For some reason my paradrops are both destroyed. Only trace of them is in the Destroyed units tab.
Both of the initial Sicily drop zones are adjacent to water, so there is a chance (and lord knows I've had it happen) that they'll be blown into an adjacent hex on the drop. If dropped into water they're toast. The game flashes a brief message when this occurs, not sure which type that message falls under, so I couldn't tell you which message delay to adjust.
I really try to avoid making an coastal para drops.
I also had a paratroop unit destroyed and I believe they actually landed atop a routed unit. I'm not sure how the game engine handles this predicament, as routed units should displace automatically when a unit moves adjacent, but dropping out of the sky is a little different. There wasn't a battle like you would see if they had fallen on a ready unit. Might just be an oversight/bug. I haven't devoted any time to trying to recreate and test the outcome.
Matt tries to push the US forces back in the sea using the the HG Panzer Division and 15th PzG. Luckily the Big Red One easily repulses the attack. After this Matt adopts a forward defense using the Italians as sacrificial lambs. A wall of Italian units are thrown up around the US beachhead.
That's a nice morale boost opportunity for the US forces. Treat it as such.
This makes me unable to progress far and I see a lot of German units coming down from Italy and crossing Messina.
Make sure you take out the ports in Sicily and the rail center in Messina if you can. Those units will find themselves hungry in a hurry if they have tiny depots and can't get supplies.
