Slitherine

Notes about aircraft in Italy

1) P 47s, P51, and P 38's were widely used in different roles, interchangeably, sometimes for aerial recon, sometimes as close aerial support (CAS), and also for interdiction and air superiority missions. I think that, for historical accuracy purposes, the TAC quartet you provide in this theatre could be a mix of P 38, a single-engine fighter with CAS capability, a dive bomber (A 36, if available in stock - or a Navy ersatz, e.g. Dauntless reskinned as A24 Banshee) and a tactical bomber, B25 or B26.

2) Every landing operation had support from carrier-based aviation, mainly Seafires and Barracudas from the brits.

3( Luftwaffe has been more than inoperative in the theatre, especially from mid-campaign operations, usig special guided rockets FX, adpated DO 17K bombers, FW 190 e Me 110 and 109.

Comments:
-the date could be added to the scenario description (1)
-you could move the embarrassing gun on the left (2)
-you could add the French flag (for the Vichy regime) to know who the Americans are fighting against (3)
-you could explain somewhere the strange nickname "Rock on the Marne" of the US division (4)
-the internet link could be deleted or display in smaller or move to the side because it makes a weird internet link on a historical map (5)

Thank you, Terminator.

conboy

San Fratello and Broilo was a good fight! The low class armor (M3 Lee) is restricting, and the opposing artillery did do quite a number, but I was always able to win out. There’s always that brief turn of hesitation where I think “can I win?”, and then I bring the whole division to battle and they get destroyed.
Forgive me if this has already been noted, but it seems that once an Air unit is undeployed, it cannot be redeployed. I did this without thinking that I could just hold it back and land at an airfield once I take it. I may have just missed the hex, but I didn’t notice it
Onto Messina!

Quick note: On the first briefing slide of Messina, where it lists the slides (S-1, S-2...) it says “breifs,” not “briefs” or “briefings.” Small thing, but I thought I should note it here.
Note No.2: It seems there is not enough deployment hexes to deploy the 7th RCT, though there are enough Land CP, at least assuming I deploy both engineers and both tanks as well.
There is not much to report on the road to Messina. As was noted, there is little enemy resistance. I will say that it is perfectly timed, and you have just enough time to finish. At least in my case...
I did enjoy it, though the British weren’t that great in combat. I might recommend that you put the US and the British on the same team, so one is not ambushed by the 8th Army Scouts

Zekedia,
Thanks! Glad you are playing the campaign and thanks for commenting.
Mascarenhas pointed out that the Shermans were already available by Sicily, so I will use them in the final version.
I put some airfields on the battlefield but I will make sure that I fix so if a player exits on an exit hex, the aircraft can return.
For Messina, did you get scolded by Patton or were you a good soldier? It started as a very simple scenario and evolved into a fairly complex "non-engagement". No way I'm putting them on the same team, after watching "Patton" 12 times. I couldn't find any pipers or kilted soldiers in the British arsenal -- nor do I think I will bug the Artistocrats for them.
Please keep on -- maybe report back with some RP counts and "fun quotient" reports. The whole campaign is pointless if it's not interesting and engaging.
The boot of Italy parts get increasingly more challenging. Hope you enjoy...

conboy

conboy wrote: ↑Wed Jul 29, 2020 1:06 am Zekedia,
Thanks! Glad you are playing the campaign and thanks for commenting.
Mascarenhas pointed out that the Shermans were already available by Sicily, so I will use them in the final version.
I put some airfields on the battlefield but I will make sure that I fix so if a player exits on an exit hex, the aircraft can return.
For Messina, did you get scolded by Patton or were you a good soldier? It started as a very simple scenario and evolved into a fairly complex "non-engagement". No way I'm putting them on the same team, after watching "Patton" 12 times. I couldn't find any pipers or kilted soldiers in the British arsenal -- nor do I think I will bug the Artistocrats for them.
Please keep on -- maybe report back with some RP counts and "fun quotient" reports. The whole campaign is pointless if it's not interesting and engaging.
The boot of Italy parts get increasingly more challenging. Hope you enjoy...

conboy

I suppose I was a good soldier, because I didn’t see him scolding me!

On RP, at each major battle, I had a surplus of supply, and by the end I was running on fumes. That mostly boils down to how I’ve played up until now, as I usually don’t pay heed to casualties, especially when I need to ride far to complete objectives. They’ll get patched up along the road.

On fun quotient, I’d say anywhere from and 8.5 to 9 out of ten. So far, no battles have turned to slogs where you make little actual progress. Around the time that feeling starts up, I break through the enemy lines, and crush them. There’s always progress being made!

On the Scenario after Messina, Salerno, I believe, I’ve noticed that it said NO TACAIR. This is odd, as I have 9 Air CP to deploy my TacAir. I’m going to assume this wasn’t intended, and not use air support.

terminator wrote: ↑Sun Jul 26, 2020 5:42 am -you could move the embarrassing gun on the left (2)

Agree. At least move the damn thing a bit lower to the corner of the map.

Okay, now the next batch:

7 Barb

- there are 10 prim. VP, but the counter shows only 5 (I think you have wrong obj. links set-up inside the triggers -> to the sec. obj.; also the sec. objective to take all 5VPs);
- also I think that "Mt. La Difesa" is wrongfully a prim. VP, as it seems to not count into the objective and it's inaccessible anyway.
- now in this scen I actually coudld use a second recon plane for the southern part...
- remove the "Chinese Wall" hexes near "Mt. La Difesa", it interferes with the bunkers and messes up unit animation (shoot it with an arty piece and you'll see)
- the whole SW area (and a whole enemy army) near "Hill 366" has no supply when I drive through the basically undefended paved road (between Mt. Rotondo and Mt. Lungo) cutting the map "in half".

8 AnzB

- again a second recon plane would be really nice here
- add some decorations to the large open terrain areas
- I have *two* aux. constr. groups (one predeployed, one undeployed in my force pool). Intended?
- first 7 turns or so, nothing to do, no enemies in sight.. (yeah, one engineer unit...)
- I took Sessano on the same turn as two other prim. VPs and I think the counter-attack was not spawn then (it happened on turn 13!, spawned right into my territory)
- There's something wrong with the "Ponte Rotta" Phase1 prim. obj.: The moment I take it, a US para unit spawns AND the hex ownership of the PonteRotta hex changes to Germany? Same as I capture the "Objective (7th)" hex. Yeah I remember this scen from standalone... and I always hated the endless enemy unit spawns everywhere.
- And I hope "hold Phase1 obj. until end" doesn't mean "at all times", because if it is, it's not failing the obj., as I've lost some of them temporarily and still got a MajorWin.
- What's all that talk about the British shooting at me from the west? Is there some trigger mechanism involved once I step "over the line"?

9 AnzS

- God, please stop spawning fresh enemy units next to mine!!! It's not the amount of troops, but the spawn locations in the "middle" of the map (or at least in the middle of the battle)...Why do I have (or need) recon when enemy units can simply magically appear right inside the battlefield out of thin air?
- enemy air was good. Got the warning popup, spawn location's okay
- otherwise GREAT massive defensive battle. Lots of fun, maybe that's why even small details/issues appear super annoying...

campaign event: "Seige epilogue"

10 AnzBO

- FYI: my RP balance after repairs: red: 417, blue: 197, core: 2708
- not sure if it's an oversight, but I could buy the M4A3 105mm tank in this scen (Besides the Gabe-Mod specific units that you could not block). So I did.
- aux. 5th army heavy AA unit w/o transport? Yeah, I can use train transport, but still...
- why do I need to finish in 28 turns if there's a 30 turn limit???
- again too much difficult terrain everywhere IMO

11 Dragoon

- the road one hex below "Nice" is going through water; same with the road on the SW hex next to "Ceyreste" and another one through the lake NW of "Marseille".
- where is "Cannes"? The hex needs a flag for the name to be displayed!
- Heeeeey.... I took the Phase1 objectives in time and then some flanking force appeared near Nice and recaptured it. Then the objective changed to "failed"? You didn't say to hold the objective at all times (at scen end, of course)... had to reload that turn.
- and please, please, please, stop it already with the unit spawns in the middle of the map and in the middle of the turn (i.e. "TF Butler" VP - I don't mean the non-combatants).... always cutting my supply or they teleport next to already battered units... Murphy's Law. Use forests or towns to conceal them, but predeploy them! (or in this case you could easily spawn the infantry at the northern map edges, driving south. Would accomplish the same thing). This is so frustrating. Strangely it's not so bad when you do the spawn thing with my own units, though... LOL
- I think it would not break the balance (e.g. turn limit) if you would add some light resistance to the "Grenoble" or "Gap" VPs (bunkers/foxholes?) and it would be a more interesting ride than taking vacant town hexes...

12 DraII

- there's a "11 DraI" scen inside the campaign. Probably some old scen remnant; I think you can remove it(?)
- suggestion: add obj. hex markers to the towns of the prim.obj. "clear around V. and E."
- FYI: Now I can also buy/upgrade to the M36 Jackson AT unit, and I did. And the "Calliope" in arty mode, but didn't buy it.
- the "30 damage to trucks" objective is a bit unfair, as there are only three trucks on the whole map (that makes it unachievable at all in lower diffulties!) - and once they leave on turn 8 or so, the scen becomes unwinnable. Either add more trucks or lower the required damage (i.e. difficulty level1: 3 trucks x 6 HP = 18 damage max.!)
- add some more supply to the whole NE enemy group. Their main supply hub is on the other side of the map!

Zekedia222 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 29, 2020 2:21 am So far, no battles have turned to slogs where you make little actual progress. Around the time that feeling starts up, I break through the enemy lines, and crush them. There’s always progress being made!

Fully agree on this statement!

What I'm missing personally is a real core force of my choosing. Specially different planes and some more tanks. I do get why you did set up the campaign the way you did, but this is still an aspect I'm missing. My core forces are my "baby"; I get to pamper them, enhance and upgrade. I miss that.

But putting that aside, everything else is great. Sure, sometimes I get easily agitated by some "issues" I think shouldn't happen or at least shouldn't happen like that, but I'm also fast to cool down, so all's good...
I find myself wanting to continue playing your campaign and that's all I care about. As long as it's fun and interesting, I'll continue playing.

Gabe, Zekedia,

Thanks for your comments. I am encouraged by the compliments so thanks very much!

All your comments regarding gameplay and technical items are spot-on. I guess I either missed getting some of ColonelY/Navman comments or I have a configuration control problem. Probably some of both. I doubt they missed very many items. Anyway, thanks for being specific so I have a good list to go by.

Gabe, you must be way north of the assigned defensive perimeter in the Anzio Siege scenario. Mascarenhas had a similar problem when he went too far north on the eastern side. I have some work to do on these two (Anzio Beachhead, too.)

Hopefully Bru won't be toooooo put out with this, if he's underway.

Ok, looks like I've gotten some basic objectives accomplished (enjoyability and some fidelity to history) but as always, I have to deal with the devil in the details.

thanks, and please keep awn keepen awwwn!

conboy

It seems that loading times (AI thinking, moving, attacking) takes a long time, at least for me, during Landing at Salerno. Not sure if this can be helped, or mitigated.

Zekedia,

I never noticed that it took a long time. The map is sort of large but not huge, and there's not a large number of enemy present.

Some of the scenarios in Germany take a long time to load, and maybe the next two scenarios after Salerno (because there are two scenarios on one large map). The San Fratello and Brollo map was larger than Salerno, and there was a lot more enemy -- did you have a problem with that?

I'll look at it and see if all the bad guys are on the same AI team -- but usually I have the very large teams set for Static Defense and that shouldn't make a big difference.

conboy

I did have similar issues with San Fratello & Brollo, yes. I’d attribute these occurrences to my

On a separate note, were there Hummels or other similar SPGs at Avellino? It seems weird that SPGs like that were there, in such rough terrain.

Zekedia,

On a separate note, were there Hummels or other similar SPGs at Avellino?

From HISTORY OF THE THIRD INFANTRY DIVISION IN WORLD WAR II (part V, Southern Italy)

"Nature and the ages had provided impregnable defensive positions for enemy motorized infantry and self-propelled guns...[The German enemy] consistently infiltrated our forward positions with night combat patrols; he came back to reoccupy positions which our patrols previously penetrated; he ambushed our supply trains and boobytrapped trails and bivouac areas; he employed armor frequently but sparingly, using tanks in twos and threes to work with small groups of infantry; he sited self-propelled guns in defiladed positions and towns where they were difficult to find. And he took full advantage of the rugged terrain, the greatest asset of defensive warfare."

Avellino was something of an anticlimax in that the 3d ID formed a crescent around it and slowly squeezed the Germans out. They rapidly retreated across the Volturno from there. Rather than have a dull finish to the scenario, and drive myself nuts by trying to have all three Regiments converge at once, I extrapolated a bit and made the battle seem a little more dramatic than it was by adding some self-propelled guns to delay the 15th a bit so the 7th could join them from the north. Whatever SPGs were in Avellino high-tailed it across the Volturno, in historical fact. But the town did hold out for several days to cover the main force retreat.

There were other places in the campaign where I took narrative liberties for the sake of gameplay but even then I tried to stay true to the general historical flow.

conboy

Is that why I caught sight of them fleeing when my capture of Avellino was imminent? I crossed the rivers, and with my TacAir I caught sight of the running SPGs. They didn’t get far

Almost done:

13 VosL

[empty]
...not because I haven't played it... NICE!
...and don't I remember playing this scen standalone, too?


14 VosS

- the sec. obj. "take Raon and Etival <21 turn" makes no sense as I have to hold these obj. as primary objectives at turn 20 start... (suggestion: turn 16-18 could work)
- briefing is missing info about German air?
- on the first turn, you spawn a Netherland (141st) infantry unit on a hilltop without supply (flagged hex supply change takes 3 turns!). They get immediately attacked by SIX enemy infantry units. I think it's only possible for them to survive if you add the needed supply together with the spawn (= able to reinforce). Maybe even spawn them a bit entrenched(?)
- I'm pretty sure the counters to BOTH the "clear forest Etival" AND "clear area Phalsbourg" objectives are rather linked to the "Bonhomme Pass" objective instead
- but the valiadation of the "clear forest Etival" and "Bonhomme Pass" obj. works
- the "clear area near Phalsbourg" objective has to be set up wrong, got it checked on turn 22 without entering the vicinity of that town.
- and the "clear forest Bonhomme" objective has no counter at all. Actually I prefer the counters, but I don't mind having none either. Either way they should be equalized and working..

- Outcome 1: MajorVictory on turn 26 ("end scen early" objective); RP balance: red:610, blue:459, nether:535, freefr.:299, core: 2012 -- as always elite repairing all units, even the aux. forces as long as they have a separate RP pool and experience already (no sense elite repairing green aux. troops...)
- Outcome 2: (no early victory) Worked, too

15 Kays

- the "clear all enemy Sigolsheim" objective could use a hex marker
- and since the bunkers are not hidden or anything, I'd suggest to remove the hex markers in the respective sec. objective and the flags
- now I can buy the M24 Chaffee. But didn't.
- "15th arrives" popup has no pic
- I need at least 6 more supply to be able to deploy all land CP when the reinforcements arrive on turn 6
- Excellent small scen, good map

16 Colm

- don't I know this one, too, from standalone play?
- there are enemy mines inside my own territory!!!! Please move them to the outside perimeter!
- "take Mittlach" sec. obj. doesn't work
- excellent massive battle, super fun! You love your arty, don't you? Nice! Thanks!

Thank you, Gabe.
Your comments are invaluable!
Gabe, hope you enjoy the last four scenarios. The next two have been heavily reworked. Hope they play well and you enjoy them.

All, sorry I missed so many nits on the last go-through, but your comments will help me fix all in the final version.

conboy

Dragoon II (Again)

In line with Gabe, this is unwinable due to the trucks. Worse, when I finisehd all other objectives, I only got a draw, a comment as if it were a terrible result - which is clearly unfair - I was sent back to the same mission again, creating, obviously - an endless loop. I rest on this campaign until next version. Otherwise, my regards to conboy's efforts and achievements on this remarkable campaign.

Dragoon II Reloaded

Well, it is not unwinable, at least if you already know what you have to do to kill those damned trucks. Back on track.

Mascarenas,
Thank you,
I am going to put a note in the brief for the 3d Div Commander to use the partisans to slow down the trucks and call in interdicting TACAIR fire. But Gabeknight had a point, if a player plays on level 1 or 2, and destroys all the trucks in three turns or so, then there won't be enough damage points to attain that objective. So I gotta do something about that.

Also, I'm going to remove any messages that might offend someone who has spent a couple of hours on a scenario and gotten a bad result. The Draw result will say DRAW. But I still might keep the part about changing tank treads in Kentucky until 1948 for a defeat. maybe.

I am especially interested in your comments on Scenario 17 Siegried to Rhine. I had to rework that one a lot and no one has played it yet besides me.

thank you for your help!

conboy

And the end of the line:

17 Sieg2

- Now I can buy the Zippo and Pershing in arty mode. Now that really IS tempting... ...Resisted the Pershing but gave in to the Zippo...
- The RedTeam SBS units I'll get when approaching the Rhine are too many and spawn on land (in canoes). You spawn 7 units and there are only four water hexes there. Also two of them spawn in landing craft instead of canoes. Similar thing with the BlueTeam's north crossing, see screenshot. Would the map also work with a 2-hex-wide river?


18 Rhin

[nuthin'... but fun!]

19 Nure

- coudn't resist anymore and "upgraded" one of my arty units to the M45 Pershing...
- in the popup to hold the bridge you should mention that a new obj. has been added
- again, you should flag named hexes (e.g. Munich)
- cool, if I'm not wrong you've assigned skins to the Germans...
- (not only on this map) sometimes you use German names for the cities, and sometimes English (e.g. Munich, Nuremberg)

20 Bercht

- and I expected some litte nice map, small scale, fighting outside the Berghof with some SS fanatics or something like that... like Bruce's Castle Itter...
- missing links to hexes in the prim. objectives
- okay, I see, basically a popup challenge

There are two Campaign victory events and the first one is missing a pic, but I guess it's some duplicate and should be removed.

Overall: The unit balance is excellent, but the turn limits are rather on the harder side with little room for errors. I guess you must be quite the good player!
And please don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining about the difficulty, it was PERFECT for my playstyle.
RP balance is very generous throughout IMO.
But next time I would strongly suggest much smaller maps, rather than what you did (with some). It was a nice idea to "re-use" maps to show progress, but usually large maps just slow down everything. Loading times, AI thinking time, overview...

Nice campaign, good fun, good beta version. Thanks, man!