Board Thread:Timeline Discussions/@comment-7559950-20130911012534/@comment-3428312-20150327022218

 I use the quote function so as to prevent confusion in this thread.

 No, you never did and I’ve made it clearly I’ve read what you posted by quoting it in my responses. It is very clear, however, that you refuse to read what I post. Even when I cite sources, you seem to think your own historical bias are more correct.

 Which has nothing to do with the point you originally raised (German-Western fighting within Italy).

 I want to see you cite a resource to back that claim, as there were multiple US divisions still arriving in Europe at the end of the conflict (106th, IIRC, arrived in May for example). I also want to see proof that American divisions were broken up for manpower reasons.

 Except my own links disprove this claim, in that they were seeking to at least partially reform some units prior to Bagration. My links also note the reason they had to breakdown units and combine them was due to a lack of manpower; they couldn’t maintain both the infantry, artillery, and mechanized units at proper strength. I haven’t posted another source yet, but it was also from Osprey and mentioned how 10% of Soviet frontline strength by the time of Berlin was conscripted Poles.



 Then you haven’t bloody well read them, or refuse to accept your own preconceived notions are wrong. As a matter of fact, the third one SPECIFICALLY SAYS IT WAS BECAUSE OF MANPOWER DEFICIENCIES. Just because it disagrees with what you think doesn’t matter, it’s a researched book that relies on official sources. That trumps whatever you can claim.



 Again, have you ever looked at a topographic map of Italy? The Alps separate the Lombardy Plains (The closest one) from Austria by quite a bit. As to your suggestion that the Western Allies pushed into Austria from Italy, that is a complete and utterly wrong statement and shows you haven’t researched this area as any situational map of the time of VE-Day would show that Austria was not breeched by Western forces from Italy.



 Bringing up landing craft does not disprove my point. Southern France is hilly terrain-which is easily defensible terrain. The Western Allies are not dumb enough to invade solely in Southern France, simply because they know the Germans can concentrate forces in an optimal area for defensive.



 By the time April had arrived, both sides had already focused their forces upon the general area around Kursk. Both sides had already invested too much into the strategic area to simply give up. Holding/Taking Ukraine is a very strategic objective, after all. As to attacking North or South, that still engenders a Soviet defeat; Manstein was in prepared fortifications with Panzer forces to the South while German lines to the North were also fortified and could be reinforced with the mobile reserve created in this ATL.



 Actually, one fifth of the Red Army was in the general area (See above paragraph on how both sides were t oo committed to give up on the area for the campaign season). Dealing a vast blow to that much of the Soviet military, combined with their declining conscription amounts (See up thread OTL Soviet data before you attempt to dispute) lays the seeds for disaster.



<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> As to the armistice, as I noted multiple times previously in this thread and even cited a link for with primary sources, Stalin was floating the idea of a peace along Brest-Litovsk before Kursk.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;">

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"> Again, I think you need to study the Italian theater. In OTL, several German divisions were diverted to face Husky and arrived successfully.