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Updates to come! But if you are interested in how this one began, please see:

tm.asp?m=3875237

We are going to play out the entire game however. Beachhead penalty is ON I believe, for some reason I couldn't find it to turn off when I set the game up, but EF Box is OFF.

Seminole is welcome to this AAR and can post any feedback he wishes.

T1 Air:

In the north I blitz the U-boat factories in Hamburg, Bremen, Kiel, Bremerhaven, Lubeck, Danzig, Flensburg, and Wilhelmshaven.

In the south I transfer all air assets such as typhoons, patrol, TB, and coastal aircraft to the Med. Strategic air bombs all four ports at Sardinia heavily, and Malta covers the Sicily invasion. Coast AF supports naval interdiction at Sardinia and Sicily.

Bombing results show that I have hit all the U-boat targets with significant damage, and ALL ports on Sardinia are hit to 100% damage on T1. I did this with 150 bomber AD's to each target, and running them 7 days a week. I lost about 450 AC to Seminole's 220...acceptable losses in my view.

T1 Ground: Nothing fancy, American 7th Army lands on Sicily, everyone else preparing for Sardinia.

Since Seminole is aware of this, I don't consider any of this insider info. Where I land beyond this however, will be delayed to the AAR.

ORIGINAL: NotOneStepBack

Bombing results show that I have hit all the U-boat targets with significant damage, and ALL ports on Sardinia are hit to 100% damage on T1. I did this with 150 bomber AD's to each target, and running them 7 days a week. I lost about 450 AC to Seminole's 220...acceptable losses in my view.

I assume you are playing with FOW on. If so I further assume that you are not relying on the Air Execution Phase Summary with respect to the damage you are causing (as it LIES like my ex-wife) but rather have actually flown Air Recon over the ports. If so one thing I do not know (and I'm asking the same question on my AAR) is if you fly non-Strategic Recon with the priority of "ports" and "railyards" does it give you accurate Recon; or do you have to fly strategic recon for this?

We are playing with FOW on. I know it does lie, and no I didn't run air recon over the ports on T1, but I do on subsequent turns. To answer your last question I honestly don't know. I ran the bombings with ground attack and not strategic.

ORIGINAL: NotOneStepBack

We are playing with FOW on. I know it does lie, and no I didn't run air recon over the ports on T1, but I do on subsequent turns. To answer your last question I honestly don't know. I ran the bombings with ground attack and not strategic.

I vaguely recall there being something different about strategic vs ground attack. Maybe level bombing instead of dive bombing (for the relevant airframes), or was that an issue of mission altitude and I'm conflating them?

I know I have much to learn about strategic bombing efficacy, as my game have largely been as the Germans except the BGI scenario.

BTW, none of the ports are over 95% damage. I believe that is the threshold to stop supplies barring naval interdiction values and TFs.

This game will likely roll slowly as we've agreed I'll put time on it when I don't have a turn pending in any of my other games.

This will be interesting, I'll be interested to see the landing on Sardinia, and how the landing on Corsica is planned out.

I am in the "It's a trap for the Germans" camp vs. a good opponent, but we'll find out....

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

This will be interesting, I'll be interested to see the landing on Sardinia, and how the landing on Corsica is planned out.

I am in the "It's a trap for the Germans" camp vs. a good opponent, but we'll find out....

Sardinia and Sicily are what are necessary. I view Corsica as being bonus. If the German really wants to commit to it, I'll by pass it until 44. If if switches during the surrender, I'll take it early. Either way, it hurts your opponent. You don't need Corsica to threaten Italy, and France can wait until '44.

ORIGINAL: NotOneStepBack

Sardinia and Sicily are what are necessary. I view Corsica as being bonus. If the German really wants to commit to it, I'll by pass it until 44. If if switches during the surrender, I'll take it early. Either way, it hurts your opponent. You don't need Corsica to threaten Italy, and France can wait until '44.

I am just about to start my first campaign game against a human opponent. Can you explain to me why Sardinia is so important? I believe you when you say it is, I am just not sure why. It seems to me that it is only marginally closer to The beaches around Rome than Sicily is and the only good airbases are in the southern part of Sardinia.

It is very important because once you grab the airfields and ports, you project the naval and air control you otherwise cannot. You can expand all the airbases to level 3 and also base LBs there to hit Germany. It's also important to base coastal AC there to auto naval patrol and you control naval shipping in the Med.

To have a successful invasion against a human you need air cover (air fighter superiority). Since Spitfires are short ranged planes, having Sardinia is extremely important if you want to hit the beaches of Rome or anywhere in N italy. Otherwise you will be bogged down going the historical route through S. Italy.

Turn 2, with the U-boats suppressed, I'm going into full "bomb HI" mode. I initiate the landing to hit Cagliari with paratroopers, and I meet some minor resistance on Sicily. I again bomb all the ports on Sardinia, and bomb units at Cagliari.

Sicily

ORIGINAL: NotOneStepBack

ORIGINAL: Q-Ball

This will be interesting, I'll be interested to see the landing on Sardinia, and how the landing on Corsica is planned out.

I am in the "It's a trap for the Germans" camp vs. a good opponent, but we'll find out....

Sardinia and Sicily are what are necessary. I view Corsica as being bonus. If the German really wants to commit to it, I'll by pass it until 44. If if switches during the surrender, I'll take it early. Either way, it hurts your opponent. You don't need Corsica to threaten Italy, and France can wait until '44.

I really prefer Corsica though if you are landing north of Civitavecchia. Airfields on Corsica are much closer to the beaches, and I think you need support up there....most good players will have a Panzer Corps somewhere north of Rome.

Sardinia is a must regardless; it can hold alot of good airplanes, and should be a pretty easy take anyway, unless the Germans overcommit to it

I lost about 450 AC to Seminole's 220...acceptable losses in my view.

Another week of bombing, but again none of the ports are damaged over 95% at the start of my turn. Allied air directives appear to have been adjusted to increase naval patrol over the Cagliari beachhead, but the Luftwaffe was not idle, and has established better control over the sea lanes to Olbia and Tortoli.

Air losses have increased a tad. Axis losses are running at 671, whilst the Allies have lost 1004 airframes.
An important aspect of the air losses at this stage is who is actually doing the dying.
Closer examination shows that German losses are running <30% of the Axis total at this point. To date 156 German FBs have been lost.
399 Axis airframes written off as 'operational losses', I suspect these are mainly low experience Italian pilots. I lower the Italian training threshold on my first turn so they don't waste airframes practicing before they surrender, but I also let the Italians run automatic naval patrols while they're still around and this costs a lot of planes. I don't mind though. They're gone in August anyway when the Allies trip the Italian surrender - so use'em before you lose'em!
I like to check air losses when the Italians have surrendered, so I have a baseline for actual Luftwaffe losses going forward.

I know that NOSB has some experience with running the strategic bombing campaign, so I'm hoping I've learned how to better husband my fighter force through the summer/fall. I still don't like my intercept results, but will do some more tinkering this game and hopefully get better.

I initiate the landing to hit Cagliari with paratroopers, and I meet some minor resistance on Sicily.

By 'minor resistance' we assume the Allied propagandist are referring to the Der Mensch and his merry band of rabble rousers:



We look forward to hearing how Allied propagandist explain the inauspicious start to their Sardinian 'blitzkrieg':




Der Mensch hands out 15-1 losses in men, how did this happen?

"During an amphibious invasion attack against a non-port hex, the defending units may only use the CV value of the largest unit in the hex, and if that unit is a larger than a regiment or brigade, it will only use 1/3 of that unit’s CV value. All units will participate in the battle, but only the one unit will count in the after battle CV value that determines the winner of the battle. Axis units next to enemy amphibious HQ units are not eligible to come in to a battle from reserve."

Trying to directly invade a fortified port, with a minimum of prep, through Axis naval interdiction, against a PzG Div seems like a really tough row to hoe - even with two infantry divisions.
The narrow approaches to Cagliari also mean that only 1 TF will be able to support the invasion, and even that has modifiers to consider:

"Naval support units suffer disruption prior to their firing in combat when adjacent to enemy hexes with forts and/or ports. The amount of disruption is determined by adding up the fort levels of every enemy hex adjacent to the Amphibious HQ, and adding 1 for every enemy port adjacent to the Amphibious HQ. The larger this number, the greater the disruption. This represents the effects of enemy naval guns within range of the Amphibious HQ."

The 1st CA and 51st BR Inf Divs are still bobbing in the harbor at Cagliari, while the 5th & 50th BR Inf Divs are now ashore, supported by the 231st BR Inf Bde and the 1st BR Airborne Div linking the beaches.
The failed invasion has also left the 1st BR Special Service Bde stranded on the rocks SW of Cagliari. At least 5 units (included the two divisions that failed to storm the port) are at sea waiting to unload.
Italian paratroopers move forward to greet the pasty tourists...

In Sicily the American 7th Army is ashore, and trying to find the Italian lines.
There have been a few skirmishes around the American beachhead, and the following formations have been identified:
2nd US Arm Div
1st US Inf Div
3rd US Inf Div
9th US Inf Div
45th US Inf Div
82nd US Airb Div
6615 US Ranger Rgt
7 unknown formations on the beaches (includes HQs)

Hah Allied propaganda! This is fun

The attack on Sicily that held was one of many attacks, they retreated on the next attack. That hold was triggered from your reserves joining the battle to help an Italian unit.

If the Cagliari landing failed (not suprisingly), I would assume the two other beach landings did not and the paras landed on Sardinia. We'll take Cag next turn hopefully. Won't slow down the Alliend propaganda machine!

If the Cagliari landing failed (not suprisingly)

I don't follow the logic of ordering an invasion you expect to fail.

I would assume the two other beach landings did not and the paras landed on Sardinia.

Yes, the other two landings were unopposed and the paras landed on the rough terrain between them. The 1st Special Service brigade came ashore on the flanks to support the invasion of Cagliari, but it is now isolated. These landings activated two Italian garrison units (infantry and paras).

We'll take Cag next turn hopefully. Won't slow down the Alliend propaganda machine!

Care to make a prediction on when you'll finish clearing Sardinia? I'm interested in how expectations meet reality. Obviously I don't expect you to get into your follow up invasion planning, etc. at this stage but I'm particularly curious how, if at all, the efforts on the islands affect things as we progress.

I found my thumb drive I was saving AAR info to, so I'll try and maintain one from my side as well. Probably won't start posting it until we get the game into Dec-Jan time frame so I can be more open.

In my previous efforts to hold the islands the players did not make an effort prior to the Italian surrender, so it will be interesting to see how viable and efficacious it is in the 'worst case' scenario of an immediate and sizable initial effort by the Allies.

I didn't realize until looking at the battle reports that there was a new beta available. I'll install it today and once I get through my two outstanding turns finish this one up tonight.

In retrospect, I wouldn't hit Cagliari directly, but I wanted to see if it were possible if it were defended. Sure it's annoying, but I don't think it will slow me down in the end. I'll concede you can hold it from invasion. But I still don't think it wise to commit to the islands.

I would say Sicily and Sardinia would be secured sometime in September as a rough estimate.

I'm a beta tester, so I always have the latest private beta going, so I hope that doesn't cause a major issue. I'd prefer not to keep two installs.

I don't follow the logic of ordering an invasion you expect to fail.

We actually agree on something Seminole![:)]

In retrospect, I wouldn't hit Cagliari directly, but I wanted to see if it were possible if it were defended.

At least it provided us an opportunity to highlight the (dis)advantages in attacking a port over a non-port hex.
Don't try this one at home, kids.

Sure it's annoying, but I don't think it will slow me down in the end. I'll concede you can hold it from invasion. But I still don't think it wise to commit to the islands.

In all of my games so far as the Axis I have decided to defend the islands. In the first game these defenses were encountered Bomazz had a division thrown into the sea (attacking the same beach you are in fact), and decided to withdraw instead of make the necessary commitment (he had been thrown off of beachheads established on turn 2 on either side of the toe, and wanted to make a mainland Italy invasion in '43).
Some others ended without my opponents even discovering the islands were defended.
I have two games currently ongoing that made it past turn 20. In one case Sardinia was finally liberated in January of '44. In the other it is late January '44 and the Allies still only have a single port on Sardinia.
Yours is the first game that involves an invasion on turn 2, so I'm particularly interested in how the necessary commitment affects additional invasions in '43. The goal is to drag the liberation of Sardinia and Corsica out so that a strong invasion of mainland Italy north of Naples is dealing with bad weather and ultimately competing with Overlord for resources.

I would say Sicily and Sardinia would be secured sometime in September as a rough estimate.

I'm definitely hoping to push you beyond the historical liberation dates:
Sicily - Operation Husky - completed Aug 17th
Sardinia - German withdrawal completed Sept 17th(?)
Corsica - Operation Vesuvius - completed Oct 4th

I'm a beta tester, so I always have the latest private beta going, so I hope that doesn't cause a major issue. I'd prefer not to keep two installs.

At a minimum I would like to see the relevant change log in each instance before deciding if we should wait for the beta in question to go public. I think playing with different versions when there are significant rule or formula changes is probably not a good idea. The latest public beta has some very nice rule changes for the Allies.

Rule of Thumb:

Do not try to invade an occupied port - it has port fortifications (level 3 to 5) and it will kick your butt 150% of the time.