The Invasion of Normandy, 1943

The germans were preparing for Operation citidale and was just deafeated in stalingrad and thier wasnt alot of defenses in place in 1943 i think the allies would have had atleast some form of success.

 

The point about the defences is that we chose Normandy in 1944 to avoid the worst of them anyway, although they were definitely improved, and Citadel preparation destined units could have switched west in 1943 in a very short space of time.

 

Has anyone mentioned yet that by skipping Sicily, the allies may have had to automatically rule out landings in Italy?

And if so, by doing that, they would fail to open a front which ends up tying down MANY german troops for the rest of the war. Remember, Germany didn't surrender the last bit of Italy until the middle of 1945.

 

Do some research! There were many more Allied Divisions tied up in the Italian campaign than there were German. For Germany, Italy was the most economic campaign there was. It was stupid of the Allied leaders to pursue a campaign in such a rugged country without using to the full their water-borne advantages. Especially with pedantic leaders like Clark and Montgomery.

I seem to recall that there were something like 40+ Allied divisions tied up in Italy at one point. The Germans never had more than 12 there. Italy was a strategic defensive victory for the Germans, and most likely served to lengthen the war.

 

Back to your original question, what if nothing was different up until the point of Op Husky, but the Allies had decided to land those forces in southern France instead of on Sicily (not a great distance extra to travel), but the French landings had all the possible support they could have because they were intended to be 'The' invasion of the mainland and not a sideshow?

 

Why southern France instead of northern? Where is your air support based? The Axis would have it all over the Allies then. Better to go through Normandy.

Another thought for invading in 1943. Cherbourg had almost no defenses then, and certainly none toward the landward side. It probably could have been taken almost intact by a coupe de main and be able to supply the Allies almost immediately.

Of course, if the Allies hadn't developed the Mulberry harbour by then, taking Cherbourg might have been a necessity. But then again, they did have the idea for the Mulberry already ....

 

I don't see how what I said has any bearing on how many allied divisions were in Italy. If anything, that helps the OP in that those troops could have been used in France.
As to the second part, it still helps my comment. If Sicily wasn't attacked, Italy wouldn't have sought peace with the Allies, and it could have been left to Italian soldiers. 12 more divisions of Germans in France would make some difference.


For that matter, with Sicily still in Italian control, Italian soldiers could have been in France.

 

According to more than one source, there were just about as many German troops in France in 1943 as in 1944. The main difference is, there were fewer eastern-front-experienced troops in 1943.

Grigg's opinion is that Alan Brooke was quite convinced that the British soldier could not stand up to the German in a fair fight. Being the military advisor to Churchill, he managed to convince the PM that there was no way that an invasion of France in 1942 or 1943 could possibly succeed. According to Grigg, Brooke is the one who gave Churchill the foolish notion about the "soft underbelly of Europe." Soft? The French Mediterranean coast, yes. The Appenines and the Alps? No! Brooke had a good idea that Sicily would lead to Italy, and the whole campaign would delay the serious confrontation with Germany in France. He wanted the Soviets to wear down the German army a lot more before that happened.

So the British staff came to Casablanca fully determined that there should be a Mediterranean strategy. They came with a shipload of plans, maps and other support paraphenalia, including radio contact back to their island to bring up anything or anyone else they needed to support their argument. The American staff came with the vague thought that there should be an invasion of France ASAP. Marshall, however, did not pursue the matter because he reasoned that the British had been in the war much longer and had a better idea of what was wrong. Thus the U.S. - who wanted to confront the Germans in France, deferred to the British, who didn't.

Nicnac, you said:

What I am maintaining is that the Italian campaign tied down many more Allied troops than German. It was the most economic campaign the Germans ever fought.

If the Allies didn't attack Italy, the Germans would have maintained almost as many divisions in Italy as they did anyway, because they didn't trust the Italians at this point, and they would have maintained troops there due to the threat of Allied landings.

I don't think the Italians would have been exporting too many troops to France at this point. In fact, I'm fairly convinced that the Italian "revolt" against Mussolini would have happened some time that year, even without the Allied invasion.

Strategically, the western Allies would have been much futher ahead just by threatening to invade Italy, than by actually doing it.

 

The tipping point for Italy was the massive losses in Sicily. You can surmise all you want but it remains very much open, the difference in troop dispositions if Sicily and then Italy were never invaded by the Allies.

 

The Italian campaign involved roughly comparable forces, about twenty divisions on each side. Still it's debatable who was tying down more of the other's troops. I also think most of the value of the campaign for the Allies was achieved by the time they secured the Naples-Foggia area.

Going direct from North Africa to southern France was a non-starter, but the Italian capitulation brought with it the easy conquest of Sardinia and Corsica, which could provide naval and, most important, air bases to support a landing. The Germans evacuated more or less voluntarily, so the Allied occupation of the islands did not provide any tipoff to our next move. The option I find intriguing is to attack southern France in lieu of Anzio. After the initial landing, it would be harder fighting that it was in August 1944, but no worse than what the Allies subjected themselves to in Italy. They could engage as many German troops as they did slogging their way up the Italian boot, under more favorable conditions. Most significantly, they could secure Marseilles and other ports in advance of the main invasion.

 

Getting back on topic, the Germans in 1943 were using France and the west largely as a rest area for units recuperating from Russia; for example the panzer and motorized/panzergrenadier divisions lost at Stalingrad were reestablished and eventually redeployed. There were also training and coastal defense units, a total of 30-some divisions most of the time. By contrast, in 1944 they knew there was going to be an invasion; Fuhrer Directive 51 in fall '43 established defeating it as the critical task for the new year. Although their resources were strained more and more, they made an effort to build up both total strength (58-59 divs on June 6) and the proportion of battleworthy formations.

According to the book The Atlantic Wall, 1/3 of all fortifications were completed in the five months of 1944 preceding the invasion. This suggests that no more than half were in place in summer '43, and most of those were around ports, designated fortresses, which Hitler had identified, correctly, as the first priority for defense. He also insisted that the Channel Islands receive massive fortifications. Open beaches were the last areas to be extensively addressed. 3/4 of mines and nearly all beach and antiairborne obstacles were installed after Rommel took command in November 1943; "Rommel's asparagus" was aptly named.

 

Here's a thread you might consider:

http://www.ww2f.com/what-if-european-theater-western-front-atlantic/25595-d-day-november-1942-a.html

 

Operation Shingle was a corps (2+divisions) sized assault and it itself could not hope to make a serious attack on the south of France. That being the case some troops in England would need to redeploy to the Med and stage for the attack. If the Allies occupy Corisca/Sardinia that would be the logical point to do so as well as air assets needed to insure success. It would be hard for German Intel to completely miss such a build up and draw the obvious conclusion.

 

My view is the Allied deception operations had the Germans leaping after shadows through the second half or the war. In June 1943 the Germans looked at the Allied build up in the Med. carefully considered the intelligence analysis, drew the obvious conclusions, and reinforced the Balkans. Earlier in 1942 the British deception organization took the plans for the Sledgehammer operations & created a deception operation for covering Operation Torch. The Germans decided the Torch convoys leaving the UK were either for an assualt on France, or more likely reinforcements for Egypt. They called an alert in France, reinforced the Normandy/Brittiany area, and wee completely suprised when three Allied Corps came ashore in Africa.

The deception operations aimed at Norway & Pas de Calais are well known. Less well known were the deceptions ops aimed at the Biscay coast and Genoa Italy which covered Operation Dragoon. No accident the Germans kept a mechanized corps & armored division near Bourdeaux until August 1944 when Dragoon was executed.

Any 1943 attack will be well guarded by lies.

 

Operation Anvil was originally scheduled for April 1944. The intent was to draw enemy forces away from Northwestern France. Delay was from a combination of increasing requirements for Neptune/Overlord, Churchill's hope for a Balkans campaign, and the stalled Anzio beach head.

The capture of Sardinia-Corsica (Operation Brimstone) was originally proposed by the British at the Casablanca confrence. It was initially favored over Sicily (Op. Husky) & proposed as the next step, before Sicily. The possibility of Sicily being bypassed was briefly discussed. ultimately the Brit desire to open the Sicillian Strait to Allied sea traffic as soon as practical won out.

 

I'm having trouble locating numbers for Allied casualties in italy from September 1943 to June 1944. Can anyone think of some sources for that? The number 225,000 come to mind, but I am doubting my memory on this.

 

By January 1943 the emergency in the Pacifc was over. The large transport and combat fleet needed for major invasions like the Phillipines, the Central Pacific, or Okinawa was not ready until late 1943. Still, enough amphibious fleet assets were deployed to the South Pacific to keep two corps size amphibious groups operating along the western Solomons & New Guinea coat for all of 1943, and for the Alteutians operations. Was that really necessary? Could not MacAurthur been told to stuff it and amphibious transport for a corps been retained for the ETO in 1943?