WAllies skip Italy

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Option A) skip Sicily to invade Sardinia & Corsica which would have bypassed the defensive positions at Cassino and spread the Axis forces along hundreds of miles of coastline in northern and central Italy, inevitably trapping all German forces south of the invasion site. BTW, this would allow for an invasion of Anzio in the summer of 1943 rathernthan in January of 1944.

Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica could be done, and might in fact be useful, it would after all give experience that could be later used in the pacific, plus it's easy to spoof the Axis, as Italy is a much more obvious choice after Sicily than Sardinia. Sardinia and Corsica also force the Germans to spread their forces thin, as the allies can legitimately threaten a landing anywhere from Marseilles to Rome

Trapping the Germans I central or south Italy was not certain. Within the German high command there was a debate over abandoning the south/central portion & defending there. Most advised Hitler the south could not be defended, Kesselring argued it was possible to defend in the south, at least temporarily. Into August the Germans were preparing for a retreat north & plans were made for any reinforcements to establish a defense in the mountains just south of the Po River valley.

Exactly why Kesellrings argument won out I am unsure of. In part no doubt Hitlers reluctance to abandon a single centimeter of ground was important. Another factor I've heard but not been able to confirm is that German intelligence services found evidence the Allies were not going north of Naples with their fleet. Perhaps that came from signals intel, perhaps it was supported by the knowledge the Allies could not provide effective air cover north of Naples. Whatever the case Kesselring was allowed to deploy half the forces in Italy south of Florence. When the Allies crossed over in September Rommel held a considerable ground force north of Rome while Kesselrings ground forces extended south from Rome.

The is a fair possibility that had the Allies decided to invade somewhere from Rome northwards Kesselring would have been ordered to retreat northwards before the enemy came. If that had not been the case Rommel had sufficient strength to hold a invasion near the beaches until most of the corps in the south could retreat.

Southern Italy was resource & industry poor. Other than ground for a delaying action it was useless to Germany.

WGF Jacksons 'The Battle for Italy' has a fair description of the German thinking for the defense of Italy, and some useful maps showing the deployment of the Germans ground forces down to division level for several dates.


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Option B) invade Sicily but instead of invading at Salerno invade at Civitaveccia, which again bypasses the defensive positions at Cassino and puts Rome within easy striking range.

Anything north of Salerno is out of the effective air cover of the Allies in September 1943. Maybe the reasons for that were poor, but as things stood they were depending on Spitfires & the longer ranged fighters were not available. Attacking from Naples northward requires a entirely different provision for air cover.
 
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Capturing Scilly would achieved almost total domination of the med. Anyway, most of the Italian fleet sailed to malta in September 1943. Also further to the earlier topic, Roosevelt might not have been worried about commies, but Churchill was and a invasion at the top of the boot would cut off a awful lot of Germans from going to france.

You need to control Southern Italy to keep the Axis from having bases to attack ships moving through the 'narrows' between Italy and North Africa. A case can also be made for capturing that part of Italy for use as bases for the bombing of South Germany, Austria, Hungary, etc. The Italian campaign turned into a mess once the allies tried to advance up the spine. So you capture Southern Italy throw a defensive line across the Peninsula far enough north to keep raiders at a distance from the straights and stop.
 

raharris1973

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My main beef with Italy was not whether it was wrong to invade, but to spend so much blood and treasure trying to drive the Germans back, rather than simply dig in once the main German line was reached. That still forces Hitler to commit major forces to Italy, you've still knocked Mussolini from power, and you still have southern Italy from which to run bombers.

Well, if the WAllies are not trying to accomplish ground advances in Italy between October 43 and Jun 44 I'd concede they'd spend less money and lives compared to OTL, while still compelling German involvement and getting airbases to hit southern Germany and Ploesti.

But what are the ground forces doing in that time? Twiddling their thumbs?

Is there any way that the "savings" in manpower, logistics and so on can be applied to make the campaigns of 1944 in France more decisive in a quicker period?

Unfortunately, I don't see a way for that to happen, so being static after gaining southern Italy in 43 seems to be a way to reduce casualties on both sides, but only during that year. When the invasion of France occurs in 1944, Allied casualties might be more than OTL if the German army is less worn down.
 
raharris1973

What's your opinion on instead of driving north (once La Foggia is secured) rather do an earlier Anvil? (1) Or will a shortage of landing craft prevent this, even with no Anzio landings?

1) Assuming its based out of a secured and built up Sardinia & Corsica?
 
But what are the ground forces doing in that time? Twiddling their thumbs?
Building up in Britain. Or being sent east, I can imagine the colonial troops would do pretty well in India/Burma.

Is there any way that the "savings" in manpower, logistics and so on can be applied to make the campaigns of 1944 in France more decisive in a quicker period?
Manpower, I doubt it, but logistics definitely might be a gain, since you could have a lot of aircraft either in lower-intensity operation, or operating from much nearer the factories.

Unfortunately, I don't see a way for that to happen, so being static after gaining southern Italy in 43 seems to be a way to reduce casualties on both sides, but only during that year. When the invasion of France occurs in 1944, Allied casualties might be more than OTL if the German army is less worn down.
But even more lacking in aircraft, plus it doesn't necessarily mean more Germans in Normandy, because a 'visible buildup' in Sardinia/Corsica will see German troops stuck there to repel an invasion that will never come. And the British would be able to pull it off too, because it's nearly impossible to tell from the air, the difference between a real tank and a plywood model powered by a jeep.
 
it's nearly impossible to tell from the air, the difference between a real tank and a plywood model powered by a jeep.

If you have reason to suspect there may be fake tanks etc. then it is quite easy to tell from air photography, unless the fake users are quite meticulous in presenting the fakes. They have to make, and frequently change, tracks, vehicle positions, provide all the support kit, signals traffic to match, evidence of troops domestic activities etc. It was the attention to these sorts of detail that allowed the deception plans of D Day to succeed but the investment was huge. Probably a far larger investment than the entire BEF in 1939/40.

Furthermore, the Germans had negligible human intelligence in the UK. What they had was managed by British Intelligence. In Italy etc. they would have human intelligence to see the fakes on the ground. Hell, they were still inserting agents by air in 1945. Once your enemy knows you are faking it tells them both that you are weak where the fakes are, but also that you will probably act where they are not. A few tactical fakes in Egypt and Libya worked well but for Italy you are faking whole armies, not a couple of Tank Brigades and doing so for weeks or months. Not a few days.

Physical deception plans (ie not faked intelligence passed off to the enemy) work at the macro level and micro level but are not worth the investment in between. The macro level of D Day was probably the only true macro success. Barbarossa deception plans failed miserably except that the Soviets refused to believe the evident truth despite unambiguous evidence it was happening.
 
Furthermore, the Germans had negligible human intelligence in the UK. What they had was managed by British Intelligence. In Italy etc. they would have human intelligence to see the fakes on the ground.
Yeah, now try that on Corsica. Not going to be so easy.

Physical deception plans (ie not faked intelligence passed off to the enemy) work at the macro level and micro level but are not worth the investment in between. The macro level of D Day was probably the only true macro success. Barbarossa deception plans failed miserably except that the Soviets refused to believe the evident truth despite unambiguous evidence it was happening.
There is a significant difference between the Overlord and Barbarossa fakes, Overlord was about inflating numbers and getting the Germans focussed on the wrong place, Barbarossa was about lulling Stalin into a false sense of security.
 
yulzari

The Allies were VERY good at deception from the air. In Corsica and Sardinia you have friendly locals, few spies, and an Abwehr run by a senior member of Valkyrie.

Hitler's skills at military intelligence were based on political theory and a "history buff's" understanding of Europe. Sometimes he got it right, like finally deducing in the Fall of 1944 the Ultra secret. He didn't know HOW they were doing it, but he sensed at long last that the British simply MUST be reading his mail.. But rarely. It seems as though the stronger his opponents were, the harder time he had judging them. Only Stalin's rank incompetence/paranoia made Barbarossa work.

IMO, had Stalin the Man been in Hitler's shoes, he would have gone totally to pieces long before Hitler (Parkinson's Disease & Morrell's poisons notwithstanding). Probably around the time of the Allies closing up to the Rhine and the "Russians" reaching the Oder respectively.

Remember that even at his worst Hitler never shut down for payday as Stalin did on Barbarossa D+1 and for several days thereafter. With no one at the helm...Stalin had no one who could dare to tell him that 32 shots of vodka (or even white wine!) were too much.:(
 
Barbarossa was about lulling Stalin into a false sense of security.

Barbarossa was about exploiting Stalin's bugfuck nuts level of paranoia. Somebody who ruled as a God over the USSR for just shy of two decades had come to believe he could make things happen to a similar degree beyond his own borders. If not by force, and not by divide-and-conquer, then by employing his world-wide network of Useful Idiots.

Oh, and by convincing himself that he was smarter than the rest of the Human Race in terms of animal cunning, (1) which seems to have been the only kind of smarts he ever valued. In himself. Anybody else showed that and it off to the firing squad, your family to the gulag, and everyone else you ever met sent to count trees until the 1950s.:mad:

1) Frankly I think it was the exposure right to his face the fact that he WASN'T Machiavelli to the infinite power but rather Al Capone [with a dash of Caligula's cruelty combined with Nero's everything but incest:eek: (2)] with a rich and powerful country.

2) Nero DID want to build things. The problem was how the land was cleared to build those things.
 
raharris1973

What's your opinion on instead of driving north (once La Foggia is secured) rather do an earlier Anvil? (1) Or will a shortage of landing craft prevent this, even with no Anzio landings?

1) Assuming its based out of a secured and built up Sardinia & Corsica?

Eisenhower badly wanted a earlier invasion in South France. The biographer Pogue, Atkinson in the third volume of his history, and several of Ikes biographers cover this point. Operation Anvil was originally scheduled for April 1944. However Ike was also committed to making Overlord the maximum effort Executing a effective Anvil Operation in April meant keeping meant keeping Op Overlord or more specifically Op Neptune at a three corps/beach attack, vs four in the January Overlord plan or the five corps/beaches made in June. Eisenhower was torn by this problem. & while Op Anvil was effectively dead by February he kept staff officers busy into March trying to find a solution. As soon as Op Anvil was clearly dead staffs were started at work converting the plan to Op Dragoon.

For understanding the Allied deception ops Holts 'The Deceivers' is recommended. It is a near catalogue of Allied deception operations. The depth and breadth of the Allied ops was huge & cannot be perfectly covered in only 800 or 900 pages, but this makes a good start.

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Furthermore, the Germans had negligible human intelligence in the UK. What they had was managed by British Intelligence. In Italy etc. they would have human intelligence to see the fakes on the ground. Hell, they were still inserting agents by air in 1945. ...

Those agents were in the aggregate ineffective. The longest running German agent was in Algeria. He was eventually caught and turned. Previous to that his reports covered small details that were to small in quantity to give a stratigic picture.

Once your enemy knows you are faking it tells them both that you are weak where the fakes are, but also that you will probably act where they are not. ...

The German intelligence services outted a number of Allied deceptions. Those were negligable in stratigic effect, & in at least one case the evidence was ignored. The core problem was the dysfunctional nature of the German intelligence service, the causes of which extended directlly to and from the top. By trial and error in 1942 & 43 the Brits figured out this & created a system that encouraged that dysfunction.

One key point to understand is the deception ops did not revolve around concealment, tho that was a important part. The emphasis was rather on misdirection & creating conditions for misinterpretation of what the Germans did see. Through 1943 & into 1944 the Allied capabilities for amphibious ops were fairly clear to the Germans, but they were routinely misled about the target. ie: In the sumer of 1944 the return of the Allied amphib. fleet to the Mediterranean was judged to be as large a threat to Genoa as Marsailles & reinforcements weighted accordingly
 

raharris1973

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What's your opinion on instead of driving north (once La Foggia is secured) rather do an earlier Anvil? (1) Or will a shortage of landing craft prevent this, even with no Anzio landings?

1) Assuming its based out of a secured and built up Sardinia & Corsica?

Usertron2020 -

How early is early?

Autumn 1943 or winter 43-44 I suspect everyone would say a riviera invasion over that time would get thrown back or would be a non-starter simply because of rough weather.

Now a spring 1944 Anvil-Dragoon might have possibilities, but, as long as landing craft can be concentrated in the right places at the right times.

It is an interesting idea. I wonder if an early Anvil-Dragoon (pre-Normandy) would lead to capture of Marseille and Toulon, or if the Germans could hole up and render the French Mediterranean ports unusable. But if Anvil-before-Normandy succeeds the result could be dragging in so many German forces to France to get caught in a bag in 1944 that they can't form a coherent defense later in the year and the Rhine gets crossed in '44.
 
raharris1973

I agree with your entire post except crossing the Rhine in 1944. Ain't gonna happen. Even if it means:

a) Bagration is worse

b) Stalin is reluctantly forced by German weakness to cross the Vistula and save Warsaw from destruction

c) The Soviets clear out Latvia

d) The Soviets take East Prussia much earlier than OTL

e) The Soviets close up to the Oder even as the Allies TRY to close up on the Rhine

Speer told Hitler that Germany could not continue to fight more than 6 weeks beyond the enemy closing up to the Rhine River, never mind crossing it. Speer was right. Closing the Rhine meant economic collapse for the Third Reich. It was there that Hitler had to go in with all his marbles. And whatever early advances the Western Allies make distance, LOCs, and logistics will still make breaking through (a second time after Normandy/Dragoon) to the Rhine in 1944 all but impossible. Not without facing an Ardennes-like counter-offensive on steroids. (1)

1) With more forces transferred from the East, enough to have most of the German 7th and 15th Armies join in the attack. They still lose, but the Western Allies get delayed for two months instead of one, with the Soviets being in position to take advantage.

One thing I've never understood is this: Hitler was dead whether at the hands of Marshal Zhukov or General Eisenhower. It didn't matter to him in the end. He could trade territory in the east, but once the enemy in the West shut down the Rhine, for Nazi Germany it was Game Over. Yet I've seen so many ATLs where Hitler (relatively speaking) throws the kitchen sink against the Eastern Front while leaving a corporals guard:rolleyes: in the West. Sensible after the Western Allies have crossed the Rhine in force, destroyed Army Group B, and are storming through Central Germany on the Autobahn. But immediately post-Normandy breakout?:confused:
 

raharris1973

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One thing I've never understood is this: Hitler was dead whether at the hands of Marshal Zhukov or General Eisenhower. It didn't matter to him in the end. He could trade territory in the east, but once the enemy in the West shut down the Rhine, for Nazi Germany it was Game Over. Yet I've seen so many ATLs where Hitler (relatively speaking) throws the kitchen sink against the Eastern Front while leaving a corporals guard in the West.

It's not that hard to understand. The prevalence of this in ATL's is pretty much an example of anti-communist, Russian bear-punching wish fulfillment fantasy.:)
 
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It is an interesting idea. I wonder if an early Anvil-Dragoon (pre-Normandy) would lead to capture of Marseille and Toulon, or if the Germans could hole up and render the French Mediterranean ports unusable. But if Anvil-before-Normandy succeeds the result could be dragging in so many German forces to France to get caught in a bag in 1944 that they can't form a coherent defense later in the year and the Rhine gets crossed in '44.

I gamed this one out repeatedly last year with several different games. Th Anvil operation can be squashed if the German side ignores threats on other coasts & massively reinforces the 19th Army in south France. Alternately central Italy can be abandoned in favor of a defense in the mountains south of the Po river valley. That reduces requirements in Italy and the surplus can be sent to the 19th Army.

Using the reserves & reaction forces in France to enable the 19th Army to pin the Allied 6th Army Group on the Rivera has obvious weaknesses in terms of dealing with Op Neptune & Overlord a couple months later. If the 19th Army is not well reinforced then the Allied 6th AG trashes the 19th & Marsailles/Toulon are in Allied hands and operating 3-4 months early. I cant saw about the reality in 1944, but on the game board this can be a nasty advantage for the Allied player.

I also tested a proposal for substituting a January 1944 Anvil operation for the Shingle Operation. Again the German side had a tough choice between threats. The down side for the Allied player was the initial force available for 6th AG was rather small & the build up slower, tho it did offer employment to some of the mass of ready formations in the US.
 
I had a copy of that book once, some years ago - disappeared in a move, and I have not been able to find it available for purchase since...

His most valid points were that the Atlantic Wall was mostly unbuilt in the spring of 1943, and that the Germans would have had longer interior lines to contend with, given that they controlled more territory in 1943 than 1944. But my recollection is that he made little effort to come to grips with the issues of manpower, airpower, and amphibious assault vehicles.

It's just not in the cards to invade France in 1943. That being the case, the Allies have to do *something* in the European Theater in 1943 once Tunis is taken. My main beef with Italy was not whether it was wrong to invade, but to spend so much blood and treasure trying to drive the Germans back, rather than simply dig in once the main German line was reached. That still forces Hitler to commit major forces to Italy, you've still knocked Mussolini from power, and you still have southern Italy from which to run bombers.

Have you ever used Goggle? In 30 seconds I found many copies of the book at a good price.

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It's not that hard to understand. The prevalence of this in ATL's is pretty much an example of anti-communist, Russian bear-punching wish fulfillment fantasy.:)

Yeah, I use a simple method for measuring Allied-wanking versus Soviet-screwing.

Look at the progress of the Western Allies against the Nazis. If they are landing in Sicily, and the Germans are anywhere east of their lines in Russia OTL-regardless of the time in the war-its "throw the kitchen sink to the West/Med" time. When this fails to happen, invariably the OP quotes OTL troop figures as "proof" that the Germans "just don't have the forces available, handwaving away the fact that the ATL has a POD many years in the past.:confused:

If posters still raise the BS flag, then its argument of "well, Hitlers' doing SO good in Russia that he wants to win the war there before he sends his forces west". This, despite that the opposite was true OTL. Hitler wasn't going to let the Western Desert Campaign affect his decisions, but sending a huge number of forces into the Mahgreb just to be captured definitely did.

It is not just Anti-Communist bear-punching per se, but employing airy-fairy logic to explain away why Hitler in 1942/43:eek: lets his personal hero Benny the Moose get used for target practice while he's off trying to take Leningrad, Stalingrad, AND the Caucasus. If I were the Japanese, Finland, Hungary, Romanians, or Bulgarians I would have NO faith in a guy who left his closest political friend go hang. Literally.

Then there's the whole "Stalin never gets over the Criminal Stupids", basically overriding his generals for the whole of WWII as he did from Barbarossa until Stalingrad. In such an ATL, Kursk could never have happened, because Stupid Stalin would have ordered an immediate assault on the German positions regardless of the level of Soviet preparations. Very convenient for maximizing Soviet casualties for less gain overall, while preserving the German forces on the Eastern Front, which in these ATLs somehow still never see any East Front forces sent West.:rolleyes:

Hence:

Allied-wank/Sovietscrew/Germanscrew in West/Germanwank in East

There is a shitstorm of ATLs like these. The only one I've seen where this is mostly avoided is Astrodragon's magnificent "Whale", though lately even he has been worrying me on that limited score. Hitler East Front super obsession/no reactions to the Allies knocking out Italy one full year earlier!

I gamed this one out repeatedly last year with several different games. Th Anvil operation can be squashed if the German side ignores threats on other coasts & massively reinforces the 19th Army in south France. Alternately central Italy can be abandoned in favor of a defense in the mountains south of the Po river valley. That reduces requirements in Italy and the surplus can be sent to the 19th Army.

Except to do so requires a Not-Hitler Hitler. The only times that man ever ordered "no defense/evacuations" was when he faced rebellions in his own rear.

This is why he so quickly evacuated Sicily once he got wind of Italian treachery, sent whole SS panzer divisions out to hunt down tiny groups of partisans in France, defended every port from Bordeaux to Bremerhaven, heavily garrisoned Norway to the point where they could have held off the entire US Pacific Fleet and USMC:rolleyes:, evacuated Southern Italy only to prevent their being cut off at Salerno, and worst of all disengaged the 6th SS Panzer Army from the Western Front in 1945 in order to send them haring off to "crush the Hungarian rebels" in BUDAPEST!:confused::mad:

Using the reserves & reaction forces in France to enable the 19th Army to pin the Allied 6th Army Group on the Rivera has obvious weaknesses in terms of dealing with Op Neptune & Overlord a couple months later. If the 19th Army is not well reinforced then the Allied 6th AG trashes the 19th & Marsailles/Toulon are in Allied hands and operating 3-4 months early. I cant say about the reality in 1944, but on the game board this can be a nasty advantage for the Allied player.

I gamed this out many years ago in a monster game that required minimum 75 hours playing time (if everyone had memorized the rules). As the Allied player, I took Sardinia in a paratroop drop in 1941:eek: The game allows that if you make the investment and the German player is foolish enough to not keep up air superiority. After that, I went for a "Southern Strategy" of taking Corsica, Genoa, and Southern France. When I did D-Day as OTL, the Axis player didn't realize that I had linked the supply routes between Normandy and Southern France (he was mostly giving all his attention to the Eastern Front). Between his forgetting that the Germans and Allies used the same rail gauge (repair is five times faster and never stops in bad weather, unlike rail conversion), and my amphib landing a huge force in NW Germany, he got so pissed he ended the game.:rolleyes:

Yeah, as OTL getting the supply linkup between Northern and Southern France is of enormous importance. If the Allies have a better situation in the north (General Lee stops a bullet) they may be in a better position to weaken/delay the Ardennes offensive.

I also tested a proposal for substituting a January 1944 Anvil operation for the Shingle Operation. Again the German side had a tough choice between threats. The down side for the Allied player was the initial force available for 6th AG was rather small & the build up slower, tho it did offer employment to some of the mass of ready formations in the US.

Better this than wiping out huge forces of infantry just to take Monte Cassino.
 
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jahenders

Banned
As noted, Wallies still do Sicily, unless they've just totally written off the Med (i.e. no North Africa). A 1943 invasion of Southern France might be possible, but it would be hard to make it big enough to resist German counterattack and difficult to supply sufficiently. A cross-channel invasion in 1943 was not viable -- the Wallies didn't have the capability to quickly land enough men and German was (relatively speaking) stronger in 1943 than 1944.

Ultimately, the Invasion of Italy was of benefit to the Wallies, though it was slower and more costly than hoped.

The other day I wandered across something or other about how difficult the Italian campaign was in WW2 and it got me thinking:

As Italy was a sideshow as far as belligerents go, and Churchill really had to press for a campaign, and the Soviets were screaming for a proper second front, and for numerous other reasons, what happens if Churchill loses the argument? What if the Allies see Italy as it was, a lot of pain for very little gain, and decide to skip it. Is that feasible? Can the Wallies invade France in 1943 or anywhere else? If Europe is still off limits based on their timetable, what do the Wallies do?
 
Invading Italy absorbed insane amounts of shipping to keep the troops (& civilians!) supplied. This shipping should, & would more productively, have been used building up forces for invading France, which was the main objective. Italy was to ETO what the P.I. was to PTO: a sideshow absorbing resources & manpower without equal consummate gain. There were more Allied troops in Italy than German, by about 2:1...:eek::rolleyes:
 
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