Adventures in Italy

[larryfulkerson]

Rome fell finally and the 4th Indian division unit rushed in before CCB did and so
the Indians won I guess. Now to ship a lot of stuff to France and let the rest do
mop up on the length of Italy.

[MikeJ19]

Larry and Ian,

You guys are great storytellers. It is hard to believe that the Indians managed to liberate Rome.

[devoncop]

ORIGINAL: MikeJ19

Larry and Ian,

You guys are great storytellers. It is hard to believe that the Indians managed to liberate Rome.

Cheers Mike

Its not hard to get swept into the atmospheric sweep of this scenario...It has a really good scale.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: devoncop
Its not hard to get swept into the atmospheric sweep of this scenario...It has a really good scale.

I haven't got a clue what it means but I like it a lot. Well put, I think. By the way,
what's it mean.

[devoncop]

16th August 1944

Two big stories this turn...

Firstly the excellent resistance to repeated assault by the Infantry and Panzer Grenadiers west of Savona and secondly, after I tried to concentrate the Flak resources I had in a couple of vital locations which were then hit several times by interdiction strikes...a huge number of Allied planes reportedly shot down. Whether the Air summary is accurate only Larry would know but it showed a loss of 18 Axis planes where my fighters were based, supported by some of that Flak, and over 180 Allied planes. The Allies can handle those losses but it would be nice if true

Milan is now garrisoned as a precautionary move and the mountain skirmishes in the north east saw the imaginatively named mountain pass town of "Gap" fall to advancing mountain troops. Supply is not great up there at all so progress is slow.
I saw yet another Division ...I think the US 85th sailing to France and I am sure this front is my major threat. My reinforcements have slowed for a turn or two and I lost more Panzer Grenadiers this turn as they were withdrawn so I really need the supply problems to slow Larry down.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the inventory of aircraft and I don't see anything out of the ordinary so I
doubt that there's been a massacure or a general slaughter event or anything like
that. I question your figure...sounds like fog of war.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the resolved combats list and I'm not seeing any strikes that had any extraordinary
losses. I checked the Axis battles but there were only two bombardments listed...your arty
strikes on my units no doubt. The INT strikes aren't recorded I guess. Those times you have
a unit moving and it gets interdicted....there's no report of losses or any record made that
there was a battle about the interdiction. D'oh.

[devoncop]

Ahhh pity...

I think either Mr Goebbels has been working overtime at the Ministry of Information in Berlin or my Flak gunners have been taking mind altering drugs again [;)]

[larryfulkerson]

Hey Ian...I've found evidence that there WAS some kind of event that took place
because I've got a lot of planes in reorg this turn which is extraordinary and
all the reorg units are missing planes, sometimes a lot. I'm going to have to
start giving all the planes direct missions each round of each turn or else they
will sacrifice themselves on German AA units.

EDIT: Also, no more INT missions. I can't control what targets they go after
and too often it's a German AA unit.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the situation and some tourist information and my plans are to keep sending
troops to France, also some rail repair engineers and form a front line on the
northern flank, just north of Toulon, and get the British moving along the west
coastal road chasing the Germans. They will have to repair all those broken bridges
as they go, that will slow them down. There's only about 75 more turns..I don't think
there's enough time for them to reach the French border in the north. We'll see.

[MikeJ19]

Hi Guys,

I wish that there was a way to focus the Interdiction missions. During the Falaise gap scenario, I wanted my INT to go after units that were withdrawing - especially over the bridges but the INT attacks seem to be very random. I'm seeing the effect the other way as the Germans in Normandy. I love it when the INT attacks go after my coastal artillery units as any damage to them is really meaningless to me.

[devoncop]

20th August 1944

Overall another turn of stability. Though the air war continues to be encouraging as Flak again apparently accounts for another 60 planes which were interdicting...Interdiction was definitely less but some planes obviously missed attacking Flak batteries so carried on doing it. This is not a problem and I am happy for them to continue

The Fixed 305th Division , alone in their emplacements in the far South East continue to resist attacks from two sides. A couple more bridges are blown and skirmishing continues in the mountains of the north west to no great result. Larry moves another half Division of US troops to France.

The loss of Rome has moved the scenario from a win for the Axis to a draw so Larry definitely has the initiative but looking at the terrain from Rome north there really is a LOT of infrastructure to fix !

[larryfulkerson]

I've found another problem to add to my woes...you can't move supply into mountainous
hexes evidently. I just now moved this regiment into the mountains and check to see
how much supply is getting to him there and I discover there's none so far. Maybe by
next turn it'll be a 1 or 2 perhaps. But right now it's not looking very hopeful that
there will be any supply at all. I wish I had known that before I moved there.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: MikeJ19
Hi Guys,

I wish that there was a way to focus the Interdiction missions. During the Falaise gap scenario, I wanted my INT to go after units that were withdrawing - especially over the bridges but the INT attacks seem to be very random. I'm seeing the effect the other way as the Germans in Normandy. I love it when the INT attacks go after my coastal artillery units as any damage to them is really meaningless to me.

Hey there Mike dude....thanks for posting your thoughts, I like the way you think. And as for a way to focus the INT missions um...I think the only control we have over our aircraft is their range. If you trim your range so that it can't reach the AA guns BUT at the same time will cover your targets then you can safely do your INT missions without worrying about them hitting targets further away. The place you park the aircraft unit and the range are the only ways we can control what targets they hit I think. That reminds me....I moved a bunch of planes up to Rome from Naples and now I need to trim the ranges of all those aircraft that moved. I want them to just cover the map with very little overlap on the off-map areas so that they cover just the most important parts of the war and not southern Europe.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what I mean about the range of your aircraft units. Trim the range so that
the range arc just covers the good stuff.

[larryfulkerson]

Operation Shiney Chevy is concluding now...that was the operation to deny
supply to Axis units in northern France. I instuted a program of bombing bridges
to attempt to stiffle the flow of men and supplies south from Grenoble or northern
Italy. I think I've done that but we'll have to ask Ian if it's really affecting
his supply flow. The lower two dropped bridges on the left were made by a recon
unit that was convinced he was being followed and wished to slow down the movement
of enemy units. It turned out that Ian didn't follow very far and now I've got
some broken bridges to fix before I can seriously get at the Germans.

[hingram]

I found it was easier to just focus on one rail line in central Italy. Trying to plug all the holes was just too much. Supply will flow out through major roads at a slower level but it is usually enough.
Mountain rails seem to be impassable in the winter/spring. Moving the engineers on rails helped with the % for rail repair. Note: Some engineers don't do rails. They feel it is beneath them.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: hingram
I found it was easier to just focus on one rail line in central Italy. Trying to plug all the holes was just too much. Supply will flow out through major roads at a slower level but it is usually enough. Mountain rails seem to be impassable in the winter/spring. Moving the engineers on rails helped with the % for rail repair. Note: Some engineers don't do rails. They feel it is beneath them.

Hingram dude....you've got the intel I need. Thanks for posting it. I'll see if I can't get started on that one rail through central Italy and thanks for the tip about moving the engineers on rails. I'll try that. And you're right about the engineer units that don't seem to want to repair rail. There's at least one British engineer unit that will repair rail until you move it and then it won't any more. D'oh.

I moved one of the dedicated RR engineer units to Savona, France to help with repairing the rail to feed the folks I've got operating on the east flank. I need the rail repaired to leading north out of Nice as well. To feed the folks that are going to be operating in southern France near Grenoble.

And I figured out what gives on the planes that flew INT missions. When assigning the missions there were about a dozen bomber units that were in reorg and I couldn't change them from INT to rest so when they can out of reorg during the interturn process, before I could have control to change them, they flew their INT missions. I have since changed them to CS so that won't happen again. I've started a program of giving ALL the airccraft direct missions so that they can't possibly hit some AA unit again.

[sPzAbt653]

I've found another problem to add to my woes...you can't move supply into mountainous hexes evidently. ... I wish I had known that before I moved there.

All Mountain hexes contain Badlands Terrain. [:)]

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653
All Mountain hexes contain Badlands Terrain. [:)]

I think I remember reading that in the scenario briefing. Now that
you bring it up. Thanks for refreshing my memory.