Sicily to Brenner Pass Revised

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the T73 front lines. As you can see I need to slow down on the West side and somehow catch up the East side. More supply on
the East side would help considerably. I'll see what I can do to shift around the RR engineers to the appropriate rail line. Lemme
think about it some.

[tcarusil]

I would prefer to think that the Germans had rigged the bridge to blow and in the process of disarming it the munitions went off[;)]

TomC

[larryfulkerson]

Yeah, and the bad part is that there were approximately 1,200 Italian civilians walking across the bridge trying to get away from the fighting. They were last seen floating downstream. Your turn to add a sentence.

[larryfulkerson]

The 10th Indian Division has sailed into the bay at Pescara, where they are building a rather large pier but it's not finished yet so they
parked the ships at anchor in the bay and they are using lighters to unload all the passengers. It takes a full turn simulating getting the
entire formation ashore via lighters. Next turn I'll just unembark them and walk into Pescara with the units.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's a picture of the Pescara pier. It's a work in progress. Next comes the lights for unloading at night.

[tcarusil]

Yes, very bad in deed. My father's side of the family lived, and still does, in Foggia. Fortunately my grandparents had left in the early 20's. Who knows how many of my relatives are floating down that river. I weep[;)]

TomC

[ogar]

I'm late in responding,

Steve - you may want to check out this link
http://www.amazon.com/The-Battle-Italy- ... B0000CNKJ4
(maybe from the library vs purchasing ?)  It's old, I read it a long time ago, and found it well written and comprehensive.
Jackson is British, so there is a tendency to focus on 8th Army but he does cover all the bases and covers the whole Italian campaign (less Sicily).  And I think that it helps he was there - you do get a flavor for what mattered at the time.

Looking at the battle for Rome, are there plans to allow an Open City/penalties for combat within the city (cutting supplies/reinforcments/VPs/etc ?)

@Larry -
The supply point at Anzio tells that story.  I was actually thinking about out-of-way places like Livorno or Ancona or ...

Re Sicily - since Patton and Monty raced to the 'be the first' to capture Messina, and since it was entered by US about 3 days before Larry's late August entry date, I wrote you were slower than the other two generals.  I suspect that your rate of advance would be hard for many of us to match, or exceed.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: ogar
Looking at the battle for Rome, are there plans to allow an Open City/penalties for combat within the city (cutting supplies/reinforcments/VPs/etc ?)

Yeah Steve: what's the plan on Rome in the scenario. I just now had to fight my way through it and I'm pretty sure the Vatican was
absolutely flattened to the ground. Nothing left. I hear they are going to start over in Salt Lake City. Good luck.

ORIGINAL: ogar
Re Sicily - since Patton and Monty raced to the 'be the first' to capture Messina, and since it was entered by US about 3 days before Larry's late August entry date, I wrote you were slower than the other two generals.  I suspect that your rate of advance would be hard for many of us to match, or exceed.

Oh. Yeah, that makes sense now about me being "slower than...." I was. Um........my rate of advance however wasn't all due to my
General-wise skills. I'm not that good a player, and I'm mostly just emulating history. I'm going to be able to read a map soon. I need
more experience. But I CAN move units around. I'm pretty good on the defense because of all my games ending up w/ me on the
defense. There's quite an uproar in the WITP-AE After Action section where I'm part of an AAR about me and Jim Moore taking on the
designer of the Reluctant Admiral 6.5 scenario as the Jap player. RA 6.5 was designed by imagining what Yamamoto COULD have
changed if he had had his way w/ the imperial war board. Lots more ships / planes / land combat units. It's designed for the Japs
to win and Jim and I are the Allies and we're getting out butts handed to us. ME mostly it turns out. So I still know what it feels like to
just be able to tie my shoes and that's about my performance envelope.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: tcarusil
Yes, very bad in deed. My father's side of the family lived, and still does, in Foggia. Fortunately my grandparents had left in the early 20's. Who knows how many of my relatives are floating down that river. I weep[;)]
TomC

I'm sorry for the losses you and your loved ones went through. Life is hard for everyone of course but sometimes there are places in
the world where the people are asked to undergo more than their fair share of the misery that existance can be sometimes.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the front lines in T75. I'm thinking that the disparity in the parts of the front lines is even more pronounced than it was in T73.
I've shifted the engineers to work on the rail headed NE out of Rome and it's slowly starting to make a difference in the supply level.

[sPzAbt653]

Steve - you may want to check out this link
http://www.amazon.com/The-Battle-Italy- ... B0000CNKJ4

Thanks Ogar, I'll look into it. The heavy reading will have to wait a while as the FitE2 and TOAW 3.6 projects currently get priority in the time schedule, followed by the D-Day to the Elbe scenario.

Looking at the battle for Rome, are there plans to allow an Open City/penalties for combat within the city

I hadn't thought about it. I don't think its poossible to tell Elmer not to defend within the city.

I just now had to fight my way through it and I'm pretty sure the Vatican was
absolutely flattened to the ground.

I don't think that would be such a bad thing. (Apologies to any religious folks who might read that comment).

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the East side in T77. As you can see the supply level is slowly getting better. I may be able to start moving again.

[larryfulkerson]

Some of you guys are wondering how I get that display screen that depicts the equipment. In the Unit Display screen just click on the
equipment that you want to look at. If there's a column of equipment types they should all be clickable this way. I use it all the time to
decide whether the aircraft is a high altitude type ( for AA differences ). I found out that the P-47 is particularly good to use on tanks.
The Stuka is good against ships. Etc.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the front lines in T81. You can see what difference good supply makes to the moving units. I'm way ahead in the middle of the
map and the East and West sides are lagging. But we're blasting ahead and moving forward and progress is being made.

[larryfulkerson]

I've received my first P-51 Mustang unit. It came into the game on an island at the bottom of the map and I've flown it to an airfield near
Rome. It can reach any spot on the map so the Germans can't hide. Not that they need to anymore. I've already destroyed all the Axis
squadrons but as soon as they get another aircraft unit to respawn I'm ready w/ the P-51's, P-38's and Spitfire IX's

[larryfulkerson]

The British 223 squadron is down to it's last 9 planes and they aren't being built very fast so it's going to be a while before the unit
gets any more replacements so to put it to good use I've flown it to Tunisia where the boss of the boss of 223 squadron is going to use
one of the planes to get his flying pay for this month. You have to fly something like an hour a week or four hours a month to qualify and
sometimes it's something that get's scheduled at the last minute. The pilots are training the rookies and they are teaching
ground school and a lot of them are on leave. If they can catch a plane to England and back they can go for a couple of days.

[larryfulkerson]

I've run into the Gothic Line in the middle of the map and there's probably arty behind them so I'm going to wait for more recon to see
just what's back there and besides there's no hurry in this......I'll just bomb them from the air and do some arty strikes to wear down the
defenders and make this a little easier.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what the West coast looks like now. Units are still making their way north and looking into nooks for Germans. It's slow and
tedious but must be done. I don't expect to get to the mainstream units until I get to the Gothic Line on this side but there has been the
occasional strongpoint thingie. I can usually apply some air power on them for a turn or so and then the ground units can roll right over
them. I like to surround them before I destroy them too.

[larryfulkerson]

I've reached the Arno River and I'm not seeing a lot of German defenders. I suspect that most of them are at the Gothic Line.

[larryfulkerson]

I had originally thought to post this as an example of where the new supply rules aren't working. But I've thought about it some more
and I'm not sure that's the situation here. Which is that there's this broken bridge that's seemingly conveying supplies still. But I'm
thinking that the source of that supply could possibly come from a different road or something. Let me break some more bridges and
take another look.