Bill Cameron
Banned
No, actually what you're doing here is applying your hindsight knowledge to make decisions actually made even more palatable than they were in OTL, in effect stovepiping historical decision making process into a fixed path instead of a road of possibilities. It's a well known phenomenom even when professional historians are discussing their pet projects.
Jukra,
I'm looking at what was known or guessed at then in an attempt to understand why the decisions made then were made the way they were made.
You, on the other hand, safely in front of your computer and risking no actual lives, are second guessing those decisions in the light of 70 years hindsight.
Not really. Combination of coastal tankers and barrel logistics (for the initial part) would have done fine too.
You truly have no comprehension of the subject. Petroleum is my business. Tankers and barrel logistics will not work, especially given a more active Luftwaffe and KM.
But PLUTO was part of the Allied (or to be more exact, British) engineering hero story to be used after the war.
PLUTO was more than post-war propaganda. As the people at the time saw things, PLUTO was a prerequisite.
No it would not. The Allies would simply attrit the German forces in contact with the Allied bridgehead by combination of naval gunfire (for first stage), tactical airpower isolating the immediate battlefield and above all by the excellent field artilllery both major Allied armies had. These were the main killers in 1944 and were ready for 1943.
Good god, you are clueless aren't you?
Naval gunfire? What if the bridgehead's front lines are beyond range of naval guns? And the Germans would be idiots not to pick up on that point. TacAir in 1943 isn't going to be as easy as it was in '44 against a less damaged Luftwaffe. As for artillery, much of that doctrine still needs to be worked out in places like Sicily and Italy.
Take a realistic look to mobile forces Germany had available for 1943.
Kursk?
Remember logistics and the German ability to concentrate their forces in France, and above all, to supply them from railheads onwards.
Which will be easier in 1943 than it was in 1944.
Logistics is the key.
Which makes me wonder why you're continually ignoring it. Many of the ships the Allied forces require for both landing and supply won't be available until 1944.
No one is going to challenge this heroic assumption. But why remain fixed to a series of questionable decisions even 70 years afterwards?
The only thing I'm challenging is this unthinking dismissal of the assumptions the people at the time were operating under.
The Allies could have built up their amphibious capacities faster, could have destroyed the Luftwaffe faster, and perhaps could have landed in France sooner as a result but they won't even consider landing in France in 1943 without major changes to the OTL's situation. They will not and indeed cannot successfully land in France with what was available to them in 1943 and what was available to Germany in 1943.
Bill