miletus12
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Post by miletus12 on Jan 8, 2023 18:58:33 GMT
Interesting how you arrive at the scientifically precise value of "5 times worse" than Italy --5X area. --Similar weather problems. --Similar transport issues. *Actually worse: see railroad map.  --Hostile political environment. (Gangs and rival factions making civil affairs a nightmare.) --More opportunities (bigger frontages) for Mark Clark to tactically screw up and the British to bog down. --More Germans. --Tito --Incompetent Russians. --North of Greece and in Greece, too, lack of airpower and seapower infrastructure. --Italy is on the FLANK. (Foggia airbase complex.) --The Americans have no politcal pull or influence like they do in Italy. (Do not laugh, the Italo-American community with family in the old country, was worth 100,000 British intelligence agents.). That is how I could make that easy assessment. In any case, here are the two alternative proposals I am judging between, because its important to compare a proposal with its alternatives, not some ideal: The Balkan invasion proposal on the table is stevep's, which does not kick in until *after* securing Sicily and southern Italy. So that means it can't really start until December 1944 or November 1944 at the earliest, because the invasion of Italy was in September and consolidation of the south, Naples, and Foggia airfields took through October. Stevep want's to do it on a wide front (because that's one of the advantages) and get operations going ultimately north of Greece. -Lack of hulls to carry cargo. -Lack of time to preposition supplies. -You are in the Italian meatgrinder, so why add an even worse nightmare to your problems? -You will be in immediate conflict with Tito and the incompetent Russians. Let them annoy each other and the Germans. You do not need to bleed to do that. The ANZIO (SHINGLE, aptly named after the skin disease) debacle was a 2 division lift. This was more than the available sea lift could handle at the time. Balkan weather map, as part of EU.  NOT TOO GOOD. Wider frontages, poorer lateral and southern communications, worse weather, further back from land based air (North Africa) and more opportunities for the Germans to fly from GERMANY to make the disagreeable situation "interesting". The geography along the northwest threat axis massively favors the Germans. The British just never could understand what the ALPS meant as a flying weather and air barrier to the Germans in Italy. Churchill should have talked to the Americans who fought the air war in BURMA. Mountains are a topographical problem for air forces. Shorter lateral and south to north ROAD or cross country supply lines. Italy is shaped like a narrow boot. The Balkans is shaped like an inverted pyramid, so as one heads north the lateral east west distances increase. Going the other way it favors the Germans. The Allies controlled access along the Ligurian and Tyhrhennean seas along the Italian west coast (This made AVALANCHE and SHINGLE possible.), but do not have access to the Adriatic Sea unless they take Italy first. All that snow in Italy dropped along the single spine until you reached the Alps. In the Balkans you have THIS.  Count them. Then add Rumania and eventually Austria. Cracking ome mountain range, the Alps, once you reach the Po Valley is better than seven of them. And you do not have six valley topographic wind tunnels blowing summer rains and winter blizzards in your face from the northwest. There are only TWO WAYS to come into the Balkans: from the northwest, or the northeast. Any other attempt, (Even the Ottomans found this out the hard way. M.), is sheer military insanity as the British found out in WWI (Salonika) and it does not take much analysis to show why. M. |
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miletus12
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Post by miletus12 on Jan 8, 2023 21:29:36 GMT
Here is a time-lapse view of the action in November for the first 8 days - it's a shame it is not hour by hour: The Allied eastern task force in OTL landed in the Algiers region at its furthest extent starting Nov 8th. They start an uninterrupted daily expansion in Algeria. The Axis show up in Tunis on the 9th. The Axis solidify control over all Tunisia by the 11th and 12th, but the Allies succeeded in doing a lodgment in Algeria nearly at the Algerian-Tunisian border (so likely at Bone, if not at Bone, then probably Philippeville) on Nov 12th. On the 15th, the Allies controlled the entire Algerian coast road and crossed over a little into Tunisia. If the Allies shift each task force that lands on the 8th eastward, skipping the Morocco Atlantic landing entirely, as the British were proposing, because they didn't think Spanish entry at this late date was realistic, then the Allies are landing as far east as Bone and possibly La Calle on day 1, Nov 8th, 24 hours before the Axis are touching Tunisia, and 48 to 72 hours before the Vichy French in Tunisia are completely surrendered to the Axis. The Axis may try to get into Tunisia, and they may succeed in grabbing a chunk of it. As Miletus said, they were pretty skilled muggers against unprepared countries, but they are trying to do it by flying and shipping in. Over the 10th through 12th, the Vichy commander in Tunisia may well have surrendered, but to the *Allies* and now be cooperating with them. Plus, in avoiding the Moroccan coast landing, the Americans are avoiding the only place where the French fought hard, everywhere else, Vichy resistance was desultory and faded within a couple hours. So, there's a chance that Tunis could be surrendered and occupied by the 12th for the Allies and the rest of Tunisia by the 16th, without the Axis having a chance to get in edgewise, based on historically shown rates of Allied advance shown in the animation. Or, if Germany still gets a decent lodgment in Tunisia, that stretches out combat, like it was in OTL, but the Anglo-Americans have more of their force forward from earlier in the fight, they don't need any units to catch up from Morocco because they are already in Algeria, so the Axis should ultimately be ground out earlier. There's nothing about the geography of this situation that should expose landing forces to more fatal doses of AirPower in the first crucial 24 hours since the Axis weren't in Tunisia yet. Where are the Axis going to hit from? Sardinia? Based on your range of estimates of how Gibraltar fighters couldn't reach Port Lyautey, I don't think Sardinia has the range to Algeria. ----The Battle of Kasserine Pass, over 4 months later than this PoD, in different weather, with the involvement of Rommel, with high-ground geography that may be bypassed and made irrelevant by events on the coast road and political events, is neither here nor there for the purposes of this discussion.--- Just how do the Allies supply if they skip Casablanca? How do you fight anaywhere else than Tabessa? Supply again. Seriously... LOGISTICS. |
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Post by raharris1973 on Jan 9, 2023 3:08:39 GMT
which goes over this thing called water transport which goes over this thing called the Atlantic Ocean which is directly connected, without interruption, to the Mediterranean Sea, to French North African ports there. --In any case, Casablanca and Moroccan Atlantic ports were unreachable to Axis forces. The entire operation TORCH was premised on the Vichy French not offering determined resistance of serious intensity or duration [it wouldn't have been structured as OTL, or even attempted at all, if, for example, German or Italian troops were *already occupying Morocco and Algeria by September 1941]. So the Allied operating assumption would be [and this is what the British were willing to go with] that once the Anglo-American forces landed in Algeria and secured Vichy French surrender, the cooperation of the isolated Vichy forces behind them in Morocco could be assured, and if you ended up needing to use their port capacity on the Atlantic, you could use it with French cooperation, teams of engineers and liaison teams, but no need for frontline combat units to go to Casablanca. Why are the Allies going to be worried about moving forces to line up at Tebessa to fight Germans in west central Tunisia, when because of the Allied more easterly landings, the Allies have already secured Tunis and Bizerte by a combination of road movement and French surrender, which has also in all likelihood closed off the port of Sfax to the Germans. Thereby denying the ability of the German forces to be injected into Tunisia from over the Med because of LOGISTICS, with all the ports and airfields already in hostile hands. LOGISTICS. |
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Jan 9, 2023 18:00:26 GMT
Balkans? See Map.  Only an amateur strategist would think that it is a good idea to invade the Balkans. Weather, terrain, tribal hatreds, ultranationalisms, religious bigotries, lack of roads and rails, few airfields, no viable ports and mountains, mountains, MOUNTAINS. If Italy was a nightmare campaign, then multiply it by 5 and you get Churchill's "soft underbelly". Interesting how you arrive at the scientifically precise value of "5 times worse" than Italy. In any case, here are the two alternative proposals I am judging between, because its important to compare a proposal with its alternatives, not some ideal: The Balkan invasion proposal on the table is stevep 's, which does not kick in until *after* securing Sicily and southern Italy. So that means it can't really start until December 1944 or November 1944 at the earliest, because the invasion of Italy was in September and consolidation of the south, Naples, and Foggia airfields took through October. Stevep want's to do it on a wide front (because that's one of the advantages) and get operations going ultimately north of Greece. The alternative that this competes against, is using the same forces to keep pushing directly northward up the Italian peninsula, aided by the landing at Anzio in January 1944, OTL's Italian front course of action. stevep is saying his alternative could be better, Miletus is saying the balkan choice would be 5 times worse. Miletus helpfully gives us a list of factors: Weather - I'm not sure, but as Southern European peninsulas, I figure the weather in Italy, and the Balkans south of the Save and Danube rivers would be about the same in the different seasons between November 1943 and the end of the war in May 1945. - I'd count weather as a wash, maybe slight advantage to the more thoroughly sea-moderated Italy. Tribal hatreds & ultranationalisms & religious bigotries - The Balkans has more of these, especially the western Balkans and Yugoslavia. This means it's hard to get people to cooperate if that is your goal. But at the same time, this is not specifically an anti-Allied factor, it works against the Axis too, for every enemy or ally they get, you get one too. If you look like you're the ascending power, groups will be looking out for themselves first, but competing for your favor, which can be used. Everybody is using everybody cynically. - to provide a balance or comparison, Italy isn't 100% non-problematic- it is a formerly enemy country with a war weary population that hates the Germans mostly, but is not entirely enthused about engaging actively on the Allied cause, and there is still an Italian Fascist puppet movement. To sum these up, all these political factors are messy, but they cut both ways, against both the attacker and defender lack of roads and rails - Italy's infrastructure, especially in the center and north, is truly more dense and developed than the Balkans. That is more convenient for an invader. It cuts both ways for defender reinforcement. But I'll grant this as advantage for the Italian venue for the party on the strategic offensive, the Allies. Advantage Italy, but not 5x. few airfields - similar effect to roads and rails, basically Balkan operations will consume more Allied engineering resources to build more of these as ops go on. Advantage Italy, but not 5x. no viable ports - I'll rephrase to fewer, lower capacity, further between ports - similar effects to fewer roads and rails. Balkans will consume more Allied engineering resources. Advantage Italy. Mountains, mountains, mountains (and I saved terrain for this part too)- Look at the map, the Balkans, Italy, they're all mountainous! There's no way the Balkans are 5x more mountainous though, or even more mountainous per square kilometer or as a percentage of national territory (except in comparison with Albania). Mountains and terrain are worth a whole other post to unpack-more to come on that, but Italy does not come out well in the comparison with Balkans, and it gets worth the further north and closer to Germany you go.
Did you mean Nov/Dec 43 rather than 44? Also is this assuming N Africa as OTL or with landings further east leading to the earlier clearing of FNA?
Otherwise agree with what you say. As I propose clear Sicily, S Italy and Sardinia to give a good degree of security for shipping through the central Med, saving a lot of tonnage and also removing Italy pretty much from the war.
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Jan 9, 2023 18:39:32 GMT
Interesting how you arrive at the scientifically precise value of "5 times worse" than Italy --5X area. --Similar weather problems. --Similar transport issues. *Actually worse: see railroad map. --Hostile political environment. (Gangs and rival factions making civil affairs a nightmare.) --More opportunities (bigger frontages) for Mark Clark to tactically screw up and the British to bog down. --More Germans. --Tito --Incompetent Russians. --North of Greece and in Greece, too, lack of airpower and seapower infrastructure. --Italy is on the FLANK. (Foggia airbase complex.) --The Americans have no politcal pull or influence like they do in Italy. (Do not laugh, the Italo-American community with family in the old country, was worth 100,000 British intelligence agents.). That is how I could make that easy assessment. In any case, here are the two alternative proposals I am judging between, because its important to compare a proposal with its alternatives, not some ideal: The Balkan invasion proposal on the table is stevep's, which does not kick in until *after* securing Sicily and southern Italy. So that means it can't really start until December 1944 or November 1944 at the earliest, because the invasion of Italy was in September and consolidation of the south, Naples, and Foggia airfields took through October. Stevep want's to do it on a wide front (because that's one of the advantages) and get operations going ultimately north of Greece. -Lack of hulls to carry cargo. -Lack of time to preposition supplies. -You are in the Italian meatgrinder, so why add an even worse nightmare to your problems? -You will be in immediate conflict with Tito and the incompetent Russians. Let them annoy each other and the Germans. You do not need to bleed to do that. The ANZIO (SHINGLE, aptly named after the skin disease) debacle was a 2 division lift. This was more than the available sea lift could handle at the time. Balkan weather map, as part of EU. NOT TOO GOOD. Wider frontages, poorer lateral and southern communications, worse weather, further back from land based air (North Africa) and more opportunities for the Germans to fly from GERMANY to make the disagreeable situation "interesting". The geography along the northwest threat axis massively favors the Germans. The British just never could understand what the ALPS meant as a flying weather and air barrier to the Germans in Italy. Churchill should have talked to the Americans who fought the air war in BURMA. Mountains are a topographical problem for air forces. Shorter lateral and south to north ROAD or cross country supply lines. Italy is shaped like a narrow boot. The Balkans is shaped like an inverted pyramid, so as one heads north the lateral east west distances increase. Going the other way it favors the Germans. The Allies controlled access along the Ligurian and Tyhrhennean seas along the Italian west coast (This made AVALANCHE and SHINGLE possible.), but do not have access to the Adriatic Sea unless they take Italy first. All that snow in Italy dropped along the single spine until you reached the Alps. In the Balkans you have THIS. Count them. Then add Rumania and eventually Austria. Cracking ome mountain range, the Alps, once you reach the Po Valley is better than seven of them. And you do not have six valley topographic wind tunnels blowing summer rains and winter blizzards in your face from the northwest. There are only TWO WAYS to come into the Balkans: from the northwest, or the northeast. Any other attempt, (Even the Ottomans found this out the hard way. M.), is sheer military insanity as the British found out in WWI (Salonika) and it does not take much analysis to show why. M.
Right, the main points your missing. a) You can't just say that because the area is 5 times as large it will be 5 times as difficult.
b) Your ignoring that I was arguing this after the clearing of southern Italy. As a result of which i) You have bases nearby for air support as well as local shipping possibilities.
ii) There isn't an Italian meat-grinder. iii) Unlike in Italy where the better logistics in the north favour the Germans who have control of that area both sides would suffer in the Balkans but with superior air power the allies can impact the German movements south more. Also while Italy only had one major mountain chain that ran up the centre of the country with narrow coastal plains cut by rivers which the attacking allies continually had to force their way across.
c) Yes the political situation is more complex in the Balkans but that works for both sides and OTL both Romania and Bulgaria were eager to break with the Germans and would be glad to end up in western rather than Soviet hands. [Although I'm not assuming we would get as far as Romania unless things went pretty well.] Similarly there are many groups in the former Yugoslavia, Albania and Greece who really, really hate the Germans and Italians.
d) The wider front causes more problems for the Germans as they are spread thinned, especially with allied air superiority. Also while a lot of the region is rugged there are more areas which are flat enough for maneuvering. Since the allies already have southern Italy, which has some very useful facilities and are going to have air and naval superiority operations in the Adriatic are very possible. Plus of course the Germans can't rule out new attacks in Italy by sea so they also have to guard against flanking moves there.
e) Your also ignoring that I said I was expecting only to get as far as say the Sava and Danube so taking about rampaging across the Alps or Carpathians and the very long supply lines to them is not an issue - at least unless the Axis totally collapse. In fact this is an advantage over Italy which did need crossing the Alps to get into Austria/Germany.
Yes there are potential problems with logistics and as you point out the allies made mistakes, including the extremely wasteful allocation of resources to China over the hump. Much better if the former had been committed largely to aiding the KMT rather than the idiotic attempt to operate a strategic bombing campaign supplied solo by air.
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miletus12
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Post by miletus12 on Jan 9, 2023 19:28:18 GMT
which goes over this thing called water transport which goes over this thing called the Atlantic Ocean which is directly connected, without interruption, to the Mediterranean Sea, to French North African ports there. --In any case, Casablanca and Moroccan Atlantic ports were unreachable to Axis forces. The entire operation TORCH was premised on the Vichy French not offering determined resistance of serious intensity or duration [it wouldn't have been structured as OTL, or even attempted at all, if, for example, German or Italian troops were *already occupying Morocco and Algeria by September 1941]. So the Allied operating assumption would be [and this is what the British were willing to go with] that once the Anglo-American forces landed in Algeria and secured Vichy French surrender, the cooperation of the isolated Vichy forces behind them in Morocco could be assured, and if you ended up needing to use their port capacity on the Atlantic, you could use it with French cooperation, teams of engineers and liaison teams, but no need for frontline combat units to go to Casablanca. Why are the Allies going to be worried about moving forces to line up at Tebessa to fight Germans in west central Tunisia, when because of the Allied more easterly landings, the Allies have already secured Tunis and Bizerte by a combination of road movement and French surrender, which has also in all likelihood closed off the port of Sfax to the Germans. Thereby denying the ability of the German forces to be injected into Tunisia from over the Med because of LOGISTICS, with all the ports and airfields already in hostile hands. LOGISTICS. 1. You have to manage the amount of sealift you have, which the British proved incapable of doing well as demonstrated by the Bengal famine example the very next year. 2. You have to occupy Vichy ports to flip them for use as the British discovered when they screwed up at Dakar. And Mers el Kebir and Toulon. They needed Americans for the military and logistics muscle and French political acquiescence to the operation, because the French, free or Vichy, hated their stinking British guts after Mers el Kebir, Toulon and Dakar. 3. You have to secure command of the sea in the North Atlantic and the eastern Mediterranean which did not really happen before MARCH 1943 when the Americans showed up in force with HK groups and went to work in earnest. 4. Tabessa has a paved road and railroad spur line from Algiers. You simply are not going east of Algiers in your initial landings because you do not have the air superiority or sealift or port capacity to do so. Why? See 1 to 4. And then ask yourself why the Americans told the British to "get bent" when the British pressed for the more eastern option. |
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miletus12
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Post by miletus12 on Jan 9, 2023 19:50:36 GMT
--5X area. --Similar weather problems. --Similar transport issues. *Actually worse: see railroad map. --Hostile political environment. (Gangs and rival factions making civil affairs a nightmare.) --More opportunities (bigger frontages) for Mark Clark to tactically screw up and the British to bog down. --More Germans. --Tito --Incompetent Russians. --North of Greece and in Greece, too, lack of airpower and seapower infrastructure. --Italy is on the FLANK. (Foggia airbase complex.) --The Americans have no politcal pull or influence like they do in Italy. (Do not laugh, the Italo-American community with family in the old country, was worth 100,000 British intelligence agents.). That is how I could make that easy assessment. -Lack of hulls to carry cargo. -Lack of time to preposition supplies. -You are in the Italian meatgrinder, so why add an even worse nightmare to your problems? -You will be in immediate conflict with Tito and the incompetent Russians. Let them annoy each other and the Germans. You do not need to bleed to do that. The ANZIO (SHINGLE, aptly named after the skin disease) debacle was a 2 division lift. This was more than the available sea lift could handle at the time. Balkan weather map, as part of EU. NOT TOO GOOD. Wider frontages, poorer lateral and southern communications, worse weather, further back from land based air (North Africa) and more opportunities for the Germans to fly from GERMANY to make the disagreeable situation "interesting". The geography along the northwest threat axis massively favors the Germans. The British just never could understand what the ALPS meant as a flying weather and air barrier to the Germans in Italy. Churchill should have talked to the Americans who fought the air war in BURMA. Mountains are a topographical problem for air forces. Shorter lateral and south to north ROAD or cross country supply lines. Italy is shaped like a narrow boot. The Balkans is shaped like an inverted pyramid, so as one heads north the lateral east west distances increase. Going the other way it favors the Germans. The Allies controlled access along the Ligurian and Tyhrhennean seas along the Italian west coast (This made AVALANCHE and SHINGLE possible.), but do not have access to the Adriatic Sea unless they take Italy first. All that snow in Italy dropped along the single spine until you reached the Alps. In the Balkans you have THIS. Count them. Then add Rumania and eventually Austria. Cracking ome mountain range, the Alps, once you reach the Po Valley is better than seven of them. And you do not have six valley topographic wind tunnels blowing summer rains and winter blizzards in your face from the northwest. There are only TWO WAYS to come into the Balkans: from the northwest, or the northeast. Any other attempt, (Even the Ottomans found this out the hard way. M.), is sheer military insanity as the British found out in WWI (Salonika) and it does not take much analysis to show why. M.
Right, the main points your missing. a) You can't just say that because the area is 5 times as large it will be 5 times as difficult.
b) Your ignoring that I was arguing this after the clearing of southern Italy. As a result of which i) You have bases nearby for air support as well as local shipping possibilities.
ii) There isn't an Italian meat-grinder. iii) Unlike in Italy where the better logistics in the north favour the Germans who have control of that area both sides would suffer in the Balkans but with superior air power the allies can impact the German movements south more. Also while Italy only had one major mountain chain that ran up the centre of the country with narrow coastal plains cut by rivers which the attacking allies continually had to force their way across.
c) Yes the political situation is more complex in the Balkans but that works for both sides and OTL both Romania and Bulgaria were eager to break with the Germans and would be glad to end up in western rather than Soviet hands. [Although I'm not assuming we would get as far as Romania unless things went pretty well.] Similarly there are many groups in the former Yugoslavia, Albania and Greece who really, really hate the Germans and Italians.
d) The wider front causes more problems for the Germans as they are spread thinned, especially with allied air superiority. Also while a lot of the region is rugged there are more areas which are flat enough for maneuvering. Since the allies already have southern Italy, which has some very useful facilities and are going to have air and naval superiority operations in the Adriatic are very possible. Plus of course the Germans can't rule out new attacks in Italy by sea so they also have to guard against flanking moves there.
e) Your also ignoring that I said I was expecting only to get as far as say the Sava and Danube so taking about rampaging across the Alps or Carpathians and the very long supply lines to them is not an issue - at least unless the Axis totally collapse. In fact this is an advantage over Italy which did need crossing the Alps to get into Austria/Germany.
Yes there are potential problems with logistics and as you point out the allies made mistakes, including the extremely wasteful allocation of resources to China over the hump. Much better if the former had been committed largely to aiding the KMT rather than the idiotic attempt to operate a strategic bombing campaign supplied solo by air.
See my previous answer? The few good ports for the Balkans operation proposed are the eastern ones of Greece, where the Germans have absolute air superiority. The British found that out the hard way when they screwed up at the Dudecanese Islands. And this was after the Americans warned them not to make the attempt. Need I point out what a dog's breakfast the British made of Greece later after the Germans retreated at the end of the war? That was just Greece. Go up that funnel and spread out amongst the various competing Balkan nationalities. Watch guerillas backed by Russia attack your supply lines. Watch all the previous factors I mentioned kick in. Watch the Germans laugh as you try to police that morass of conflicting hatreds and ambitions. That was just the local politics. The road and rail networks actually favor the Germans who built them between the wars that way for that reason. The weather dogs everyone in that region, but as I pointed out and the USAAF records bear this out, since it was not the RAF who fought therein Balkan skies, air warfare across the Alps was more difficult for the Germans as an obstacle, while air warfare east of the Alps because of numerous access routes was easier for the Germans flying south west and far more against the allies (15th Air Force flying east and northeast across the multiple mountain ranges cross the valley approach routes which geographically favored the Germans.), which is why Ploiesti was not rubbled by 15th Air Force until the last year of the war. It also puts the denial to Rumania and Hungary being eager to leave the war. They were in it with the Germans until they had no choice but to accept Russian conquest. Their military professionals at the time knew exactly what I wrote here and that there would be no western allied rescue from the Germans or the Russians because of those factors. The stupid political decisions that their masters made that put them in that military situation, does not alter the reality of that situation. It was Rumanian fighters that fought the USAAF so fiercely in 1944-1945 during the last Ploiesti raids. |
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Jan 10, 2023 13:18:11 GMT
which goes over this thing called water transport which goes over this thing called the Atlantic Ocean which is directly connected, without interruption, to the Mediterranean Sea, to French North African ports there. --In any case, Casablanca and Moroccan Atlantic ports were unreachable to Axis forces. The entire operation TORCH was premised on the Vichy French not offering determined resistance of serious intensity or duration [it wouldn't have been structured as OTL, or even attempted at all, if, for example, German or Italian troops were *already occupying Morocco and Algeria by September 1941]. So the Allied operating assumption would be [and this is what the British were willing to go with] that once the Anglo-American forces landed in Algeria and secured Vichy French surrender, the cooperation of the isolated Vichy forces behind them in Morocco could be assured, and if you ended up needing to use their port capacity on the Atlantic, you could use it with French cooperation, teams of engineers and liaison teams, but no need for frontline combat units to go to Casablanca. Why are the Allies going to be worried about moving forces to line up at Tebessa to fight Germans in west central Tunisia, when because of the Allied more easterly landings, the Allies have already secured Tunis and Bizerte by a combination of road movement and French surrender, which has also in all likelihood closed off the port of Sfax to the Germans. Thereby denying the ability of the German forces to be injected into Tunisia from over the Med because of LOGISTICS, with all the ports and airfields already in hostile hands. LOGISTICS. 1. You have to manage the amount of sealift you have, which the British proved incapable of doing well as demonstrated by the Bengal famine example the very next year. 2. You have to occupy Vichy ports to flip them for use as the British discovered when they screwed up at Dakar. And Mers el Kebir and Toulon. They needed Americans for the military and logistics muscle and French political acquiescence to the operation, because the French, free or Vichy, hated their stinking British guts after Mers el Kebir, Toulon and Dakar. 3. You have to secure command of the sea in the North Atlantic and the eastern Mediterranean which did not really happen before MARCH 1943 when the Americans showed up in force with HK groups and went to work in earnest. 4. Tabessa has a paved road and railroad spur line from Algiers. You simply are not going east of Algiers in your initial landings because you do not have the air superiority or sealift or port capacity to do so. Why? See 1 to 4. And then ask yourself why the Americans told the British to "get bent" when the British pressed for the more eastern option.
1) Its a serious problem that US incompetence caused the loss of so much shipping in 42 and then as they greatly increased their production they tended to waste so much of it on side issues. However that's irrelevant as no one is talking about increasing the amount of shipping involved here.
2) Which is why the French military resistance was against the US landings in Morocco rather than the British landings in Algeria. 
3) Given that the bulk of the Battle of the Atlantic was won by British and Commonwealth forces that is a farcical statement to make. Ditto with the fact it was the British that developed the tactics that were so crucial to winning. However again this is a moot point as we're not increasing the forces or shipping involved but redistributing where their used.
4) That's your assumption to excuse the error. The big problem was the US insistence that what commitment they made to Europe was based on operations from Britain against N France and Germany. Hence you had the wasteful build up of massive forces in Britain that posed further problems on Britain to maintain them and cost us capacity and which were largely sitting on their hands until there was finally the capacity to invade N France in 44. It would have been better if the vast bulk of those resources had been either used elsewhere or kept in the US until they were needed - which as you yourself pointed out wasn't practical until after the allies clearly defeated the U Boats in spring 43.
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stevep
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Post by stevep on Jan 10, 2023 13:35:59 GMT
Right, the main points your missing. a) You can't just say that because the area is 5 times as large it will be 5 times as difficult.
b) Your ignoring that I was arguing this after the clearing of southern Italy. As a result of which i) You have bases nearby for air support as well as local shipping possibilities.
ii) There isn't an Italian meat-grinder. iii) Unlike in Italy where the better logistics in the north favour the Germans who have control of that area both sides would suffer in the Balkans but with superior air power the allies can impact the German movements south more. Also while Italy only had one major mountain chain that ran up the centre of the country with narrow coastal plains cut by rivers which the attacking allies continually had to force their way across.
c) Yes the political situation is more complex in the Balkans but that works for both sides and OTL both Romania and Bulgaria were eager to break with the Germans and would be glad to end up in western rather than Soviet hands. [Although I'm not assuming we would get as far as Romania unless things went pretty well.] Similarly there are many groups in the former Yugoslavia, Albania and Greece who really, really hate the Germans and Italians.
d) The wider front causes more problems for the Germans as they are spread thinned, especially with allied air superiority. Also while a lot of the region is rugged there are more areas which are flat enough for maneuvering. Since the allies already have southern Italy, which has some very useful facilities and are going to have air and naval superiority operations in the Adriatic are very possible. Plus of course the Germans can't rule out new attacks in Italy by sea so they also have to guard against flanking moves there.
e) Your also ignoring that I said I was expecting only to get as far as say the Sava and Danube so taking about rampaging across the Alps or Carpathians and the very long supply lines to them is not an issue - at least unless the Axis totally collapse. In fact this is an advantage over Italy which did need crossing the Alps to get into Austria/Germany.
Yes there are potential problems with logistics and as you point out the allies made mistakes, including the extremely wasteful allocation of resources to China over the hump. Much better if the former had been committed largely to aiding the KMT rather than the idiotic attempt to operate a strategic bombing campaign supplied solo by air.
See my previous answer? The few good ports for the Balkans operation proposed are the eastern ones of Greece, where the Germans have absolute air superiority. The British found that out the hard way when they screwed up at the Dudecanese Islands. And this was after the Americans warned them not to make the attempt.
The US opposed the operation because they were so manically obsessed with N France and were so reluctant to do anything elsewhere despite the obvious merit. Unfortunately by that time the USA had overwhelming control of resources because of their production and frequent broke agreements and took resources away from theatres they decided to block action in.
Britain managed to keep Greece outside the Soviet bloc yes, despite the opposition of idiots in Washington. They also had links with a lot of groups in the region - including supplying most of the aid to resistance groups there while the Soviets had no capacity to send significant amounts of support to their agents in the region. [An advantage of being a nation with a lot of diplomatic experience rather than one that thinks like a thug. ] Coupled with the loathing of communism by the vast bulk of the local population and I think its clear your channeling your Anglo-phobia here rather than using logic to suggest. Their still very limited and the allies have air superior and plenty of guerrilla support in the region so trying to send much larger forces than OTL in Italy - while also having to maintain forces in central and southern Italy - and maintaining them there would be a serious problem. That is because the US air attacks were operating from locations like Egypt and without any real ability for escort or for tactical air to pound the German forces and supply lines. Which is exactly the reason why a Balkan campaign is a great option for the allies. I note the change of targets. Hungary is likely to fight much longer because it has tied itself to the Nazis and its neighbours loath it and want back territory the Nazis have helped it take from them. I mentioned Bulgaria and possibly if we got far enough Romania which both wished to change sides and reluctantly did so to the Soviets because the west - in part due to US decisions - didn't offer any alternative. Both were also somewhat reluctant members of the Axis until the failure of the western allies in 1940 meant they have the choice between Germany and the USSR.
Not surprising that with US bombers attacking their country the Romanians, which they were tied to the Axis would defend it.
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miletus12
Squadron vice admiral
To get yourself lost, just follow the signs.
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Post by miletus12 on Jan 10, 2023 22:48:58 GMT
1. ^^^ Give me something that is actual historical outcome based to chew upon and not "apologia" or "myth". North Africa was FDR's baby which he pushed long before the British got involved in TORCH.
2. Marshall, after Stark was fired, would talk to FDR and FDR listened to the advice for what it was worth. He, Marshall, wanted Bolero and Sledgehammer and Roundup and it was usually King who would then march over to the POTUS and point out that we did not have the sea lift or airpower for such preliminaries in France. FDR played them against each other to get what HE wanted. FDR knew his Clauswitz and he knew his Mahan as well as any man who had served as ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF THE NAVY like the great Teddy Roosevelt had done before him. The decision would obviously be by maneuver warfare on the North European Plain to invade Germany. It would be based and launched from the British Isles and all the preliminaries were just expletive deleted to bleed the Germans down a bit so that could happen. It had long been the American warplan in PLAN BLACK, after WWI. British historians RESENT that truth. WWII in the West was won on the American blueprint, because the British had no plan to win the war at all.
3. Greece was saved by GREEKS. See previous comments. The British screwed Greece up, starting in 1940; (or should that be 1840? With the stupid things the British did in the Balkans in the 19th century, it added to the political dynamite the Americans had to defuse in the 1990s. M.).
4. Sometimes to deal with incompetents (Churchill and Stalin), you have to knock heads together. FDR did that a lot. He WAS a thug when he had to be. More often he was a smooth talking salesman who sold his "allies" the bitter medicine which he forced them to swallow to get the main job done.
Postscript
5. British historians refuse to own up to RN ASW incompetence and misuse of shipping, instead alibying that the 1942 to 1944 shipping criss was the fault of the Americans losing 3 million tons of (our coastal shipping mainly) shipping off our coast in 1942, neglecting in the meanwhile to explain the 10 MILLION TONS lost off the Western Approaches and Mid Atlantic Gap. We did not have the destroyers to cover ourselves... YOU DID. We gave them to you.
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Post by raharris1973 on Jan 11, 2023 0:10:24 GMT
Interesting how you arrive at the scientifically precise value of "5 times worse" than Italy. In any case, here are the two alternative proposals I am judging between, because its important to compare a proposal with its alternatives, not some ideal: The Balkan invasion proposal on the table is stevep 's, which does not kick in until *after* securing Sicily and southern Italy. So that means it can't really start until December 1944 or November 1944 at the earliest, because the invasion of Italy was in September and consolidation of the south, Naples, and Foggia airfields took through October. Stevep want's to do it on a wide front (because that's one of the advantages) and get operations going ultimately north of Greece. The alternative that this competes against, is using the same forces to keep pushing directly northward up the Italian peninsula, aided by the landing at Anzio in January 1944, OTL's Italian front course of action. stevep is saying his alternative could be better, Miletus is saying the balkan choice would be 5 times worse. Miletus helpfully gives us a list of factors: Weather - I'm not sure, but as Southern European peninsulas, I figure the weather in Italy, and the Balkans south of the Save and Danube rivers would be about the same in the different seasons between November 1943 and the end of the war in May 1945. - I'd count weather as a wash, maybe slight advantage to the more thoroughly sea-moderated Italy. Tribal hatreds & ultranationalisms & religious bigotries - The Balkans has more of these, especially the western Balkans and Yugoslavia. This means it's hard to get people to cooperate if that is your goal. But at the same time, this is not specifically an anti-Allied factor, it works against the Axis too, for every enemy or ally they get, you get one too. If you look like you're the ascending power, groups will be looking out for themselves first, but competing for your favor, which can be used. Everybody is using everybody cynically. - to provide a balance or comparison, Italy isn't 100% non-problematic- it is a formerly enemy country with a war weary population that hates the Germans mostly, but is not entirely enthused about engaging actively on the Allied cause, and there is still an Italian Fascist puppet movement. To sum these up, all these political factors are messy, but they cut both ways, against both the attacker and defender lack of roads and rails - Italy's infrastructure, especially in the center and north, is truly more dense and developed than the Balkans. That is more convenient for an invader. It cuts both ways for defender reinforcement. But I'll grant this as advantage for the Italian venue for the party on the strategic offensive, the Allies. Advantage Italy, but not 5x. few airfields - similar effect to roads and rails, basically Balkan operations will consume more Allied engineering resources to build more of these as ops go on. Advantage Italy, but not 5x. no viable ports - I'll rephrase to fewer, lower capacity, further between ports - similar effects to fewer roads and rails. Balkans will consume more Allied engineering resources. Advantage Italy. Mountains, mountains, mountains (and I saved terrain for this part too)- Look at the map, the Balkans, Italy, they're all mountainous! There's no way the Balkans are 5x more mountainous though, or even more mountainous per square kilometer or as a percentage of national territory (except in comparison with Albania). Mountains and terrain are worth a whole other post to unpack-more to come on that, but Italy does not come out well in the comparison with Balkans, and it gets worth the further north and closer to Germany you go.
Did you mean Nov/Dec 43 rather than 44? Also is this assuming N Africa as OTL or with landings further east leading to the earlier clearing of FNA?
Otherwise agree with what you say. As I propose clear Sicily, S Italy and Sardinia to give a good degree of security for shipping through the central Med, saving a lot of tonnage and also removing Italy pretty much from the war.
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