Adventures in Italy

[devoncop]

30th April 1944

A quick review....so we now have reached turn 85 and are about to enter May 1944 with a year to go.

The positives :

1) We are matching, if not slightly bettering Kesselring's historic performance to date in defending Italy and by extension the Reich. Rome is still under German control albeit indefensible in anything other than the short term due to the geography of the area being in open flat countryside.

2) The German and Italian troops have inflicted heavy losses on Allied Divisions during the multiple port assaults (both unsuccessful and successful). The Allies can certainly bear such losses but in VP terms the losses are useful.

3) The reinforcement situation improves markedly from turn 86 onwards and it changes from receiving understrength battalions to full strength Infantry Divisions and Heavy Armour regiments. This is very much needed.

4) The terrain situation improves also for the defenders after the Allies pass Foggia airbase in the East and Rome in the West. The passes through the fortified Gustav Line are multiple but the ones to the west, as Larry has noted are a road to nowhere as they lead away from his target of the Brenner Pass in the extreme North east. Those on the East have to cross multiple rivers and are the closest for German reinforcements to reach.


The Negatives:

1) My air assets, never strong are now pretty much absent and the capture of Foggia by Larry is the last nail in their coffin. Murderous interdiction can just be assumed from now on unless I mention something different.

2) The defences on the Gustav Line which the Allies are just about reaching are rudimentary at best. Whilst I have extricated some decent quality units from the breakthrough around Salerno and Taranto the units themselves are only battalion sized with artillery support. This is clearly inadequate.

3) Larry may have lost his airmobile capacity since the destruction of the US Rangers but I cannot be sure and I already have problems caused by blown bridges on my supply route so the prospect of further para drops is not encouraging.

Overall I have problems moving into the last year of the war but I also have reasons for optimism....we shall see.....

[larryfulkerson]

I've run into the Gustov Line on the west side. It's got entrenchments and the
terrain is terrible. I wonder if there's a way around it somewhere. Maybe a back
door.

[larryfulkerson]

I've got two mopping up attacks scheduled and there's some aerial bombardment of
the arty row on the east side. This is just before I pull the trigger for the
resolution of the combats.

[devoncop]

3rd May 1944

I managed to cause an aggregate 35% loss from sustained bombardment to 5th Indian and 5th British Division forward elements on the East coast but there is major pressure on this roadblock line. The Gustav Line is quite a bit further North in the East than in the West so there is still some leeway in the East.

In the West I am unsure if Larry will bother pushing West through the line where it meets the coast but I Would not be too unhappy if he did.

This turn the 7 battalion strong Decima Division along with a couple of understrength Kampfgruppes are due and by turn 95 the very strong 16th PanzerGren. Division and 19th Luftwaffe Sturm Division which....IF they can make it to the front through the interdiction firestorm....will make a huge difference.

[devoncop]

3rd May 1944

Larry restricted himself to mopping up in the centre and moving troops up to the Gustav Line in the West. He did move a fairly powerful stack of artillery up into range of the German guns in the West so I spent the turn trying to make it less powerful.....

I had some cheering news as the 362nd 334th and 305th Infantry Divisions arrived. Only one was moveable by me but the other two have stiffened the defences on the Gustav Line considerably.

The moveable Division amazingly made it all the way down from Brenner Pass to well south of Florence without attracting too much attention from Allied bombers which was both surprising and encouraging.

In the West Larry moved a red dotted overstacked formation comprised of huge numbers of Engineers up to my front North East of San Severo and I was able to cause a lot of casualties from 5 units of Divisional HQ artillery.

[hingram]

ORIGINAL: 700851McCall

So you can invade anywhere you like up until May 1st 1944?

Note. Toulon is a friendly port. Just saying.

[devoncop]

ORIGINAL: hingram

ORIGINAL: 700851McCall

So you can invade anywhere you like up until May 1st 1944?

Note. Toulon is a friendly port. Just saying.

Ssssssshhhhhhhhhhhh [:-]

[:D][:D]

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what it looked like just before I ended the turn. I'm pushing north in
the middle and the advance has stalled on the coasts. I'm wondering if there's a
way to get behind the Germans on the coasts so I can surround them just before I
kill them.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: devoncop

ORIGINAL: hingram

ORIGINAL: 700851McCall

So you can invade anywhere you like up until May 1st 1944?

Note. Toulon is a friendly port. Just saying.

Ssssssshhhhhhhhhhhh [:-]

[:D][:D]

It's got an exclusion zone that turns the port off. D'oh.

[UP844]

Perhaps it will become available in the late summer after operation Dragoon.

I doubt attacking through the Alps would be feasible, even though the terrain appears to be far less rough than it actually is (I know the area quite well, I live just a few hexes off the east edge of this map [;)]).

[MikeJ19]

Evening Guys,

I really love your positives/negatives summary.

Also, it is interesting seeing the effects of taking down the bridges - hurts Ian's supply, but hinders Larry's chances of exploiting quickly the gaps.

[sPzAbt653]

the terrain appears to be far less rough than it actually is

I don't mind changing the map if there is anything that you feel should be changed.

[devoncop]

ORIGINAL: MikeJ19

Evening Guys,

I really love your positives/negatives summary.

Also, it is interesting seeing the effects of taking down the bridges - hurts Ian's supply, but hinders Larry's chances of exploiting quickly the gaps.

Thanks Mike for the feedback

I like to review things every 6 months or so in game time...(expect another around October 1944 if Larry hasn't swept me aside by then!)... It actually is useful to me to put the current turn events into a wider context so I don't get fooled by Kipling's "twin imposters" of "Triumph or Disaster" at a particular moment [;)]

[devoncop]

7th May 1944

The Decima Naval Division arrived in Milan and managed in the most part (after fairly eventful bomb straddled train journeys) to get to south of Florence with some elements making it to Rome. In fact the Division is largely made up of small units of Marines so is not particularly powerful but should be able to do a job in the rougher terrain.

It seems Larry is indeed trying to cut off my defending troops north east of San Severo by pushing troops from the centre across to the East coast between those troops and those on the Gustav Line. I am belatedly taking steps to try and counter this. The Artillery damage continued on Allied troops facing my line NE of San Severo across the river and also on the Western Front where Larry had sadly retreated the stack of Artillery I hit last turn so I contented myself with harassing the infantry facing the Gustav Line garrison.

[larryfulkerson]

I sent Ian an email and this is what it said:

Hey Ian:
I really like our game a lot. You're a good opponent and this is a great scenario and I'm having a blast. I hope it's still fun for you. I'm picking up a lot of tips for when I'm the Axis player. The Allies have a severe supply problem in the middle of the map for instance.

I'm in the middle of moving units for our game and I thought to drop you a line to ask if you have any questions or need a hint for something or maybe you're doing fine and don't need anything at all from me. I'll give you the straight line if you need help with something or other you know.

You've been doing a really good job holding me back and I feel like I'm behind schedule all the time. Did your
air force disappear when I got Foggia? I can't tell. I don't think so. Like you needed that problem on top of
everything else. I'm worried about your stout reinforcements and how it's going to change the character of the
game if you can go offensive on me.

I don't know what to do with the Gustov Line down south. Attack it I suppose. But it's got entrenchments and
elevated terrain to scale and probably backed up by some really stout arty. Sounds like hlgh losses. I've
thought about pounding them with the aircraft for a while to soften them up quite a bit. But that could take a
month or more before it shows tangable results.

Some naval support would be nice. Some BB's with a long range, able to reach in from the coast for a couple
of hexes. They are sorely missed just about now. I guess that I should break a lot more bridges to keep the
pressure on for your troops down south. I've discovered that I can get close to 100% for bridge busting if I
use all the INT planes at the same time on the same bridge.

And the game goes on.

friends,
larry

ps have a great day.

[larryfulkerson]

This is what it looks like right now. I'm moving troops to the middle of the map
to try to find a way around the Germans and to get behind them somehow and make
their position untenable and maybe get them to retreat without a fight. The advance
has stalled and is fighting severe supply problems in the middle and progress has
slowed to a crawl. And I was already behind schedule.

[sPzAbt653]

Some naval support would be nice. Some BB's with a long range

I don't plan on having anything larger than Cruisers and Destroyers. The stuff I've read so far has been pretty clear that while BB's and CV's were in the area, the Allies held them in reserve just in case the Italian Fleet came out against them. They weren't used for shore support. Once the Italian Fleet surrendered, the major capital ships of the Allies left the area.

The Cruisers that will be available have a range of 4, the Destroyers 3.

[devoncop]

This is my reply to Larry's email to me :

Hi Larry

I still do have a few squadrons hiding in the outback and every turn or so another lot of lambs to the slaughter turn up

I do have a question actually.... Am I right in thinking that if I bombard a hex with 4 artillery units in one round and then decide to bombard the same hex again this would use up more of a turn than if I chose to target a different hex....or does it make no difference?

The thought of you being equipped with a naval task force raining destruction down on my port defenders brings me out in a cold sweat so if it gets changed by the designer then hopefully it will be just before I start playing as the Allies

Thank you for your kind words about how I have been doing...you are emerging as a master of encirclement and of cutting my supply levels and it is a very important lesson for me. A contributor to the AAR mentioned that all the bridge drops may slow your offensive in the future.....I hope he is right

I was quite pessimistic a few turns ago about being able to hang on to Rome beyond the historic date but I now think its doable...The fixed units there are a pain but if I can reinforce them with mobile units and reinforcements like has happened with the fortified defence lines then it may prove a nice place to delay you further.

I am really enjoying the game. Whatever the official score says my aim in the reverse fixture will be to get anywhere close to what you manage !

All the best

Ian


I would add that the original email from Larry shown in his post two entries above this one is typical of the communications I get from Larry who is a true gent and anyone who is lucky enough to play him in an MP game will I am sure find the same !

[DanNeely]

The 2nd bombardment should have the same impact either way. IF the only attack, it'll advance the clock by 1/2/3 rounds depending on loss settings. IF part of something larger it'll feed an attack of that length into the general calculation.

[devoncop]

Thanks Dan...the only time the rounds of bombardment become relevant on a particular hex would be if I was then trying to assault into the hex or move through it.....that makes sense.

10th May 1944

This turn I have managed to rush some Panzer Grenadiers to block Larry's flanking move around the back of my Eastern line North of San Severo but they will not hold for long so I may have to pull as many of the units back as I can to the Gustav Line. I managed a decent but unspectacular further round of bombardments against both East and West Allied columns and with difficulty I have moved the 305th Infantry Division south from Rome and off the trains.I

I had very few reinforcements this turn and the Marine Division was unfortunately in reorganisation so was unable to continue it's journey south.