable for any motorized vehicles, forcing any army using tanks/automobiles to stick to the coast.

So that's the mountain stuff on the map...

 

[Meglok]

Directly south of El Alamein is the Qattara Depression, which, as described by Wikipedia, "has the shape of a teardrop, with its point facing east and the broad deep area facing the south west. The northern side of the depression is characterised by steep escarpments up to 280 meters high"

Essentially, it was unpassable for any motorized vehicles, forcing any army using tanks/automobiles to stick to the coast.

This. Literally impassible terrain, no roads, no nothing. The Qattara bulged up towards the coast at El Alamein making it impossible for Rommel or Montgomery to flank each other's lines. They both had to resort to set piece offensive plans to break through, Monty won due to more men and supplies.

 

[CharlieFox]

Essentially, it was unpassable for any motorized vehicles, forcing any army using tanks/automobiles to stick to the coast.

This would also include supply trucks and most likely wagons pulled by animals so it would be close to impossible to supply any division or brigade sized force through the depression

 

[Stolen Rutters]

280 meter cliff, well that explains a lot... that's chair lift country, you ain't getting even a mountaineer army past that, don't even think about food or bullets either, probably winching those up and down the side.

 

[ImKampf]

I believe it was the only pass there for reasons already mentioned (Mountains and desert), but I believe there was also a railway station there at the time, meaning supplies could be bought in more easily. Not sure if that was part of the reasoning or if the railway was functional at the time though

 

[Wilbry]

The blue at the top of the photo is the Eastern Med.
Imagine fitting 10,000 men and 200 tanks in that space between the sea and depression.
Where the battle took place was only a little wider than this and had 100,000 axis and 200,000 allies.

In 1942 El Alimain was just a railway station and some houses and was the furthest western extent of the rail line. It is also at the eastern tip of the depression, so it had two strategic reasons for being the fall back line for the British.

 

[Sanny]

This. Literally impassible terrain, no roads, no nothing. The Qattara bulged up towards the coast at El Alamein making it impossible for Rommel or Montgomery to flank each other's lines. They both had to resort to set piece offensive plans to break through, Monty won due to more men and supplies.

Rommel was far too overstretched from his supplies and oil (from Tripoli), I very much doubt if he had won Alamein he would have been able to advance on Cairo without taking a port in Egypt first.

My point being El Alamein wasn't so much a choke point but a very good place for the British Commonwealth to fight. Rommel could be easily rolled back due to being overstretched, any losses could be recovered.
Also want to point out this was not Montgomery's plan to fight here it was Auchinleck (who was sacked) but Montgomery went ahead with the original plan.

 

[Louella]

the Depression also has large areas of extremely fine sand, which is a problem for motor vehicles for two reasons - moving through those areas is very difficult for mechanical reasons - lack of traction, sinking due to ground pressure etc. the other reason being that extremely fine sand is very difficult to filter, causing engine breakdowns.
Even today, some desert areas with extremely fine sand, cause breakdowns in military vehicles moving through the area, due to air filters becoming clogged.

A curious anecdote about the Depression, was that there were some Axis forces present, and one of the German officers was supposedly helpful in the Enigma code-breaking effort, because of the German officer's regular transmissions saying "nothing to report".

 

[Gamer_1745]

The only problem with the choke point is most players know history too well & can start building defenses at the start of the game. They can turn it into another Gibraltar. I don't know of an easy way to stop this. The British did build a level of fortifications there that I think would be level one in game terms. Otherwise it is very historical & correct.


P.S. Return the Mini-Map

 

[Sanny]

Yeah the British had a lot of help from Bletchley Park "Ultra" program which intercepted a lot of German communications, they knew what what was going to happen, and where, within hours of the initial communication.

 

[Praetori]

The only problem with the choke point is most players know history too well & can start building defenses at the start of the game. They can turn it into another Gibraltar. I don't know of an easy way to stop this. The British did build a level of fortifications there that I think would be level one in game terms. Otherwise it is very historical & correct.

You could, theoretically, use the DMZ mechanic for North Africa (or other areas of interest) with triggers. DMZ disallows building forts in that area for example (and then you revoke the DMZ status through trigger).

 

[Wraith11B]

You could, theoretically, use the DMZ mechanic for North Africa (or other areas of interest) with triggers. DMZ disallows building forts in that area for example (and then you revoke the DMZ status through trigger).

Not to mention that this mechanic would keep the US from turning her islands in the Pacific into their own Gibraltars, preventing Japanese advances. @podcat @SteelVolt would this be difficult to implement? A cool-down for fortification building?

 

[HaruhiFollower]

The only problem with the choke point is most players know history too well & can start building defenses at the start of the game. They can turn it into another Gibraltar. I don't know of an easy way to stop this. The British did build a level of fortifications there that I think would be level one in game terms. Otherwise it is very historical & correct.


P.S. Return the Mini-Map

The fact that this is a good place for fortifications wasn't exactly a mystery to anyone, but building there would be very expensive. The problem is that forts have the same cost regardless of terrain type and distance to industrial hubs.

 

[Khevenhuller]

Not to mention that this mechanic would keep the US from turning her islands in the Pacific into their own Gibraltars, preventing Japanese advances. @podcat @SteelVolt would this be difficult to implement? A cool-down for fortification building?

Well, they couldn't. Certainly not early as the Washington Treaty prevented the fortification of the Pacific. But HOI is not good at treaties, or even awareness of them.

K

 

[Praetori]

The fact that this is a good place for fortifications wasn't exactly a mystery to anyone, but building there would be very expensive. The problem is that forts have the same cost regardless of terrain type and distance to industrial hubs.

One should not forget that the El Alamein defensive construction was heavily augmented by the presence of some 150.000 commonwealth troops who did a fair share of the manual labor. In June of '42 right before the first battle the defenses were not considered strong enough however so defenses were also prepared on the approaches to Cairo as well as extensive man-made flooding of the Nile delta.

 

[Serensius]

The fact that this is a good place for fortifications wasn't exactly a mystery to anyone, but building there would be very expensive. The problem is that forts have the same cost regardless of terrain type and distance to industrial hubs.

So... scale the cost of building fortifications with state infrastructure? Or maybe supply levels? Terrain type makes sense too.

 

[robobo]

The only problem with the choke point is most players know history too well & can start building defenses at the start of the game. They can turn it into another Gibraltar. I don't know of an easy way to stop this. The British did build a level of fortifications there that I think would be level one in game terms. Otherwise it is very historical & correct.
P.S. Return the Mini-Map

Just have to get creative with your plans then. Assuming you have and maintain naval superiority in the Mediterranean to sustain a campaign in Libya then look at Crete, Cyprus, after all that is what the Germans considered. Then an invasion into the delta itself or Palestine/ Syria etc would be the only option presently, seeing as strategic bombing is still pretty crap for forcing an enemy to retreat from overstretched supply