Here is a quick illustration of some ranges for aircraft based near Barcelona Spain. Everyone is welcome to quibble over the exact range of each. Extreme reach of the SM79 & He111 are tossed in for comparison.
I think this illustration shows clearly some of the pros and cons on Spain as a Allied air base. Should not be to difficult to see why the USAAF leaders pushed so hard for securing south Italy and Corsica for their air bases. It also shows how, if the Allies are stuck with Spain there are local operational benefits for air bases there. One of those is the length of France is under Allied air cover from Bourdeux through Bayonne, the Pyrnees passes, & on to Marsailles/Toloun. That creates a larger headache for planning a defense against Allied invasion threats.
Error correction: The P38 range line is mislabeled P39
Awsome Carl, and thanks for posting this. I have a few observations, and hopefully they will better explain why I have taken the position that an early ground invasion of France is not a good idea.
The German army had been at war for 38 months, giving their troops plenty of time to learn how to survive in modern combat, while the US forces (the great majority are going to be young fellows, from late teens to late twenties, as Infantry is a young mans business), will have some 'old timers' that may have been in at the tail end of WWI, but zero experience working together, on modern battlefields.
When I was in the Infantry, I was in my early to mid twenties, and most of the places I was stationed at in the military were good, clean, well set up bases. Despite that, when getting stationed in a new place, the local bug population will be making it's rounds amoung the new comers, and I remember getting quite sick when I got stationed at aberdeen proving ground MD. When I got there, along with all the other newbies, we didn't report directly to our training units, but rather were put in a seperate outfit, for acclimitaztion to the local environment. Within days, every single one of us was sick as a dog, and miserable, and then, after a week or so, all of us got better. That whas when I and the others found out that going to a new area was known to expose the new troops to the local bug population, and everyone went through that, and rather than have us in our training units and being out sick, they would just stick all the newbies into their own unit for the first couple of weeks, till it had run its course.
This took place in the USA, in the 1980's, at a clean, and well setup base.
Now think about that for a moment, that was going from one base in the USA to another, and in the 1980's, now picture what it had to be like for our troops going from the USA to africa, (Or in this ATL, Spain), in the 1940's, and you can get a feeling for what almost surely happened to our troops when the got there. Another oft overlooked factor, is that climate, altitude, and humidity all also can take some getting used to, and thus we could expect our guys to be 'under the weather' for a week or two, when they first get there. Also, the bases I was at were all permanent, existing bases with full facilities, the places our troops were going, likely were not.
So, you have an unblooded US army, comprised mainly of green, inexperienced young fellows, prone to making stupid mistakes (one need only look at the casualties in operation torch to see this graphically demonstrated), who are probably not going to be at their best, at least for a few weeks as they get over the local bugs 'welcome', and their bodies adjust to the climate, and I sure wouldn't want to send them into battle on anything like even terms.
Going into Vichy in late 1942, with such troops, and expecting them to be able to fight a battle hardened force, without the benifit of good, defensive terrain and a chance to 'settle in', would be a clear recipe for disaster.
OTOH, if you use your time wisely, you dig in, get over the body's adjustment to the new place, in the best defensive positions you can get. Then you give your airforce/navy fellows time to weaken the enemy by tearing up their supply train, so that when you do finally go into battle, they will not be at THEIR best.
Many folks, without ever having served in the armed forces themselves, make the mistake of assuming that troops are troops, and one day is as good as another, but don't know about the thousand and one things that can (and will), go wrong.
Climbs off soapbox.