Adventures in Italy

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the supply levels in the breakthro area. I'm going to have to come up with
a better name for this area. Anyway, I've discovered some flooded marshes to the
SE of Rome that stiffles movement toward the city except thro a couple of hexes
width, which the Germans and I are negotiating for right now. I repaired the bridges
leading to the meeting engagement and the oen bridge that used to be broken right
under their noses so the way is clear for the assaults that may or may not happen
depending on the supply situation which is not high enough for sustained operations
yet. Those bridge-fixing engineers hardly ever repir the rail but the dedicated RR
engineers almost always do and I've got one of those guys working on the rail passing
through the slot to Anzio. Plus about eight of those regular engineers that hardly
ever repair the rail. They work magic on bridges but rails are beyond them for the
most part.

[devoncop]

To answer your question Larry I have a couple of Engineer Units in Rome because of the importance of the infrastructure....some combat engineers from 16th Panzer Grenadier Division repaired your cultural vandalism last turn [:)]

[hingram]

I edited the map and added that rail line although it looks like a 5 year-old drew it while riding a roller coaster. There's a roundabout in the middle of it. Oops.
I played around with the supply parameters so there is less time spent repairing rails. I don't think it is conducive to entertaining play against the computer. I'll have to make it up to the Germans by maybe giving them some fascist Italian or Croatian air and ground units.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: hingram
I edited the map and added that rail line although it looks like a 5 year-old drew it while riding a roller coaster. There's a roundabout in the middle of it. Oops.

I played around with the supply parameters so there is less time spent repairing rails. I don't think it is conducive to entertaining play against the computer. I'll have to make it up to the Germans by maybe giving them some fascist Italian or Croatian air and ground units.

I'm curious as to what you had to change to get less time spent repairing rails. More RR squads in
the repair unit?

I should think these changes will change the game and should perhaps be playtested. Are you going to
share with the scenario designer(s), so they can bless your work? Your changes should make it a better
scenario if I understand what you mean about what you changed. Thanks for doing it.

[sPzAbt653]

I'm adding the rail line but nothing else to help Allied Supply, that would favor the Allies too much. Larry, you may not remember back in 2011 when we playtested the heck out of this thing to make the changes that we did. Giving the Allies any more of an advantage really hurts the Axis ability to maintain a resemblance to history, especially when it comes to the Allies supply situation. The Germans were used to having difficulties, but the Western Allies cried emergency whenever they didn't have several weeks of reserves available, and would often cease operations when supplies were 'short'. Larry said he has been using the 'Red, Yellow, Green' Rule and that is never a bad thing when playing as the WAllies [:)]

[devoncop]

21st June 1944

Some furious assaults launched on the central stretch of the Gustav Line again which were just held off by a combination of Panzer Grenadiers and a small tactical reserve of armour from KG Baumer but a battalion from 278th Infantry was wiped out.

Unsurprisingly in the East (given their withdrawal by turn 105) the fairly roughly handled 2nd Free French Division of North African troops were ordered by Larry to attack the Eastern end of the Gustav Line but again the line just holds.

Further progress is made by the Allies on the coast road from France and more reinforcements arrive for the units being set up to face them further East. Blown bridges are again causing a problem with a number down in the North though many further south have been repaired.

No real activity against the German defences South East of Rome but I am sure it is coming/

Next turn I get more strong units starting to arrive with the LW Sturm Divn next turn and 35th Grenadier Division due shortly afterwards, sandwiched by the much less impressive Marie Rosa Division.

Apologies to Larry by the way....my turn was inadvertently sent without me finishing me Diplo pouch ramblings ! ( My excuse is its 6am here in the UK and I just got up !)

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what it looks like before I have moved anybody and it looks a lot like it
looked last turn. Rome is still in my sights and constitutes my goal for the west
side folks. On the east side we seem to have a mexican standoff of sorts. The
supply level is too low for me to do any pushing or shoving in that area and so far
the only interaction is the shelling of my troops with German arty. I don't have
the supply to shoot back.

The situation in the middle hasn't changed much and I'm still pushing and shoving on
the Gustav Line to see if I can make it move. I'm going to have to quit that because
of the losses it causes.

The aircraft are all still in the green and ready to go. I'm scheduling another bridge
busting mission although I don't know where it's going to be just yet. I'm looking for
a high traffic area to stiffle. I hear lots of train noises during the playback so I
know there's stil rail movement going on somewhere. I'm thinking about bombing Rome
again to drop a bridge or two. With all the future troop withdrawls that are happening
I hesitate to send another division to Toulon. I know they need it, I'm just ansy about
whether or not I'm going to need it in Italy as well.

[larryfulkerson]

I tried to move an armored regiment from Naples to Toulon just now and I discovered
that it wouldn't embark and I checked out the sea cap. and found less than 500 tons
and I'm wondering what I moved that causes that. Is it possible that I moved something
and don't remember it? It's not from last turn, that's this turn's figure so it
appears that I moved something by sea recently and ran off to post something in an AAR
or answer a question in another thread or take a much needed nap...come back and have
no memory of having moved something by sea. It could happen. Or maybe I'm just getting
older ( 68 ) now and only starting to recognize some symptoms of memory loss or dementia.
I guess putting this AAR together will probably tell us a lot about me and the way I think
about this game. That's fine...I'm among friends, and thank you all.

So I'll see about moving it next turn.

[devoncop]

Is it not related to post D Day when all the troop ships and landing craft were diverted to Normandy...(I am hoping so [:)])

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: devoncop
Is it not related to post D Day when all the troop ships and landing craft were diverted to Normandy...(I am hoping so [:)])

Yeah, I thought about that too, but I figured that if the sea cap were lowered because of Overlord,
in otherwords, if the event to lower the sea cap fired then the total sea cap would be the lower
value as well and the sea caption reads: "488/2500" meaning that at the beginning of the turn I had
at least 488 of the 2500 allowed I think a lot more maybe the entire 2500....and it's possible that
I embarked something and shipped it to France, it landed, disembarked, MP's are now zero and there's
no evidence that it traveled by sea just now. Hang on a sec....I just checked out the AA unit parked
at Toulon and it's 1/1 ( hasn't moved yet ) so it's not the culprit. I've noticed that moving from
Naples to France uses the entire MP allotment and it can't leave the port after it disembarks. It's
possible I moved a group of armor units from Taranto to Reggio, I remember wanting to do that. I'm
making a big deal out of nothing important. And the game goes on. I'm having a real blast by the way.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the condition of the aircraft right now. One squadron is red, stood down, missing two planes and I don't remember two planes missing previous to this. I'm thinking it got into a furball, got intercepted by the enemy, something like that, and lost it's first two planes of the conflict for that squadron, and through almost superhuman efforts the rest of them made it back to the field.

OR they were helping bomb this one bridge that had an AA unit parked there that wasn't visible prior to the strike. I don't usually hit targets that have AA parked there unless and until it's really important, depending on how many bombers there are on hand, what future needs will be, the weather, etc. Just a seat-of-the-pants guess is all you have to go on sometimes. Do what your conscious will allow you to get away with. Do your recon, know what's out there if that's possible, then you'll have a better idea of what you're going to need in the near future. Scan the data screens for hints... The inventory says we're still low on Baltimores ( 1 on hand ) and that resting them wouldn't hurt at all. Depending on the needs of the troops for CS missions. You need to balance needs against priorities and do what feels right to your sense of logic and good reasoning.

Wargamming has changed over the years, starting with Chess when there were still dynosours and now today we have the equipment to simulate what really could have happened, more or less, accurately. And it's a great thing too, because we get to try things that real human beings would never do. Like drive our units until they are cherry red and play the game with them being driven so hard they stay red. I've seen players do that. They win "games". I'd rather simulate the real life war. What could have been. I'm old-fashioned.

[larryfulkerson]

I just now noticed a TOAW IV innovation I hadn't noticed before. When I have
a selected unit that I wonder when it's going to be withdrawn, if ever, I go to the
expected reinforcements to either get the selected unit showing in the display with
the turn it's withdrawn or a list with the selected unit not in it, which I interpret
to mean the selected unit isn't being withdrawn from the game, ever. This is pure
coolness and I like it a lot. Tells me easily how long I can play with that unit.

[devoncop]

Hi Larry...My bad (as you say in the States!) I didn't read the screenshot properly...youy still have reasonable capacity their so it must have been a prior move of something.

As for not driving your troops too hard.....Gen Patton may have disagreed with you.....though Monty probably wouldn't have [:)]

[devoncop]

ORIGINAL: larryfulkerson

I just now noticed a TOAW IV innovation I hadn't noticed before. When I have
a selected unit that I wonder when it's going to be withdrawn, if ever, I go to the
expected reinforcements to either get the selected unit showing in the display with
the turn it's withdrawn or a list with the selected unit not in it, which I interpret
to mean the selected unit isn't being withdrawn from the game, ever. This is pure
coolness and I like it a lot. Tells me easily how long I can play with that unit.

Thanks for that Larry

I had no idea you could do that. It makes a big difference from scrolling through chronologically and wondering where the hell the unit is

[larryfulkerson]

I found a weak spot and I think I can gain that hex so I've scheduled the three-dot
attack and given it three bombing squadrons for support and I expect it to succeed.
I've got four more CS missions to assign to an attack somewhere so this will probably
not be the only attack this combat round.

[larryfulkerson]

Things may be changing on the east coast. All my FF troops are being withdrawn over
a series of turns so I thought maybe it'd be a good idea to use this opportunity to
move the front line back to better supply since I have to move anyway. I was thinking
of putting the earliest leaving troops up front in contact, and then the next earliest
formation I'll put behind those and then the permanent Canadians I'll leave on the road
for the better supply to be had there.

[larryfulkerson]

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here's things in the west right now. I'm losing the 58th Inf Div in T105 which is
soon and it's only one of the four divisions that are leaving between now and T105
two of them British, and that's going to leave me short-handed I believe so I'm
going to need different tactics for this situation rather than the straight ahead
roll 'em roll 'em brute force approach. Maybe I should apply some science to this.
I see a narrow path along the mountain range that could ultimately lead to the German
backfield if I push enough people and they had some support, AND the supply situation
allowed it. But it's better than being stalled near Anzio and not have ANYthing you
can do. The middle of the Gustav Line shows signs of creaking, the strengths of the
German units is decreasing slowly turn by turn which means my attacking IS making a
difference and I'm thinking that if I keep up the pressure they might collapse and
create a giant hole which I won't have the supply to follow up on. Great. At least
it's killing Germans, which is a positive effort, so I allow it to go on.

[larryfulkerson]

I found another weak spot and I'm attacking from three hexes a setup that almost
guarentees success given that I'm directing three squadrons of late model B-25's
to this task. I was going to send three British squadrons but I checked them out
nd they were Boston's, Baltimores, Wellingtons, and not very many of those, no real
punch compared to the American squadrons. The British squadrons are tiny compared
to the American ones and the British planes are nearing obselessence IMO and the
B-25H's are among the newest planes there are. State of the art at the time. The
most deadly weapons system in the world at the time was the B-17G. One fully loaded
B-17 can cripple an entire sub base by itself, and often, and repetedly for the
cost of the gas and the bombs, which at that time were about $750 each, fuse and all.

[larryfulkerson]

I was thinking of doing a cut and paste of a list of the formations so I could
make change to include the date of withdrawl (DEROS, comes close to what I mean )
from the theater I'd have a better idea of what's leaving and what's staying and
I could plan better so I'm posting this here to remind me to do that. It would be
interesting, informative, I need it, you'd love to see it, I've got time and the
inclination to do it so yeah, I'll do it, someday. Soon.

EDIT: Actually I can't do any accurate planning of movment of my units without it.
So instead of actually moving the units, first I'll make the list. It's going to
take about half an hour or so I predict. It's 01:53 local now. We'll see how long.

[larryfulkerson]

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It's 02:39 local and here's the list. I found one formation that had been torn limb
from limb, had only a single regiment ( of three originally ) and an HQ unit so I
took pity of them and disbanded them. Now the people will go to the 90th Replacement
Company where until they get an assignment somewhere, will serve the meals, clean the
chow hall, wash the dishes, mop the floor, sharpen the steak knives, peal the potatoes,
etc. This goes on as long as they don't have an assignment. Some of them have been
doing this for about a week now. Sooner or later they take pity on people and after
about two weeks they find him a slot on the base: duty driver, fire marshall, etc.
until a real permanent assignment comes in. Your orders to your next assignment are
your ticket out of that existence. And when you're wanted you're usually wanted NOW
and you can forget about that leave you wanted. They usually find the next available
plane with a seat within a day or so and you're gone.