Now I have trouble understanding why there is an Arab revolt in 41.  This: http://francefightson.yuku.com/topic/791/Op-BLOWLAMP-Formation-of-Israel-and-Imperial-Implications doesn't provide anything, nor does the March or April 41 chronologies.  
Part of the problem of 'the breakup' (which was friendly) and moving to APOD was rewriting a vast amount of material, which included removing the Greek campaign, injecting some logistic reality into the old material, and removing a certain... 'series of highly felicitous operations, outcomes and activities' which the French team had injected.

I did this entirely on my own, as no-one else was available. So there are a lot of holes in it and some very strange inconsistencies if you look closely enough. Some of the holes left at the time were:
- the entire east African Campaign
- the Iraqi revolt
- the pro-Vichy revolt in Syria
- the fighting in Lebanon
- the second Arab Revolt in the Levant

Some of these have since been addressed, some have not.

Also wondering why the airbases were built there anyways, as the planes would have to circle around Turkey, unless Turkey decides to join the war, with Germany and her allies on her border?  

Oh, believe me, you are not the only one wondering about this. There were also (in the original material) great airbase developments on Rhodes and Crete. The European team are great guys, but we all have strengths and weaknesses. One of their is logistics. It is not actually logistically possible to build Bomber Command airbases on Crete and Rhodes.

Building the bases along the Egyptian Med. coast would reduce flight times by hours, and provide access to existing supply lines, especially as Italian North Africa is pacified.
yep. the trouble there is that you also have to build the fuel infrastructure, and you can't. And even if you could, the tankers to support it do not exist because at the same time an even bigger air campign is being run using tactical air out of Tunisia to prune back the Italians. Now, I trimmed that campaign by a lot, down to (about, I think) about the same fuel and infrastructure build as the whole BCME thing. And both of those infrastructure requirements are dwarfed by the infrastructure and ongoing support requirements needed to rebuild the French Army in Algeria AND improve their port infrastructure by 1000% (yes, ten times - for example there was one, just ONE tanker berth in Algiers, and just to get the fuel to run the tactical air campaign they needed 8 in that one port then there's civil and Army demands which meant plus four in Tunis and four in benghazi and three in Tripoli and six in Oran. And don't talk to me about tank farms...) AND extend the rail net from Tunis to Port Said to save shipping AND to triple the civil support infrastructure in Algeria. 

hell, it got even nastier. We even had to support the Italian farming communities and basically guarantee Italian colonial presence in Libya post-war (another low-level war against the Bedouin this time) because they grew quite a lot of food. 

the French brought with them just 2,000,000 GRT of shipping. Just to supply the food Algeria and teh French Army and the US forces moving in needed usedall of that shipping.

So that reduced the BCME choices to 'within 4-inch and 2-inch petrol pipeline distance of the Haifa refinery' Which had to be doubled in capacity and defended before the pipelines could be built.

Logistics defines what is possible.

The "Coronation" raids mentioned in May 41 launch from Benghazi and northern Palestine.  Looking at a map of Ploesti, I see a straight line from Benghazi, and a massive circle from Palestine.
Which is a good driver for british development of air-to-air refuelling, at least.


 Crete would be even better, being hours closer, meaning you dont need as heavy or as expensive bombers.
Which is exactly why our French comrades put them there. Only, you can't, as there's no ports to support even the building of the runways. it is simply not possible to base a bombing force on Crete. Fighters and light tactical bombers are just barely possible, and even that required the construction at Suda bay of a port twice the size of Dover. From scratch. 

Developing the bases in Palestine seems like building bases in Portugal to attack France and Germany: long way round, and far too many headaches.  Bomber Command doesn't have the resources to allow for excess time in the air, which is hugely expensive.

Agreed. Except for the logistical impossibility of doing anything else. When the non-operational fuel requirements (heavy bombers not flying at all operationally) of the BCME infrastructure are somewhere around 15,000 tons a week, and each major sortie costs thousands of tons more, plus thousands of tons of ordnance (a 500lb bomb, crated, with tail, crated and fuzes, crated and supporting equipment/spares, crated, costs 4 GRT of shipping space, a GRT being 100 cubic feet. And the bomber laddies drop 8 of these on a normal sortie from one Stirling.... 

You know why we had to invade Norway in early 1943?

The underlying strategic driver was to release trans-Atlantic merchant ship tonnage. Without invading Norway, retaking Singapore in 1944 cannot be done. There's not enough shipping.

I am still unhappy with the logistic 'reality' of our entire Mediterranean Theatre, BTW, even with throwing The Beaver at the shipping crisis.

Cheers: mark