Smallest operations that could have significantly changed either World War?

Myth

Hollywood films are full of daring operations by a few guys that promise to "change the course of the war."

History, by contrast, does not seem to record many operations accomplished by small numbers of guys that had significant effects on either World War.

But the thread question is, are there any? These don't have to be operations that would have literally altered the outcome of either World War, but at the very least, they should have had some noticeable effect on those wars.

A few do come to mind:

* Skorzeny's commando raids to secure Mussolini (allowing the creation of the Salo Republic) and Horthy (keeping Hungary in the war for a little longer)

* Sabotage of the Norwegian heavy water facility (debatable; the German nuclear program still likely fails)

* Lenin's sealed train

* The failure of the Hitler assassination plot

* Decryption of the Zimmermann Telegram

* The Hindu-German Conspiracy (maybe a bit larger than most; an attempt to overthrow the Raj)

* The Oslo Report (one German guy sending tons of weapons development information to the UK)
 

naraic

Both aircraft related but here is two

There was 20 swordfish on the attack on taranto (3 crew per plane; 60 total). This had a massive impact on the war in the Mediterranean.

There was 19 Lancashire bombers involved in the dambusters raid (7 crew per plane; 133 total).

Both of those had a noticeable effect. One of them had a noticeable effect while also being referred to as the greatest missed opportunity of the war.
 
Captain Homicide

Captain Homicide

Viking25 said:
Which one? Do you mean the Valkyrie plot or something else?
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There were dozens of attempts and plots so take your pick. Hitler truly had the Devil’s luck.

My example for the OP is if the German torpedoes that struck the ship Churchill was on in 1939 exploded and killed or incapacitated him like in Wiking’s Three Little Fish.
 

kham_coc

Banned
Didn't Verdun almost fall (one of the central forts) but the Germans were to exhausted to hold it? Or is that just the plot of the long running TL I can't recall the name of?
 

naraic

Wasn't there a moment during the race to the sea where a squadron of French cavalry ended up behind the German lines and stopped a few hundred metres away from a German artillery regiment being set up.

A squadron might not have done much damage to a full regiment of artillery but the artillery were pretty poorly off in terms of personal weapons. Savaging an artillery regiment in 1914 could have had massive effects.
 

Riain

Banned
A German cavalry unit entered Amiens in 1914 unopposed, but left. Holding it, even with a handful of Landwher infantry, would have made the Entente troop deployments by train during the Race to the Sea difficult to impossible.
 

DougM

Picture this.
GB worried that war is coming (WW1) and is just a matter of time, and knowing they have a small standing army and will need time to recruit and train a larger army looks for ways to temporarily slow down Germany. The suggestion is to train a crack infiltration unit to sneak into the enemy HQ and poinson the generals (if you are squeamish it can be so,ething yo make the ill vs dead)
The British high command is unsure if this is possible so they want a low level demo.
Flash forward A few weeks later . Our hero's dressed up in various costumes ranging from waiters to non coms to low level staff officers proceed to penetrait into the. ery heart of the HQ building while the entire general staff is in a meeting. The find and poison the drinks.
The commanding officer of this mission sneeks into the mtg room and watches all the generals drink the “poisoned” drinks. After this he stands up interupting the. meeting takes off his disguise (as a waiter) and looks at the generals and tells them that they have all been poisoned. And as proof they will all suffer from terrible gas that night. As the British Chief of staff looks at him all the generals stand up, clutch their throats and drop dead.

At his trial for treason the commander and his team claim they were told it would just give them a bit of gas.

Meanwhile in Germany a secret award is given to a young officer for sneaking into convincing a group of British troops to sneak into British HQ and poison its own staff and replacing the fake poison with real poison.

Flash forward three years and the new crop of General officers (non of which were higher then a Capt three years previous) are doing reasonably well in command of the British Expeditionary unit. And noticeably better the GB did in the real time line.

So one Young German officer with a single bottle of poison could conceivable made Germany lose the war much much faster…. saving tens of thousands on both sides ;)😁
 

naraic

Myth said:
Maybe also the Raid on Alexandria?

Wiki claims it changed the balance of power in the Med for the next 6 months, which isn't anything to sneeze at for an operation conducted by a few guys in SCUBA gear.

en.m.wikipedia.org

Raid on Alexandria (1941) - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org
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True. People forget about the "changed naval balance" as the Italians did very little with their advantage.

There's two engagements in the next six months (Second Iirte and operation Vigorous) where the British have to defend Malta Convoys against a force with battleships (and no battleships of their own). Both times the Italian battleships failed to have an impact on the battle.

Then reinforcements arrive and normal service resumes.
 
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