Plausability check, Italy by passed 1943

Could the allies have invaded Sardinia (or possibly Corsica) instead of Scicilly (sorry for spelling) and then mounted operation Dragoon, invasion of Southern France by the fall of 1943.

Is this a POD that could happen

If it does can the Western powers be some hudreds of miles further East by the tie the Nazis finally lose
 
Corsica isnot going to be able act as alarge enough logistical base IMO. With out sufficent airfields the allies are going to have a problem with air cover much less air superiority
 
British never wanted to go for the south of France-they regarded it as a road to nowhere very very slowly and an unnecessary distraction, so I guess you first need to get rid of all the IGS....
 
Could the allies have invaded Sardinia (or possibly Corsica) instead of Scicilly (sorry for spelling) and then mounted operation Dragoon, invasion of Southern France by the fall of 1943.

Is this a POD that could happen

If it does can the Western powers be some hudreds of miles further East by the tie the Nazis finally lose

The British (or Churchill anyway) wanted to invade Greece and go up the Balkans.

In 1943 the British still had a significant say in strategy and they had no real interst in Sardinia or Corsica and ABOVE ALL Churchill wanted to keep the bulk of the British army as far from the full power of the Wehrmacht as he could. He knew the British army was outclassed in World War Two and was terrified of heavy casualties on French battlefields.
 
It would have been better than Italy but it would have still been a hard slog against terrain which is rather easy to defend.
 
I can't imagine any invasion of southern France that leaves Sardinia and Corsica in Axis hands. Supply alone will be a concern without forcing every convoy to run a Luftwaffe gauntlet while the nearest allied air bases are in North Africa.
 
I find it an interesting thought. On a map without hills and mountains it makes perfect sense. Seeing the mountains, things get a bit more difficult to imagine.

But here are my spontaneous, fully irresponsible thoughts on the topic:

#1 I am quite sure the engineer corps can bring some airfields into existence on Corsica. The East Coast looks like a terrain flat enough to turn it into a good air base. BUT - I am not sure if the maritime infrastructure of Ajaccio and Bastia is big to support that role.

#2 When it comes to speculations of that kind; how about taking a risky shot at Spanish neutrality and occupy the island of Mallorca. Thus, you would have two forward bases for further operations in the NW-Med.

#3 I agree that Dragoon only works as a sideshow to Overlord to speed up and faciliate the liberation of France. Without the Allies storming through Northern France, the Southern Coast is a waste of effort. To the East, the Alps. To the North, the bottleneck of the Rhone valley. To the West, the Central Massif. A place so remote that probably the people there haven't even heard of WW1. :cool:

#4 If you want to fight uphill, I find Northern Italy the more interesting alternative. Once you have a bridgehead, you have lured Italian attention away from the South... Once you got across the Appenin, you are in open area and in the industrial heartland of Italy. If they Allies accomplish to look down on the Po valley, then I am convinced that they would be in Milan, but also in Venice rather quickly.
And once you get to the Adriatic Sea, Italy will certainly surrender - but this time, the Germans won't get the opportunity to occupy 2/3 of the country!
The big IF is, if a Ligurian strategy is at all doable. If the answer is yes, it would allow a far quicker takeout of Italy. With Northern Italy in Allied hands by - say - early '44, you can play Churchill's Balkan game from there.
 

Cook

Banned
Solerno was chosen as the site of the Allied invasion because it was as far north as the Allies could invade and still receive air support from land based fighter aircraft operating from Sicily.

If Allied air forces were established in Sardinia and Corsica after Sicily the options for invading the Italian peninsular expand enormously.

Landings cross the straights of Messina and at Taranto would could still go ahead, followed by a landing by the U.S 5th Army somewhere north of Rome, cutting off Italy well above the knee.
 
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My starting point is the feeling that, although it no doubt diverted Axis resources from the allied or any point of view fighting up a relatively narrow mountainous penninsula is not ideal.
 
My starting point is the feeling that, although it no doubt diverted Axis resources from the allied or any point of view fighting up a relatively narrow mountainous penninsula is not ideal.

Absolutely - but they did anyways in OTL. That's why your Corsica-strategy would allow a short-cut. (By the way, I read today that a large part of the forces for Dragoon got assembled in Corsica, so the island seems to have been infrastructured well enough to allow such).

My feeling is, that a sort of Dragoon operation (this time only bypassing the French Alps via amphibious operation) could have been accomplished shortly after Overlord anyways. As I read, OTL dragoon was a plan on short notice anyways. Thus, it is highly probable that a different operation in Italy (and by mid-1944, on the Balkans!), wouldn't negatively affect the liberation of France.

Getting into Southern France instead of Southern Italy by 1943 repeats the mistakes in Italy in a different country:
- Allies invade the economically weaker part of France resp. Italy
- Allies invade the part of France resp. Italy which is further away from the German border
- On the way from Southern Italy as well as from the Provence, mountaineous territory has to be overcome in order to push Northwards.

An advantage of the French strategy, though, would be that a lot of Axis reserves would be bound simply by guarding the Italian coast...

To me though, the main question, is whether an attack from the vicinity of Genua northwards is doable at all. I haven't been there yet, but even the segment of the Appenin northwest of Genoa looks very challenging for a modern military advance.
On the other hand, it is only 55km from Genoa to Novi Ligure a city where you are definitely in the Po basin. From there, the main objectives in NW Italy, Torino and Milano, are only 120 resp. 95km away. From Milano to Venice, the strategic objective, it is 265 km. That is altogether 415km of advance, with one major river crossing necessary (though an advance on the Southern side of the Po is a good thing as well) and once the first few dozen km are done, in good terrain.

It is 415km from St. Tropez (in the centre of the Dragoon landings of OTL) to Lyon. And then you only have the control over Southern France.
 
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