Sicily to Brenner Pass Revised

[Petey]

The problem with a picture posting is I am using windows 8 and I am absolutely completely lost. I am glad sometimes that I can open the game.

ORIGINAL: Petey

Wow, I'm at turn 31 and I've just captured naples and I thought I was going slow. I took Naples to unstop my Salerno invasion.

Maybe I'm going too reckless and I'm in for a fall. I'll try to post a screen shot later today.

[larryfulkerson]

I've heard bad things about Win8 and I'm glad I'm still using Win7 myself.

Anyway, this is the T39 front lines on the West side. I'm running out of steam but I don't have all that far left to go to get
that precious supply point.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the East side now. T39 and supply is good and I've run into some more Axis interference and I'm moving to surround it and see
if I can't destroy it economically. No hurry I guess. I've got time to bring up the arty and get some pounding in before I tackle even the
little stuff.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the East side in T41........I've driven a recon unit into Foggia itself and I've cut off supply to a lot of the German AA units there
and I'm going to be doing mopping up operations for a while.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the West side in T41. The Germans have pulled back into the one hex that I want and it's looking like I need to pound that stack
by air for several turns to whittle down the arty strength and decrease the readiness of the units in that hex. Low supply levels are a
major hassle still.

EDIT: I'm speaking of course of the target hex being the supply point at Paestum.

[larryfulkerson]

I did a three-dot attack and finally captured the Paestum supply point. Now supply is excellent and we're pushing north again. And on
the East side we've surrounded the AA units at Foggia and we're in mop up there. I've transfered the RR engineers to the East side
again to continue extending the rail north to Foggia.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the T43 front lines.

[Petey]

Larry: How do you advance the rail line so fast? What engineers do you use? I'm using what I've got (and following your path) but my rail head is advancing very slow.

[larryfulkerson]

I'm using everybody who can repair a rail including what I'm calling regular engineers and the dedicated RR engineers ( two of them ).
There's probably close to a dozen or more total trying to repair this section of rail. I thought my rail line was advancing slow too.
Are you having special difficulties or something?

[Petey]

I'm not getting any real production out of anybody but the 2 RR Eng units. Perhaps it is a waste to use the combat engineers in this role. I'd think that given 2.5 week turns a lot of rail would be repaired. I'm going to divide the RR Eng units and see if I get any better production out of them that way. I'll try that tonight when I play again. That said, I think it is a flaw in the TOAW game system that converting a hex to your control automatically destroys the rail line in it. Bridges aren't automatically destroyed, nor are airfields.

Larry would you give me some pointers on how to post a map picture. How do I take a picture of it? What program do I use? I think I have MS paint. I'm lost.

I am going to take a "breather" in my advance, and organize my front. My units are getting intermingled and I like to keep the divisions together more or less. It doesn't help game play as most units are on free support, however I like it that way as it is more historical. And I need to sort the Brits and Americans out. Everyone is also way down on supply. Low Allied supply is historical, and I'm ok with that. Its also a check on overly risky advances and invasions. Fighting with low supply casualties build up fast that way. The Mediterranean front was not someplace where the Allies were going to win the war (unlike NE Europe) so excessive casualties as a result an risky rapid advance was a bad trade. Casualties were high enough as it was. Perhaps Steve could modify the scenario to great penalize the Allies for casualties.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Petey
I'm not getting any real production out of anybody but the 2 RR Eng units. Perhaps it is a waste to use the combat engineers in this role.

I'm not getting much production out of anybody but the 2 RR engineers units too. But I don't know what else to use them to do.

ORIGINAL: Petey
I'd think that given 2.5 week turns a lot of rail would be repaired. I'm going to divide the RR Eng units and see if I get any better production out of them that way. I'll try that tonight when I play again. That said, I think it is a flaw in the TOAW game system that converting a hex to your control automatically destroys the rail line in it. Bridges aren't automatically destroyed, nor are airfields.

Lemme know how dividing your RR engineer units works out.

ORIGINAL: Petey
Larry would you give me some pointers on how to post a map picture. How do I take a picture of it? What program do I use? I think I have MS paint. I'm lost.

You bet. I've put together a sort of tutorial on the subject and made a thread for it. You can find it here:
tm.asp?m=3375308

ORIGINAL: Petey
I am going to take a "breather" in my advance, and organize my front. My units are getting intermingled and I like to keep the divisions together more or less. It doesn't help game play as most units are on free support, however I like it that way as it is more historical. And I need to sort the Brits and Americans out. Everyone is also way down on supply. Low Allied supply is historical, and I'm ok with that. Its also a check on overly risky advances and invasions. Fighting with low supply casualties build up fast that way. The Mediterranean front was not someplace where the Allies were going to win the war (unlike NE Europe) so excessive casualties as a result an risky rapid advance was a bad trade. Casualties were high enough as it was. Perhaps Steve could modify the scenario to great penalize the Allies for casualties.

My units are getting intermingled too. I thought maybe I should move the British units to the East side of the peninsula and use the
American units on the West side to help out with the intermingling. It's working ok so far. I've found that I still have some British
units on the West side that I need to move but I'm in no hurry.

[sPzAbt653]

Hey Petey - good points, and for your consideration:

I'd think that given 2.5 week turns a lot of rail would be repaired.

Since a repaired rail that is connected to a supply point is as good as a supply point, the repairs may not necessarily represent actual historical repair abilities. In some scenarios the repairs will represent the rate of infrastructure repair (all that goes into the movement of supplies from the point of origin to the front line).

I'm going to divide the RR Eng units and see if I get any better production out of them that way.

Won't help, dividing scales the % chance of repairs. You can see this number in the Unit Report, on the right under Special Abilities. Movement also reduces the % chance.

... a flaw in the TOAW game system that converting a hex to your control automatically destroys the rail line in it.

This is set by the designer, so its scenario specific and not a TOAW thing.

Perhaps Steve could modify the scenario to great penalize the Allies for casualties.

Casualty Penalties don't work as well as it seems, so for now I'm going with low replacement rates. But so far we haven't seen a real 'slog up the boot' type of campaign, so I'm not sure if the current settings are correct.

Thanks

[Petey]

Thanks for the tutorial Larry. Very helpful.

How do I copy the map and create a file to edit before I upload. All I can seem to do is create a jpg of the entire map.

Sorry for the many questions.

[larryfulkerson]

Find your print screen key on your keyboard. It's sometimes abbreviated PRT SCR and it's usually near F12 key somewhere. What
you do is get the view you want to capture and just press the print screen key one time. Nothing will appear to have happened but
if you now start up MSPaint and do a "Paste" operation you'll see the "picture you took" appear and then you can save it as a file.

[Petey]

Yes Steve, all very good points.

You hit the nail on the head with your comment about the missing "slog up the boot" campaign. Elmer's refusal (or inability) to establish fixed defensive lines is the real nut of the problem. The allies' ability to constantly trap and surround Axis units piecemeal and eliminate them is the crux of the problem.

Eliminating the Italian partisans was a good move. Elmer can't deal with them effectively and they were a nuisance to move around.

Still its a great scenario and lots of fun, and I am enjoying it! Thanks for your many efforts on this (and other) scenarios.

BTW, what is the very latest version of the game? I am playing with 3.4, however Larry implied in a comment in his game with John Fogger that there were later mods. Did I misinterpret that, and if not where can I obtain them?

ORIGINAL: sPzAbt653

Hey Petey - good points, and for your consideration:

I'd think that given 2.5 week turns a lot of rail would be repaired.

Since a repaired rail that is connected to a supply point is as good as a supply point, the repairs may not necessarily represent actual historical repair abilities. In some scenarios the repairs will represent the rate of infrastructure repair (all that goes into the movement of supplies from the point of origin to the front line).

I'm going to divide the RR Eng units and see if I get any better production out of them that way.

Won't help, dividing scales the % chance of repairs. You can see this number in the Unit Report, on the right under Special Abilities. Movement also reduces the % chance.

... a flaw in the TOAW game system that converting a hex to your control automatically destroys the rail line in it.

This is set by the designer, so its scenario specific and not a TOAW thing.

Perhaps Steve could modify the scenario to great penalize the Allies for casualties.

Casualty Penalties don't work as well as it seems, so for now I'm going with low replacement rates. But so far we haven't seen a real 'slog up the boot' type of campaign, so I'm not sure if the current settings are correct.

Thanks

[Petey]

By the way Steve, how do I view the % chance to repair a rail hex?

I know how to do the same for a bridge attack; I seem to remember it can be done also for rail repair probability.

[larryfulkerson]

BTW, what is the very latest version of the game? I am playing with 3.4, however Larry implied in a comment in his game with John Fogger that there were later mods. Did I misinterpret that, and if not where can I obtain them?

Hey there Petey..........um....the latest is 3.6 and Ralph is making TOAW ever better all the time. To obtain a copy of 3.6 I guess
you'd have to talk to the development team leader, Curtis LeMay ( Bob ). I've heard through the grapevine that there's some scenario
designers that have a copy of 3.5 but I haven't heard of anybody outside of the development team having a copy of 3.6

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Petey

By the way Steve, how do I view the % chance to repair a rail hex?

I know how to do the same for a bridge attack; I seem to remember it can be done also for rail repair probability.

[ raises hand ] I know, I know....pick me.[ /raises ]

Look under the special abilities panel of the unit display for the RR engineer. It's like 99% for the whole unit and something
like 33% if it's one of the pieces of a broken down unit.

[FrankieITA]

I'm still playing this too, I'm currently cautiously approaching Gothic Line in turn 108(July '44).
Logistics seems to be the real bottleneck, dividing the campaign in long and tedious "reach your front with the rail" followed by dense action turns where you have plenty to attack and conquer.
Still feeling that strategic taste, I'm starting to think that half week turns are best suited for this scenario. I wouldn't change anything to the rail repair, at the moment Allies struggles with the logistics and it's historical correct.
Don't forget that the Allied broke Gothic Line in April '45, I've played this scenario thrice and I've always outdone them, one time even going all up to Brenner Pass for February '45.

[Petey]

Thanks Larry, that's very helpful.

Yes it seems many of the engineer units have a very low % to repair rail lines.

Larry I've been meaning to ask you about your graphics.

My rail lines are not very distinct. Enemy are red and friendly are black but otherwise not very clear. And my possession view is orange dashes for friendly and black dashes for enemy. Colors are different; overall many features are not as clear as what you post online. Ive tried all the views. Are you doing something fundamentally different or am I just a PITA?




By the way Steve, how do I view the % chance to repair a rail hex?

I know how to do the same for a bridge attack; I seem to remember it can be done also for rail repair probability.
[/quote]
[ raises hand ] I know, I know....pick me.[ /raises ]

Look under the special abilities panel of the unit display for the RR engineer. It's like 99% for the whole unit and something
like 33% if it's one of the pieces of a broken down unit.