Quote:
Originally Posted by curious
I always wondered why any sane person would ever allow that timid old woman Montgomery plan anything more adventurous than a tea party. Take the Italian campaign. Why invade Sicily at all? It is not a strategic target.
McArthur never fought a battle that was not of strategic significance, and MacArthur's entire pacific campaign after the fall of the Philipines suffered fewer casualties than the battle of Anzio.
Patton had a rule, always fight campaigns the way the best ancient military minds fought them.
At the time of the Italian campaign Italy had never been successfully conquered from the toe or the heel up. Although, lots of generals had tried, and failed. Italy had only been successfully conquered from the top down.
So, what if Patton, not Montgomery had laid out the plan for the conquest of Italy. I think I know what Patton would have done.
Hannibal landed an army in a position so that he could enter Italy from the top. Napoleon said that the only way to conquer Italy is from the top. A review of any of the innumerable attempts at conquering Italy shows that Napoleon was right. Patton was a student of history. He would have copied Hannibal and Napoleon.
The invasion would have consisted of two landings, one at Monaco and one at Venice. The landing force at Venice would immediately move to the PO valley and move up the valley with the end target of Cremona. The force landing at Monaco moves north to the Tanaro valley and move East with the end target of Cremona.
When the two armies link up the Axis troops in Italy are cut off from reinforcement and resupply, and the Allies control the industrial center of Italy. The Axis forces, if they want to break out then have to slog hundreds of miles over mountainous terrain while being harrassed by Allied air power.
Have fun boyz.
Curious
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I find your attack on Monty quite disturbing, he was slow but very meticulous, he was never rushed into attacking his opponent when his troops were'nt ready.
And now to Italy, the Italian campaign was done because rightly Stalin was putting pressure on the Western Allies to do something about Europe, America and Britain were in no shape to launch an invasion of Europe directly, so they chose the weakest option and that was through the underbelly of Europe via North Africa. Operation Torch was carried out and smacked the Italian, German and Vichy French backsides. Sicily was an extension to Operation Torch, and Italy was also an extension, you get the picture, this effectively drew the Axis into a three front war that it had no hope of winning, Italy had by this stage grown weary of war and changed sides.
No the only way the Italian campaign could be won was from the south. if you did what you suggested then the US landing forces would come up against exclusively German forces not Italian, making the casualty rate very high indeed and if it failed it could put the Normandy invasion back one or two years.