.....The Germans were not inside it until after the destruction and then held out to the last inside.
Hi, folks!
That was the sadness of the whole Montecassino campaign. Allied intelligence utterly failed to communicate the correct info to the Italian campaign commanders.
Montecassino was a monastery built in the early Middle Ages, some archaelogists hold, over the fundation of a an ancient pre-Roman temple dedicated to the Earth gods.
The Germans did not establish their defences inside the monastery up until it was a pile of rubble. Apparently, Field Marshal Kesselring did not want another argument with the Vatican. When the monastery was finally wiped out by yet another Allied aerial bombing, the rubble, now abandoned by the surviving monks and positioned high on top of the hill, became a natural easy-to-defend fortress. No clergy man had to be relocated, it was there abandoned and ready to be put to use.
So easy to defend that it cost dearly to the advancing Allied forces, which were swamped there for months, unable to conquer it without having to face frightening losses at each new attack.
This also had dire consequences in slowing considerably the Italian campaign and the freeing of the whole country. Probably WWII in Italy could have ended in 1944 without Montecassino.
Rami's idea of creating a Montecassino scenery using Xavierb's fortress objects is great, but it must be kept in mind it was a monastery and not a military building. The best thing would be designing it from scratch, which I think it should be easy to the many talented SOH members who created already fabolous addons. Just think of Brunosk's Malta!!
As I can see from Devildog's post, there is abundant info on the Net and great pics of Montecassino before and after the bombings.
This would be perfect: a dual scenery of Montecassino before and after the bombing with all the action taking place around the destroyed monastery.
Cheers!
KH :ernae:
