A funny thing happened on the way to the forum

[LiquidSky]

The invasion has begun. After the usual preliminaries...Sicily falling, Sardinia falling...Corsica. The allies pushing up the toe, but meeting a stone wall of Panzers... The allies have invaded in front of Rome.

I have a feeling that this game is not going to go very well in my favour.

I was using my usual defence of fast moving mech/panzer in the far south to toe the line [:'(] ,
a very strong dug in defence in front of Rome, and the Luftwaffe bombers in Northern Italy to guard north of Rome.

Not being shy, my opponent has hit me right in the middle of my defensive line.

[LiquidSky]

That was the Oct 2nd turn....

This is the beginning of the Oct 9th turn. 1943.

I don't have the strength to contain his force. A very strong allied army is hemmed in at the bottom of Italy at the toe. However, the forces doing the hemming are my strongest mech/panzer units. I cant bring them north without releasing 2-3 allied tank divisions, and quite a few infantry divisions.
The beach landings seem to have a few tank divisions as well...and I see lots of units that normally sit in England waiting for summer 1944. No rest for these boys.

I fear my opponent is throwing the kitchen sink at Italy. And will probably out number me.

It would gall me, but I may have to pull back and form a line in my Northern Italy garrison zone.

[ultradave]

That's a very large invasion right on Rome's doorstep. It will be interesting to see what happens next.

[Q-Ball]

LS: Can you walk us through the invasions that have happened to date, including size? It's not easy to have 4 double-stacks prepped by turn 13, AND clear Sardinia and Corsica enough to provide air support for that.

I am guessing he used the 3 British landings Turn 1, re-directed US ones somewhere else, Sardinia perhaps...can you elaborate?

Did you resist on Corsica, or no?

[LiquidSky]

It was a bit of a weird start. The allies only invaded Sicily with the British. After giving it a lot of thought, I decided to still withdraw all the Germans from the Island(s) and pull them to the mainland.

I did send every Italian that could move to Sardinia and Sicily.

A couple turns later, Sardinia was invaded by the Americans. The Italians were doing an okay job of slowing the British and Americans down, however.....in August, the allies invaded the toe...with Sicily half controlled by the allies, and Sardina about a third...the Italians surrendered.

After that it was essentially a free march up the toe until he hit a line of panzer/mech divisions at the top of the toe (ankle?) where it starts to widen.

A couple of turns of counterattacking for VP's later.....when the Rome invasion occurs. Which brings us to the now.

Oh....it's been a rather fierce air war that was somewhat favouring me (due to his fighters unable to intercept the Luftwaffe stealth bombers) although that has now been rectified with the new patch.

VP's are at 46, with the allies getting 14vps per turn for bombing. UBoat vps number -19 for the whole game up to now.

I've given my turn a lot of thought and it seems I have a few choices...

I could : Run to the North. Set up a strong defensive line in the Northern Italian garrison zone. He could follow me and breach it but it gives me the advantage of freeing the whole german army if he invades another zone. However, it does free his army for more mischief, and gives him a lot of city points.

I could: Defend strongly. I have about 60 CV in extra garrisons, however I also have to withdraw some stuff over the next few turns. It seems he has sent a lot of extra units from England for the fight in Italy, and the longer I can keep them in engaged, the easier it may be for me to defeat him in France...

I could: Hedge my bets....move back to Rome from the south...bring in some more divisions to form a line.. This could backfire if he can break out by Rome. With the extra pressure from below, that could put me in a trap.

The Luftwaffe also has a bunch of different routes it can take. I can bomb his airfields on Corsica/Sardinia...which are the only ones close enough to support his invasion....or I could try and cut off his sea supply.

My experience tells me that it is impossible to isolate the ports..especially since the coast is 8 hexes long from Civitavechia to Anzio. With ports in almost every hex. Some of the airfields are heavily invested in flak though.

Decisions...decisions....I want to have my turn done tonight, so I guess I will have to try something and see.

[Q-Ball]

I can't see the whole map, but I think it's going to be pretty tough to hold that line. I would vote for a combination strategy; hold the line at Rome as long as you can, but know when to leave.

Rome is worth a chunk of VPs, but alot less if you can hold it through December. After December, it's not the worst outcome to have him in the Northern Italy zone, because as you say that frees up alot of units once the France landing happens.

In retrospect, I think the error you made was not defending Corsica. It's difficult to land in that area without the airbases on Corsica, and committing just a few Sec Regts and a Division or two are enough to disarm all the Italians, and pin any Allied landing to the beach.

[LiquidSky]

I've had a lot of success in the past keeping Corsica suppressed with the Luftwaffe. Damaged airfields don't build until they are repaired, and there are a lot more Axis airfields in range then allied ones. I let myself get distracted though so I wasn't bombing it as much as I should have.

I decided to hold the line, but retreat the Luftwaffe bombers. I kept a strong fighter presence back and it seems to have paid dividends.

Not a good week to be an allied bomber pilot.

The allies push forward another couple hexes forward in front of Rome.

[Harrybanana]

I am Liquid Sky's opponent.

Yes it was a very bad turn to be an Allied pilot; I've never lost even close to that many aircraft in one turn as the Allies before. It was especially bad for the poor souls bombing the German airfields. I think I lost over 300 planes bombing airfields and only destroyed about 30 or 40 planes on the ground. On the plus side LS lost a lot of transports on his turn. Had I known what I was getting into I never would have invaded where I did.

[LiquidSky]

Yeah, I lost 250 transport planes trying to supply my out of supply division in the port. The supplies didn't help either as I ended up surrendering anyways.

My airforce is taking a beating. I am going to have to take drastic measures pretty soon. I think my day fighter force is down to about half strength, although the night fighters are still pretty strong. I hope it snows a lot this winter.

I'm still hanging in there though. Making you fight for every hex to use up movement. I have to try and keep you bogged in until the bad weather hits.

[Harrybanana]

At the end of T16 I now control 11 hexes of mostly beachfront property near Rome. It has been a very tough slog and there are now at least 1 Panzer, 1 PG and 20 infantry divisions opposing my landing. Air losses on both sides continue to be high, with me losing by a ratio of about 3:1 on T16. I am told in the long run that this will benefit me, but that is poor comfort at the moment.

My Strategic Bombing VPs are now declining turn by turn. Partly because of bad weather, partly because LS has 1 or 2 construction engineers on every target hex repairing the damage as quickly as I can damage it and partly because I have strengthened Strategic AF at the expense of BC. I know many will say I shouldn't do this and they are probably right. But I have found that nothing is near as effective at damaging and destroying enemy units as a good pummeling by SBs. If anyone has a better solution I would be glad to hear it.

[LiquidSky]

Oct 23, 1943.

Another good day for the Luftwaffe, although as Harry points out, any losses are bad for me.

Formations in the Rome Beachhead:

1st PO armour
4th CA armour
Guards BR armour
1st US armour
2nd US armour
11th BR armour
Six US infantry
Five BR infantry
One IN infantry
Two CA infantry
One BR Paratrooper

And those are just the ones I can see.

While I think I can hang on a couple more turns, I am thinking of using the bad weather to my advantage and starting a withdrawal to the north.

[LiquidSky]

Oct 30, 1943. The enemy is at the gates. The retreat to Northern Italy has been authorized by High Command (or a high Command).

I was hoping to hold on a bit longer to keep the score below 100 by the end of 1943, but alas, the enemy is too strong. Most of Italy is light mud, which is going to stop him from pursuing too closely....and it will probably take him until 1944 to occupy southern Italy.

Here is the situation map before I move my army.

[Harrybanana]

This is the view after recent strategic bombing attacks on the Ruhr and Hamburg areas. I am pretty confident that all those German stacks (except the ones circled in red) are construction battalions. Although you can't see the construction units on all the other industrial areas (because I didn't attack them this turn) trust me, they are there.




In hindsight it sounds simple, of course all the construction battalions should be assigned to repairing industry. But how many people have actually been doing this? I tell you this Liquid Sky is one clever fellow.

[LiquidSky]

It's actually pretty cheap in admin points too. Once you set a priority, the industry never gets fully repaired, so it kind of stays on permanent priority. I only set the vp stuff usually on priority: manpower, industry..fuel stuff.

It gets better this turn coming up....I get 8 more Italian RSI construction battalions.

One of those circled in red units on the far right is the division that surrendered in the port in front of Rome.

[LiquidSky]

Well..the retreat to northern Italy continues. Retreating in good order. But now the enemy has Taranto, Naples and Rome, and it looks like the score has gone from around 0 per turn, to 5 per turn and now....20 per turn. Yuck. Thankfully it will only be for a few turns before the New Year kicks in.

[LiquidSky]

Dec 4, 1943. The 'S' Line has been dug in, and the retreat comes to a stop.....with a counterattack by Lake Trasime.

The air war is brutal. Just when I think I can build up some strength in my fighter force, I lose a bunch more planes. A retreat is ordered for rest over the snowy winter.

The twin-engine fighters and axis allied single engine fighters make a good showing over the Oil Fields in Rumania. Bombing them is costing him men and machines.

[Q-Ball]

Just curious, but why are you not forming your line roughly through San Marino and Rimini? You are not defending anything in that S bulge other than Ancona which isn't that important, but your line is a lot longer than it needs to be.

It may make sense to form a line a couple hexes in front of San Marino to give yourself a little fallback option, but the Gothic Line if properly set-up is basically impregnable in 43-44.

[Harrybanana]

My guess is that it is because he wants to attack me to inflict casualties to cause negative VPs. If he pulled back all the way than I may not follow him North of the Garrison line therefore he wouldn't get the opportunity for these attacks. The attacks he shows above (along with some air attacks) reduced my VPs to 10 last turn.

Or perhaps he is hoping that I have pulled enough troops back to England that he will be able to retake Rome:)

[LiquidSky]

Actually he is not very far from the truth.

I have every intention of taking back Rome.

I made a couple of assumptions....first, I assume that a lot of units will have left or be in the process of leaving Italy for Britian.
Secondly, I assume that supply is still precarious, as he hasn't had time to repair all the rail lines, and by using ports to evacuate units, not a lot of supply is coming in.
Thirdly.....If he came in force into the clear area south of my S-Curve into the north garrison zone, I would have known he wasn't leaving Italy, and was planning on trying to get over the Alps into Germany. In which case I would have had to defend as far forward as possible to buy as much time as I can.

If he withdrew too much stuff, then I should be able to push him back. If he didn't...and it appears now to me that he hasn't as I still see a fair bit of armour in front of me....then at least I will generate some casualty vps.

[LiquidSky]

Dec 18, 1943

And the push for Rome continues....the allies crumble before the mighty Wehrmacht.

All due to this man:
XIV Panzer Corps commander ~ Hermann Balck ~ is promoted to General !!!

The war will be over by Xmas!