Using what for air cover to support the invasion of Southern France ? And using what for transports to support two large invasions in mid-1943 ?
How much air was used over Italy? How much shipping to supply ops there? And civilian needs? How much would be specifically created, or set aside, if JCS knows the invasion is going ahead, which didn't pertain OTL?
It's May/June 43, so you don't have time to take Corsica and Sardinia
No? Don't waste the time, effort, & manpower reducing Tunisia, & go right for Sicily after bottling up
DAK--& don't let anybody escape Sicily.
the Luftwaffe hasn't been ground down sufficiently either
Do you insist on OTL level of superiority? If so, you're right. I'm not so sure the WAllies didn't have enough--or couldn't find it.
Also, what do you do when the Germans take what they were going to use at Kursk
What does the Red Army do unfettered?
And that presumes the Germans can get it to Normandie unhampered (or substantially).
This sort of gross ignorance of logistical reality is exactly why there were people whose job was to sit on Churchill when he pointed fingers at maps.
It may be. IMO, it merits examination. Presuming OTL constraints
must still apply, IMO, is a mistake.
Edit:
I'll also say, given a choice between Southern France & Normandie, I'll take Normandie every time. If the force & facilities won't support *Anvil, call it off for *Neptune.
Knowing it's coming off in May/June '43, IMO JCS is going to adjust everything they're doing, & not stick to OTL: in essence, accelerate the OTL schedule. Will that produce exactly OTL results? No. Will it produce substantially the same ones? IMO, yes--which makes overwhelming
panzer attacks, in the face of a (less arid) rail desert, (almost) as improbable as OTL. And that's against the much easier time getting ashore, & staying ashore.
I reject the proposition the JCS was too stubborn to adjust its planning in the face of the changed situation.
Antwerp was more important than crossing the Rhine in September for example. Cut off a whole week of Red Ball travel from Normandy to the fronts if the seaports were 400 km away instead of 1100 km, ya know? BAD GENERALSHIP not to understand the time/fuel/load factors involved.
Agreed, & Monty, when it was pointed out to him by a Canadian, appears to have ignored it...
I'd add a couple of small points in ref the Red/White Ball op (both, again, based on the Official History). One, they used deuce-and-a-halfs, not ten-tonners, which were in short supply (because nobody anticipated needing them so much). Two, the semis that were used were ill-organized; the historian suggests the op should have more closely resembled a railyard. (He didn't, however, diagram it, so I have no real idea what he had in mind...
I'd love to know.)