PC: Skip Tunisia?

So this could be: 'What if the Allies try to invade Italy/Sicily in 1942, instead of carrying out the Torch landings of the Original Timeline, and the Vichy government (still in existence at this point) gets pressured into using its navy and airforce to contest the landings, whilst Hitler funnels the original timeline troops sent to Tunisia into Sicily and southern Italy, with the Allies not having access to the French North African bases they obtained in the original timeline when Darlan flipped?'
Well I did go so far as to specify after the Western Desert campaign, the last battle of which was after the Torch landings.
 
So this could be: 'What if the Allies try to invade Italy/Sicily in 1942, instead of ...

Without a lot of changes I don't see how the Allies could do more than Sardinia/Corsica in 1942. Followed this general discussion multiple times & the evidence is the Allies were just too much unprepared in 1942 for more than one large TORCH size operation. It can be split up into several smaller ops, TORCH was actually three separate ops run simultaneously. But, any more than that is really stretching it.

Petains government was to fragile for doing things like joining the Axis. The Germans required the fleet empty its fuel bunkers lest the crews mutiny and take off. Refueling the fleet is kind of problematic. The Axis were having trouble keeping the Italian fleet fueled, adding in the French fleet means spreading the bunker grade thinner.
 
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