Sicily to Brenner Pass Revised

[larryfulkerson]

Oh. OK, so I'll use these settings now:

[larryfulkerson]

I've been moving units in T7 and I've surrounded and isolated another semi-large group of Germans and I've gotten some recon on
the non-coastal road we're going to use to proceed north to Messina. Those Germans that are surrounded are almost cleared off
the non-coastal road and once they are gone we'll proceed north again.

[Petey]

Ok, I'll turn both of these settings to off also. By the way, what do they do when on?

[larryfulkerson]

Hey Petey: I'm not real sure about this but I'm thinking that the new turn order rules gives each player the
chance to have two turns in a row instead of having player #1 to go first each turn. And the new supply
rules adjusts the level of supply to use the new "smoother" supply level decline w/ distance instead of the
"stairstep" old method. It results in a more realistic supply method. This is my understanding.

[Petey]

Thanks Larry.

Turn 20 and I've just captured Messina and cleared Sicily of Axis units. My units are in no shape to invade Italy for a bit. Don't know what went wrong or if Steve has the Axis fighting better but they just did not want to let go of this island

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: Petey
Thanks Larry.

Turn 20 and I've just captured Messina and cleared Sicily of Axis units. My units are in no shape to invade Italy for a bit.

It's a good idea to rest your dudes until they are combat ready again. Invading w/ tired troops is one way to lose troops for
no good reason. Rested troops fight better. Turn 20 for the island of Sicily is pretty good I think.

ORIGINAL: Petey
Don't know what went wrong or if Steve has the Axis fighting better but they just did not want to let go of this island

It feels like that to me too. Something is different this time.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the T9 positions. The Germans on the far left edge are the only ones visible that I haven't surrounded yet except for, obviously,
the Germans being attacked on the far right as we advance toward Messina. We've gotten most of the airfields and I see a German
squadron that is just begging to be pounded by British arty. Several strikes might just take care of the infestation. It's looking pretty
good for a change and I'm thinking I may be back on schedule.

[larryfulkerson]

I was looking at my aircraft losses again just now and did some rough back-of-the-envelope calculations and came to the conclusion
that my Spitfire V's weren't pulling their fair share of the air war load and I needed to take them off CS missions and back on AS, at
least for a while. I'm going to leave the P-40's on AS for a while but if the P-40 losses get too high, again, I'll move them to a CS
posture. Meanwhile I'm not running any INT missions at all because I'd rather concentrate on CS for the bombers and AS for the
fighters, all of them, even the poor performers ( Spitfire V's and P-40's ). I've got to try to get air superiority as soon as it can be done
in order to keep my air losses lower ( I'm thinking of my bombers especially here ).

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the T9 positions just before the execution of the combat phase. I'm slowly mopping up in the middle and only holding my own on
the far left and zooming north on the right. So far so good.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the T10 strategic situation. The mop up in the middle is concluded and has freed up a substantial number of units that can now
zoom north to Messina and prepare to invade the boot by resting until they have 150 supply and at least 100 readiness. Meanwhile
the British use the non-coastal road to approach Messina from the NW and the Americans that are still locked in combat.......I'm trying to
outflank the Germans by moving north and then west around their positions to cut them off from supply and then destroy them. It's
probably going to take about 15 turns to dispatch that particular group. Then we can proceed to clear the rest of the island and move
everybody toward Messina to get off the island and onto the boot.

[larryfulkerson]

OK. I've been moving units and this is the West side in T10 now. I've surrounded all the known Germans and I'm essentionally in
mop up operations.

[sPzAbt653]

To expand on what Mr. Fulkerson said a couple posts ago, with New Turn Order Rules 'on' Player 2 will get many of the calculations normally done at the beginning of the turn instead at the beginning of Player 2's half of the turn. New Supply delivers supply based on the Motorized movement costs. There is nothing wrong with either of these settings, but scenarios should be designed for both, otherwise they shouldn't be used (in my opinion). Since this is an older scenario I'd rather not use these new settings (they could cause an unbalancing).

[sPzAbt653]

ORIGINAL: Petey

A point I've noticed about railroad repair:

The two RR repair pioneer units have a very high probability of repairing the rail. Frequently when I check at the beginning of the next turn the rail hex in front of the pioneer unit has been repaired also. Can they repair two hexes in a turn?

There is an event that will allow 'auto repair', but I didn't put one in for the Allied side. There is a default of one repair per turn, so yes, you will notice some repairs happening magically.

[sPzAbt653]

Something is different this time.

Without the Partisans and Guerrilla effects, Elmer should be able to focus better. I expect and hope that these new plays will be much better than the previous ones.

I appreciate you guys hanging in there with me on this one. In my defense, I put German and Italian security units in the behind the lines areas and I expected them to do a reasonable job of offsetting the Partisans and Guerrillas. Obviously it didn't work out as I intended. So I'm looking forward to seeing how this plays out now.

[larryfulkerson]

This is the East side in T10. I've zoomed my recon unit(s) out to the limit of their movement points and they are getting closer to
Messina and the Germans there. I've found an HQ unit that needs to be pounded w/ arty so I'm going to get organized better and
bring up the arty on the non-coastal road as well. I've dispatched most of the German opposition on the coastal road for now but
surely there's more further north.

[larryfulkerson]

So here it is the beginning of T11 and nobody has moved and there's been no combat so there's been 10 turns executed so far. So I
can just divide by 10 on the loss column to see how many planes on average have been lost per turn. I see how the loss rate of the
P-40 type has been almost 4 times what the production rate is so I'm slowly running out of P-40's. I've got plenty of P-40's on hand but
I don't want to just keep losing them. So I'm going to move them from AS missions to CS and INT. Especially INT now that most of the
land combat is over except for the Messina area and whatever mop up is ongoing. I've moved about 2/3 of the available planes to the
island of Sicily especially the shorter range Spitfires and P-47's. I hope to eventually have all the planes together if possible.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the West side in T11. I've surrounded that pesky German group and I'm going around them to patrol to the West. I'm basically
in one giant mop up operation on the entire island. Most of it's clear and there's only the search and destroy on the West end and the
fighting the Germans for Messina left to do. I'm estimating that I'll have the city of Messina by turn 20. I could be wrong.

[larryfulkerson]

OK. Here's the East side in T12. I count six hot spots and the major one is my assault on Messina. The rest of them can wait. Getting
Messina will get some of the Sicily Germans transfered and I won't have to fight them until later. It's also the only way off the island w/
the port being there only. So Messina is important in a lot of ways, not the least being the supply point there.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's T13. This is starting to get exciting. More land combat troops are rounding the curve up north and will be approaching
Messina from the N and there's a huge stack on the city hex itself. That just begs to be pounded from the air and w/ arty.

[larryfulkerson]

During their half of T13 the Germans spread out from the large stack and formed a perimeter that I'll now have to penetrate. It's not
much of a hassle just time consuming. They are just stalling the final assault on the city itself. I'm bringing up the American arty to
help out with the siege but they may not arrive and be ready to start firing before the city falls. We'll see. I honestly don't know.