Status Updates From We March Against England: O...

Although tanker losses were not significant in the first 9 months of war, the need to convoy greatly increased the amount of time required to move tankers across the Atlantic. Instead of going directly from the Caribbean to Liverpool [as before] they now had to proceed to Halifax to form into convoys. Consequently delays reduced British monthly fuel imports by 25% in late 1940 - irrespective of German attacks.

One of biggest deficiencies was special distillate for the Kriegsmarine destroyers, which could only be produced in special evaporators at Kiel & Wilhelmshaven. Without this, the finicky high pressure boilers on the destroyers would quickly corrode & suffer breakdowns.


(On the other hand we see experimental but technologically sound development of amphibic tanks and bow-ramped landing craft 3 years before Normandy)

Churchill would continue to favour these peripheral operations for the rest of the war, all in an effort to evade the central truth; Britain lacked the resources to fight a major ground war in Europe on its own; [his] strategic formulations based upon 2 assumptions, that Hitler would make a serious strategic mistake that he could exploit [& the US entry]. Churchill's strategy was to pray for 2 miracles at once.