Failed Airborne Drop

[marion61]

Not sure how to classify this, and I've looked through the rules, but I had a problem with dropping an airborne division. It's a server game and I saved it on my ground movement phase right after the drop failed. I had the division on Crotone, set to drop 8 hexes from a supplied unit, plenty of transports, hit the drop button, saw one air intercept message, and then no drop and the unit had disappeared from Crotone. I had to go into the CR to find it, but it was stacked with it's parent HQ, and had lost about 2k troops, but that was it. Was this because it traces the route over land only? Why did it let me assign it to drop there if it were ineligible? And why did it try to execute the command, and why did it do what it did if the unit were ineligible?

[NotOneStepBack]

bumped so we can continue our game.

[Joel Billings]

I asked Gary about it and he sent me a note saying he'd need a save. I've downloaded the save and backup from the server and will let you know what I find out.

[Joel Billings]

I downloaded the save at the start of the Allied turn and that airborne division has the target set to 156, 273 which is a friendly hex on the front line next to a German unit, not Taranto. When I drop the unit it drops normally. I can't duplicate a drop on Taranto. The interesting thing is that the last save is in the Allied move phase after the drop, and the backup is from the start of the Allied turn in the Allied air execution phase. I can step the game back one save if you want me to so you can try this again. When we loaded back ups in WitE it would go back to the prior player's turn. I'm not sure in this case if it will go all the way back to the German turn or just back to the start of the Allied turn. So with that caveat, would you like me to back the game up a turn?

BTW, the odd thing is from the before and after saves, it looks like the airborne unit actually gained 2000 men, not lost 2000. The after save shows it with over 13k while it only had over 11k before the drop. This situation has no explanation that I can think of.

[NotOneStepBack]

UP to you mekore, I'd prefer not to replay the last Axis turn, but I understand if you want to go back that far, or if we have to....of course I'd prepare for this now if it reverted to my save...lol which would render the drop useless..

[marion61]

I could be mistaken, but I'm almost sure I targeted Taranto, I had the drop symbol in Taranto, and unless I was being totally retarded I would never have targeted a friendly hex for a drop. We can just continue the game as is and just fire Monty for getting drunk before planning Operation Heel. It was more of a diversion to force him to pull back before Christmas when the Pain Train comes ashore (yes, I know it's just sept in the game) [;)].

I just opened the turn and it shows I have only 11697 men, and when they dropped they had over 13k. That's why I thought I'd lost 2k men, and I can't imagine I would have ordered a drop there, there's absolutely no advantage to it.

I forgot one thing. I did save the game to the server when right after it happened so that's why there was an extra save. Hope you guys had a good Christmas.

[Joel Billings]

The save I downloaded that says it is Allied turn 12 in the air planning phase shows the 6th airborne with 11778 men and 144 guns. It's in Crotone with 50 prep points and has hex 156,273 targeted. I just realized that when I looked at the latest save from last night after the drop, that I was confused and looked at the wrong unit. Sure enough, in that save the 6th Airborne is located in the drop hex 156,273 and it has 11697 men and 144 guns so it dropped in the drop hex and didn't lose much. There is another unit that has over 13k and maybe you got the two units confused. Looking at the before and after saves it looks like there was no bug. If in fact you had targeted Taranto, or you saw it show Taranto targeted at some point, then this is something else, but from what I was looking at it dropped the unit where it was targeted, and no excessive loss took place.

I just looked at the turn 13 German save as you've gone on and I confirmed that the 6th airborne is where it was dropped and with the number of men it had in the save after the drop. I suggest in the future you take note of the target hexes, especially just before you drop, and if you see something go wrong let me know immediately.

[marion61]

I will, and thanks.

[ogre]

Thinking "computer" for the moment:

I find it too coincidental that it dropped on its parent HQ. I presume the code tracks the location of the parent unit location and drop location. It's possible a sequence of events occurred where the latter was unwittingly swapped with the former.