What was the best option for the Western Allies in Europe in 1943?

What was the best option for the Western Allies in Europe in 1943?

  • Invasion of Sicily

    Votes: 43 49.4%
  • Invasion of Sardinia and Corsica

    Votes: 17 19.5%
  • Invasion of Greece and/or Yugoslavia

    Votes: 3 3.4%
  • Cross-channel invasion of Continental Europe

    Votes: 18 20.7%
  • Something else entirely

    Votes: 6 6.9%

  • Total voters
    87

TFSmith121

Banned
Depending on the decision date

1) How many Divisions did the Allies have available for deployment into France in mid 1943

2) How many Divisions did the Germans and Italians have available?

I suspect it bogs down somewhere in North west France for a year of positional warfare.

Cheers Hipper

1) Depending on the decision date, if it is at the 2nd Washington Conference in the summer of 1942, something like ~60 by D Day+180, with an initial assault force of ~8 and a follow on force of ~40; essentially, exactly what was available for OVERLORD et al 12 months later.

2) The Germans actually had significantly fewer mobile divisions in Western Europe in 1943 than they did in 1944, for obvious reasons; likewise, the Italians didn't actually have any uncommitted mobile forces left after TORCH; there's a reason the "mobile" forces in Sicily under 6th Army amounted to four straight-leg divisions of two RCTs each, plus a couple battalions worth of captured French tanks that dated from 1940.

Given the topography of northwestern France and Belgium, German armies built around leg infantry and horse-drawn logistics are not going to be able to hold any defensive line before winter.

France could have been liberated in one campaign season (1943), with the drive on the Ruhr and across the Rhine occurring in the second campaign season (1944).

Best,
 
Does anybody have any information or opinion about plans to invade Corsica ?
It would allow you to threaten far north into northern Italy potentially letting you bag a large force in southern Italy if you invaded Livorno > Florence > Bologna and into Po valley potentially with Italian defection and help ?
(or Genoa north but not sure about the hills)

It also allows a threat to southern France.

Not a lot. When the Allied Western & Central Task Force fleets for Op Torch entered the Mediteranean the German leaders decided they were headed for Sardinia/Corsica. This was in part because they were taking info from the Brit Double Cross system as accurate. The Italians who were not directly privy to the XX system estimated correctly the true target was Algeria.

Two months later at the Symbol confrence @ Casablanca the joint Cheifs wrote up a preliminary wish list for 1943 Ops. At the top was invading Sardinia/Corsica in March. The Brit 1st Army was suggested as the planning/executing agency. Brooke recommended against it & Churchill lobbied sucessfully for Brookes recomendation of Sicilly first.

Eisenhower returned Sardinia/Corsica to the planning table in the spring & handed planning to a combined French US staff section. Using French soldiers to liberate Corsica was a useful political move & the USAAF had more of a interest in air bases on the two islands than the RAF.

As post Sicilly planning developed one group of Allied leaders pushed for concentrating on the Italian mainland & a overlapping group argued for the Balkans. Those considered Sardinia/Corsica of third hand importance. With Marshals support & advice Eisenhower went with the other route & set a executiondate for Ops Brimstone/Firebrand as soon after Op Avalanche as practical. The largest instigators for the capture of the islands were the French & USAAF. The latter wanted them as bases to bring the medium bombers (600+) & fighters over northern Italy and south France. Looking ahead Ike and DeGaulle wanted the islands developed as a base for a proposed invasion of south France the spring of 1944.

Anyway thats the napkin sketch.
 
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