Who's around?

[Misconduct]

I still play, I just recently finished BoB as Germans.

[cohimbra]

Gloria, gloria all'Ipnorospo!
(Glory, glory to Ipnotoad!)
[:D]

[Cripes A Mighty]

ORIGINAL: kaybayray

Hey Cripes ! <S> Sir !


Some thoughts and suggestions to consider.

You are in January 44, you do control Italy correct?

Not knowing your full situation in ETO you should be in good position to form serious strikes from Italy in the many Airfields you should now control. If you have not done so I would suggest you move your Groups into northern Italy and stage Daylight Strategic Operations from there. In the MTO you have many P-38 Fighter Groups with long legs from the very start of operations in August 43. If you have them along with your B-17 and B-24 Bomber Groups in Italy you should be able to reach most of southern Germany and many industrial facilities out of reach of your forces in England.

In ETO your P-47 Fighter Groups you have had from the start should have received Drop Tank upgrades by end of November 43 at the latest which should significantly increase your radius of operations. They should also have been upgraded to the D-15 or D-25 series by now as well. You should be able to be reaching the Ruhr Valley industrial complex by this time. You should also have at least some P-51 Fighter Groups at this time. Do you not?

Regardless of whether the above is the situation or not I might also suggest that you look at a serious focus on Transportation and Supply targets such as Rail and Port facilities. The thought being, if you can not stop German Industry from building it you can greatly slow the delivery and effect its use against you.

You might read around the War Room for some thoughts and experiences posted by many in there to help you with your strategy.

Just some friendly thoughts, and as usual I can be totally wrong and way off the mark about anything at anytime. So don't trust me cause doing so could lead to your DOOM! [8D]


Hope you are having fun with this fantastic game!!


Best Regards,

KayBay [8D]

Thanks for the suggestions. Indeed I am enjoying the game.

In Italy, I am stuck at the Gustav Line and do not anticipate movement any time soon. The distance from the Foggia airfields is too great for effective bombing of the Reich at this time. I am using the 15th AF to hit oil targets in Rumania. The Brits and the tactical air units are hitting the Luftwaffe as best they can from Corsica and Sardinia.

As previously stated, I'm about to start hammering petroleum and pseudo-petroleum targets, but your suggestion to hit their associated transportation hubs is a good one. I'll begin to incorporate some of them into the plan as well. As always, I'll have my fighter aircraft seek dogfights at every opportunity. I hit them pretty hard when I do so. I get a few Luftwaffe squadrons to fail their morale check just about every turn. I consider this to be a very good thing.

Thanks again for the feedback.

[kaybayray]

Hey Cripes ! <S> Sir !

Thank you for your reply Sir. [8D]

I believe I can give you some more specific suggestions that may help you now that I better understand your situation.

If you are stuck at the Gustav line in January of 44 then I would suggest that you focus your MTO Air Groups on Italy proper and leave the work on the Continent to your Air Groups in England for the time being. I would suggest that you focus on disrupting the Axis Ground Forces on the Gustav line by disrupting their supply chain rather than engaging them directly.

I would further suggest you read up as it were on "Operation Avalanche" in the MTO (Mediterranean Theater of Operations). Destroying Rail, Fuel and Oil in Italy is the crux to breaking out. I would never recommend engaging Ground Forces directly as they are bristling with all manner of AA and it is quite costly to do so. Better to starve them into disruption IMHO. [8D]

It is my thought that you also need to cripple the Luftwaffe in Italy to be able to adequately carry out Operation Avalanche at this late date. Be aware that since Italy is still in the possession of the Axis then German Industry is benefiting tremendously from all that is in Italy proper. This being the case it is the likely situation that the Luftwaffe has a tremendous pool of AC and Pilots still at it's disposal. To inflict critical damage to the Luftwaffe by engaging them in the air you need to consider building "Seduction" Missions to gain Air Superiority in a localized manner where you can overwhelm and destroy them and kill their Pilots. Just destroying their AC on the Ground I do not believe will be sufficient. I would suggest you read from the actual records of the various Bomb Groups of this same period of the 8th AAF and how they dealt with the Luftwaffe with respect to this type of mission. Basically you build a Daylight Strategic Strike that is extremely well escorted, fly them along the coast at some distance off the coast and draw the Luftwaffe up into a numerically superior situation where you have the advantage. This is a bit tricky because you actually have to have a Target to do so in this game setting where the 8th AAF did not have such constraints. But I would suggest you read up a bit before you build one and do so for it can be quite costly if not done properly.

With respect to the ETO I would recommend caution when forming strikes and various operations on the Continent. The Luftwaffe is likely hunting you, fortunately the AI is commanding them. If it were a human you would be in Deep Guano as it were, IMHO. Humans are smart and learn quickly. [8D]

Just a few things to consider and study. Hope that they help you out with your campaign.

Later,
KayBay [8D]

[sanch]

I keep my eye on what's going on in here.

Spending a lot of time in a WitPAE PBEM game these days.

Was thinking about starting a new campaign when the new patch came out. But the patch hasn't appeared, and do have the 'I have to play this' bug, so will probably start even without the patch.

[bettysteve]

l bought this version about a year ago and only now l am going to give the campaign a run.
l do love how everyone calls the Talonsoft version the "original".
l played the C64 version U.S.A.A.F. by SSI a few times, every time as the allies.
l was still dragging it out till just before l found this uberversion,
bemoaning only having a start and target waypoint, and wishing for even 1 more ..hehehehe.
Every time l play it, l did the avgas/oil strategy but it bugs me that, even after Germany had none of either by early '44
their "fuel reserve 200" never ran out, and they could always find enough fuel to rip the bombers to bits every mission.

read pretty much every post here, thanks for the hints and tips and all the accumulated hours of "playtesting" by all the fans of,
what really is, a niche game. your average gamer just couldn't comprehend the time required to complete the 700 turns and how long it takes to "program" your turn. this is really going to mess with my steel panthers world at war time hehehehe (originally Panzer Strike the 1987 wargame of the year... that one l still drag out and play "ring road" on the apple emmulator for a couple hours killing time).