High-Value!

This is coolbert:

From a prior blog entry:

"* Considerations regarding Ploesti meriting an entire blog entry unto itself!"

The German being so highly dependent on Ploesti oil for almost the entire duration of the war, it is not without reason that considerable war planning, strategy, plots and schemes took into account the protection of [German] or the denial thereof [allied] German access to those large-scale Romanian petroleum reserves and refining capacity.

[in 1941, 75 % of German oil was obtained from Ploesti!!]

Ploesti was without question a panacea [Bomber Harris] target [high-value] if there ever was one!!

Plans, strategies, plots and schemes to include:

1. Operation Mercury.

Capture of the island of Crete by the parachute and air lifted units of the German army, 1941. As a consequence British long-range bomber aircraft denied air fields from which the oil fields of Ploesti were in range!

2. Barbarossa.

That grand and apocalyptic attack on the Soviet Union by the German, 1941. A main goal of the German Army Group South attacking eastward the capture and denial to the Soviet Air Force of those air fields within striking distance of the Ploesti oil fields.

3. Case Blue.

Further movement eastward [1942] of German Army Group South. A major objective of which was the capture of the Soviet oil fields of the Caucasus and Baku [Caspian Sea]. An alternative source to the Ploesti oil fields made available to the German!

4. First Special Service Force [FSSF].

As originally conceived and envisioned by military planners, the FSSF guerrilla/special operations/ranger/commando unit parachuting into the mountains of Romania, waging guerrilla warfare the primary mission of which would be the interdiction of oil supplies en route to Germany.

5. Tidal Wave.

American long-range strategic bomber aircraft attacking and obliterating with one mission the Ploesti oil fields and refining capacity, German military capability in the aftermath of a successful raid greatly diminished if not irrevocably damaged.

6. Dodacanese Campaign.

Abortive and unsuccessful attack by British forces to capture  German-held islands in the Aegean Sea the capture of which would have hastened Turkish entry into the war on the side of the allied powers. Turkish air bases facilitating attack on Ploesti by strategic long-range bomber aircraft.

7. Crimea. Festung Crimea.

German and Romanian troops in 1944 occupying the Crimea peninsula personally forbidden by Hitler to join in the general retreat of Axis forces, Crimea designated a festung [fortress] from which withdrawal was impermissible.  Denying to the Soviet air force those bases from which Ploesti could potentially be bombed.

8. Balaton [Spring Awakening].

The Ploesti oil fields having been captured by the Soviet [1944], the German again so highly reliant on imported oil during the entire war - - Sprint Awakening the plan of which in measure the capture and safeguarding of the Hungarian alternative oil supply the mission of this final large scale German offensive of the war.

So many of these plans, plots, schemes, machinations of the allied powers too came to more or less naught, Ploesti supplying oil to the Axis powers throughout much of the war, capture by advancing Red Army units only stopping the oil flow!

coolbert.