Sicily to Brenner Pass - Mike1984 v. Desert

[Karri]

What if the Axis retreat to vicinity of Messina? It would be 1/3rd of the frontagethey now hold, and seemingly no drawbacks. Could you possibly force a breakthrough then?

[mike1984]

I'm not ready to wait him out. He has no incentive to do that. Why should he risk a large movement like that? I wouldn't.

[desert]

Turn 60 - September 7, 1943
 
Well, good news first. This turn a few Italian volunteers, the 26 Pz Div, and the 71 ID arrived in Austria. Next turn I get the 16 Pz Div. They should be enough to negate the recent Allied advantage in Sicily. Unfortunately, their Avalanche reinforcements include several overpowered arty brigades. It seems they spotted one of my stacks and slammed it with their guns - I had some arty of my own there, and around 40 guns were lost.

I took my 170mm guns into the hills and hit their stack from there.

Bombardment - 5 25 pounders; they have 350 guns, and 50 Bishop SP howitzers

One issue I have with the scenario is replacement rates - they're too high in many cases. For example:

I can get 4380 Pz4 H in one year. So in one year I can get half as many Pz4 as were built during the whole war (all models).

Meanwhile, the Allies get more than 300 of various squads per day. That's every day. So in 500 turns (around Christmas '44) they get 150000 squads. Hell, even if that were individual men it wouldn't be so bad.

Another really annoying one is 2 PaK 97/38 per turn. Okay, fine, that's understandable, there weren't that many of those around. But the Germans made over 20000 of another 75mm AT gun. It's actually in the scenario as a generic 75mm AT gun (I assume). And that gets replaced at a rate of 10 per turn. Problem? There's only 50 in the scenario, almost nothing uses it. Why even give it such a high rate of replacement if no one uses it?!

Here's a funny one. I get 3 Hetzers per turn starting halfway into the scenario. But the only Hetzers I'll ever have are in the HQ for the 16 SS Reichsfuhrer - 3 of them. Why do my only Hetzers appear in 1943?

Just some thoughts.

[mike1984]

Turn 61

British...
The British 7 AD and BR 1 AB division has landed on the island. The Airborne will sort of just rest around Augusta until I can figure out how to use them without wasting them (remember, if an Airborne unit is destroyed and reconstituted, the replacement unit cannot recover its airborne capabilities). The BR 7 AD will move up the inland road, and take up positions with the Canadian 1 ID. The British 46 ID succeeds in pushing the German recon unit back into the enemy line. The other two attacks, north of Gerbini and southwest of Adrano, weren't successful in pushing back the Axis. However, the Allied losses were relatively light, for once.

US...
The US 1 ID and US 2 AD have successfully displaced from the front lines, and will hold on the Nicosia-Adrano road to recoup men and supplies. The US 36 ID is passing Enna. They will march north to reinforce the US 3 ID near San Fratello.

Overall...
I want to keep the pressure on the Axis line. He lost more than 40 (50-plus?) aircraft this past day, to go along with more than 50 lost artillery pieces. I've gotten word that the German Sardinien Division was withdrawn; but I haven't seen any changes. There is one Sardinien unit left, but I imagine that my opponent has accounted for this division's withdrawl, and pulled them to the rear a while ago.

[desert]

Turn 61 - September 8, 1943
 
According to the news, the Sardinien Pz Div was withdrawn, but it actually wasn't. According to my reinforcements schedule that happens Turn 68.
 
A stack of Italian arty was bombarded. 50 100mm guns were lost.

[mike1984]

Turn 62

British...
More unit shifting along the front. The Canadians are consolidating near Adrano, along with the British 7 AD coming up. I doubt my opponent has better recon than I, so if I keep my main line screened with light units, he won't have a good grasp on my exact strengths.

US...
The US 36 ID is almost to the front. The US 1 ID and US 2 AD take up positions between the US 82 AB and the US 45 ID.

Overall...
Not much action anywhere; just bombardments. I figure that I can wear his line down with sustained, but moderate attacks all along the front line. I will focus my efforts back on the northern sectors.

[mike1984]

he won't have a good grasp on my exact strengths.

Ha! That's funny.

[desert]

Turn 62 - September 9, 1943
 
Some bombardments on my line. Began transporting the reinforcements to Sicily.

[mike1984]

Not much in the way of action. Just bombardments along the front. At this point, I was winding down my operations. I knew there was no way to break through, at least not any time in the next game-year or two. The Indian Division arrived from Syracuse.

[Panama]

ORIGINAL: mike1984

Turn 61

British...
The British 7 AD and BR 1 AB division has landed on the island. The Airborne will sort of just rest around Augusta until I can figure out how to use them without wasting them (remember, if an Airborne unit is destroyed and reconstituted, the replacement unit cannot recover its airborne capabilities).

I thought you were supposed to use the Monty rule and throw the Red Devils into the ocean and against the cliffs of Sicily leaving a few left to be almost wiped out at the Petsamo bridge. Kind of a rehearsal for what he did to them at Arnhem. Monty would not be happy with your humane treatment of them.

I think he kind of hated airborne troops, the Red Devils of the 1st more than the others. [:D]

[Karri]

ORIGINAL: mike1984

I'm not ready to wait him out. He has no incentive to do that. Why should he risk a large movement like that? I wouldn't.

No, I meant if you do achieve breakthrough, he can just retreat to that line...what then?

[desert]

Turn 63 - September 10, 1943
 
Several attacks this turn. These were ant attacks, but unlike before they were accompanied by huge Axis casualtes. NE of San Fratello, the hex on the
eastern coast, N of Troina, I took massive casualties. In some cases the Allies lost a fair amount - proportionally. Those Italian artillery were hit again, 2 dozen guns lost.

The fresh 26 Pz Div was moved to the center of the line - unfortunately, the 93 PzJgr Btn wasn't provided with any transport assets and is for all intents and purposes a static unit.
 
It seems the British have at least 6 new arty units - all brigades, eh?

[desert]

Turn 64 - September 11, 1943
 
Last turn. I have a crapload of reserves clogging up my rear areas. It occurs to me that if my opponent still kept all his units in dense frontline hexes we could have some extraordinary battles, with me coming out the victor, of course, by flooding his breaches with fresh divisions. In the end, I strongly believe the Allies should have used their paratroopers in the beginning to cut off the roads and rail lines to Messina. Back then I had no reserves and Allied optimism was strong. Now, I could probably go insane and throw all my divisions into the sacrificial fire; I would definitely win, the only advantage he has is in aircraft and MAYBE artillery. I failed the recent offensive only because I lost my nerve and couldn't stomach the losses. (Note: I may have revised this conclusion somewhat after reading about the, uh, 6? new divisions the Allies had received.)

[mike1984]

I stopped keeping track this last turn. So here's a map of the final deployments.

My opponent keeps mentioning how I should have used my air transport (which I had only for one turn, TURN 1) to drop units into the roads near Messina, and take the city that way.

I have to disagree with that idea. I play this game to recreate actual simulations of what the battles were like, and how I could have realistically fared, while faced with the same situations (with the real-life logistical restrictions) the real-life generals faced. The allies dropped the 82nd Airborne and 1st British Airland onto Sicily the day of the invasion. How would it have ever been possible to round up all of these paratroopers, reorganize them, land transport planes on a single airfield (if there was even a decent one actually near Gela), load up the troops again, and take off again on a no-rest follow up airborne drop, about 30 or 40 miles to the north, right into the headquarters city of the enemy?

The fact that I could have dropped my airborne units into Messina, and effectively ended the battle for Sicily in one or two turns, doesn't cover up the fact that this scenario does not allow the Allied player to accurately operate within the context of the historical battle.

But that's why Desert and I will play the newly-modded Sicily to Brenner Pass scenario. So stay tuned for the follow up AAR, which you can find in that sub-forum.

[desert]

Hey, I didn't say Messina, I was thinking more around Catania and Santo Stefano.

Final Positions:

[mike1984]

Ok, I misunderstood what you meant by that. I guess I could have done a small drop just to the north of my landing zones; but anything more would take away from the "simulation" of historically-accurate WWII warfare.

For full disclosure, I did do a small drop in the new game we're playing. During Turn 1, I dropped a few of the available AB units into the hills just west of Syracuse, around Vizzini. I figured that wasn't a drastic-enough operation size to take away from the scenario.

Yeah, you could have thrown all your men into my lines. But I'm not sure how far you'd get. Like you, I have a bunch of reserve divisions. Plus, your position around Catania isn't made for the attack. I have basically two lines of British, the second one being on the other side of the river. That would cause you great trouble in an offensive. In the north, my US divisions are fully rested, with fresh units available. You would have had a few breakthroughs, for sure, but nothing I couldn't close up as fast as you would had I attacked again.

[desert]

I also think the Attrition Divider should be raised - combat and bombardments kill too men right now, which combined with reduced replacements rates could mean an early end to any PBEMs.

Yeah, well, eventually. I would have gotten new divisions within weeks, but weren't those your last available reinforcements?

Final Equipment Losses:

[mike1984]

So should I change the AD in the new mod, just to see how it helps? Since we haven't even gotten through the first turn, it's doable. I'll raise it to like 14 or so. Does that sound about right?

[desert]

Heh, I already started making the AAR for Turn 1, but go ahead. Also, show them your losses. Look at how many squads the Allies lost, guys.

[mike1984]

What's funny is that I didn't even download the last turn...