What I still can't get my head round is how Malta wasn't taken.
The huge losses of Fallschirmjager (German Parachute troops) in the battle for Crete, plus the fiasco of the attempted German seaborne landings during the same operation led to the usual Axis flawed "win by bombing" scenario. Remember that German resources were stretched in both North Africa and Russia at the time leading for insufficient assets to strike effectively at Malta.