Sicily to Brenner Pass Revised

[larryfulkerson]

Here's my losses so far. I've been seeing in the combat results where the ground unit I attacked isn't getting any damage at all and I'm
loosing about 10 or 15 planes each attack to the enemy AS. I'm going to have to put the war on hold and take care of the Axis air force
before I do anything else evidently. The problem is that many of my planes are in reorg and so the airfield attacks will have to wait until
they recover.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the condition of the planes. Lots of them are yellow tired but so far nobody has turned red. I'm trying to rest them if they fall
below 50% in readiness. If they are between 50 and 65 or so I put them on CS and if they are 70 or above then I fly them manually to
attack something or other. I don't have very many Spitfire IX's but I'm swimming in P-40's, which I would rather not use on AS because
they are not the best knife in the drawer. The P-40's and Spitfire V's are mainly my second line AS fighters.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the T6 front lines. The only progress is being made on the East Coast. The British are in the last stages of mopping up and
they intend to press north.

[larryfulkerson]

Hey Steve: Elmer is still using his HQ units on the front lines. I thought somebody was going to look into that. I could be wrong.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the supply situation in T6. It's adequate for combat but not much more.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the front lines in T7 and my strategic plans. I have found a hole in the German lines and I've got some units traversing through
there to the north to wrap around the German lines and see if we can't make the hole a lot bigger. Maybe roll up the German lines
and put an end to the struggle on this island. I can dream.

[sPzAbt653]

Elmer is still using his HQ units on the front lines. I thought somebody was going to look into that.

I remember the discussion, but can't recall if any change was made.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's my T7 moves. I've surrounded some units and gotten behind some others. I'm still worried about the West side but it's looking
better with the fresh infusion of some British units to help out. The East coast is doing well. The middle is still up in the air.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's my T8 moves. As you can see I'm driving north and trying to cut off the Germans from their supply sources. It seems to be going
rather well at the moment.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the T9 front lines. The German stack in the middle is almost gone now and the recon elements are out driving around pressing
north and west and the West side is less of a problemo than it was. It's going well.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the T10 front lines. We're in mop up mode and I'm getting close to the north coast. I'm headed for Palermo for the expected
reinforcements that are due already.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a closeup of the East axis of advance. I have run into a huge stack of German stuff on my way to Messina and it's going to be a
while before I can reduce it because of the supply level. But I'm getting close to Messina and I'm wondering if the Messina garrison is
what I have surrounded. It would be a good thing if so.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the T11 front lines. The West side German front line came apart when they started chasing my recon elements to the west of
them.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a closeup of the East coast road from Messina looking south. I'm thinking I can bulldoze my way through the Germans and
capture Messina if it's truely empty. I doubt it.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the T13 front lines. It's almost over because I'm on the verge of capturing Messina.

[larryfulkerson]

I captured Messina in T13 and now in T14 I get this screen at the beginning of the turn.

[larryfulkerson]

I've finally gotten into the kind of situation I really like. I've moved some arty into range to do an airfield attack on some ME-109's. I'm
hoping to get the entire squadron so I'm gonna do a three-dot attack. One or more. Whatever it takes to get rid of the planes.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the combat results of my arty strike on the Axis planes. The Axis losses are sufficiently low to give me a suspecion that the game
engine used only the 8" guns in the strike. I'm thinking that at 5 hexes away that nothing else could reach. I'll have to look into that
after I dismiss the combat results screen.

EDIT: Yes, as I suspected, the game engine used only the Long Toms and the other arty tubes had a range of 4 and couldn't reach.

[larryfulkerson]

So for round two I moved the arty unit to within 4 hexes and it used all the guns and evaporated the ME-109's.

[larryfulkerson]

I didn't want to wait for the British units to recover and went immediately across the narrow sea and landed at Reggio and I'm going to do
a three-dot attack to get the supply point. I need to move some more units to Messina to get them ready to sail next turn to beef up the
toe-hold.