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aspqrz02 -> RE: Spain (11/9/2019 1:09:52 PM)
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While not impossible, historically, it would have been far more difficult than it appears on the face of it.
If you want to supply an army invading Spain you need rail supply - historically Spanish railways were a heterogenous mish-mash of meter (~3'3"), narrow (3'6") and Iberian (5' 5 13⁄16" in Spain and 5' 5 1⁄2" in Portugal) ... and some lines in Portugal were Standard (4'8.5") gauge - and they were generally poorly supplied with locomotives and other rolling stock.
Worse, mostly they were single track lines of limited capacity, didn't even interconnect all the time (even between the different gauges, heck, even between the same gauges), overwhelmingly ran from Ports inland, and there was not a single coherent rail line running from, say, the French border, to, say, Gibraltar.
The road net was not any better.
The Germans estimated they could, at best, support a single Corps of Assault Infantry and Heavy Artillery (say 3-4 divisions) around Gibraltar for a 'siege' or assault ... and they were most definitely not allowing for Spanish Partisans ... there were plenty of ex-Republicans around who, if supplied, would have happily slit Falangist and German throats, blown rail and road bridges and the like. It would have made Yugoslavia look like a quiet backwater!
So, unless the AI invaded with a single Corps or equivalent ... not realistic.
Phil
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