Infamy, Infamy! loki100 (axis) vs Gunnulf (allies)

[loki100]

T9: 28 August – 3 September 1943

VP situation seems to be settling into a pattern. 8-12 bombing pts per turn, 3/4 garrison pts for me and not much combat as the two armies are not really in contact.



As I think this makes clear.



The Allies are predictably bombing my rail net and mostly getting the better of any air clashes.



To cope I reworked my air missions in Italy. AS to try and protect my supply lines around Rome (and to force my fighters to stay concentrated). A Naval mission ... just in case ... and sending some recon planes to try and find out what the allies were up to.



In N Europe my fighters continue to chase recon planes while Bomber Command hits Hamburg and Bremen and 8 Air Force goes for the Leipzig sector.

The net effect was fairly heavy fighter losses for me. I suspect my flak was a bigger threat to the Allied bombers than my disinterested figthers.



Anyway, its obviously time for some charts. Despite my grumbling about the performance of my fighters I'm not doing too bad at force preservation – the real question is whether you are better taking heavy losses in 1943 in an attempt to affect allied bombing? My logic is come mid-1944 the Allies will have aerial dominance in any case.

[Q-Ball]

My 2 pfennigs of advice.....once the Regia Aeronautica is gone, the Axis should not regularly contest the air over Italy. It will just get too expensive, and even exchanges where you might "win" vs. Allied fighters, you lose anyway, because the Allies have plenty of good pilots and the Germans don't.

I would save my forces and occasionally spring "traps"; basically run some AS missions to intercept bombers or interdiction. This will remind the Allied player to provide escorts, which if that reduces the number of planes dropping bombs is a win. If he doesn't use escorts you will shred a bunch of formations.

But contesting every turn in Italy is just going to bleed the LW to death.

In fact, I think the LW should basically not fly within Spitfire or early P-47 range, except in those "ambush" scenarios I described above.

The targets in Italy and France are not vital, so letting the Allies fly there isn't a big deal, IMO.

[loki100]

I adjusted my pattern in Italy after this.

A few times I risked a more direct confrontation - usually to a predictable disaster - but mostly held the Luftwaffe back and tried to catch under-escorted bombers. Every now and then this really paid off.

[loki100]

T10: 4-10 September 1943

Air war slowed down a bit this turn. I had my first warning that the Me-410 is a bit of a dog [1], but the good news bit was a lot of allied recon planes actually shot down and 8 AAF had a few bloody noses for their efforts.

My only problem was the edge of my defensive box at the Ruhr must have overlapped with an Allied AS box in the Netherlands. As ever this hurts. Something to try and avoid but not always feasible when trying to set up different defensive patterns.



Bombing VP running in the 8-12 range and I am picking up 2-3 per turn for garrison. Not sure if this is a good idea but basically I am trying to run Italy on a shoestring and offset any early lost cities with this set of points.



Despite the allied bombing, not really cutting into my production capacity (yet). Actually my feeling is the game now has a good balance between the VP reflecting the political imperative on the allies to bomb and, on the other side, the enduring resiliance of the German economy at this stage of the war.



Eastern Front, bit of a bad turn for units flipping to unready and others I opted to pull into reserve. But in terms of progress, no extra disasters yet.



Italy. The Wehrmacht have a rest in their hammocks, enjoying the early autumn sunshine. Air recon has detected a few allied units many miles to the south.



Since I strongly suspect a landing near Rome is planned, I'm trying to hold the southern line with mobile units in case I need to pull back quickly.

[1] As Professor Song would say .... spoilers

[Gunnulf]

Greetings fellow historians, a bit of an intermission from Gunnulf at SHAEF here. I have been saving down a few screenshots with a mind to doing a bit of a parallel AAR if I had time, but Loki suggested maybe this would be a good moment to break into this AAR with a bit of an Allied perspective on the initial Op Husky phase. I'll then disappear until after Op Avalanche and the initial mainland campaign, and maybe jump in again at the end of winter or whenever Loki invites me back. We are already several turns ahead so nothing really confidential on either side I think at this point.

SO, as you will have seen I went pretty much historical with the initial landings in Sicily for a number of reasons. While I did consider holding back a couple of TFs for Sardinia I decided that:
A) Loki is an experienced player and the possibility of getting ashore on 2 islands and getting bogged down on both was high.
2) My principle mission is to get ashore on the mainland, secondary to kick Italy out of the war. Landing on Sardinia can achieve this but doesn't offer as good a platform to get phase 2 done. The airfields are mostly south of Sardinia, and the options to support a mainland landing are more limited allowing Loki to concentrate more. Sicily is better positioned to cover more second invasions, and also has the backup bonus of the ferry hop across the straights to secure the toe of Italy in case the main invasion stalls. The main upside of strategy focused on Sardinia would seem to be a smaller Axis garrison, and more chance of trapping Germans who try to fight there without the Messina ferry to escape.
iii) By concentrating my forces on Sicily I hoped to finish Husky as quickly as possible, and get on to phase 2 as soon as possible and avoid getting bogged down on the mainland when the weather turned. I felt that 100% control of one whole island was going to be better than even 90% of two islands to achieve this, not least as there is a slight chance of Italian surrender at this point.
Finally) I was planning to somewhat practice what I mumbled about on my Qball AAR and try to achieve all this without committing troops that were not historically earmarked for the Mediterranean theatre, such as the Polish Arm Div and several US & Br infantry divs. They would carry on training in the UK for Overlord. Air power I was a bit more hazy about, but again tried not to kick the arse out of it and limit what I brought down to be half the Typhoon squadrons, some extra 2E bomber squadrons, and a few squadrons from RAF coastal, but only to do naval patrol off North Africa.

So that said you can see from the screenshot we came ashore on Sicily as per Alexanders plan. By the 2nd turn we have pushed VIII & XXX Corps up the the first line of German resistance at Catania. We make sure we move in force to avoid Axis counterattacks against overextended divisions and we are glad we do as across the river Schmalz PzGn Bde and HG Pz Div are digging-in in force, while our recce confirms the rest of the mobile forces are screening to the NW. Otherwise so far 7 US Army has had an easy landing and is pushing ashore in the face of light resistance...

[Gunnulf]

Allied Turn 3

Having forced up in force, XXX Corps with 4 division under command, and 2 Arm Bdes in direct support of the infantry, strike hard at Schmalz PzGn brigade. Two regiments from 15 PzGn Div activating in reserve gives the defenders the combat power to hold the initial 2 assaults by XXX Corps, but next the 2 divisions of VIII Corp step into the breach and force the battered Schmalz brigade to retreat, then retreat again, and as a final piece of the assault 1 Br Airborne drops SE of the slopes of Mount Etna and link up with the leading elements of 8th Army. Not enough to seal in HG Pz Div, but certainly enough to compromise the Axis position before they have a chance to seriously dig in. In the rear 7th Br Armoured Div comes ashore, but more intended as a reserve in case of necessity as the terrain is not ideal north of the island. Its going to be an infantry battle for sure.
In the west of the island Pattons armour fights a series of running battles and pushes the Italians back to within 30 miles of Trapani. Again our aim here is to make as much progress as possible before the enemy organise and dig in to a bastion.
You'll also maybe already note from the previous screenshot that 2 TFs are already back in North Africa preparing 5 US Army for phase two. More on that in a bit, no spoilers here, but we do start stepping up bombing of the Sardinian ports. This is mostly as a diversion in case there is some doubt it Loki's mind as to whether I used all 6 TFs or whether 1 or 2 are held back for Sardinia. Its not always clear with FoW I think and reading above it does seem to have sewn at least a little fear.

[Gunnulf]

Allied Turn 4

In which Trapani falls to a coup-de-main assault by 7th US Army, who then move against the more substantial bastion at Palermo.
But the main action is still in 8th Army's sector where HG Pz pulls back from Catania to hold the east slopes of Mt Etna. XXX corps is again in the vanguard and having taken 1 Airborne under command, strikes hard at the hasty position. We are assisted by several squadrons of close air support and we both breach this position, but also the rest of the corps follows up to rout a depth position of Italians. Speaking of which when Catania was evacuated by HG Div the Italians took their place as a rearguard but VIII Corps makes short work of this with 7 Arm Div under command.
So far so good. Shock and awe is the aim, to try to prevent Loki from establishing a firm position in the rough terrain in the Messina peninsula.

[Gunnulf]

Allied Turn 5

Palermo falls to the 7th US army on the first week and Pattons work is done for a while. I knew that given a chance to dig in, and if organised with reasonable C2 links then the Italians in Palermo and Trapani can put up a fight but this sector when pretty much as well as we could have hoped for.
In the Messina peninsula a clearly spooked Axis army retreats back to the bastion of the port, and it looks like all but one German unit has pulled back. 8th Army moves at best pace in pursuit ready for the final battle.
Given the fighting is dying down, and hasn't been too heavy supply levels are good so we send back 2 more TFs to north Africa. We deliberate about Sardina again but decide to prepare all 4 for the mainland. If after the Italian surrender its clear there are substantial forces in Sardinia, i.e. the ports don't fall and the Italians are all rounded up we will prepare the 5th/6th TF accordingly, but we are focused on the mainland and hold on to the hope we might get Sardinia on the cheap... If we don't and there is a fight to take that island then its outside the budget and we'll deal with it later. The bonus is he will have troops tied up there doing nothing. Thats the train of our thought anyway.

[Gunnulf]

Allied Turn 6 & 7

In the end the final German unit in Messina shipped out too leaving the Italians to their fate and they are quickly dispatched by 8th Army. On opening turn 7 it seems that they took offense to this desertion and surrendered outright. While we have known this to be an outside chance it takes us a little by surprise. A pleasant one obviously, but luckily vindicating our blitz approach to a one island strategy. Some hard fighting by 7th & 8th army has probably saved a lot of casualties in the long run.
As a bonus partisans give us control of Taranto so we will have to move fast to capitalise on this. We do have a division from VIII Corp that was in port in SE Sicily in case of this chance and they put to sea, but won't dock this week.
On Sardinia and Corsica there are a couple of ports that haven't flipped to our control and we start to move our new Italian allies in that direction, while also preparing to ship some US regiments to assist in securing the ports. So far so good though...

[Gunnulf]

Allied Turn 8

As discussed US and FF regiments ship out to Sardinia and 82 Airborne flies in, but the Italians reach the final unoccupied ports to find them empty. They were isolated by naval patrols so we can only assume at this point that the defenders flew out. No matter, we have all 3 islands under control and we start to repair the ports for supplies and occupy some key airfields.

VIII Corps comes ashore in Taranto and the rest of the corps (less 7 Arm Div) follow up. Unfortunately on the fly we are unable to completely secure the sea lanes and one transport takes a torpedo and is sunk. Tragic but still a cheap toehold on the heel of the boot. Ok, that doesn't quite make sense, but anyway...
Also XXX Corps crosses the Messina straits and pushes up the actually toe against no resistance, although logistics here will be a struggle. We start to wonder what to do with 5 US Army now who have been hard at work preparing for their part. Are they still needed or will Monty win the war single handed? Our photo reconnaissance picks up a German line of defense forming up SE of Naples, but nothing yet seen south of here (though that doesn't mean its not there...). At this point I think we are more or less synched with Loki's main AAR so might be a good time to draw a line under this and duck out until/unless invited back in again. TBC...

[loki100]

T11: 11-17 September

Another turn where the Wehrmacht had a well deserved break in the vineyards of southern Italy ... . The main source of excitement was rumours that Allied units were abandoning Italy and wading out into the sea. Later reconnaisance suggested this might have been a second invasion.



Very suspicious pattern of allied air activity around Rome. Still I also got lucky with the layout of my defensive box and inflicted heavy losses.



Also managed to catch out 8 Air Force though not enough to stop them doing more damage. Seemed like Bomber Command had a rest.



Not a bad turn for VP, mainly as the U-boat plants damaged on T1-2 had mostly repaired.



EF remains under control. Seems that careful management of refit etc does have some impact on Soviet progress.



Anyway, I got bored with being so passive in the air war and decided it was time to invade England. Or bomb it at least. I've been running recon missions on a regular basis and spotted an airbase that seemed worth visiting.

The raid was done as a night mission.



Never sure this is worth it but equally the German bombers are not of that much use later in the game.

From the detailed combat results I destroyed 10 recon planes (Mustangs) and 11 Spitfire IX. Since I find I run out of allied recon planes by late 1944 maybe all this attrition might hinder the allies at that stage of the game.

[loki100]

T12: 18-24 September 1943

Not looked at the detail of the air war for a few posts. This was a better turn than some recent ones for hitting allied bombers at relatively little cost to my own fighters. First shows the German losses – start of the slide for the Bf 109G-6 to become more and more a death trap for its pilot.



Allied air losses. Bomber Command had the week off, the British Wellington losses were mostly in Italy.

US airforces took heavier losses (mostly in Italy) and I adjusted my fighter boxes (higher altitude) which seemed to give better results against the P-38s. I find these very variable, there are turns/battles when they can sweep the skies and then others when they seem very vulnerable.



Unfortunately last turn Gunulf returned to hitting the U-boats.



Eastern Front – still pretty much under control. Its clear the Soviets have just finished an offensive (their potential is negative) and are 2 hexes in advance. I've had to put about 12 divisions onto refit but hopefully things will calm down for the next few turns.



Overall situation in Italy before my air phase. Note I am using a fair bit of recon – not least to see if I can find some airbases that are worth attacking.



The results of the recon on Corsica suggests not too much of a build up there.



Its all going so very well ....

[loki100]

T13: 25 September – 1 October 1943

Well they do say that 'no-one expects the Spanish Inquisition' [1], well I must expect I didn't expect this. Had hoped my line would hold off the initial attacks and then I could redeploy if needed.



As we will see (spoilers ... ) this is the start of an ongoing problem. One element is that regiments (regardless of notional combat odds) can't really stand up to a multi-divisional attack. The other is that I am paying the price for allowing Italy to opt out too early.

In response I opted to try and buy myself time to redeploy. No point risking an encirclement to hold the sector around Foggia when it is clearly already lost.



The air war over Germany was marked by my fighters still obsessing with chasing Allied recon planes.



In the meantime 8 AAF seemed to go for northern Germany. At least here I caught a few under-escorted raids.



Overall bombing VP much higher than I'd like – hence my wish that my fighters actually went for the targets that matter.



Oddly the Allies actually lost more bombers that turn than I'd suspected. My guess is that flak damage becomes operational losses. In general Gunulf is clearly managing the morale of his airforce well as the operational intensity is not really dropping due to the need to rest low morale formations.



East front is a bit of a lull (Soviet potential) so I took the chance to put more units onto refit.




[1] As I sure you all know

[loki100]

T14: 2 – 8 October 1943

Having unfairly beaten up the eastern flank of my Italian fortress last turn, Gunulf did the same to west this time. An early and long winter would be very nice.

Also last turn I'd gambled on a raid behind his lines in the hope of finding some unprotected HQ or airfields – that too was routed.



Not much better news in Germany. Bomber Command hit Hamburg-Bremen and 8 AAF around Leipzig and Stuttgart. My fighters really did not bother to do very much apart from chase recon planes like a particularly dozy dog obsessed with an especially useless stick.

Despite this, quite a lot of them managed to get themselves shot down.

As you can see, for all the impact of my fighters or flak Bomber Command might as well have flown their missions lit up like mobile discos.



VP. Really getting depressed looking at this too, still at least some ground combats and my approach of too large a garrison force offset some of the inevitable gains.



Uncle Joe watch. Good thing is the front line is back where it should be, bad thing is they are clearly building up for another offensive.



In my air phase I gambled on trying to bomb the British units moving up the Adriatic coast. More fun was a night raid on what maybe a Bomber Command base – if I can't hit them over Germany I'll bomb them in England. I think I destroyed 5 bombers and the mission was intercepted by some Allied nightfighters – one reason to always keep a few unallocated and covering the UK.

I've been running recon missions over various potential targets for the last few turns in an attempt to make Gunulf divert some fighters and keep him in doubt as to my real target (if any).



Lets have some charts – non-US losses. Seems as if Gunulf is mostly not using the British forces to actually attack.



But then his US losses are low too. I think this reflects my approach of running off and hiding whenever his army appears. I may have to rethink this.



But here is something I am winning at. I've destroyed more of his planes on the ground than I've lost .. hah .. we are saved.

[loki100]

T15: 9 – 17 October 1943

No sign of winter yet.

Over Germany I'd re-organised the layout of my night fighters. At least they are now intercepting ...



or at least trying to.



As usual, doing a bit better in Italy than over Germany.



Which is handy as the ground war is not going very well. Its becoming increasingly clear that you cannot defend with regiments, in effect raw numbers overwhelm any other advantages.

Despite this opted to hold the current line to try and gain time for winter to arrive.



Overall, inflicted fairly heavy losses on Bomber Command. Would suspect that while the Night Figthers didn't shoot anything down it increases the number of damaged planes and, in turn, operational losses.



Reworked my air defensive boxes in Germany. Making sure I keep out of the way of any coverage by the RAF.

Basically trying to defend the upper Rhine around Cologne-Frankfurt, the route that avoids most flak (to the NE of the Ruhr), the U-Boats (as they haven't been bombed for a few turns) and a screen over Berlin (using the not very good Bf-110s).

So far 8 Air Force has ignored the Ruhr so I'll leave that unprotected (apart from with flak).

[loki100]

T16: 18 – 24 October 1941

Did I mention that winter would be welcome? Ok, not quite a new ice-age but if this report is true it will be very welcome.



On the other hand this is not at all welcome. At least the Luftwaffe is doing a decent job inflicting heavy losses on the Allies so that might reduce the amount of bombing going on.



The skies over Germany were very quiet. Few skirmishes with small 8 AAF raids but no signs of Bomber Command. Maybe that my better performance last turn at least wrecked the morale of a lot of the bomber formations.

Anyway, with all that rain on the way (I hope) I opted for a limited pull back in Italy.



Rain would be very welcome in Russia too. Soviet potential at 20 can only mean something really nasty is on the way.



So to fill in the gap while we wait for the rain, lets have some charts. Ready aircraft, despite the loss of the Italians I'm keeping quite a large force in being – whether it is better to use it up is a different question of course.



While I have some bad turns, in general I think forcing my fighters to operate in defined boxes does keep losses down. One problem with auto-intercept is that it does sometimes generate very one sided encounters.



Not good news. Gunulf has kept to at least 10 per turn and recently pushed it to 12-14.



East Front. Not sure how to interpret this – I suspect I really should send additional units. But my actual combat value over there is staying steady at around 3,300.



VP situation. Still trading off garrison points for running Italy on a shoe-string (and not sending anything east). Again, this is a test rather than a strategy I am convinced will work.

[loki100]

T17 - 18: 25 October – 5 November 1943

I'm going to conflate these turns as the promised bad weather meant almost no air action over Germany.

So we can concentrate on Italy – those of an easily disturbed disposition may want to look away now.

So T17 starts with a small naval invasion near to Pescara along with a renewed offensive along both coasts.



Linked to a lot of bombing – at least I won some of these skirmishes.



Next turn was not much better. The current combat engine makes it very hard to defend with regiments against divisions – the notional cv has little impact on the final combat.

As you can see I have a rather worrying bulge emerging near Vasto. In part I wanted to try and constrict the Allies's scope for movement but this also reflects that pulling armoured units back across the Abruzzi is not an easy task.



This was the best I could manage. More bad weather is forecast for next turn so hopefully the Allied offensive will slow.



Meantime (t18) things in the east are not too bad – only 1 hex ahead of schedule but its clear that Uncle Joe has stocked up on vodka and is planning a big blowout (sorry ... big offensive) sometime soon.



VP situation. A combination of priority repairs and a slowing of the Allied bombing campaign has allowed my U-boat production to recover. So the net bombing loss is around 4 but that is going to worsen once the Allied return to the skies.

[loki100]

T19: 6 -12 November 1943

The situation in Italy becomes rather dire. A massive allied offensive up the east coast and solid gains north of Napoli.



Just to add to my enjoyment (hah), Bomber Command hit the Ruhr. 8 AAF was less active but bombed along the northern coast.



Haven't tended to show ground losses as they have mostly been limited, but the massive Allied offensive cost both sides quite a lot.



Air losses. Light for me – it was one of those turns where my fighters decided to chase all the exciting shiny sticks of recon planes and ignore the nasty dangerous bombers. Most US losses were in Italy.



Eastern Front at the moment is under control. It is the priority for replacements etc now and I seem to have reduced the Soviet potential a little.



In my air turn I tried to do some bombing of the British offensive – no real impact but am prepared to use up my bombers for set piece actions. But if this is true ... then the answer is yes please:



On the ground in Italy pulled back as much as I could. Starting to suffer for placing armoured units into the mountains.

[loki100]

T20: 13 – 19 November 1943

Careful readers may have noted just the slightest dipping of Axis morale in the last few turns. Must stress its all propaganda lies – we are happy, happy, hap ...



Well I guess the good news is I can no longer see most of their army. Anyway found them after some sustained recon and decided to commit the Luftwaffe to naval interdiction – I doubt much supply is moving up overland and there is no point bombing level 2 ports. If there is a TF nearby they will just auto-repair.



Air war in Germany followed its usual pattern. 8 AAF around Hamburg, BC over the Ruhr.



VP situation not that worrying at the moment but I suspect I'll lose Rome in 1943 and that will start to hurt.



Uncle Joe is feeling a bit down. Worried about his potential I believe – but has managed to get a couple of hexes ahead of schedule.

[loki100]

T21: 20 – 26 November 1943

Have I mentioned that the war in Italy is going badly? The Allied gains are now so spread out I can't fit it all onto one normal image ...



Here's my garrison chart – as you see notionally Italy is now cleared both for Bologna and the overall numbers as the Allies are over the line.

So to stall their advance I moved the FJ division that had been in Bologna to the front lines.



EF, I seem to have lost another hex ahead of historical gains so probably do need to send fresh units over there.



As it does seem to have been falling over recent turns.



In Italy I split my response into two. Managed to cut off the Allied spearheads along the Adriatic. How much of a problem this causes them depends on what they have out of sight. Note they are still north of the garrison line.

At Rome, I stripped off the defenders to try and stall the overland attack. If I can get this under control for one turn then I can pull back in better order – a gamble as I have no reason not to suspect a naval invasion is planned.