Deleted member 1487
Reading about the Sicily campaign it was clear the Axis was heavily overmatched due to their losses in Tunisia, leaving very weak air and ground component to resist, which got rolled pretty quickly. But even with a 'full' strength defense including the forces used in Tunisia would an invasion as large and powerful as what the Allies mustered in July 1943 able to be stopped or was it an inevitable victory due to the weight of it and the impact of naval gunfire?
For the sake of argument let's say that instead of holding in Africa after Torch the Axis only moves in long enough to wreck the ports and airfields and buy time for the Axis forces with Rommel to retreat back to Sicily. So the forces used by Rommel after El Alamein and the Tunisian reinforcements are instead all returned to Sicily to plan the defense. The US forces don't then gain much if any experience from Tunisia. What then happens when they invade with the Afrika Korps, 5th Panzerarmee, OTL Sicily reinforcements, and whatever Italians forces were used in Africa were then used to defense Sicily? That would include the Axis air forces not used up defending Tunisia. Could that level of ground and air units have successfully resisted the OTL Allied invasion or would it have only delayed the inevitable?
For the sake of argument let's say that instead of holding in Africa after Torch the Axis only moves in long enough to wreck the ports and airfields and buy time for the Axis forces with Rommel to retreat back to Sicily. So the forces used by Rommel after El Alamein and the Tunisian reinforcements are instead all returned to Sicily to plan the defense. The US forces don't then gain much if any experience from Tunisia. What then happens when they invade with the Afrika Korps, 5th Panzerarmee, OTL Sicily reinforcements, and whatever Italians forces were used in Africa were then used to defense Sicily? That would include the Axis air forces not used up defending Tunisia. Could that level of ground and air units have successfully resisted the OTL Allied invasion or would it have only delayed the inevitable?