ultradave(WA) vs scout1(Ger), '43-'45 Campaign (Turn 7, Aug 19, '44) NO EF

[scout1]

A new game against Dave where I'm the Germans again, but NO EF ..... Only fair he gets to give the thrashing I deserve ....
We're up to turn 7, and his Allied boys nearly own Sicily. Fearing an Italian collapse, OKW has order several units into Italy to bolster its defense as well as order several SS units to Munich for advanced mountain warfare training ....

[ultradave]

Palermo surrenders on turn 8 and the noose is closing around Messina. So nice to see all those routed R banners scattered about

[scout1]

ORIGINAL: ultradave

Palermo surrenders on turn 8 and the noose is closing around Messina. So nice to see all those routed R banners scattered about

You realize the 'R' banners stand for "REALLY SPECIAL"

[ultradave]

Really special (as in really special rearward runners?)

Ok, I can afford to be cocky at this moment. Things will get tougher, but probably not as tough as the previous go round.

[scout1]

Going after Sardinia and Corsica are we .... ?

Not a bad idea, several of my "still allied/axis Italian units" are static ......

[ultradave]

First time I haven't seen the Italians surrender as soon as the Allies step ashore.

[scout1]

We've been giving motivational talks ......

[Seminole]

ORIGINAL: ultradave

First time I haven't seen the Italians surrender as soon as the Allies step ashore.

Which surrender condition did he meet?
Invade the mainland or take all of Sicily?

Never mind just reread that Messina fell on turn 8.
Is he on the mainland too?

[ultradave]

No not yet. Just all of Sicily and forces ashore on both Corsica and Sardinia (combined with a little bit of sarcasm and taunting )

[scout1]

Go AWAY or I shall taunt you another time ...... ;>

[scout1]

Actually I believe it is "A second time" .....

[ultradave]

After a pause in the action to build up invasion forces, the Allies are ashore in the arch of Italy, Taranto has fallen to the Allies, and a British corps is working it's way up the toe.

So far light German resistance. I'm sure they'll be on their way over from Salerno and Naples and Rome.

[ultradave]

The toe. The Br 6th Armored is not on board ships. There is an Italian unit underneath it that arrived after the British liberated the port.

[ultradave]

Forgot to get a picture this turn, but a bunch more troops came ashore, Brindisi surrounded and the invasion area expanded in all directions.

[ultradave]

Haven't posted in this one for quite a while, even though we've been playing at a slow pace. Since we last checked in, the Allies, (me), after Invading in the Taranto area, reinforced the Italy invasion, captured Naples and then encountered the stiff resistance line north and northeast of Naples. Tough going and we've only managed to crack a couple of hexes since then. Picture attached of the current situation in Italy.

The bigger news is that events of the last 2 turns have most likely cost me the game as it will be very difficult to recover from a debacle of a failed invasion in Normandy. Two divisions made it ashore in one hex. Other than that it was a total disaster.

Losses:
101st Abn Div
82d Abn Div
1st Abn Div

US XIX Corps - 2 Inf Divisions heavy losses did not land
US V Corps - 2 Inf Divisions heavy losses did not land
Br I Corps - 2 Inf Divisions heavy losses landed but evacuated after rest of invasion failed.

3 more invasion hexes, no landings

1 TF destroyed
2 TF 99% damage (probably the reason for the non-landings)
1 TF 57% damage

I had (I thought) good air cover over the channel, and was bombing the heck out of the rail network to isolate the beaches. Looking at the screen image, it seems he guessed Normandy - looking at those stacks on the coast. I had mixed my bombing and recon around prior to the invasion, hoping to not give it away. I'll let Scott comment on that. Next post has a picture of the invasion fleet before evacuating back to England. Regroup time, but with that severe damage to the invasion task forces I don't see another attempt very soon (not sure what comes next - this hasn't happened before).

I guess I need to find a copy of Ike's failure message that he had written up the night of June 5th. I'll be needing to issue it.

[ultradave]

Normandy invasion fleet:

[Helpless]

1 TF destroyed
2 TF 99% damage (probably the reason for the non-landings)
1 TF 57% damage

This is very big damage to 3 TFs in the area. Do you have a save when it happened?

[Joel Billings]

I've downloaded the last two saves off the server. I think these are 1 turn after the initial invasion.

First off, going by the victory points, the German player has actually lost the game due to his ignoring high command garrison requirements (we should have an auto end "you're fired" option for cases like this). Unless you agreed ahead of time to ignore garrison points, the German player has given up over 3000 VPs by not following garrison requirements. The Allied player could sit back and bomb and win the game if not the war.

As for the invasion, I'm basing this on what I see in the save the turn after you invaded. You invaded in contested sea zones with 3 German nav interdiction. Le Havre is an undamaged port and the Germans are flying some nav patrol in the area, while it looks like you had only auto nav patrols and almost no AS over the water (your amphib HQs will help some, but you had no land based fighter cover over your ships). There is one amphib HQ back in England with the Canadian divisions in the pre-save with 52 prep points. Was this force delayed because of low prep? What was the prep of the units that did invade? There is one amphib HQ next to Le Havre, which with fort level 4 and the lack of damage to the port, is going to cost you a lot of damage. I just looked at your ADs and you have only 250 a/c in the 9th Tac AF. It took me awhile to figure out why your a/c count is so low in your Tac AFs. You have over 4500 a/c (30% of your total a/c) in the national reserve (and these should mostly be in England to support your invasion). You need to move these into airfields. You need to bomb the ports and railyards, get air and naval superiority, and set up interdiction on and behind the battlefield. Missing all those a/c it's no wonder you haven't been able to do any of these things.

Given the save is 1 turn after the invasion, I can't tell how strong the German ground defenses were when the invasion hit.

[Seminole]

The bigger news is that events of the last 2 turns have most likely cost me the game as it will be very difficult to recover from a debacle of a failed invasion in Normandy.

When did you make the landing? I'm presuming from the Italian action that this took place in '44, but just curious how early you got it off, and what the weather was like.

[ultradave]

Hmm, so in sum, I had no idea what I was doing.

One TF was delayed yes. That was total oversight on my part - or bad vision as I thought all was ready. They were still under but being a server game I was committed (or should have been committed )

On reflection, I imagine I could have CTRL-ALT-DEL and killed the program and then started the turn over. Didn't occur to me at the time.

National Reserve? - Doh! Live and learn. So much to learn in this game. Now that I explore more deeply in a solo game I see what I should have been doing. Finding things like that make me feel like a complete dope. Or lazy. Monty has probably taken over for Ike now as Supreme Commander.

Not sure what to do next - maybe we should start a new scenario and ####can this one. It won't be much fun from here on out.

Thanks for the review and for doing all that exploring into it.

Invasion was June 3rd turn, I believe, good weather then and June 10th turn.

ORIGINAL: Joel Billings

I've downloaded the last two saves off the server. I think these are 1 turn after the initial invasion.

First off, going by the victory points, the German player has actually lost the game due to his ignoring high command garrison requirements (we should have an auto end "you're fired" option for cases like this). Unless you agreed ahead of time to ignore garrison points, the German player has given up over 3000 VPs by not following garrison requirements. The Allied player could sit back and bomb and win the game if not the war.

As for the invasion, I'm basing this on what I see in the save the turn after you invaded. You invaded in contested sea zones with 3 German nav interdiction. Le Havre is an undamaged port and the Germans are flying some nav patrol in the area, while it looks like you had only auto nav patrols and almost no AS over the water (your amphib HQs will help some, but you had no land based fighter cover over your ships). There is one amphib HQ back in England with the Canadian divisions in the pre-save with 52 prep points. Was this force delayed because of low prep? What was the prep of the units that did invade? There is one amphib HQ next to Le Havre, which with fort level 4 and the lack of damage to the port, is going to cost you a lot of damage. I just looked at your ADs and you have only 250 a/c in the 9th Tac AF. It took me awhile to figure out why your a/c count is so low in your Tac AFs. You have over 4500 a/c (30% of your total a/c) in the national reserve (and these should mostly be in England to support your invasion). You need to move these into airfields. You need to bomb the ports and railyards, get air and naval superiority, and set up interdiction on and behind the battlefield. Missing all those a/c it's no wonder you haven't been able to do any of these things.

Given the save is 1 turn after the invasion, I can't tell how strong the German ground defenses were when the invasion hit.