Personally I feel it would be a better bet than going through Italy as you're not constrained by the width of the country which made Italy easily to defend for eg The Gustav Line etc.
That issue doesn't arise in Greece and the surrounding countries as unlike Italy there's plenty of opportunity to out flank enemy forces despite also still being mountainous. Plus you have the Joker in the pack which are the Greek and Yugoslav Partisans which can seriously disrupt Axis forces and plans.
I sympathize with this line of argument that the lateral *width* of the front, and the presence of Partisan forces who really *hate the Germans*, and want to *muck up their rear* and *ambush them whenever possible*, should some positives for Allied invaders of the Balkans that were not there in Italy. I do. Even though few seem to give it much credit. I think it matters. Even if port capacity was crappier in the wider Balkans than in Italy, and quality, already constructed airfields were fewer and further between.
In OTL timeline the African Campaign finished in late 1942 and Sicily (Operation Husky) was in June 1943. If Husky goes into Greece instead
Nice thing is that gets you on mainland terrain (although broken, chokepointable terrain, the Peloponnesus. North African airfields can adequately support this?
If Husky goes into Greece instead (as well as Crete to create a unsinkable aircraft carrier) that's a full twelve months before D-Day in OTL.
If we are getting Greece/the Peloponnesus at the same time, doesn't that make Crete a little superfluous? Better to save forces for mainland ops and let the Germans on the island whither on the vine. I know "unsinkable aircraft carrier" is a cute metaphor for an island, but if you've got a land airfield secure enough even closer to enemy targets, there's nothing inherent about island terrain that makes the land better quality for airfields.
If basing advances on Western Front levels of an average of 600 miles in 11 months,
Whoa - Why should we suppose Western Front levels of advance? The terrain is much more uneven and elevated in the Balkans compared with northwest Europe (France, Low Countries, Germany), the infrastructure is much poorer, and the Allies are shipping in all their stuff from much further, through the Atlantic, Gibraltar, Med, and Aegean or Adriatic, not just Atlantic and Channel.
Wouldn't a fairer comparative rate of advance be the rate in Italy, adjusted a bit upward to account for the greater width of front (and German difficulty covering it) and Partisan advantages on the Allied side.
Perhaps, and this is *very* rough, and probably on the generous side to the Allies, an *average* of the rate of monthly Allied advance between the Western Front and the Italian Front?
If basing advances on Western Front levels of an average of 600 miles in 11 months, although it would still make the end of the war sometime around May/June as it's nearly double the distance between Athens and Berlin it would have the effect of getting Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia under WAllies control. The WAllies might even get lucky and be able to push on into Poland as a bonus thus getting half if not all that country under WAllies control.
And now we're leaping from optimism to wishville. You think a landing in the Balkans will see a rapid, steady, Allied advance to *southern Poland* before the Soviets could even reach it? Wow.
It would force the Soviets to funnel all their combat power, west of their 1941 border, through just the narrow corridor through the northern half of Poland? That would be quite something.
I think it would require some major, major German force allocation mistakes, probably the Germans doing something wrong on purpose, for the Germans to be on the one hand so weak and ineffective against the WAllied advance from the rugged Balkan southeast and yet so strong against the more massive Soviet advance from straight east across the mostly flat North European plain on the other hand.
If the Soviet advance were all channelled through the north, through a north Polish, Baltic coast corridor, or even just through the whole of Poland north of the Carpathians and Sudetens, that would lead to a lot of wastage from being unable to maximally employ massive Soviet forces simultaneously in flanking maneuvers, and the Western Allies would be having to absorb huge casualties pushing the front south of the Carpathians back through their own efforts and that of just local partners and partisans. With Soviets narrowly channelled to the north like this, they have plenty of forces to spare for the Arctic front, so I wouldn't be surprised if they just go for total defeat and occupation of Finland instead of accepting an armistice and peace, and they continue from Finland to northern Norway, perhaps even trying to compel Sweden to join the war.
Don't forget, these countries are full aware of the Soviet juggernaut coming towards them on the Eastern Front and know it would be better to be under WAllies control than the Soviets. I'd rather suspect those governments seeing how the wind is blowing would switch sides in a instant if WAllies forces entered of came along their borders despite how fast the Soviets managed to advance.
These minor Axis allies, like Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, maybe even puppet Albanians, may all see what is coming and want to switch sides, and do it in a way that opens the door to the Western Allies rather than Soviets, but that is not the same as being able to pull it off.
The Romanians and Bulgarians were able to pull off a switch from the Axis to the Soviet side, getting the combat to roll over them quickly, at the cost of Soviet occupation. The Finns switched sides too, and made concessions to the Soviets, but didn't end up totally occupied. But the Hungarians tried the same thing and failed utterly, because the Germans got to them first and occupied them first, coup'ing out the government. The Italians tried the same thing as well, and only less than half way succeeded, making it a little easier for the Allies to land in southern Italy, and handing over the fleet and Corsica and Sardinia, but the Germans got to occupy all of Italy from Rome north, and Italian Yugoslavia, Greece, Dodecanese, before the Western Allies got close.
It is not a simple matter to switch sides, and the people you want to arrive first don't teleport in with all. their gear.