What if Sardinia was invaded instead of Sicily?

[Imad]

I can't help thinking that the British may have been right about taking Sardinia instead of Sicily. An amphibious attack from Sardinia would have taken Rome much faster and outflanked both the Gustav and the Hitler lines. By invading from Sicily the Allies tied themselves down to a slow slugging match up the length of Italy - very wasteful in men and materiel. Taking Rome earlier would have knocked Italy out of the war that much faster and caught Senger und Etterlin's XIV Corps and Vietinghoff's 10th Army in the rear IF the Allies had used an attack up the toe of Italy as a deception.
Imad


Moderator's Note:
Post originally split from a WW2 in the Mediterranean thread: http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=80323 and moved to the What If forum.

[Andreas]

I can't help thinking that the British may have been right about taking Sardinia instead of Sicily. An amphibious attack from Sardinia would have taken Rome much faster and outflanked both the Gustav and the Hitler lines. By invading from Sicily the Allies tied themselves down to a slow slugging match up the length of Italy - very wasteful in men and materiel. Taking Rome earlier would have knocked Italy out of the war that much faster and caught Senger und Etterlin's XIV Corps and Vietinghoff's 10th Army in the rear IF the Allies had used an attack up the toe of Italy as a deception.
Imad

I am not sure about this reasoning. The difference in distance is ca. 120m to Rome from either Messina or Olbia. Sardinia is however a much weaker base from which to kick off an invasion, and very restrictive. IOW by concentrating their forces along some choice points along the cost the Germans could have defended easily against a landing from Sardinia, while from Sicily the Allies more options. Especially important in this regard is that it appears that from Sardinia the 'within range of fighter cover' condition is not really fulfilled for any place on the Adriatic coast?

By landing in Sicily the allies had a short distance to cover from the very good harbour of Malta to Sicily, enabling them to use landing craft as freight support. Then from Sicily they could easily get to Napoli - the distance is considerably less than from Sardinia. An occupied Sicily would have meant that the route through the straits between Sicily and North Africa could still have been threatened from the air and by light naval craft very easily too.

Finally, while I know little about the geography of either island, I believe that Sicily is just a better staging area for a major effort than Sardinia. The latter is a backwater with little to no capacity to sustain major military operations such as an invasion.

For distance measurements, I used the Great Circle Mapper - very handy.

All the best

Andreas

[Jon G.]

I don't think it is so much a question of either/or as it is a question of why the Allies didn't try taking Sardinia after they had taken Sicily. Corsica would have been the next logical step after Sardinia, and with both Corsica and Sardinia (and perhaps also Elba) in Allied hands the Riviera and the entire Italian west coast would be within reach for Allied landings.

The Germans held the view that Sardinia and Corsica were indefensible after the fall of Sicily. They in fact voluntarily abandoned both islands later.

Not that the Allies necessarily had to actually conduct any landing operations in mainland Italy from Sardinia/Corsica. The mere threat may have been enough to keep the Germans out of Italy south of Rome.

Instead of using their overwhelming naval superiority to keep the Germans on their toes as to where the next Allied landing might happen, the Allies chose to exchange the shortest possible sea route for the longest possible land route when they shot their bolt and landed on the heel and toe of the Italian boot. Even the later Anzio landing became a stranded whale in Churchill's words, partially due to the defensive mindset of general Lucas, partially because it was easy for Kesselring to predict where the landing would take place - it would have to be a sand beach within fighter cover flying out of Sicily, and that left Anzio as the only choice on the Italian west coast. With Sardinia and Corsica in Allied hands, there would have been more landing sites to chose from.

[Michael Emrys]

I don't think it is so much a question of either/or as it is a question of why the Allies didn't try taking Sardinia after they had taken Sicily. Corsica would have been the next logical step after Sardinia, and with both Corsica and Sardinia (and perhaps also Elba) in Allied hands the Riviera and the entire Italian west coast would be within reach for Allied landings.

I'm with Shrek on this one. I think the only thing to be said against it would be that it would entail a delay before a landing on the Italian mainland, and both the Allies and the Italians were in a hurry to get that moving.

Instead of using their overwhelming naval superiority to keep the Germans on their toes as to where the next Allied landing might happen, the Allies chose to exchange the shortest possible sea route for the longest possible land route when they shot their bolt and landed on the heel and toe of the Italian boot. Even the later Anzio landing became a stranded whale in Churchill's words, partially due to the defensive mindset of general Lucas, partially because it was easy for Kesselring to predict where the landing would take place - it would have to be a sand beach within fighter cover flying out of Sicily, and that left Anzio as the only choice on the Italian west coast. With Sardinia and Corsica in Allied hands, there would have been more landing sites to chose from.

Probably the worst thing going against Anzio was that it had about half the forces needed to really make it work. To push into the Alban Hills and maintain a continuous perimeter stout enough to withstand German counterattacks would have taken about two corps, IIRC. Andreas has done more study on this, I believe.

I don't see anything wrong with having 8th. Army cross into the toe and instep of Italy as it did. It put some pressure on the Germans and kept them distracted from wherever the Allies wanted to make their main play, say around Rome.

But again, the Alllies were pulling stuff out of the Med as fast as they could, which kind of hamstrung operations in Italy. In the end, I don't think it mattered all that much. Once Italy had surrendered, there weren't really any great strategic prizes to be won in that theater. The main thing was to draw as many German divisions in as possible and hold them there.

[Jon G.]

I'm with Shrek on this one. I think the only thing to be said against it would be that it would entail a delay before a landing on the Italian mainland, and both the Allies and the Italians were in a hurry to get that moving.

Admittedly it is only with the benefit of hindsight that we can see that the whole game about Italy's surrender was lost while Eisenhower on his side was playing for time and the Italians on their side wanting a credible Allied presence in mainland Italy. While that was going on, the Germans wasted no time in occupying Italy.

Probably the worst thing going against Anzio was that it had about half the forces needed to really make it work. To push into the Alban Hills and maintain a continuous perimeter stout enough to withstand German counterattacks would have taken about two corps, IIRC. Andreas has done more study on this, I believe.

Well, I believe opinions remain divided over whether an immediate push inland would have been feasible or not. The initial landing was not strenously opposed. The problem was that Anzio was a forced move to relieve the Cassino front, and the Germans could anticipate it coming.

Here is an interesting article on the Anzio landings. This article is perhaps too forgiving of general Lucas. At least it is clear that Cunningham was not an easy man to cooperate with, and the shortage of landing craft (needed both in the Pacific and soon also for D-Day; those used at Anzio were IIRC en route to Britain) precluded a larger landing at Anzio. As it was, keeping Lucas' forces supplied was an accomplishment, as the article stresses.

I don't see anything wrong with having 8th. Army cross into the toe and instep of Italy as it did. It put some pressure on the Germans and kept them distracted from wherever the Allies wanted to make their main play, say around Rome.

Again with hindsight, it meant that the Germans could occupy all of mainland Italy. I believe that Kesselring's own initial assessment was that Italy south of Rome was lost after the Allies had taken Sicily, but the Allied choice of landing sites allowed him to pick a good defensive line at his leisure. It might well have been better to keep him guessing.

[Andreas]

Even the later Anzio landing became a stranded whale in Churchill's words, partially due to the defensive mindset of general Lucas, partially because it was easy for Kesselring to predict where the landing would take place - it would have to be a sand beach within fighter cover flying out of Sicily, and that left Anzio as the only choice on the Italian west coast. With Sardinia and Corsica in Allied hands, there would have been more landing sites to chose from.

I'll address the rest of the post later, but I am not sure this analysis is correct.

1) The lack of aggressiveness could have been the same at any landing site where Lucas arrived after being told not to put his neck out. Genoa, Livorno, or Cannes. Has nothing to do with where he starts from, but all with his attitude once he gets there.

2) Fighter cover from Sicily was required for Salerno, not Anzio (actually, Nettuno). Anzio could be covered from fighters based at Naples, that's ca. 40-50 miles as the crow flies. In fact, fighters could reach much further up the coast, and other landing sites (e.g. around Ostia ca. 70-80km up the coast) were well within reach (Nettuno is ca. 60-70km south of FCO, and straight flying from NAP to FCO is 124m). Anzio was not the only choice AFAIK, and it was emphatically not well defended when the landing took place. In fact, it was hardly defended at all, which indicates that either Kesselring did not do his homework in prediction, or indeed he did not think that there was only one possible landing site.

I also don't agree on the LC issue. We are talking about a January landing. There was no real, but political time pressure. Does it take four months to get from the Med to Britain? I don't think so - AFAIK the issue was strategic, and linked to the unwillingness of the Americans to entertain further major action in the Med.

Final point for now - Kesselring thought the issue in southern Italy was lost after Sicily. Rommel and Hitler thought differently, and ordered him to defend it. It had nothing to do with allied landing sites in my view. Also, you are still not addressing the logistical issue of supporting a major landing (we are talking about something much more substantial than Anzio or Salerno, since you do not have another army coming up the boot in your scenario) from Sardinia and Corsica. I am not convinced you can do that. The harbour capacity is not there.

All the best

Andreas

[edward_n_kelly]

On point I think that has been missed is aircraft range.....

Sicily (specifically the foot of it) was within single engine fighter cover from Malta and within medium bomber/transport range from North Africa (particularly those pulling gliders).

Did the Allies have access to carriers at that time in the Med or were they still working up/refitting back in the US/UK ?

There were large plains in the south of Sicily (around Aetna) capable of quick development into airfields for support of further operations.

The corollary is of course that these areas were denied to Axis aircraft to interdict Allied convoys traversing the Mediterranean. It was said somewhere (I cannot remember where off hand) that opening the Med was like adding an addition 1,000,000 tons of shipping space to the Allied cause.

With this in mind Sicily was the obvious place to be.....

Edward

PS Pantelleria was a more immediate threat – and one quickly neutralised.

[Jon G.]

1) The lack of aggressiveness could have been the same at any landing site where Lucas arrived after being told not to put his neck out. Genoa, Livorno, or Cannes. Has nothing to do with where he starts from, but all with his attitude once he gets there.

We can only speculate what a lack of aggressiveness would have meant if the Allies landed elsewhere than Anzio. Sardinia and Corsica in Allied hands would have meant more landing sites to chose from.

2) Fighter cover from Sicily was required for Salerno, not Anzio (actually, Nettuno). Anzio could be covered from fighters based at Naples, that's ca. 40-50 miles as the crow flies...In fact, it was hardly defended at all, which indicates that either Kesselring did not do his homework in prediction, or indeed he did not think that there was only one possible landing site.

You're right that Allied fighters were flying out of Naples at this time, not Sicily as I wrote. However, fighter cover is only one requirement. A sizeable port nearby (the only one was Naples) and a sandy beach suitable for amphibious landings were also needed, significantly reducing possible landing sites. Kesselring's plans for an invasion behind the Gustav Line were general in nature - he had earmarked mobile elements of his forces to rush to a designated area when the appropriate code word was issued. After all, he also had simultaneous head-on assaults by the 5th and 8th armies on the Gustav Line to take care of at the time.

I also don't agree on the LC issue. We are talking about a January landing. There was no real, but political time pressure. Does it take four months to get from the Med to Britain? I don't think so - AFAIK the issue was strategic, and linked to the unwillingness of the Americans to entertain further major action in the Med.

Many of the landing craft needed were en route from the Far East, and they would be needed also to shuttle supplies to the beachhead for at least a month. The deadline for the landing crafts' return to the UK was set for the end of February, putting a most real element of time pressure to the operation, especially when you consider that things were not going well on the Cassino front at the time.

Final point for now - Kesselring thought the issue in southern Italy was lost after Sicily. Rommel and Hitler thought differently, and ordered him to defend it. It had nothing to do with allied landing sites in my view.

My point was that the Allied choice of landing in the extreme southernmost part of Italy played into the Germans' hands. From then on every Allied move up to and including Anzio would be easy for the Germans to predict. in this context, though, it is more interesting that the Germans considered Sardinia and Corsica lost after Sicily.

Also, you are still not addressing the logistical issue of supporting a major landing (we are talking about something much more substantial than Anzio or Salerno, since you do not have another army coming up the boot in your scenario) from Sardinia and Corsica. I am not convinced you can do that. The harbour capacity is not there.

I don't think the apparently limited port capacity of Sardinia and Corsica would have been as great a handicap as you claim. Tiny Rhodes was used as a staging area for the 1915 Dardanelles campaign. Torch the year before Salerno and Dragoon the year after were launched over longer distances, and both operations had major ports as part of their objectives; port capacity at destination can to a large degree compensate for port capacity at the point/s of departure if you have naval superiority, and the invasion forces in any event don't have to come from Sardinia or Corsica - just their air cover.

[Andreas]

I don't think the apparently limited port capacity of Sardinia and Corsica would have been as great a handicap as you claim. Tiny Rhodes was used as a staging area for the 1915 Dardanelles campaign. Torch the year before Salerno and Dragoon the year after were launched over longer distances, and both operations had major ports as part of their objectives; port capacity at destination can to a large degree compensate for port capacity at the point/s of departure if you have naval superiority, and the invasion forces in any event don't have to come from Sardinia or Corsica - just their air cover.

The Dardanelles are hardly a valid comparison. The logistical requirements were much lower then, and the whole thing ended in utter failure anyway. So is Torch, which was basically an unopposed landing in massive strength with resources that were no longer available to the Med. It also secured a long coastline in one assault. Just going for e.g. Livorno would not have had the same effect.

I also generally disagree with your repeated assertion that many more landing sites would have been available - where were they, and what were the distances to Sardinia? I can think of maybe five big harbours on that side of Italy that can support an army. Naples (you are better off by 60m going via Sicily and it is out of fighter range from Sardinia/Corsica), Genoa, La Spezia (that one is a question-mark, in terms of capacity), Civitavecchia (pretty much a toss with Anzio in terms of distance, in fighter range from Sardinia, but puts you smack into the most well-defended area of central Italy) and Livorno (you in fighter range - definitely an option).

You brought up lack of aggressiveness at Anzio as an argument, not me. I am puzzled how that is related to the geography of the Mediterranean. All I am saying is that it is not, it is a non-sequitur.

You are also ignoring the risk - by going to Sardinia you maybe gain access to more landing sites (where?), but you put all your eggs in that one basket. By going to Sicily you have the option of crossing the straits, and conducting a landing (Salerno). If the landing fails, you still have an army marching up the toe. By choosing Sardinia, if the landing fails (and remember that Salerno was a close-run thing) you are royally screwed, to use the vernacular, in terms of the Italian campaign. By doing this you also guarantee that the Germans can concentrate on the west coast, since it is impossible for you to threaten the east coast, making it much more likely that your landing will fail.

None of this is 20-20 hindsight, it is all clear when you look at a map. Sicily is the key to an invasion of Italy if you start from the south. Always has been, always will be. At the same time, no invasion from the south has ever been successful in conquering Italy by itself, IIRC. But that was not the aim.

Edit: All the northern harbours are in fighter range from Corsica, which I forgot to look at. However, I am unconvinced that a landing that far north and going straight for the jugular would have been a wise idea. Close to the Reich, no possibility to stop the German from evacuating across the Adriatic, and still bottled up against the Alps if you succeed. The passes are easy to defend. Only major gain would have been bomber bases, but it would have led to a much more violent reaction by German forces (who were also much stronger in that area than they were near Salerno), with increased risk of failure. With 20-20 hindsight, it may have been better for the German war effort not to have to defend Italy anyway.

All the best

Andreas

[Jon G.]

Last first:

None of this is 20-20 hindsight, it is all clear when you look at a map. Sicily is the key to an invasion of Italy if you start from the south. Always has been, always will be.

I think you missed that my suggestion was taking Sardinia and Corsica after Sicily, instead of going for mainland Italy right away. I amplified this by pointing to the fact that the Germans evacuated these two islands themselves. They might well have been taken without a fight.

The Dardanelles are hardly a valid comparison. The logistical requirements were much lower then, and the whole thing ended in utter failure anyway. So is Torch, which was basically an unopposed landing in massive strength with resources that were no longer available to the Med.

The Dardanelles indeed failed, though I am less certain if logistical requirements were so much lower then. As far as I know, the Entente brought both horses and artillery in abundance, presumably with a WWI-level shoot in mind. At any rate, it didn't fail for want of port capacity.

With the Italian mainland not yet invaded, both the US 5th (which only had one corps as part of Torch) and the British 8th (no longer needed in North Africa) armies would be available. Also, looking a bit ahead, some of the forces used for Dragoon may have been used.

I also generally disagree with your repeated assertion that many more landing sites would have been available - where were they, and what were the distances to Sardinia? I can think of maybe five big harbours on that side of Italy that can support an army.

OK, but that would still have left the Allies with five times as many options as invading Italy from the south did. With Corsica in Allied hands too, you can also add Nice/Monaco to the equation. My underlying point is that the Germans might well react to the threat, rather than its actual execution. They did after all evacuate Sardinia and Corsica voluntarily.

The D-Day planners AFAIK narrowed down their choice of landing sites to only two: Normandy and Pas de Calais. As it turned out, Cherbourg's importance was overrated.

Naples (you are better off by 60m going via Sicily and it is out of fighter range from Sardinia)

Yes - but my scenario presupposes that the Allies have already taken Sicily.

Genoa (out of fighter range from Sardinia), La Spezia (that one is a question-mark, and it is out of fighter range from Sardinia)

Yes - but both are handsomely within range of Corsica.

You brought up lack of aggressiveness at Anzio as an argument, not me. I am puzzled how that is related to the geography of the Mediterranean. All I am saying is that it is not, it is a non-sequitur.

Not as an argument pertaining to choice of landing site, but rather as an example of the uninspired (IMHO) strategy the Allies followed after they had taken Sicily. Anzio could have been a short-cut to Rome (optimistic, I agree), or it could have caused the Germans to evacuate the Gustav Line, or at the very least it could have relieved the attackers at Cassino. It ended up achieving none of these objectives for a solid four months, and a prime reason for that was that the Allies had chosen to land the bulk of their armies so far south of Rome.

[Imad]

I tend to agree with Shrek. An attack on Sardinia after Sicily might actuallly have been a better idea. The Germans would then have had to deal with two simultaneous invasions, one of which would have outflanked the Gustav and Caesar lines, while the other would have tied down both 10th Army and XIV Panzer Corps. Andreas makes a very valid point about Sardinia not having the harbour capacity or the air bases to support a large scale invasion, but I cannot help thinking about what American logistical wizardry did in transforming Guadalcanal.
Imad

[JonS]

I also don't agree on the LC issue. We are talking about a January landing. There was no real, but political time pressure. Does it take four months to get from the Med to Britain? I don't think so - AFAIK the issue was strategic, and linked to the unwillingness of the Americans to entertain further major action in the Med.

At the time, the landings in Normandy were scheduled for early May. It was the expansion of the plan (adding SWORD and UTAH) in early 1944 which slipped the NEPTUNE by a month. Also, pure travelling time wasn't the only requirement. The LC were required in England for build up, training, refitting, etc. All of which takes time.

OTOH, when the landings at ANZIO went sour a reasonable number of LC (incl LST) were held in the Med to sustain the beachhead, despite the requirements of NEPTUNE, and others were released far later than they 'should' have been, so the initial concerns were probaby too conservative. The LC thing probably was a bit of a red-herring, but not as much as you might think. One of the reasons that 14th Army in Burma remained in a defensive stance for so long was the lack of adequate amphib capability. A planned op to retake the Anderman Is was cancelled, for example, and ops down the coast of Burma were cancelled or postponed (for a long time) for the same reason.

Regards
JonS

[Michael Emrys]

ISTR Churchill in his memoir moaning loudly that at this time LCs which were sent through the Med to the Far East could have been diverted for ops in the Med, but those nasty Yanks (in the person of the especially nasty Admiral King IIRC) insisted that they be sent on, where in the event they found little or no use at all. Or something like that. Anybody know anything about this? It's been years and years since I read that, and I may have a detail or two off, but that stuck in my mind pretty sharply.

[Jon G.]

I was thinking about raising the mid-war shortage of landing craft in a seperate thread, but it'll have to wait until tomorrow, when I am back in the company of my books.

The (alleged?) shortage of LC is often mentioned by writers in passing, without delving too deeply into it. If memory serves, Majdalany addresses the issue briefly in his classic Cassino book, where he states that it was 'only due to the close personal friendship between Roosevelt and Churchill' that 179 LC were found for the Anzio landings, enough to land two divisions and keep them supplied for a month. The limited number of available LC also set a very definite deadline for when the landing should launch: last full moon in January, which was the 22nd.

By the time of Anzio D-Day had a deadline of May 1st 1944, as my namesake mentions. This timeline was set at the 1943 Quebec meeting, and it was only revised later.

Keegan - also just in passing - IIRC mentions in The Times Atlas of the Second World War that the 14th Army in Burma had to cancel operations due to the shortage of landing craft. I don't know to which degree the evil admiral King can be blamed for the shortage of landing craft, but assuming that the majority of Allied LC were built for the USN (at Pacific yards, I presume), and further assuming that there was no shortage of LC in the Pacific, it may simply have been a problem of distribution.

[JonS]

... it may simply have been a problem of distribution.

Quite possibly. Wars are notoriously wasteful and inefficient. Still, the shortage - real or percieved - was a real constraint on planning ops in many, well 'all', theatres. Even NEPTUNE, the centrepiece of allied strategy in 1944 and the even to which all else was subordinated (even Bomber Command!), was constrained by a shortage of various LCs.

Regards
Jon