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I'm playing thru (hotseat) the first few turns of Telumar's Anzio scenario and I have a few questions. (And some comments to follow the qns).

1) Allied Supply Points - Thanks to the clear, with pictures !, documentation, I avoided the mistakes of forgetting or mis-placing the supply point units. But on turn 2 when I disembarked stacks after stacks of assualt units, I forgot about 1 point, and just group-moved the whole stack (including the supply point) onto the beach hex (actually it's in Anzio itself). I'm unable to re-embark it in turn 3 or turn 4, so do I just leave it in the port hex, or move it up as an extra VI Corps supply unit, or hope it gets wiped out by arty/air and when I get the replacement, I can remember to not move that one onto the beach ?

2)Axis coastal batteries -- Genzano (sp?) and that other one : The house rule says direct bombard only, and with internal support, they do not support attacks, but I cannot get either battery to directly shell observed Allied units with some exceptions. It's like the damned paras, 3rd ID, and 1 BR ID are invisible to these batteries. Except if the unit is in any of the 3 hexes flagged as landing beaches for each of Peter, Anzio and X-Ray Red/Green. Oh, and they work quite well on ships and on supply units when idiots forget to move them. Am I doing or not doing something wrong with these batteries ? or do they only shell the beaches and the ships ?

3) I'm winding up Turn 4 -- PM Jan 22 1944 -- and I was wondering about air units. I left the Allied Beaufighters up on Air Superiority, but took everyone else off Interdiction and Air Superiority (just could not imagine those Spit Vs and P-40s doing all-night CAP). No units were on combat support. Then I finished Allies and went to Axis turn 4.
I was moving in the reinforcement units, and you guessed it -- air interdiction. Having just finished Rimini as Axis, I now move everything in small onesie twosie steps all over the map, so that helped but shouldnt a) nighttime and b) no air units on interdiction eliminate interdiction ? (Or is this the result of the global interdiction factor ?)

4) What is the "Electronic Support" listed in the Force Characteristics along with Night Combat (in the documentation) ?

That's enough questions for now.

My comments after playing a few turns --

I like this scenario better than I thought I would - and I thought I would enjoy it. It's a very well-designed and heavily researched game, and it shows the depth of its design right away. But boy, it is complex.

Telumar == Thank you for the clear carefully-pictured color codes of the units in the doc -- and for the separate arrival/withdrawal spreadsheet. If you play this scenario, I think you have to have these guides open in separate tabs on your PC just to remain sane; I'm not sure about my sanity, but I do know these are open for review when I play Anzio.

Thanks for this scenario, and thanks for any answers/suggestions to my questions.

Ogar

ORIGINAL: ogar

1) Allied Supply Points - Thanks to the clear, with pictures !, documentation, I avoided the mistakes of forgetting or mis-placing the supply point units. But on turn 2 when I disembarked stacks after stacks of assualt units, I forgot about 1 point, and just group-moved the whole stack (including the supply point) onto the beach hex (actually it's in Anzio itself). I'm unable to re-embark it in turn 3 or turn 4, so do I just leave it in the port hex, or move it up as an extra VI Corps supply unit, or hope it gets wiped out by arty/air and when I get the replacement, I can remember to not move that one onto the beach ?

Just disband it. This will release the replacement unit and according sea transport the very next turn.

ORIGINAL: ogar
2)Axis coastal batteries -- Genzano (sp?) and that other one : The house rule says direct bombard only, and with internal support, they do not support attacks, but I cannot get either battery to directly shell observed Allied units with some exceptions. It's like the damned paras, 3rd ID, and 1 BR ID are invisible to these batteries. Except if the unit is in any of the 3 hexes flagged as landing beaches for each of Peter, Anzio and X-Ray Red/Green. Oh, and they work quite well on ships and on supply units when idiots forget to move them. Am I doing or not doing something wrong with these batteries ? or do they only shell the beaches and the ships ?

It's a game engine issue, unfortunately. They can only shell ships (actually all targets on sea-hexes, including the disembarked supply units) and harbour hexes (the beaches).

ORIGINAL: ogar
3) I'm winding up Turn 4 -- PM Jan 22 1944 -- and I was wondering about air units. I left the Allied Beaufighters up on Air Superiority, but took everyone else off Interdiction and Air Superiority (just could not imagine those Spit Vs and P-40s doing all-night CAP). No units were on combat support. Then I finished Allies and went to Axis turn 4.
I was moving in the reinforcement units, and you guessed it -- air interdiction. Having just finished Rimini as Axis, I now move everything in small onesie twosie steps all over the map, so that helped but shouldnt a) nighttime and b) no air units on interdiction eliminate interdiction ? (Or is this the result of the global interdiction factor ?)

The interdiction mission was still active as it was the following german turn (same round: 4). On turn 5 the new orders (rest) should come into action and you should have no more interdiction air strikes.
I know, even with these few fighter bomber aircraft interdiction can be quite effective in good weather.

ORIGINAL: ogar
4) What is the "Electronic Support" listed in the Force Characteristics along with Night Combat (in the documentation) ?

..let's quote the manual on Electronic support:

Force Electronic Support Level

This represents the general electronic capability of the force: Radar, Electronic Counter Measures, Signal Intelligence, etc. This characteristic is only visible in the Editor.

Electronic Support Checks
An electronic support check passes if a random number from zero to the friendly Force Electronic Support Level is higher than a random number from zero to the enemy Force Electronic Support Level.

Electronic Support Effects
Locations with HQ units, Air units, and units that move or fire are “noticed” at the beginning of the following Turn if the enemy player makes an Electronic Support Check for the location. Combats involving large numbers of units are affected by relative Electronic Support levels.
Artillery, HQ, and Air units can only support combats if they pass a Communication Check. Attacks with a large fraction of units failing Communication Checks will take longer to resolve. Individual units and entire Formations may be unavailable for orders (reorganizing) at the beginning of a Turn due to enemy Electronic Warfare. Individual units may be unavailable if they fail Communication Checks, and Formations are more likely to be unavailable if a significant proportion of attached units fail Communication Checks.

Night combat (from the manual):

Unit Proficiencies are averaged with this value when determining
Anti-Armor, Anti-Personnel, and Defense Strengths at night.

ORIGINAL: ogar
That's enough questions for now.

My comments after playing a few turns --

I like this scenario better than I thought I would - and I thought I would enjoy it. It's a very well-designed and heavily researched game, and it shows the depth of its design right away. But boy, it is complex.

Telumar == Thank you for the clear carefully-pictured color codes of the units in the doc -- and for the separate arrival/withdrawal spreadsheet. If you play this scenario, I think you have to have these guides open in separate tabs on your PC just to remain sane; I'm not sure about my sanity, but I do know these are open for review when I play Anzio.

Thanks for this scenario, and thanks for any answers/suggestions to my questions.

Ogar

Thank you very much.. well, it's not designed as an ideal beginner's scenario if only because of its unusual map scale.

Which version are you playing? The initially released version has a bug with the Allied air options. The latest and corrected version is 1.99.

Thanks for the response, Telumar.

Last things first, I'm playing v1.99.

1) Ah-ha, disband; I havent done much of this, so I forgot.

2) Coastal arty limitations -- it's okay by me, I just figure the limits reflect reality (and sort of balance off the ahistoric use of most Allied AAA units).

3) Edit -- I did find 1 squadron of P-40s left on Interdiction, and they did seem omnipresent for 1 squadron, but on thinking about it, the whole map is what 40km by 40 km (?) and some of that is sea hexes, and some Allied controlled, so perhaps only 800 sq km is to be interdicted (25 miles by 12 miles, about) and that is feasible for 1 squadron. [I'll ignore the night-time at the end of January for now.]

4) Electronic support -- (I could not find that in the TOAW doc, so thanks for pulling that up). That does help my appreciation for the situation -- radio,radar,sound obs.,patrol reports, etc. -- all helping to possibly id enemy units not in direct contact. Am I correct that firing (arty), attack or defensive support, and/or movement are the triggers to the Electronic Support Check at turn beginning by the engine [or is this a Ralph/Curtis/whomever type question ?] ?
(Night Combat factor 'made sense to me', a few years of -1 DRM for Mud/Snow/etc. was the analogy I made.)

Yes, it's not a scenario for the first-time player (although I am not sure there are _any_ scenarios which are right for the first-timer) and even though the scale is a level of magnitude 'finer' than what I like (rgt/brig...), the game works for me.

And once more congratulations on completing this -- it's a very difficult campaign to model and based on what I'm seeing so far, you've done an excellent job of capturing the events.