WI: Better Allied invasion of Sicily

I've been doing some reading on the Allied Invasion of Sicily. It was technically successful, Sicily was conquered after all, but they also allowed all those Germans to escape with their equipment and supplies. How could the allies have conquered Sicily without allowing all the Germans to escape? I was thinking that instead of landing in southern Sicily, they instead have a two-pronged invasion. One would land near Messina, and the other on mainland Italy near Calabria. This would give allies control of the Strait, and cut off the escape route of the Germans. This might make the actual invasion of Italy easier, since the Germans would not have all that men and material that escaped.
 
Main problem with this is: when the Sicilly invasion planned, the US had not agreed to an Italian invasion.

Also, warfare at this time was much about airfields as defeating an enemy. And the plains of Sicilly were well suited for airfields - part of the reason why, Sicilly was chosen over Sardinia.
However, once the island became a magnet for Axis forces - opportunities were IMO not taken to trap them via a landing on the mainland.
Unfortunately, the politics of time meant it had to be a case of - 'now we've taken Sicilly what next?'
And the answer was too obvious to the Germans - Salerno!
 
the invasion suffered from being unimaginative and super conservative. the correct plan as proposed by patton would be to have his army land at palermo, monty at syracuse and the us 1st infantry division at calabria on the toe. this would have trapped all the forces on the island ensuring a quick surrender and blocked all the evacuation routes. the allies had such air and naval supremecy that this was easily within their strategic reach.

the germans would have been encircled right from the outset of the battle and not put up such a fight.

the invasion of salerno was worse though hmm lets see we have real time intel on all the enemy movements and positions and we have recon planes able to scout all of italy i know lets land at the gulf of salerno where there are over 100 german armored vehicles in fact its the only concentration of german armor in the country doesnt that just make a whole world of sense
 
We were victorious; how can it get better than that? What, have the Nazis, Japanese and Soviets all surrender the moment Patton steps ashore?
 
We were victorious; how can it get better than that? What, have the Nazis, Japanese and Soviets all surrender the moment Patton steps ashore?

well they had a manpower advantage of 3 to 1 versus the germans along with heavy air and sea superiority but chose to attack along an obvious line that could be easily defended due to the terrain (ridges and rivers) so the allies suffered uncessary casualties and failed to capture the german divisions on the island so the victory is at best marginal given the resources committed

the op which i neglected to answer before was what would happen if the german divisions on the island were captured

the answer is it wouldnt really change anything. the allies would still be super conservative and land in southern italy which creates a long drawn out campaign driving up the boot which is marked with numerous moutains and river lines which the germans were able to defend with an economy of force. (maybe the germans pull 1 or 2 divisions out of russia to flesh out their italian lines or maybe some that are rebuilding in france but loosing 45-50 k men wouldnt destroy them in 1943
 
We were victorious; how can it get better than that? What, have the Nazis, Japanese and Soviets all surrender the moment Patton steps ashore?

Surely, the point of 'AH' is that we think how it have gone better for one side or another - 'if'. If we remain content that 'we were victorious' - why bother!
 
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