Adventures in Italy

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what the west side looks like just before I end the turn. I've checked all the
aircraft and they are all either AS or CS and none of them were in reorg and I've got
the British in motion headed north and I'm aiming for the railroad in the middle of
the peninsula hoping that it will feed enough supply east and west to continue operations.
I'd hate to have to repair two rails the length of Italy.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the supply levels and the rail situation. I would really like to connect the
rails to Foggia and Reggio just in case and then the short length of rail leading
north from Anzio to connect the supply point to the net and instead of repairing both
the rails leading north, I have it on very good authority that concentrating on the
rail on the right in this image would be the best use of the engineers so I'll put
them on the case and we'll watch it grow longer a hex at a time, maybe two.

[devoncop]

23rd August 1944

No interdiction...Bliss

Reinforcements take advantage of this and some repaired bridges to scoot all the way to the Gothic Line whilst others head towards Savona on the French border where aside from some artillery shelling the front remains stable.

Larry asked about supply levels and the area South and East of Grenoble is frankly appalling whilst even Grenoble itself only has a supply level of 5. As a result the operations in the area are going to be abandoned. I would be surprised if Larry can make it work up there either so I will just be trying to seal the passes.

What this decision does do is shorten my potential front which is good and allows arriving troops to bolster both the Gothic Line and the Savona front. I see Larry is building up armour there so I have sent a couple of KG to try and hopefully blunt them a bit when they decide to launch.

Much like a Captain of a ship going down with it, the 14th Army HQ will be overrun north west of Rome this turn. It resisted well but couldn't be rescued from the fall of Rome.

[hingram]

Grenoble has a supply area just to its north IIRC.
Devon, I'm curious. Do you have Sea Transport or Air Transport capability at this point? Does bad weather affect Interdiction? IOW does it ground planes?

[devoncop]

Thanks hingram I will check out the area North of Grenoble but I don't recall seeing a supply symbol up there when I overran the town.

Larry would know if bad weather affects interdiction missions but I certainly didn't notice any lessening of intensity in the winter. At the moment I have no sea capacity (lost after the Sicily evacuation) not air capacity (though putting any Germans in a plane is a death sentence given allied total air superiority)

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what it looks like right now. Allied units are streaming north from Rome
and there's mop up going on over on the east coast and there's an attack scheduled
at Savona. I'm still trying to make a hole in the German line.

Troops have arrived at Toulon and I have them moving north toward Grenoble; they
brought some engineers with them and I have him busy repairing rail leading north
from Nice.

I'm convinced that the mop up of Italy is going to take longer than the game will
last. But I'll go through the motions and see how much I can get done before the
game ends. The rails haven't reached Rome yet so the supply levels north of there
are in the single digits already and the units are going to call a halt for a while.
And I need them up and moving. I'm pretty sure the war will be fought mainly in
France from now on.

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: devoncop
Thanks hingram I will check out the area North of Grenoble but I don't recall seeing a supply symbol up there when I overran the town.

I have a vague memory of seeing a supply point up there in that general area.

ORIGINAL: devoncop
Larry would know if bad weather affects interdiction missions but I certainly didn't notice any lessening of intensity in the winter. At the moment I have no sea capacity (lost after the Sicily evacuation) not air capacity (though putting any Germans in a plane is a death sentence given allied total air superiority)

Um.....I'm pretty sure Bob Cross ( Curtis LeMay ) would know. My working theory is that bad weather doesn't effect the launching of strikes but it does effect the resolution of any combat that takes place. I've seen planes fly during the Soviet Winter Offensive in Russia and that's some of the worst weather in this world. Saturn has worst storms but not by much.

And flying HQ's from A to B, or paratroops dropping somewhere...I can't reccommend it. The proficiecy of my pilots is in the 50's but they are flying some of the best fighters in this world ( at the time ) and there's lots of them. I think Ian's right....I think launching them would get them killed.

I've been using direct attacks with the planes the last couple of turns and if Ian has any AS at all they are probably launching to interdict my strikes and I haven't seen any sign of enemy planes so far.

There was a furball and the II KG 2. ( or some Axis group ) evaporated but I'm guessing they were bombers. Axis planes haven't flown in quite a while. I saw some parked in NE Italy under two AA units.

[devoncop]

27th August 1944

In an apparent strategic reversal by Allied High Command heavy interdiction returns..........and once again Flak units are kept busy with reported losses of Allied bombers at over 140 ...Nice if true

The line east of Savona gave way one hex but further fresh dug in troops are awaiting the next assault.

For the first time the Gothic line is getting a semblance of a decent garrison against allied troops heading north and supply improves as multiple bridges are repaired....(temporarily!)

Larry is correct in that my two remaining fighter squadrons are cowering under Flak cover and loath to emerge any time soon [:)]

[hingram]

I was thinking of the Battle of the Bulge when Allied planes were grounded and the Germans moved with relative safety. When the skies cleared, it was open season on the Axis.

[700851McCall]

ORIGINAL: hingram

I was thinking of the Battle of the Bulge when Allied planes were grounded and the Germans moved with relative safety. When the skies cleared, it was open season on the Axis.

Check the weather in the target hex. Air attacks on ships seem to be significantly more effective if the sky is clear IME so I'm guessing the cloud cover is factored in.

[sPzAbt653]

Weather in the Target Hex affects the effectiveness of Air Units. 100%, 66%, or 33% as the weather gets worse.

[MikeJ19]

I learn something new every day on this forum.

Thanks for the information on the air units.

[MikeJ19]

Larry,

Back to our discussion on Interdiction and being able to focus the attacks. Changing the range can help in some scenarios, but it would not have helped too much in the Falaise gap or in the Overlord scenario. In both cases, I wish I could draw a box or designate an area on the map as the focus of my attacks. Taking it one step farther, identifying an unit type to prioritize. For example, in my current battle, if I had an air force, I would want my Interdiction attacks to the Allied Engineer units so that they could not repair the bridges I have taken out.

This lead me to thinking about supply. Overall, I like the way supply works, but I wish I could prioritize which units get supplied. For example, if I have a unit that has close to 100% supply and another unit right beside it that is at 50%, it would be to be able to have more supplies going to the less supplied unit. It would add a lot of micro management to the game, but it would add some realism and make us think more about supply.

Have a good day!

[devoncop]

Interesting points.

I think a boxed "area of operations" is reasonable but a mission based on "unit type" would not be as in 1944 no way would the enemy have known where every engineer unit in Italy was. Also you would have the ahistorical situation of "smart bombs" seeking out a particular unit in a stack.

The idea of an area of operations suggestion then creates its own issues as very small areas of ops would need individual limits on numbers of bombers that could operate there....in the numbers of squadrons available in Mike's current D Day scenario even more than this one, it would be odd to see hundreds of aircraft interdicting an area 5 km wide on the same day just to make a vital bridge unuseable for example.

I think maybe it could be possible to have a recon mission available for certain limited squadrons which would reveal unit types in the area so direct strikes could follow (or not...,depending on results) but again the micro level starts inching towards "Grigsby" in that case 😉


Having said all that I do get the frustration in the seemingly suicidal nature of some interdiction missions but as always the "road to hell is paved with good intentions" test needs applying to any apparently obvious solution ☺

[devoncop]

ORIGINAL: MikeJ19

I learn something new every day on this forum.

Thanks for the information on the air units.

Me too !!!

[larryfulkerson]

ORIGINAL: MikeJ19
Back to our discussion on Interdiction and being able to focus the attacks. Changing the range can help in some scenarios, but it would not have helped too much in the Falaise gap or in the Overlord scenario. In both cases, I wish I could draw a box or designate an area on the map as the focus of my attacks. Taking it one step farther, identifying an unit type to prioritize. For example, in my current battle, if I had an air force, I would want my Interdiction attacks to the Allied Engineer units so that they could not repair the bridges I have taken out.

I like both of those ideas. There's something like that already with the new naval rules. Whenever there's a naval airstrike on a stack of ship units it there's any CV's present they get the priority of the strike with BB's next in priority, followed by other capital ships followed by everything else. That's my understanding. So it can probably be done for INT missions to single out a specific unit type to target. Stuka's against tanks for instance. Enemy stacks should have a priority, especilly those that are glowing cherry red.

ORIGINAL: MikeJ19
This lead me to thinking about supply. Overall, I like the way supply works, but I wish I could prioritize which units get supplied. For example, if I have a unit that has close to 100% supply and another unit right beside it that is at 50%, it would be to be able to have more supplies going to the less supplied unit. It would add a lot of micro management to the game, but it would add some realism and make us think more about supply.

Using the editor we can stipulate who gets first pick on the replacements, who gets a lower priority, and who doesn't get any replacements at all for any type of equipment but that's the only control we have over the replacements right now. I get your idea tho because sometimes you want the replacement units to fatten up on replacements and sometimes you'd rather the fighting units become stronger first. WITE had a way to specify for each unit whether or not to allow replacements for that unit and you could easily control who got what.

Something else that's been bothering me is the aircraft units....you can't disband them right now.
In the StBP game I'm playing against devoncop ( Ian ) I've got at least three squadrons that have the earlier model types in the on-hand column that no unit is flying any longer. I would like to get them off my list entirely. Trade them for something else of value. Turn in five obsolete planes for one late model one or something like that. Forgo the building of BB's for more Panzer tanks. That kind of thing. Just a thought.

[devoncop]

30th August 1944

Assaults in and around Savona are held off and the shelling of the British troops facing the Panzer Grenadiers and Infantry in the defensive line continues.

The story of this turn is the need to change the strategy of the roadblock in central Italy based in the valleys between the central Appenine Mountain range south of Florence. Complaints from the commanders there about insufficient provisions reaching them were borne out on an inspection by Field Marshall Kesselring's staff and the struggling troops are being pulled back into better supply further north. I suspect The Allies will have the same problems and no advance elements of Allied forces had been encountered by the time of the withdrawal. It may well be that this will benefit the defence overall as the retreating troops with prove valuable in the Gothic Line when the time comes.

In the far North East supply has been improved to the area around Grenoble but stronger US infantry are now operating in the area and the Monte Rosa Division is forced to pull back and dig in.

Interdiction again hit several moving units but also hit hard the remaining Luftwaffe presence and defending flak. Losses seem much lower for the Allies this turn with only 30 or so planes reported downed.

[larryfulkerson]

The supply level north of Rome is too low for operations to continue and the
columns will have to halt for a couple of turns until the supply begins to
improve. It's no wonder the levels are so low....the RR engineers have repaired
only up to the far SE ssurburb of Rome.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the mission, location, condition, and relative strength of each of the aircraft
and there must have been some INT missions that met with some German equipment I'm guessing
because there's some units in reorg and each of them are missing some planes. I've
decided that trying to fight this war in particular without any INT isn't the way to win this
war. There's way too much movement going on in the Axis side of the map. The point of INT is
to stop all the movement possible. Make movement costly. Deter all possible movement eveywhere.
It's going to cost some planes, I need to be able to live with that. I hate losing good planes
and good pilots to ground fire. I wish there were a way to have the low-altitude fighter-bombers
avoid AA units and strike instead units that have no AA or very little AA. Stukas on Tanks for
example. I can see high-altitude bombers going after targets that have AA because AA doesn't seem
to effect high-altitude strikes as much as the low-altitude, short-range, fighters.

INT missions are going to occassionally hit AA units, that's a given. The question is will Ian run
out of AA units before I run out of bombers and fighters. I dare not do a direct mission on an AA
unit to try to silence it.

[devoncop]

I agree with your analysis totally there Larry.

The one turn you stopped the interdiction I moved units further than I can usually move them in 3 or 4 turns (albeit I was lucky that 3 or 4 bridges got repaired the same turn). Come the reverse fixture ...there will be interdiction [:)]

The Allies have such huge resources by this point I think interdiction air losses have to be seen sadly as "collateral damage" as someone (non combatant politician) once said !