Adventures with Brian In Italy

[larryfulkerson]

This is what it looks like at the end of turn six. The Italians are moving from
the west side of the island toward Messina along the north coast road and I need
to intercept them, prevent them from getting there. I've reached the north coast
road with a recon unit and the Italians will probably attack it.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the front lines before I have moved anybody. It appears that Brian is moving
people off the island as fast as he can.

EDIT: It turns out that the Allied CA is actually an Allied CL.

[devoncop]

You are making phenomenal progress here Larry.

Great job.

At the end of August in our game (a month later) we were still fighting around Mt Etna and the evacuations to the mainland had just started.

What would you say you have done differently here that has made the difference?

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: devoncop
You are making phenomenal progress here Larry.

Great job.

At the end of August in our game (a month later) we were still fighting around Mt Etna and the evacuations to the mainland had just started.

What would you say you have done differently here that has made the difference?

Brian tells me it's like I knew what he was going to do from the start. Everything that he's trying to do is building some MLR's around Mt. Etna and move the Italians from the west to Messina and I thought that if I were Axis that's what I would do so I did my planning on that as his goal and it has all seemed to work out just fine so far. It's still too early to say with certainty when the island will be cleared but I've already gotten started on that. The goal is to grab Messina to stop the evacuations and trap as much stuff on the island as possible and persuade it to surrender.

[MikeJ19]

Larry,

Good plan and good luck

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: MikeJ19
Larry,

Good plan and good luck

I agree there was a lot of luck involved in the event but the plan isn't mine. It's
from Montgomery in that movie about the war in Sicily, I think it was called "Patton"
from a long time ago. He was in the wash room of the Corps HQ and he and another
General were discussing Operation Husky and what the plan should be and Montgomery
breathed on the mirror over the sink to make it fog up and drew a rough island shaped
like Sicily and then drew one line north along the east coast: "This will be the British
forces making their way north along the coast road to Messina." And he drew another
line to the left of the first going north, slightly to the NW. "And this is the American
forces and they will protect the west flank of the British and clear out the western part
of the island." And then he wipped the mirror to destroy the drawing in the fog on the
mirror as it was considered top secret.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what it looks like in T10 and I'm pushing for the corner of the island and
the port of Messina. The Italians have been slowly backing up for three turns now
and I think maybe they are close to cracking. One more good push and they might
fold and crumble. I want to stop the evacuations and build a big big POW camp and
make Mexico pay for it.

I've got a couple of yellow planes but most of them are green and they have been
carrying the brunt of the load. Sometimes I attack with one-dot settings and the
attack still works. Of course some of that is due to the poor proficiency of the
Italians. I notice that the Italians have been doing most of the defending so far.
I'm pretty sure Brian has evacuated most of the German stuff to the mainland. There's
been a trip over to the mainland for the past four turns or so. That's possibly 36
units or so.

[devoncop]

I think as the Axis it can be tempting to evacuate all remaining German forces in particular from Sicily as soon as possible but I think it's a mistake. Every turn spent holding up the Allies on Sicily, even at the cost of casualties is a turn gained at the end of the game defending Brenner Pass.....and as we are seeing in our game every turn can be crucial.

Having said that, the decent Italian and German artillery is definitely worth saving once it comes under too much pressure as is much of the 15th Panzer Grenadiers as possible, but not using their ability on Sicily (while Allied air is relatively much weaker than later) is debatable.

[larryfulkerson]

All of my units are either not adjacent to an enemy unit or it's yellow and can't
shoot. So not much got done this turn. I did bombard his stacks of troops and
got a handful of hits. I'm hoping to have the island cleared in a couple of turns.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what it looks like just before I pull the trigger for combat resolution. The
goal is to capture the port and kill all the enemy units on the island. Maybe I'll
be able to do all that this turn.

[larryfulkerson]

There's just one small stack of Italians left and they are soon to be gone so I need
to get organized and get the formations lined up for sailing to the next invasion.
Also, I want to line up the arty at Messina across from Reggio and bombard the stacks
across the channel there. I want to stack the aircraft on the airfields the correct
way ( 2 bombers, 1 fighter, 1 AA unit ), and trim their ranges for the new parking
spot and the new strategic situation. I need ranges to reach at least Salerno.

[larryfulkerson]

---------------------- Aug. 31, 1943 -------------------------------------------------
While I was checking out the ports that have supply points I noticed those on Corsica
and Sardinia and I was tempted to grab one of the smaller islands just for the airfields
and the CAP it would afford to the west coast of Italy for sea-borne traffic. The problem
is that the clock is ticking and the Germans are getting reinforcements all the time and
they can use those to garrison the ports that I'm going to need to win this game. I need
to get the Italy west coast ports first before the smaller islands. I'm lookoing hard
at Salerno as the next spot to land because of all the airfields nearby.

[larryfulkerson]

The 504th was split into pieces so I put it back together to make a whole regiment
and I'm due in two more turns to get another regiment so we'll have the whole division
back together then. I'm planning on using it to get ashore somewhere like Taranto
with all the airfields there. I need to do some recon by fire to see what port is
garrisoned with what force. I'm hoping to find a port guarded by Italians to get
ashore easier than a port guarded by Germans.

[larryfulkerson]

I was assigning aircraft to the mission of making a probing strike at one-dot settings
just to get a list of the equipment in the hex and I found an enemy port that didn't
give me a chance to assign a strike which probably means there's no enemy units in
that hex. That's good news and I need to take advantage of it ASAP.

[larryfulkerson]

I thought I'd check out the aircraft just now and found out that I lost quite a few
aircraft taking the island. Actually they did most of the work. Now I'm going through
them resetting their ranges for the situation, I need range up to Rome or so and not much
more unless I'm going to drop a bridge in northern Italy or something.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the recent reinforcements screen and as you can see there's a lot of stuff
that got withdrawn and Clark replaces Patton in command and more important than that
I received a RR engineer. They are worth their weight in gold.

[larryfulkerson]

In just two more turns I'll have the British 1st Airborne Division ready for operations
which is a very good thing because I have plans to use them.

[hingram]

I moved the arriving AA units to the port so I could transfer them to the islands/Taranto after they were taken. I didn't stay in the Gerbini airfields for very long.

Note: I didn't know this
10.4.6. Railroad Damage
Any Railroads in an enemy-controlled location
may be damaged when a friendly unit enters
the location. The chance that this will happen is
dependent on the Scenario. Damaged (broken)
Railroads may not be used for Railroad Movement.

So I guess I should stay off the rails unless I am in a train because the scenario is set to 100% chance.

[700851McCall]

That won't help - you have to capture the rails before you can rail around on them. And capturing them destroys them.

[hingram]

I thought it just had to be in your ZOC to be taken i.e. adjacent. I thought that because I could not land a fighter group on an airfield until it was friendly and one became friendly while I was adjacent to it. It sounds like something I can test