Matrix Games Forums

ORIGINAL: Szilard

Thanks for the hugely enjoyable AAR.

warspite1

Thank-you Szilard, and for being a supporter of the thread as it developed - and in particular the words of encouragement when I was having one of many crises of confidence!

ORIGINAL: devoncop

As the designer you must have been tearing your hair out at some of our idiocies but I can only applaud your design. If you don't look too closely at the tactical screw ups the strategic to and fro could hardly have been modelled better.

I heard this scenario was a masterpiece and I heard right.

Many thanks

Ian

Thank you for your kind words. I think you did a respectable job of filling Rommel's shoes. They are rather large.

As requested, here are some end of game shots. Now I know the outcome I don't really have motivation to actually do my turn (although did do a couple of RBC moves) so will show things pretty much as they are at the end of the Axis turn 231 2nd December 1942.

The Overall Situation. As can be seen the result has tripped into 'marginal victory' for the first time.

Aircraft

I showed an update last turn on squadron strengths and that won't have changed much so won't repeat that here. For most turns - and all turns since the Axis air forces began their retreat - I've been employing a policy of resting all aircraft not on 'dark green' status.

With the Axis in the ascendancy and the Allied aircraft obviously handicapped, the amount of fine tuning was heavier because I had to ensure that aircraft within each squadron was sufficient for them to fly - and if not then put them not just to rest, but put the range to 0 and get them out of the way to re-build. Latterly I haven't bothered as there's been no need.

Air Superiority was showing as 16 vs 1 and it had been massively in the CW favour for many months

The construction units had begun the task of repairing the rail road west from Mersah Matruh, although they had not got very far by the time the game ended.

Most units were on red or orange - there simply wasn't the time to muck about if I was to get a victory - and just had to hope the Axis were in as poor a state. However, some units had enforced rest because when attacking the Halfaya Pass there simply wasn't the room for many units.

The position south of Halfaya was also easing and the plan was to halt as many units as practicable to allow recovery while still continuing the chase to Tobruk.

Supply

I kept all four supply units intact during the game (easy to lose the two that you start the game with during the early turns). I wasn't sure of their best positioning but had them spread out along the coast road (there are airfields along the route and some reinforcements have to stop along the way) with one always close to the front line (yellow circle). They can't move off the coastal road in this scenario which always meant that supply dissipates quickly once off track.

Big Picture

As can be seen there were two areas of contention - the main one centred along the coast road and areas to the south, and the fighting around the Giarabub Oasis.

The fighting at Giarabub was pretty small scale and I (with hindsight) wasted two armoured regiments here.

One of the annoying features of the game is the impassable hexes that are passable to infantry only units. This is really annoying as most Italian units can use these features and are simply immune from attack unless the attacker is foot only.

The CW has few of these units of this type and its a real challenge to ensure that these small number of units are in the right place at the right time. This is a perfect example. I was able to make progress here until I came to the impassable hexes and found I'd sent too many lorried or motorised infantry to the area. devoncop wasn't to know it but I probably wasn't going to get much further here!

Reinforcements

There were no new units coming (and indeed there were still some withdrawals to come) but the CW had a number of replacements still to arrive - albeit their status was in many cases somewhat ropey!

I believe (although the wording could be clearer re the fall of Alexandria) that the Axis replacements had stopped with 14 turns left. I'd be interested to hear from devoncop on this.

When I get time the last thing I will look at are some individual units. The great thing about a game like this is the immersion. I find myself really getting attached to certain units.

Edit: On reflection there is not much to say here. I can show the units within each division of brigade that remains but there is not much point in showing this. It would have been an idea perhaps to have a unit diary but then one can't be sure if the unit will survive!

Warspite,

Neat stuff. You did a great job.

Mike

I enjoyed following. Where is your evaluation of game and scenario?

ORIGINAL: Zap

I enjoyed following. Where is your evaluation of game and scenario?

warspite1

Thank-you. I will put something together soon.

I finally had a chance to sit down and read my way through this AAR. Very interesting and it certainly sounds like the design was very good. The Germans almost, but not quite, made it to victory. Thanks for all of the work you put into in and congratulations on a hard fought victory! [&o][&o]

The only comment I've seen was in a different thread. Too simple is what I understood you said, if that is right?

Thank you for the massive effort in doing this. Glad I have not got beyond the first few dozen turns as it seem horribly biased against the CW