[CaptHawkeye]

Originally Posted by August

Gee too bad we didn't have you leading our troops right?

Maybe you could post something relevant instead of posturing drivel? But we'll just have to see about that won't we.

Originally Posted by joegrundman

this is somewhat revisionist too, and many in the free world do not cherish those calling Churchill an idiot.

That's too bad for them I guess. If it insults them pointing out that their greater leader wasn't PERFECT, like ya know, not superhuman, then that's hilarious. If you want to talk about REAL revisionist history that is.

He was no great strategist, but by his intransigence and leadership the war was fought by the British Commonwealth alone for a year before anyone else cared to join in, and let us not forget that every other party that was subsequently at war with Germany was not troubled to do so until the Axis declared war on them.

Erhem, not really, the League of Nations declared war on the Axis just after the invasion of Poland. So you might want to add France and the other allied powers still in the leauge to that.

So up their own a$$es were their heads. Had Britain, and Churchill, been more like these other countries, perhaps we would have signed the deal Hitler wanted to offer us.

Unlikely, the British populace HATED Hitler and they HATED Nazi Germany. Why do you think Churchill even got into office while Chamberlian was ditched in favor of him?

As for a 1943 invasion of France, it was scotched because Germany was not the only party that was not yet ready, and furthermore the Russians had not yet had time to destroy most of the German army.
Yet the Russians needed something to be done by the Western Allies who appeared to Stalin to be enjoying the show a touch too much, so Italy was chosen as a softer touch than German controlled France.

Here lies the basic assumption that France was the "harder target" than Italy was. Let's crunch some numbers then shall we?

"1.200+ LSTs available in April 1943 - 233 were used in Overlord
2. 991+ LCTs available in April 1943 - 835 were used in Overlord.
3. 220+ LCI(L)s available 4/1943; 72 were used in Overlord.
4. 7,000 Higginns boats of all types available 4/1943; only 7 were available by Sept 1943 due to the Med landings of Sicily and Italy. Overlord needed only a little less than 2,000.

Would you look at that? Sicily was a treamendous waste of manpower and time.

By May of 1943, USAAF forces deployed in Europe alone were 2,413 fighters.

The Luftwaffe had 1,310 fighters in total.

So in just one front, the USAAF outnumbered the entire collective Luftwaffe more than 2 to 1. Fancy that. They have so many aircraft they don't even know what to do with all of them. While the 1943 Luftwaffe is impotent and exhausted. They can't even come close matching the numbers of Allied aircraft on ONE FRONT.

So if you want to talk about revisionist history, talk about collective efforts by "feel good" high school text book writers to make Churchill seem like a god-like commander who never made a mistake and always came out on top. Make him seem even marginally competant in military matters for sheer comedy. Churchill was a politician, and whenever he pushed his views on the military bad things happened.