I don't remember all the detalis about Husky, but remember, Italy was still in the war at that point. The Germans couldn't just come in and shove them aside. The Italian forces, with the exception of those individuals who were fachisti, had little desire to fight the Americans. Many of them had relatives in the US. [incidentally, the Americans were generally treated as liberators by the Sicillian population, even while they were still technically enemies]
As for the Germans, as an earlier poster said, they didn't have the necessary troops. Unless they stripped a number of divisions from the eastern front [which might have affected Kursk] there was nothing they could do but give ground as slowly as possible. And except for the volcano in the eastern part of the island, there wasn't good defensive terrain.
If you combine a German victory both at Kursk and Sicily, you could concievably get Stalin to the bargaining table on grounds of he's been taking millions of casualties while his so called Allies just pitter about.
I don't remember all the detalis about Husky, but remember, Italy was still in the war at that point. The Germans couldn't just come in and shove them aside. The Italian forces, with the exception of those individuals who were fachisti, had little desire to fight the Americans. Many of them had relatives in the US. [incidentally, the Americans were generally treated as liberators by the Sicillian population, even while they were still technically enemies]
As for the Germans, as an earlier poster said, they didn't have the necessary troops. Unless they stripped a number of divisions from the eastern front [which might have affected Kursk] there was nothing they could do but give ground as slowly as possible. And except for the volcano in the eastern part of the island, there wasn't good defensive terrain.