It's a Long Way to Tipperary Tournament - Round 3 - S43 DIME Beach

[Steel God]

Situation at the end of Turn 11  – 2200 July 10th 1943

Brian continues to grind away against the Allied position – I don’t blame him, I would be doing the same.  In a larger battle he might be obliged to push harder and try and actually crush the landing, but in a short battle it’s just a matter of earning points, and he has the advantage in doing that since his morale is superior, his firepower is superior, his artillery sets up guaranteed while mine takes its chances (and miraculously the only one that has set up is never available).  As a mid-point assessment, I think my plan is unworkable and I’ll never have what I need to do to execute it.  I might be playing for the Draw now. 

Well, I did what I could, continued to back pedal and save what could be saved in the east, tried to stabilize and sure up the main line in front of the beach.  I had forgotten that this scenario was not created when the game was “standardized” and I am therefore relearning painful lessons of the way the game “used” to be.  The Axis advantages in Artillery (100% setup versus 75% setup, as well as effectiveness of it (100% indirect versus 50% indirect) added on top of their advantages in SA and HA ratings make this a game of stick versus pinata, with the Americans as the Pinata.  Best way to be a pinata is to avoid the stick.  An alternative would be to get some troops landed, rallied, artillery set ups yada yada – but that’s all just luck of the draw, and based on the almost complete lack of Artillery Set Ups for the Allies on Turn 11 of 20 I'll have to say luck is a scarce commodity so far.