Sicily to Brenner Pass Revised

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the T15 front lines. The Germans are down to just a couple of hexes in the east. I'm still moving and fighting in the west too.
I've done about 20 airfield strikes and have evaporated about a dozen German air units and the German INT has fallen off to only
once in a while during a turn.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the western end of the island. Supply is really low in this area.

[Telumar]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

ORIGINAL: Telumar
Steve, what have you done?

See for yourself:

So um........I don't see what the matter is w/ that unit. What's wrong?

There's missing a line in the eqp list.

[larryfulkerson]

OK.......I finally captured Messina at the end of T17 and now at the beginning of T18 I get this screen:

[larryfulkerson]

Hey something new appeared in the game. I now have a dedicated RR unit. I'm wondering if it would help anything to split that bad boy
into two or three separate RR units. Could I repair more rail that way?

[larryfulkerson]

So I'm moving units and looking around the map etc. and I see this Axis unit embarked on the water pretty near one of my ports, so I'm
guessing that it's trying to evacuate from the island back to the mainland of Italy. I think I should kill it with some air strikes.

[larryfulkerson]

So now that I'm done w/ the island I'm starting to look for a good place to invade the mainland and I thought I'd best consider where the
expected reinforcements are coming in at and when and I see two good places, potentially, to land near. I thought I'd best take a look
at those places where reinforcements are coming in at.

[larryfulkerson]

The very first expected reinforcement is an AA unit on the island of Sardinia. I may not be getting that one for a long time. I don't expect
to have to invade Sardinia until after I have some ships to back me up. If ever.

[larryfulkerson]

The other two places where I get expected reinforcements is depicted on the picture below. I'm thinking that getting the 170,211 group
is by far the best place to go next because of the three hexes next to each other w/ no interfering Germans visible and there ARE
Germans present in the southmost group. So even though the south group is within arty range of Sicily I still like the north place better.
I guess I really need to float somebody up there to do a recon of the candidate hexes to see if it's feasable to invade w/o doing some
aerial softening up first. I'd like to at least drop the bridges around that area to keep the inflow of opposition to a minimum.

[sPzAbt653]

ORIGINAL: Telumar

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

ORIGINAL: Telumar
Steve, what have you done?

See for yourself:

So um........I don't see what the matter is w/ that unit. What's wrong?

There's missing a line in the eqp list.

Yes, the ghost equipment.

I added in the new equipment file, and then went back and made all the adjustments. Along the way I started noticing these 'vacant' slots. It doesn't seem to have any effect on anything. [&:]

[sPzAbt653]

Hey something new appeared in the game. I now have a dedicated RR unit. I'm wondering if it would help anything to split that bad boy into two or three separate RR units. Could I repair more rail that way?

Easy way to find out - split it and see how the percentages change. [;)]

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

ORIGINAL: Telumar
There's missing a line in the eqp list.

Yes, the ghost equipment.

I added in the new equipment file, and then went back and made all the adjustments. Along the way I started noticing these 'vacant' slots. It doesn't seem to have any effect on anything. [&:]

Is there possibly some kind of piece of equipment that's supposed to go into that slot and isn't doing it for some reason. Invalid ID or
something like that. Is this a bug or just an oddity that TOAW does sometimes?

[larryfulkerson]

In T18 we get some new formations and one of them that's new is the 1st British Airborne Division. Not all of it is parked on an airfield
and will have to be moved to such and then will be available for airlift next turn. However, some of the division is airliftable THIS turn
and I need to figure out the best way to use these assets. So what I'd like to do is something like D-Day where the airborne is dropped
the day before the main assault to 'prepare the battlefield' by grabbing important bridges, road junctions, etc. and then when the
trigger is pulled the invaders might have a better chance of getting ashore and staying there.

[larryfulkerson]

The entire 45th Division is in reorg. Is this an event driven thing or did the HQ unit fail a morale check? I don't see the grounds to
suspect a failed morale check, hence my question. So if I was going to use this formation for invading I wouldn't get the use of them
at the invasion beaches for at least three turns counting this one ( T18 ). I'm going to have to plan ahead in order to orchestrate the
dropping of the paratroopers w/ the invading forces.

EDIT: Oh, and the only port off the island is at Messina. So a max of 9 units per turn can be sea conveyed. It's becoming obvious
that the invasion can't be made TODAY, right now so I'm thinking maybe sailing a unit up to the candidate beaches to do recon, to see
if there are any Germans on the beaches defending. I could probably make it ashore if there's nobody there, for instance.

[larryfulkerson]

I've given all the airplanes their missions and the last two are spares and I'm thinking of putting them on INT missions depending on the
condition of the air force after the first combat round. It there's a lot of planes in reorg then I'll need them to take up the slack somewhere
else maybe. I like about 1/2 CS and 1/2 INT depending on whether or not the enemy is moving a lot of stuff around. Or whether or not
I REALLY need the CS at the moment. I usually use dedicated CS missions for those 'must' moments. These planes can be put on so
many bridge busting missions now because I'm confident that I've blunted the edge on the Axis air force sword. I've been doing
airfield strikes each turn so far and several Axis air units have evaporated and there's only a handful left, mostly Italian fighters. So I can
dedicate some CAP for each mission and usually the bombers get through.

[larryfulkerson]

Prior to the capture of Messina the 82nd Airborne Division was given the mission of converting some of those enemy hexes and they
are the process of doing that, that I need to divert them to airfields and get them rested up and ready for dropping on the
mainland of Italy somewhere.

[larryfulkerson]

One of the attacks during the first round is going to be some of my arty tubes firing at targets on the mainland and I'm actually hoping
to get hits on the command groups in the stack. Anything else destroyed, some arty tubes for instance, is just frosting on the cake.

[Telumar]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

ORIGINAL: Telumar
There's missing a line in the eqp list.

Yes, the ghost equipment.

I added in the new equipment file, and then went back and made all the adjustments. Along the way I started noticing these 'vacant' slots. It doesn't seem to have any effect on anything. [&:]

Is there possibly some kind of piece of equipment that's supposed to go into that slot and isn't doing it for some reason. Invalid ID or
something like that. Is this a bug or just an oddity that TOAW does sometimes?

Got it. In the xml export there's a misnumbering of equipment ID's:



One could edit the xml and import the oob back into the scenario, although i believe there were some issues with objectives and xml import. Or you go to the force editor, delete all equipment items that are listed below the ghost slot and reassign the deleted equipment again. The first assigned equipment goes into the empty slot. However, as this "bug" apparently does no harm, you could also leave it that way.

[larryfulkerson]

And another thing.......I seem to have a memory of destroying the Axis unit that floated where THIS one is floating. Marsala doesn't
have an anchorage so I'm guessing that Elmer sent the unit from somewhere to Marsala, maybe expecting the port to be there and
it isn't. Is this a bug in Elmer or just one of those things that TOAW does from time to time. It IS possible to walk ashore on the turn
after you arrive in the invasion hex if the hex is empty so I had to send some blocking units to Marsala to block any subsequent turn
invasions.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Telumar
Got it. In the xml export there's a misnumbering of equipment ID's:


One could edit the xml and import the oob back into the scenario, although i believe there were some issues with objectives and xml import. Or you go to the force editor, delete all equipment items that are listed below the ghost slot and reassign the deleted equipment again. The first assigned equipment goes into the empty slot. However, as this "bug" apparently does no harm, you could also leave it that way.

So this is an error in the evil editor then ( the export function ) ?