By 1938, Comando Supremo, the Italian army general staff, had estimated the amount of sea transport it would require to move military forces into North Africa, and identified the seizure of Malta as a prerequisite.

[4] Given the 90 mi (140 km) distance between Axis airfields on Sicily and the dropping zones over Malta, it was possible for the transport aircraft to make four round trips per day.

The paratroopers had to secure the high ground behind the invasion beaches and seize a nearby airfield for Axis transport aircraft to land another division and supplies.

The 1st Infantry Division "Superga" (9,200 men) plus a battalion of Blackshirts and 1,000 San Marco Marines were to be in position to land on the smaller island of Gozo in the early hours of the second day.

[7][8] Additional armour intended for Herkules included 2.Kompanie/Panzerabteilung z.b.V.66 (zur besonderen Verwendung [for special use]), a German unit commanded by Hans Bethke and partly equipped with captured Russian tanks.

[12] Lacking enough landing craft for an amphibious assault, the Regia Marina secured plans from the German Kriegsmarine to build copies of the Marinefährprahm Type A (MFP) in Italian shipyards.

These 220-long-ton (220 t) shallow-draught vessels, were capable of transporting up to 200 equipped infantry, 2–3 medium tanks or an equivalent weight in cargo and could unload onto an open beach via a drop-down bow ramp.

[13] Twenty German MFPs were transferred to the Mediterranean via the river Rhone to make up for an expected shortfall of Italian-built landing craft.

Lacking ship-borne radar and having neglected night-fighting training and equipment, the Regia Marina had been defeated at the Battle of Cape Matapan in March 1941.

[15] The Regia Marina had made some efforts to rectify this situation by equipping the battleship Littorio with an experimental E.C.-3/bis Gufo (Owl) radar apparatus in August 1941, but the unit was considered unreliable (not until September 1942 did Littorio receive a standardised production-version Gufo with better performance; this set could detect surface ships at a range of 17 nmi (20 mi; 31 km) and aircraft out to a range of 45 nmi (83 km; 52 mi)).

[18][1][4] The smaller coastal guns comprised [Data in this section taken from Hogg (2002)][19] A date near mid-July 1942 was set for the invasion, partly to allow time to bring troops from other front line positions.

His reasons for supporting an invasion were to hinder the Allied troops fighting in Africa, as well as to remove the threat to the convoys heading to Italian-German forces with supplies, oil and men, all of which they lacked.

The head of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Göring, opposed the invasion, fearing it would turn into another near-disaster for his paratroops, as had happened in the airborne assault on Crete.

[citation needed] Generalfeldmarschall Albert Kesselring tirelessly promoted Unternehmen Herkules but even he was eventually dissuaded when it became apparent that too many air and ground units had been siphoned off to support the Axis drive into Egypt, diminishing any chance of success.

With Hitler lacking faith in the parachute divisions after Crete and in the ability of the Italian navy to protect the invasion fleet from British naval attacks, the plan was cancelled.