But, but but, I thought I got the five division for a March/April Brimstone from one of your posts I'm so confused.carl wrote: You have a source for the details of the original Brimstone plan?
Actually, I have nothing on Op Brimstone, but I would be very interested if you have more details. All I found was this:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/36037300/WWII ... History-II
and this:
http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA ... ily-1.html in particular see pages 7 & 8.
carl wrote: Looking at the map ...
Now you have shamed me into actually looking at a map instead of relying on my all too feeble memory. And low and behold Sardinia is farther west and south than I thought. Assuming the major Allied objective on Sardinia would be Cagliari, Sardinia may have been better situated with respect to the Tunis airfields than Sicily. Advantage Allies for Husky, Axis for Brimstone. The trump for Husky is Malta, good airfields a very short distance from the landing beaches. The Sicilian airfields would have been in range against Brimstone, as would Rome. I think LOC to Sardinia is not as good as Sicily, but maybe not fatally so.
IIRC, always a dubious prospect, the first use was in the Pacific in October 1944 and in Europe in December 1944. Maybe earlier in Britain against the V1, but still no earlier than mid 1944.Carl wrote: I am unsure the Proximity fuzes were issued to the Allied navy in the Med in early 43.
I think you are right. The advantages of a Sardinian operation over Sicily don't seem clear enough for the additional risk. There was no gain in destabilizing Italy. The Med shipping lanes are still exposed to the LW. The air advantage seems a bit tenuous. The threat to the Germans, was about the same. It seems that there was a logistic (shipping) disadvantage (see the second link above). After Sardinia, it seems the Allies would have had to invade Sicily anyway.Carl wrote: ... The changes look 'complex'