"deep" amphibious landings too easy

[mariandavid]

Now I understand that a few games and rather more turns does not equate to absolute fact - but am getting suspicious of the lack of penalty for amphibious invasions carried out far beyond land fighter cover. Obviously a South of France invasion in later 1944 with lots of escort carriers and hardly a LW unit within bomber, let along fighter range is easy.

But is seems that landing, maybe near Rome, or not far from Salerno when the nearest fighters are still in North Africa or Malta does not seem to generate the naval loss rates that one would expect. Whereas in the real world the fundamental concern of commanders was that the landing beaches be covered by fighters. Have no answer of course as yet!

[Baelfiin]

Check my AAR A pleasure cruise to northern Italy. Some changes coming to fix sea attrition in heavily contested sea hexes.

If I was the German player and saw some sneaky Allied player landing out of effective fighter range where my Luftwaffe can get at them... I would be licking my chops.

Its real easy to get in. Getting out is a whole different story.

[mariandavid]

Hope you are right - that was not my experience: Land far enough away from the main front (and from the main Axis airfields) on at least two adjacent beachheads from which at least two prospective airbases can be easily (one turn) reached, ensure that at least four divisions/brigades are in place. Accept one turn of air attack, transfer fighters and sit tight. Now maybe in my cases the AI behaved usually (I hope so!).

In any case glad that attrition increases will fix part of the problem.

[Joel Billings]

It's one thing against a good human player and another against the AI. At the moment, people looking to play against the AI and have a more competitive game should consider using a house rule where they don't invade more than 30 hexes away from an Allied airfield. In the first patch coming later this week, we've made Italian surrender in July and August less likely, but we have not yet looked at the issue of shipping losses when invading through enemy controlled sea hexes. It's possible this will need to be tweaked some, but I'm betting against us being able to get something into the first patch for this as it will take some additional analysis and testing and we just don't have the time before the Matrix holiday shutdown.

[Smirfy]

You have to be very careful with this in reality Germany were absoulutely useless in predicting Allied landings, Torch, Anvil, Husky, Anzio ,D Day, Slapstick, Baytown and even Salerno. Kesselring believed a landing against Rome wholly fesable. The Allies ran some numerous diversionary operations like "The man who never was" , "Fortitude" and in the case of Italy large numbers of Troops were involved in disarming Italians, I am not sure how much of that is modelled in game. Germany simply could not second guess which amphibious capabilities the Allies hand. You narrow down where the Allies can realistically land you have to narrow down realistically how much the Axis can defend. Of course you have to protect player form their gamey dark side but one has to be careful also.

So far in Game I have units routing from a besieged Palermo to the Mainland (????) A PG Division dug in in Messina with abundant flak and getting support from two armoured divisions across the straits (???) and no diminishing supply despite several attacks (???. As an aside are we absolutely sure Otranto is not a port? Since I have not got round to invading Italy yet these a bigger issues for me.

[Erik Rutins]

The tough part is that the Allies could invade pretty much anywhere they wanted. They did not because they were concerned about losing an invasion and having that potentially lose the war. In WITW you can succeed with a carefully planned and supported landing earlier than D-Day, but you can also go too early into the wrong place and lose badly. If you lose badly, you will likely never recover enough VPs for a victory before the end of the campaign, so these are significant risks.

Regards,

- Erik

[ratprince]

Gotta say, I LOVE that we can choose our landings anywere and the German reacts to it appropriately. Fairly amazingly well done programming....bravo...

Ive landed in the Balkans, Italy, all the islands, southern france, western france, northern france, the low countries...its awesome.... My next test will be to give the nordic countries a go.....hehe...

[ogre]

"Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone."
-Dwight D. Eisenhower, June 5, 1944.

[Carterjon]

I wonder if more German troops might have been released by High Command from other theaters if there had been an Allied landing in the North of Italy, rather than the meager historical reinforcements in response to Avalanche/Salerno? I seem to remember that the Avalon Hill Anzio game had conditional reinforcements if the Allies landed North of Rome, or perhaps I am mistaken. It has been 40 years since I last played it. Damned good game.

[Joel Billings]

You have a good memory. We don't have any activation rules, but the German player has the ability to move more units from other fronts, and can move units from the Eastern Front if they really see an opportunity for a major victory.

[Carterjon]

Yes, I was actually talking about the Battleground Italy scenarion, where you can't denude other theaters. In the Campaign game I see your point.

[76mm]

Ive landed in the Balkans...

I thought that the Balkans were off-limits in this game?

[sfbaytf]

Its been years but IIRC in Witp AE amphib invasions beyond B-24 range was not allowed and beyond fighter/good air cover range was a do at your own risk.

I find it hard to believe the allieds would risk an amphib invasion beyond air cover. Patton might, but he was not in overall command.

[LiquidSky]

Weren't the torch landings beyond air cover range?

[Devonport]

I believe Torch was covered by carriers, as indeed were other med invasions.

[Smirfy]

Kesselring believed the Allies would land North of Rome, remember the Germans had an Italian defection to contend with.

[ogre]

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

It's one thing against a good human player and another against the AI. At the moment, people looking to play against the AI and have a more competitive game should consider using a house rule where they don't invade more than 30 hexes away from an Allied airfield. In the first patch coming later this week, we've made Italian surrender in July and August less likely, but we have not yet looked at the issue of shipping losses when invading through enemy controlled sea hexes. It's possible this will need to be tweaked some, but I'm betting against us being able to get something into the first patch for this as it will take some additional analysis and testing and we just don't have the time before the Matrix holiday shutdown.

I have a long term recommendation, if ya'll haven't already considered it:

Ever thought about implementing a variable order of battle (OBs), to include locations? This would be a player option starting a game. Then the computer would choose from several OBs unknown to the player.

One problem with historical "starting points" is we have so much knowledge related to enemy dispositions. We didn't have that in real life. Granted, there is the fog of war when it comes to units...but we still have a general idea of dispositions.

With the variable OB, the player will need to do a better job at recon, and be careful on the bold moves. A weakly defended beach in historical OB context could be heavily defended in one of the variable OBs, and vice versa.

[ratprince]

Thats an excellent idea I wholly support.

Itd make multiplayer much more fun without God like fore knowledge

[RedLancer]

That sounds great in theory but do you have any idea how long producing a playable scenario takes? Adding randomness or multiple starting options would make the task nigh on impossible to complete in a reasonable timescale. There is also a group of people who see any deviation from history in a scenario setup as a failure on the part of the designer.

[zakblood]

replaying history is boring as you already know the outcome, doing better than history and still losing is even worse, that's why the editor is good so you have what if type battles or remake / alter the default ones, sticking to history just because it's history is for me a poor wargame, so glad you have the options to alter at least some of it with the menu items, or with the editor, all of it....

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