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

[Steel God]

Situation at the end of Turn 14 – 0800 July 11th 1943

Brain did not push very hard, he moved along my line taking shots that offered advantageous exchange rates, and did not press east of the Acale River either.  Also, he blew up the remaining bridge over the Gela River, which all says to me that he’s playing for a Draw, or should I say, hoping to get enough attrition value out of losses to steal a Minor win.  I haven’t done the math to be sure, but I don’t think he can get a Major win in that fashion, but he may not care.  You get two old dogs like us to fight, and we play the margins and try not to do anything stupid.  The bizarre part about his turn results are all the units he fired upon rallied and the units he ignored remained disrupted, go figure.

Re-positioned units on the left of my line, brought the 18th Regiment from the 1st ID online and stabilized the line held by the 45th ID on my center, or my right as far as the Acale River line is concerned, since east of the Acale may become a side show.  Assaulted his Tigers, which I knew to be of weaker morale than the rest of the Nazi fanatics and got a lucky result pushing him back, depending on what he does next turn I may be able to make some progress on the Livorno Division.    Unfortunately, I neglected to save a file or take a screen-capture, so I have no picture for this turn.

[Dog Soldier]

Turn 14 8:00 AM 11 July 1943 Day Normal Conditions Visibility 5km

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LOL. The Coastal Defense Battalion, or what is left of it withdraws in 24 hours. Really? There are only sic turns left in the scenario and that means 12 hours. Guess this is a left over of some sort, but was amusing to see in the command report this turn.

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Engineers in the north continue to chase the 82 AB unit. They were able to assault that unit causing disruption to paratroops and eliminating 10 men. The Paratroops retreated to a hex bounded by three hexes with two having a stream and one into rough terrain with a 220m elevation climb. They can move in their turn to any of these.  But no further. If my engineers could only get some fuel, they could easily run down the now disrupted paratroop unit.

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Heavy fighting south of the Axis held airfield.  An assault by 5XX infantry sized unit of the American 1st ID destroyed three Tigers. I am trying to burn up turns by absorbing casualties if I can hold ground in front of the airfield. I do not want Steel God to have any turns attacking the airfield VP position directly.  He seems to be driving in that direction with strong forces knowing the 100 VP is all he needs to change the draw to a minor victory.  With six turns left those four hexes will be hard to hold.  Still maintaining pressure on the pillbox area.  I will move some of those forces west next turn to face that advance of his.  Recon in force on the road southwest of Biscari.  The rest of the picket line moves up to determine American strength and protect each others flanks.  VP end the turn at 637.  Similar to turn twelve of 634 VP. Visibility is now at max of 5km.  The attacker can see most of the defense as I cannot spare units to be meat shields.

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Dog Soldier

[Steel God]

Situation at the end of Turn 15 – 1000 July 11th 1943

More of the same from the Ubermensch….move up, take a shot, inflict 24 casualties, take return fire and receive 6 casualties.  After playing with the standardized OOB for so long the old OOB files associated with the scenario are simply shocking at times.  It's neither "right" or "wrong" just simply a reflection on "what was" and "what is".

Decided that with the SA value disparity I'd try some more assaults (presumably those ratios are closer) and stop firing at Germans.  Overall, the results were much better with higher loss ratios inflicted on the Germans whether they were armor or infantry.  But with 5 turns left I don’t see a high probability path towards a victory, only a slim one against the Livorno Division and it will require some luck.  Brian’s abandonment of the left bank of the Gela allowed me to isolate half the Livorno divisions infantry this turn, which will necessitate a pull back or risk the loss of over 1000 Italian infantry which would be a game changer.  He simply will not allow that though.

[ComradeP]

Excellent AAR thus far gentlemen, nice to read the perspective from both sides in one thread.

Two remarks:

Dog Soldier: you mentioned placing the HG divisional HQ at the map edge supply source would be beneficial for command checks, which I don't follow. Global supply should determine whether an HQ is in command or not, so it should be more beneficial to keep it closer to KG Links and/or KG Rechts.

Steel God: Panzergrenadier Soft Attack stats are (considerably) higher than US Soft Attack stats in every PzC game using the (now standard) alt OOB, as far as I know. US SA values are actually 1 point higher compared to Philippines '44 (8 compared to 7) and 1st ID is B quality. PzG Soft Attack values for motorized units are also 1 point higher, but the PzG units are B instead of A quality. What makes PzG volleys hurt is the size of the units combined with the high stats, not the stats per se.

What surprised me in terms of Soft and Hard attack values were the values for the Italian light and medium tanks. They're good vehicles in this scenario as opposed to tracked peashooters. The same applies to the Stuarts (14 instead of 4 Soft Attack value).

[Dog Soldier]

Excellent AAR thus far gentlemen, nice to read the perspective from both sides in one thread.

Two remarks:

Dog Soldier: you mentioned placing the HG divisional HQ at the map edge supply source would be beneficial for command checks, which I don't follow. Global supply should determine whether an HQ is in command or not, so it should be more beneficial to keep it closer to KG Links and/or KG Rechts.

Steel God: Panzergrenadier Soft Attack stats are (considerably) higher than US Soft Attack stats in every PzC game using the (now standard) alt OOB, as far as I know. US SA values are actually 1 point higher compared to Philippines '44 (8 compared to 7) and 1st ID is B quality. PzG Soft Attack values for motorized units are also 1 point higher, but the PzG units are B instead of A quality. What makes PzG volleys hurt is the size of the units combined with the high stats, not the stats per se.

What surprised me in terms of Soft and Hard attack values were the values for the Italian light and medium tanks. They're good vehicles in this scenario as opposed to tracked peashooters. The same applies to the Stuarts (14 instead of 4 Soft Attack value).

ComradeP
FWIW, The HG PD HQ has a command range of 32 hexes plus two hexes for being quality A.  That will cover most of the board in any case.I guess I was confusing the VST value with the Global sully value since in this scenario they are one in the same at the board edge supply point. Moving the HG PD HQ south would require keeping it close to some combat units either exposing it to attack or having to have an escort unit close by since all during the game I was quite certain to be uncertain where Steel God would have paratroops units still lurking.While many I have encountered were small, there was an 8X man unit probing towards Comiso early on that I had to use a precious air attack to convince it not to come further north. (I think I only got three air attacks all game.)
Steel God is like Mr. Baggins. He is full of surprises. I prefer to play more conservatively against him.
Dog Soldier

[Dog Soldier]

Turn 15 10 :00 AM 11 July 1943 Day Normal Conditions Visibility 5km

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While in terms of VP this was a successful turn for me. Steel God only gained a net of five VP. However, I missed anticipating his move to isolate the large Italian stack (1) with the help of his rangers across the Gela River. I was able to extradite my troops from the trap. They are now vulnerable to piecemeal decimation. Thus it is time to reorder my entire line. Stack images two-six. Image seven is an American infantry unit which will assault my number six unit for sure in his turn.  Those precautions are made as best I can make to avoid any more units being surrounded.  Next turn the left wing of the line from positions four - seven will retreat every turn to minimize contact and avoid a break through.  This will minimize casualty VP and prevent him from reaching Niscemi with any beach landed units. I am dispatching a company of truck mounted PzGr to Niscemi as insurance against any surprises. Fingers crossed.  I might still be able to hold onto a draw.

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Dog Soldier

[Steel God]

Steel God: Panzergrenadier Soft Attack stats are (considerably) higher than US Soft Attack stats in every PzC game using the (now standard) alt OOB, as far as I know. US SA values are actually 1 point higher compared to Philippines '44 (8 compared to 7) and 1st ID is B quality. PzG Soft Attack values for motorized units are also 1 point higher, but the PzG units are B instead of A quality. What makes PzG volleys hurt is the size of the units combined with the high stats, not the stats per se.

What surprised me in terms of Soft and Hard attack values were the values for the Italian light and medium tanks. They're good vehicles in this scenario as opposed to tracked peashooters. The same applies to the Stuarts (14 instead of 4 Soft Attack value).

While I know that to be true, it doesn't feel any better on the pinata end of those 4:1 fire ratios - my comments in the heat of the moment are more a reflection of my feelings than any factual reporting.  As should be evident, the AAR I put together was not done as any sort of critical analysis and is merely a peak into my stream of consciousness as I was dueling it out with Brian.  

That said, I do have a lot of issues with the OOB used for the Scenario and don't believe it has aged well.  The AA values on the ships making them essentially sitting ducks to any air attacks is one, the horribly low assault values of Italian engineers, and an over valued HG division generally (having never been in combat before I think a C would be more than generous) the lack of ranged fire for armored units;  - I'll just leave it there.

[Steel God]

Situation at the end of Turn 16 – 1200 July 11th 1943

Well, isolating the Livorno’s infantry battalions along the Gela River certainly got a reaction from Brian, unfortunately much more than I was hoping for.  He didn’t just move up an Italian unit and pull them back, he also shifted all his German Armor to the west, including putting his Tigers in the stack with the Italian Armor and Motorcycle troops which will make them much more effective since they cannot be so casually assaulted with those infantry escorts.  This does make his position adjacent to the Acale River’s west bank a bit weaker though which he is either willing to risk because he judges the distance to VPs from that direction to be too far away, or he has help coming in the form of some of the HG Panzer Grenadiers that had been mucking about east of the Acale River.  I have not been able to see them all for some time, and some could have moved back north and then south again.  I think pushing against the Italians remains my best bet.  

Brian’s rearrangement of his troops makes the idea of casual assaults much less appealing, so we did some rearranging of our own, making sure all our infantry battalions are now double stacked, which should give them numerical advantages in the event of all assaults, except in the sector occupied by the Livorno infantry and they have some disruptions and hopefully low ammo issues as a result of being isolated.  I did consider assaulting them with my 1st ID battalions opposite them but too many low ammo issues of my own to feel comfortable with it.  Generally, just resorted to SA fires and one assault on the HG Panzer Gren unit that was disrupted in the 45th ID sector.  They are in a bad way after 2 successful assaults and unless he does have someone coming up behind them, I expect Brian to pull back in that sector this turn.  The score stands at 654 pretty much where it has been +/- 15 VPs for quite some time.

[Dog Soldier]

Turn 16 12:00 PM 11 July 1943 Day Normal Conditions Visibility 5km


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Having five of nine units rally this turn is indeed a happy occurrence. Nine units disrupted with such a small overall unit count is disturbing this late in the scenario.

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Moved Italian HQs out of the airfield due to spotting from the rangers.  So far, no activity east of the Gela River except the ranger unit. Moved the recombined Italian engineer battalion into the village between the airfield and the Gela River.  Entrenched there any defense will have 90% reduction to incoming fire.

The attempt to push to Piano Lupo to seize the pillbox VP location has played out by attracting more Allied units there to stop it. I am now switching to the defensive there having shifted all my armor west to counter the 1st ID which is the bigger threat. I need to shore up the morale of the Italian units there.

The assault on the disrupted PzGr unit was a bad as I thought it would be. I retreated and combined it with its brother unit.  Pulled back the Italians in that area. There is plenty of room there to retreat and avoid contact if possible without giving up anything of value to Steel God. Swung back the troops in the Biscari to Vittoria line. I have too little information of what might be in front of me there to continue to advance while keeping my most eastern end of the line protected. It  would be hanging in the air. A juicy target for the Allies should they have some units out there

Reinforced Comiso with a German AT battery. Their quality level will be useful in case a paratroop unit is nearby to swoop in for the VP location.

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While Steel God tries to pick off vulnerable targets in my rear, two armored cars destroyed by artillery or air strike, the net turn VP decreased this turn by four points to my favor.  Not much, it is true. All I expect is to keep the VP changes each turn even or a little in my favor to force him to make a bad attack. Steel God cannot change the victory level unless I allow a surrender of a big stack or let him take a VP location. I think I have enough units in place to prevent a cheap VP location grab.  That is why his paratroops on the north edge keep edging toward the supply point. He is hoping to disrupt my forces by occupying the supply point. My engineers cannot locate fuel and are somewhat too slow to trap and finish of the nimble AB unit. I will try to force the AB unit to move to high MP hexes to prevent it from gaining any distance on my pursuing engineers.  Hope there are no other AB in the area to swoop in and attack the Caltagrione VP location. Just have take the risk for now.
Dog Soldier

[Steel God]

Situation at the end of Turn 17 – 1200 July 11th 1943

Brian did what I would have done, straightened out his line, exchanged fires with the Americans were it was advantageous to do so and netting about 20 VPs for himself.  So, if I’m not careful and I let him net those 20VPs per turn he is within striking distance of stealing a Minor Victory from me.  Conversely the only shot I have at securing a Minor Victory is getting to Ponte Olivo and capturing it. It’s 4 hexes away and only 4 turns left to work with.  Not impossible but highly improbable.  If I back off, he can still close with me and get favorable exchanges, but at least the modifiers would be even instead of me shooting at him in trenches and towns with defensive advantages to go with his firepower advantages.  I’ll stare at this for a bit and decide but after the replay I’m leaning towards preserving the Draw.

Yup, I decided to play it safe, which generally is my MO in most games.  I’ll start by devising a plan but when I play, I first figure out how to get a Draw and then start looking for opportunities or mistakes by my opponent to expand the goals and fulfill the objectives for that victory.  When playing people with the skills that Brian has that can produce a lot of stalemates.  So, this turn I abandoned all hope of Victory and playing for the tie.  Fired available artillery and 1 air strike focusing on artillery and weak armor (as those yield the best VP values) and fired my infantry stacks once before pulling back 1 hex across the line.  I expect he’ll come after me and go after those good exchange rates his SA and Quality ratings afford him, but at least my guys will get more than a casualty or 2 in exchange if he’s out of his trenches.  Score’s back up to 657- status quo.