What would happen if in 1943, just prior to the Husky landings, Operation Mincemeat wasn't 'swallowed' by the Germans? Would this actually have had much of an impact on the landings at all (would the Allies, if they caught onto the fact that Germany didn't buy the deception, call off the operation (I doubt it)), or would they have gone through with the Sicily invasions anyway, but with far more loss of life? In any case, would this have any greater impact on the overall war as a whole (a delayed/advanced D-Day) or would history have progressed pretty much as in OTL.
Mincemeat not swallowed?
- Thread starter RichMill
- Start date
For the landings to go ahead requires two different PoDs:
1) The Germans smell a rat.
2) The British don't realise the Germans didn't buy it.
Now #1 is easy enough I suppose, but #2 is much harder, because the British have a significant advantage in running such scams, plus shifting forces around on the scale the Germans did is kind of impossible to hide, so if they didn't, the British would know they'd been cracked.
1) The Germans smell a rat.
2) The British don't realise the Germans didn't buy it.
Now #1 is easy enough I suppose, but #2 is much harder, because the British have a significant advantage in running such scams, plus shifting forces around on the scale the Germans did is kind of impossible to hide, so if they didn't, the British would know they'd been cracked.
So what would happen in this case; would the Allies call off the attacks? Postpone them? Move them around and actually invade somewhere like Greece?
In that case, how long would it be put off for; long enough to make any noticeable changes to the war overall?
I think the Allies needed to do something. If they'd cancelled it altogether they risked compromising Ultra. The Germans would have had to check thier security. How did the Allies know it hadn't been swallowed? A quick reworki g of the plan to attack Sardinia would have been a massive undertaking, as would a landing on the Italian mainland. They may have had to go for Greece as the least worst option.
hipper
Banned
Opening up the Mediterranean to convoy was the major strategic objective of the Mediterranean campaign.
Airfields in Sicily allowed the axis to attack the convoys with fighter escorts in the Sicilian narrows
The invasion would have gone ahead in the face of almost any reinforcement of Sicily imho
Cheers hipper
Airfields in Sicily allowed the axis to attack the convoys with fighter escorts in the Sicilian narrows
The invasion would have gone ahead in the face of almost any reinforcement of Sicily imho
Cheers hipper
They'd have learned both from Ultra, and from checking on German troop movements.
Greece is miles worse than Sardinia as a landing zone, and is even further from where they actually want to go, not helped by the atrocious transport network.
Nothing much. MINCEMEAT's effects were modest, and HUSKY was in no way dependent on MINCEMEAT as OVERLORD was on BODYGUARD.
The invasion goes ahead, Axis resistance is a bit stronger, Allied casualties are a bit higher. Maybe 1,000-2,000 more K/W/MIA. The conquest of Sicily takes 3-4 days longer. (That's a 10% extension, not trivial.)
What one must realize is that MINCEMEAT was a cheap operation. The entire cost was a few days' work by Montagu and his colleague, a few hours work by Sir Archibald Nye in composing the key document, a few hours diversion for HM Submarine Seraph. And for that, they averted hundreds or thousands of additional casualties.