Adventures with Brian In Italy

[larryfulkerson]

I had the 36th Inf Div staged and ready to sail so I thought I'd take them up the
west coast for a little ways and what should I find but an empty port, so I grabbed
it and moved the rest of the division up there and now I need to find some supply
for those folks. I guess I need to advance up the west coast to complete the LOC
to them.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what the front lines look like just before I ended my turn. So far so good.

[larryfulkerson]

I thought I might ought to invade near Salerno because I found an empty port to slip
a unit into and then I discovered that the other ports were empty too and brought the
entire US 1st Armored Division up here.

I'm still wondering if I should start dropping bridges or not.

[MikeJ19]

Larry,

Well done. It will be very interesting to see how Brian counters your moves, if he can.

Your aggression has paid off in spades.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what it looked like when I ended my turn.

[MikeJ19]

Wow, Brian must be finding it hard watching the playback of your moves. You would be driving me nuts.

[DanNeely]

ORIGINAL: MikeJ19

Larry,

Well done. It will be very interesting to see how Brian counters your moves, if he can.

Your aggression has paid off in spades.

Agreed, and likewise for Larry's other game - which while not quite as far along - Ian is poised to wipe out the Sicily garrison almost entirely.

It'll be interesting to see how these openings play out. On the one hand fewer Axis defenders and farther north starting points for the first main lines to solidify on. On the other, Larry's allies have to be in even direr supply straits than they were in his last game early in the invasion.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Taranto area right mow. I'm still trying to make some progress against the
German roadblock but the supply level is still rather low and the Allied units aren't
primarily anti-tank units. I need some tanks to match what the Germans have.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what's going on in the Salerno area right now. I've flown in a lot of
Airborne troops and surrounded the German attackers and now I'm counterattacking
to try to see if I can't dispose of them without too much trouble.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what it looked like just before I ended the turn.

[larryfulkerson]

I finally succeeded in forcing a hole in the German lines near Taranto and I've been
moving units south to start the drive south to meet up with the units making their
way north.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's the Salerno area right now. I'm sending the 34th Infantry Division north
towards Naples and points north. I haven't decided yet who is going to go south
along the coastal road. I'm concentrating on killing the German stacks first. It's
going to take several attacks with support from the aircraft and the UK CA's. There's
an Axis light bomber parked near Rome and I've got an airfield strike scheduled for
that. I'm repairing the bridges and converting the roads between Reggio and Taranto
and the rails are getting repaired slowly. I'm going to eventually move the RR
engineers to Salerno to start repairing rail heading north. I'd like to sack Rome
within about two weeks.

[larryfulkerson]

US Rangers are landing at Salerno early in the morning and they have equipment to
unload before they will be "landed" and it's going to take another hour or so. They
are to load on trucks to be moved to the north to the site of the assembly area.

[MikeJ19]

Larry,

Great stuff. Your plan in the South has worked very well. What is next? It looks like a good number of Axis units are cut off in the South. Getting rid of them should get easier with time. What is your supply situation looking like?

[larryfulkerson]

What is your supply situation looking like?

Here's what the supply situation looks like around Naples and Salerno. Just fine
and more than enough. I just need it to propagate outward a long ways.

[larryfulkerson]

What is your supply situation looking like?

Here's the supply situation around Taranto and points south. On the East side.
I'm trying to establish an LOC from Reggio to Taranto and Naples. I thought I'd
repair the rail later when I have time to do it. Besides the action is going to
move from the south to up near Rome pretty quickly now and I'd rather repair the rails
around Rome headig north.

[larryfulkerson]

Here's what it looks like right now.

[larryfulkerson]

Brian reports that the 26th Panzer isn't activating when it got attacked and there's
some units on the Gustav Line that worry him. Or something like that. I wish he had
posted a picture or an example or something. He thinks that the scenario needs a small
adjustment. I wish he had included more data for the problem. I watched the playback
and didn't see anything remarkable.

[larryfulkerson]

I drove a ship up to Anzio and found two ports empty and converted the hexes with
my ship so that there's a friendly port there now so I thought I'd run some Rangers
up there to see if they could capture the supply point or not and judge conditions
for maybe another invasion closer to Rome.

[larryfulkerson]

So I wandered ashore and found the supply point lightly defended and I'm thinking
that one of my infantry regiments might be able to RBC that unit out of the hex.
So the invasion is on. Next stop Rome.