[dragoon500ly]

I'm not sure if the program was written for one of the Beltway Bandits or if its was a home brewed version, I've heard rumors of both for several years.

Churchill's take on a southern landing was his notion that the "soft underbelly" of Europe would be easier to invade than the Atlantic Wall. The problem with attacking through the Balkans (Greece and Yugoslavia) was that the Allies would have been fighting through mountainious terrain with little or no critical infrastructure. And after fighting in Italy, the Chiefs-of-Staff were not ready for another mountain campaign.

The issue with an initial landing in southern France was that it too would not hurt the Germans quickly, better terrain, but still a long way to the critical points.

The Dieppe raid proved that attacking the harbors (and their defenses) would be a bloody affair. While Churchill favored the concept of the Mulberry artificial harbors, the USN view was that they could deliver more tonnage over the beaches by using large numbers of LSTs (and they were right!).

Overlord's planners were left with two basic choices, Pas de Calis was a short hop across the Channel, had favorable terrain and had the attraction of being the shortest route into Germany's industrial heartland, the Ruhr. The Germans realized this and to describe the 15th Army's defenses in PdC as "formidable" is classic understatement.

Normandy was chosen because it was a less likely target, the defenses were not as built up as PdC, there was a large port nearby (Cherbourg), the ground was well suited for building airstrips and the bocage (hedgerows) offered excellent defensive terrain against German counterattacks (and boy did that one come back to haunt the planners!).