No Invasion of Sicily during WW2

I was thinking that after the destruction of the Axis forces in N.Afric,there was no need for landings in Sicily
The divisions that were in Sicily could be used to reinforce the Allies at Overlord or attack though Greece and Romenia,reaching Austria
 
Logistics - you don't simply walk all over the Balkans. And it wouldn't have helped as much in reducing Axis power, or allowed for better bombing.
Overlord is a whole year later, too, and there was the serious prospect of tipping the Italians to the Allies - which somewhat proved correct.
 
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The divisions that were in Sicily could be used to reinforce the Allies at Overlord or attack though Greece and Romenia,reaching Austria

Op Overlord did not exist at this moment. How could this decision be made?

How could Allied armies reach Austria from Greece & Roumania? The ports are small, the railways poor, the highways worse, and there are multiple mountain ranges to cross.
 
Forget the Balkans.
No Sicily - okay, then Sardinia, quickly followed by Corsica. Make the feint that, after Tunisia is wrapped up, the next target is Greece (as per OTL).
 
Logistics - you don't simply walk all over the Balkans. And it wouldn't have helped as much in reducing Axis power, or allowed for better bombing.
Overlord is a whole year later, too, and there was the serious prospect of tipping the Italians to the Allies - which somewhat proved correct.

If you can mass ~150 000 men and invade France ,Denmark and Belgium,bomb the hell out of Germany i am pretty sure you can invade the Balkans(that were nearly half of the territory of France
Other thing,by invading France the allies were facing the direct might of the Atlantic Wall and what Rommel thinked that was the route of an Allied invasion of france
 
This is one of the threads where everything revolves around logistics, the aspect to many people know nothing of. Hardly worth continuing. But, to make the point; the Balkans had a third the combined port and transport capacity of France.

Lots of other nonstarters in this, but this pretty well kills it.
 
It takes 20 times the shipping to bring stuff to Greece as it does to France unless you have to go around Africa in which case it's 50 times the shipping. The ports are bad in the balkans and the roads are worse.

Also what gain does the Balkans have. Invading Italy knocked the Italians out of the war.

Do you think Invading the Balkans would have that kind of effect.
 
The Western Allies cannot sit idly (in terms of ground forces) for long after May 1943. The Germans are building up for a massive offensive at Kursk, which everyone knows about, especially the Soviets but including the Allies. They have to go somewhere with the means they have available. We need a prior POD for a landing in France in the summer of 1943 (more ships, more divisions, more aircraft particularly those things that went to the Aleutians for example). So without major changes elsewhere, with just the forces at hand, is Sardinia or Crete really an option?
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
The divisions that were in Sicily could be used to reinforce the Allies at Overlord

Not nearly that simple. The beauty of the invasion of Sicily is that the forces to do it were already there, sitting in northern Tunisia, right across the sea. Now, nine divisions were sent out of the Mediterranean and to England for participation in Overlord (though I can't recall if it was just before Sicily or just before Salerno). To move the rest, the U.S. 5th (or 7th) Army and the British 8th Army, out of the Mediterranean and to Britain would make an already immense logistical undertaking even larger. It would require use of the shipping and port facilities that were already overstretched moving the troops already tasked to Overlord from the United States to Britain, so the end result would have been moving the army out of North Africa, but leaving an equivalent number of troops and supplies sitting idly in the United States for want of shipping and port allocation. Better to make use of them where they were. Moreover, once it became clear that the Allies were moving their resources out of the Mediterranean and back to Britain, Germany would respond by doing the same thing, so any advantage would be negated.
 
The Allied invasion of mainland Italy - for which Sicily was necessary, did knock Italy out of the war costing the Germans troops and resources to do the defending and occupy Italy. Had some of the Allied commanders not been dinks the progress would have been much faster and better. Please, not the Balkans again. If you start in Greece and work north you have worse terrain and infrastructure than Italy and you are further away from Austria than starting in Italy. You can't invade along the Adriatic as long as Italy is completely unoccupied and in the war - your supply lines are totally vulnerable. Taking Corsica and Sardinia is doable with the forces for Sicily, but now what? Italy will stay in the war and invading Italy halfway up the peninsula using these islands as a springboard is riskier than what was done.
 
The one advantage of Greece (probably Crete then Greece) is the threat to the Romanian oil fields.
 
So an invasion of Corsica would have made more sense? It could have lead to the invasion of Southern France in 1943 or even the Tuscan region of Italy.
 
If you can mass ~150 000 men and invade France ,Denmark and Belgium,bomb the hell out of Germany i am pretty sure you can invade the Balkans(that were nearly half of the territory of France
Other thing,by invading France the allies were facing the direct might of the Atlantic Wall and what Rommel thinked that was the route of an Allied invasion of france

The Balkans is a whole different type of landscape than France is. The Balkans is rough, lots of hills and mountains, a lot less easy geography and worse infrastructure. There are a whole bunch of rivers going though that stuff as well not to mention forests. The invasion will be a lot harder and the march into land even worse. Also don't forget that coming from Greece would mean a bottleneck that you need to break out of first, giving the axis time to regroup their forces. It would help the Soviet advance, but not the allied advances. And one thing the Allies wanted was to be in the advantage themselves, not the Soviets.

Yes invading France, Belgium and Denmark is easier, as that is mostly all flat terrain and they have excellent infrastructure. An occassional forest here and there is the only nuisance you are going to face.

The difference therefor is huge.

Yes they were facing the Atlantic wall, but they had mapped it out pretty well before the invasion, easy too with air superiority and being so close to the British Isles and their airbases. Mapping the balkans is a lot more hazardous and nearly impossible to do well.

Also, the naval forces needed and the dangers involving there were a lot less in the Channel then they would have to be to cross the Mediterranean. Even with the Italian fleet pretty much knocked out.
 
It's also an issue of on the job training. When the Allies invaded Normandy in June 1944 they had the benefit of making all manner of mistakes during the invasions of North Africa, Sicily, and Italy. All of the lessons learned from the mistakes made during those operations led to success on June 6th.
 
How about Corsica then west Italy and Trieste at the same time. When these two fronts meet up, rest of Italy basically does on the limb.

Overlord is now secondary.

As divisions are placed in Italy or southern France as soon as they are ready.

Can drive once the two are connected can drive north in France and also to Austria from Trieste.

Channel coast could be used as Dragon was and Germans are trapped in France between the main southern force driving north and then east and the landings in the north.

Meanwhile the other front can pick Vienna or Budapest from Trieste.

Main ports are Trieste, Pola, Venice on the East and Southern France and Genoa in the West.

Is this feasable?
 
If the Italians are in the war and mainland Italy is unoccupied, attempting to do an amphibious landing is suicidal. The Adriatic is fairly narrow and both sides are occupied by the Axis. Aircraft, submarines, MAS and more will have a field day as the Germans and the Italians hit the invasion fleet as they sail up to the head of the Adriatic. The Adriatic is roughly 500mi/800km long so the ships at 12 knots or so will be running this gantlet for almost 48 hours. In addition they might as well send the defenders of Trieste a telegram informing them of their impending attack and when they will arrive. No can do.
 
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