Allied response to Axis retreat from Tunisia February 1943

  • Thread starter Deleted member 1487
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Ok, to your main point. The USA believed it needed combat experienced divisions for D-Day, and that can only be done fighting. Carl is correct that we wills still go to Sicily. We like to do invasions with land based air cover. And with a lot more German/Italian divisions, there is no really "soft" place to land. Even if the USA goes for the Balkans, then the Germans will quickly reinforce and stall the front. So mostly likely, it is Italy or bust.

If Sicily fails, then the senior officers involved will be sideline to support roles as happened with other officers IOTL. Or perhaps retired. Imagine something such as Patton as US General in charge of logistical operations in North Africa. And Bradley being the equivalent of a TRADOC officer in the USA. My best guess is that Italy stays in the war til the end. After defeating the USA invasion in 1943, the next one will be in France in 1944. And Mussolini will have defeated the USA where Germany failed. So Mussolini makes it to the very end of the war.

As to Stalin, it will greatly reduce his respect for the USA military ability. It will also be another in a list of British defeats (France 1940, Malaysia 1941, Sicily 1943, Burma). It really feeds into the democracy has weak armies idea. We are corrupt, weak people. Now I know you want to skip the Eastern front effect, but there is some fascinating interplay if the Soviets do much worse than OTL (Kursk works?) and the USA is viewed as an ineffective ally. But then we get into the really complex environment of the Germans having more resources in the east and months to plan their use. And if the operation in Italy fails, won't the Germans pull most of their troops from Italy once the Americans are driven into the sea, and it is clear that we are now diverting shipping to England.

BTW, with Sicily in Italian hands, doesn't that mean that Allied shipping stays out of the Med. This would make logistics much harder since ship have to go around Africa.

I don't think we can accelerate the D-Day operation by much. What month did you have the failed Sicily landing happening? And what changed to allow the destruction of the Luftwaffe in Feb/Mar 1944. We destroyed more German planes in two months than all previous months combined. So we roll into 1944. D-Day should still work. All those German units beat in Italy will have to be broken in France or Russia.
 
Huh? IOTL there was the rebuilt 90th in Sardinia with an SS brigade (neither faced combat there IOTL), while in Sicily the Germans had the partially rebuilt HG division and the partially rebuilt 15th PzG division, based off of survivors from the 15th Panzer that were evacuated. There was also part of the 1st Parachute division. The Italians had 4x 3rd line divisions without full equipment and a bunch of smaller 4 line left over. I'd say your quoted strength above is a VAST improvement over OTL.

In Sicily alone that is double the Panzer divisions, double the motorized/mechanized divisions, adds in a foot infantry division, probably doubles the paratrooper strength in reserve, and includes a bunch of Italian veterans defending their homeland with more equipment than they had IOTL and can be brought up to full strength rather than form the weak division replacements they did IOTL. That more than doubles German strength and probably is at least a 50% boost in Italian numbers while dramatically improving their equipment, experience, leadership, and training compared to OTL divisions.

Sardinia also has about double the strength on the ground as IOTL, including a very effective, experienced Panzer division.

Ok. Ill buy that, at least for the Germans. If the Italians fight as well as they did in Tunisia they are ok.

I would think any German leadership is going to be concerned about the political reliability of the Italians (hoping something doesn't happen to Mussolini). Concern about Italian politics (and Turkish neutrality) were factors on Hitler doubling down in Tunisia OTL. The loss of the Italian expeditionary force in Russia was a political disaster of Mussolini, if we can butterfly away that, I can see both Hitler and Mussolini being confident enough to withdraw from Africa and fight for Sicily.

Certainly, if an unintentional butterfly of the Axis being done in Africa a couple months early, is that if some politics occurs, Mussolini, mad about Hitler withdrawing from Africa, flys to Spain in the middle of some night, and the Italian leadership decides to switch sides the moment the Axis land in Sicily. In this case there is little German forces on the Italian mainland, all are stuck on these islands, the Italians might be able to do a more successful escape from the war than OTL.
 
My understanding is that in WW2, direct naval gunfire would badly bust up panzers. But it is not the 15" guns that are used, it is the higher firing 5" guns. A 125mm shell is more than enough to break the frontal armor of any tank. And it is also important to note that naval guns generally fire heavier rounds at higher rates of speed than their land based "equivalents". So in all probably, a 125mm naval is more like a 150-175 land base anti-tank gun.

Optimal for the west Allies were ships with 15 or 20 cm cannon. RoF, ship manuverability, ammunition load, response time. BB have their place but for general on call fire support it adds up better for the cruisers.

Penetration is redundant with ammunition that size. I've read the test reports & seen M60 & M1 tanks hit by NATO standard 155mm HE cannon projectiles. The armour was not penetrated but the tanks were out of action. So was the crew in the case of the M60. In the case of the M1 Abrams detonations within a meter stripped antennas, damaged tracks, damaged armour, damaged vision blocks & gun sights, damaged exposed MG.

Beyond all that the the tanks were usually secondary targets. The attacks were broken up by the effect of multiple volleys on the infantry and other supporting units operating with the tanks. That usually left little groups of 10 - 30 tanks alone inside the enemy defense zone.
 
...And Mussolini will have defeated the USA where Germany failed. So Mussolini makes it to the very end of the war.

Technically Musolini did last to the end. But, read up the details of his overthrow. The Italian economy was in ruins, & it was clear to the Facist party leaders, at all levels the war was lost. The loss of Sicily was a decision point, but more were to come.


BTW, with Sicily in Italian hands, doesn't that mean that Allied shipping stays out of the Med. This would make logistics much harder since ship have to go around Africa.

OTL the Allies started reconnoitring the Sicilian Strait with surface ships by early May and sending convoys through in June, before Op HUSKY started. The Axis were unable to inflict significant losses on these groups passing Sicily.
 
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Deleted member 1487

Ok. Ill buy that, at least for the Germans. If the Italians fight as well as they did in Tunisia they are ok.

I would think any German leadership is going to be concerned about the political reliability of the Italians (hoping something doesn't happen to Mussolini). Concern about Italian politics (and Turkish neutrality) were factors on Hitler doubling down in Tunisia OTL. The loss of the Italian expeditionary force in Russia was a political disaster of Mussolini, if we can butterfly away that, I can see both Hitler and Mussolini being confident enough to withdraw from Africa and fight for Sicily.

Certainly, if an unintentional butterfly of the Axis being done in Africa a couple months early, is that if some politics occurs, Mussolini, mad about Hitler withdrawing from Africa, flys to Spain in the middle of some night, and the Italian leadership decides to switch sides the moment the Axis land in Sicily. In this case there is little German forces on the Italian mainland, all are stuck on these islands, the Italians might be able to do a more successful escape from the war than OTL.
Not likely to happen, Mussolini couldn't fly anywhere clandestinely and realized he was not going to be politically viable without Hitler. He needed a win in Sicily and couldn't simply flip like that, as they couldn't IOTL in much more favorable circumstances. Mussolini was stupidly loyal to Hitler too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini#Dismissed_and_arrested
 
Not likely to happen, Mussolini couldn't fly anywhere clandestinely and realized he was not going to be politically viable without Hitler. He needed a win in Sicily and couldn't simply flip like that, as they couldn't IOTL in much more favorable circumstances. Mussolini was stupidly loyal to Hitler too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini#Dismissed_and_arrested

So for Sicily were talking like 6 or some German divisions, 6 or so Italian+militia, on Sardinia, 2.5 German divisions plus Italians. Plus more airpower, artillery, AA, and concrete defence material sent OTL to Tunisia.

Could the Allies just find that too difficult a challenge to overcome, not even want to try to invade?

A political solution just seems like the best way to go to get the Italians out. So the Allies bomb Italian cities to force Italian morale issues. Somebody via the Vatican contacts Mussolini that if he disappears to some neutral country nobody tries too hard to find him after the war.

Maybe the Allies don't want to get that dirty and Mussolini too dumb, but it would sure save a bunch of Allied lives.
 

Deleted member 1487

So for Sicily were talking like 6 or some German divisions, 6 or so Italian+militia, on Sardinia, 2.5 German divisions plus Italians. Plus more airpower, artillery, AA, and concrete defence material sent OTL to Tunisia.

Could the Allies just find that too difficult a challenge to overcome, not even want to try to invade?.
That was my question before, on page 1, that was dismissed, because IOTL the decision to go into Italy was made before the POD. I'm still not sure about whether that is a given. However it might just mean Sardinia get's the go ahead...but the problem there is if the defenders as twice the strength and veterans, while land based fighters are not in range, unlike with Sicily, the Mediterranean might be understood to be a 'tough old gut' and Churchill and the Brits still lose the argument around invading Italy. The American generals were still not keen on Italy first.

A political solution just seems like the best way to go to get the Italians out. So the Allies bomb Italian cities to force Italian morale issues. Somebody via the Vatican contacts Mussolini that if he disappears to some neutral country nobody tries too hard to find him after the war.

Maybe the Allies don't want to get that dirty and Mussolini too dumb, but it would sure save a bunch of Allied lives.
Sure it would be for the Allies, but they wouldn't work with Mussolini or vice versa. They were already bombing, but it wasn't forcing Italy out of the war despite the public loss of willing to fight. Mussolini wasn't interested in disappearing, he was interested in staying in power and the only option for that was fighting to get an armistice and staying on Hitler's good side; he got that his power depended on German victory at this point. As it was his generals and king went behind Mussolini's back, but even they required that the Allies invade mainland Italy before they would break the treaty with Germany. Even removing Mussolini required the loss of Sicily. If Sicily was too strong to invade or with a successful repelling of an invasion attempt, Mussolini's position would take a long time to break down if ever given that Allied troops weren't on Italian home soil, even if the bombing got bad.
 
...Sardinia get's the go ahead...but the problem there is if the defenders as twice the strength and veterans, while land based fighters are not in range, ...

Actually southern Sardinia was in range of the P40 models in the MTO in early 1943. One of the reasons the Joint Chiefs had a Sardinian invasion at the top of the list for subsequent actions (March 43) was their air chiefs said such a invasion could be covered. The early P47 groups arriving later in the spring improved that.
 

Deleted member 1487

Actually southern Sardinia was in range of the P40 models in the MTO in early 1943. One of the reasons the Joint Chiefs had a Sardinian invasion at the top of the list for subsequent actions (March 43) was their air chiefs said such a invasion could be covered. The early P47 groups arriving later in the spring improved that.
Looks like you're right, the P-40E with 650 miles range could make it to Cagliari from Bizerte and back just fine. The only thing is that linger might be somewhat limited depending on where fighters are based, so CAP might be a bit of an issue for the invasion fleet, which gives the Axis air forces a shot to do some damage. For some reason I thought the distance was twice what it actually is, I must have thought in terms of km vs. miles.
 

Deleted member 1487

Actually southern Sardinia was in range of the P40 models in the MTO in early 1943. One of the reasons the Joint Chiefs had a Sardinian invasion at the top of the list for subsequent actions (March 43) was their air chiefs said such a invasion could be covered. The early P47 groups arriving later in the spring improved that.
So do you think a better defended Sardinia could be held without a Sicily invasion or would it fall?
 
Cant say. Depends on how much better defended.

Plotting it out on the maps Sicilly is not in a ideal position for a base to interfere with a landing on Sardinia. Conversely Sardinia/Corsica outflank Sicilly & provide a good base for interdicting the entire Italian peninsula. Perhaps thats one reason the US/French air forces rushed to stand up airfields there. Those allowed the shorter legged medium bombers to cover the industrial regions of norther Italy and its rail net, increasing the bomb weight that could reach those targets. Allied air bases on Sardinia & Tunisia place Sicilly in a strategic salient.
 

Deleted member 1487

Cant say. Depends on how much better defended.

Plotting it out on the maps Sicilly is not in a ideal position for a base to interfere with a landing on Sardinia. Conversely Sardinia/Corsica outflank Sicilly & provide a good base for interdicting the entire Italian peninsula. Perhaps thats one reason the US/French air forces rushed to stand up airfields there. Those allowed the shorter legged medium bombers to cover the industrial regions of norther Italy and its rail net, increasing the bomb weight that could reach those targets. Allied air bases on Sardinia & Tunisia place Sicilly in a strategic salient.
Why didn't they go for it first rather than Sicily?
 
Brooke convinced Churchill Sicilly was essential to reopening the Mediterranean. This was early in the January 1944 SYMBOL conference at Cassablanca. Previous day the Joint Chiefs had made up a rough draft of wish lit for the Med & a March operation vs Sardinia was at the top. Brit First Army was designated for the task. Your copy of 'Army at Dawn' has a brief mention of this. Cant recall if Jacksons 'The Battle for Italy' covers it. Pogues bio of Marshal may have a couple sentences on it.

Oddly Mediterranian and global strategy was hashed over for several Days at the SYMBOL conference, before Eisenhower was scheduled to give his official report on the Tunisian campaign. Not sure if the Joint Chiefs or Churchill and Roosevelt had any previous indication the Tunsian campaign would drag out to May. That was Ikes judgment when he gave his brief. Grigg goes over all this in a little more detail in his 'Lost Victory'

I don't have the minutes from the SYMBOL conference. or any of the reports/memos given at hand, so the details are unknown, but Brooke seems to be the key in selection of the Tunisia-Sicilly-Italy-Sardinia sequence.
 

Deleted member 1487

Brooke convinced Churchill Sicilly was essential to reopening the Mediterranean. This was early in the January 1944 SYMBOL conference at Cassablanca. Previous day the Joint Chiefs had made up a rough draft of wish lit for the Med & a March operation vs Sardinia was at the top. Brit First Army was designated for the task. Your copy of 'Army at Dawn' has a brief mention of this. Cant recall if Jacksons 'The Battle for Italy' covers it. Pogues bio of Marshal may have a couple sentences on it.

Oddly Mediterranian and global strategy was hashed over for several Days at the SYMBOL conference, before Eisenhower was scheduled to give his official report on the Tunisian campaign. Not sure if the Joint Chiefs or Churchill and Roosevelt had any previous indication the Tunsian campaign would drag out to May. That was Ikes judgment when he gave his brief. Grigg goes over all this in a little more detail in his 'Lost Victory'

I don't have the minutes from the SYMBOL conference. or any of the reports/memos given at hand, so the details are unknown, but Brooke seems to be the key in selection of the Tunisia-Sicilly-Italy-Sardinia sequence.
Sounds like this POD might force a reevaulation if the Germans are too strong in Sicily though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mincemeat#Military_situation
At the Casablanca Conference in January 1943 Allied planners agreed on the selection of Sicily – codenamed Operation Husky – and decided to undertake the invasion no later than July that year.[21] There was concern among the Allied planners that Sicily was an obvious choice – Churchill is reputed to have said "Everyone but a bloody fool would know that it's Sicily"[17] – and that the build-up of resources for the invasion would be detected.[22]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barclay
Operation Barclay was a World War II deception by the Allies in support of Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily in July 1943.

The goal was to deceive the Axis powers as to the location of the Allies' assault across the Mediterranean and to divert the Axis military command's attention and resources. Operation Barclay used bogus troop movements, radio traffic, recruitment of Greek interpreters, and acquisition of Greek maps to indicate an invasion through the Balkans.[1]

Operation Barclay created a sham army in the eastern Mediterranean: the "Twelfth Army" consisting of 12 fictitious divisions. Adolf Hitler suspected that the Allies would invade Europe through the Balkans, and Barclay served to reinforce this.[1]

So the Allies were very concerned about attacking Sicily head on, if they cannot divert sufficient strength it seems like there is a good chance they'd redirect the offensive rather than risk a failed one.
 
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