Reflections on Sicily

[Kharkov]

A little while ago I enjoyed a long campaign game of Sicily--I lost as the Axis but it was very interesting and challenging. Highly recommend this campaign.

Two issues which came up in the game may be worth considering for future PzC games :

1. Supply dumps. With explicit supply the Axis player has many supply dumps. As the Allies advance it is difficult for the Axis to defend all supply dumps, so it would be useful to have the ability to destroy supply dumps before they are captured. This is certainly what happened historically in many cases. Would it be possible to factor this into future games ?

2. Headquarters units. As the Axis was greatly outnumbered ( or so it seemed !) I found myself succumbing to the temptation to use HQ units as defensive units and recon units. Inevitably many HQs were eliminated. The consequences of this were not as devastating as it could have, or in my opinion should have, been. The HQ units reappeared a few turns later and their loss did not have a major impact.

I would like to see a more serious penalty for losing a HQ unit. Even something as simple as all immediately subordinate units becoming disrupted for 24 hours would I think better reflect the confusion the loss of HQ would have have caused. So if a Corps HQ was lost the subordinate Divisional HQs ( not all units in the Division) and attached Corps troops would be disrupted ; if a Division HQ was lost all subordinate Regimental HQs would disrupt; if a Regimental HQ was lost all subordinate units would disrupt.

This would make players hesitate before deliberately committing HQ units to unhistorical roles such as line defence or recon units.

I realise that this topic has been discussed a number of times before, but the Sicily experience has convinced me that it may be worth another look.

Just a couple of suggestions. :chin:

[Dog Soldier]

I like the idea of being able to destroy a threatened supply depot. The issue would be, how to craft a rule that still leaves a possible capture. Otherwise, none would ever be captured is destruction is automatic from the menu or easily done by any unit. Any unit could have the capability to destroy a supply depot, but would they have the orders? Would the orders issued make it to the unit or depot guard?

I think the result of a lower effect from losing your HQ's was tied directly to the use of explicit supply. The other supply rules seem to put more weight on the presence of an HQ along with subordinate units being in command range.

Dog Soldier

[von Waldenburg]

1. If you are using explicit suppy the supply sources are only used to determine isolation status if I'm correct. Ok, I see your point, you mean the inmobile supply units. The only thing you can do is try to spent those first (the fixed ones), so you lose little or none supply points when or if it's captured.

2. Well, that's and interesting and ample area to debate. Even with the loss of certain HQs tactical plans may remain pretty clear to the front units for some time I would think. Reducing it's movement capability for some time could be a solution as it would reflect their temporary "frozen command" status.

[Al]

I like the idea of being able to destroy a threatened supply depot. The issue would be, how to craft a rule that still leaves a possible capture. Otherwise, none would ever be captured is destruction is automatic from the menu or easily done by any unit. Any unit could have the capability to destroy a supply depot, but would they have the orders? Would the orders issued make it to the unit or depot guard?...
Dog Soldier

Maybe the hex containing the supply dump could be treated like a wired bridge & have a percentage of blowing when a units moves adjacent? Just a thought.

[FLG]

Maybe blowing a dump could be given a time limit like building a pontoon. It would have to be done by engineers and would take three or four turns to lay the charges.even if destruction was 100% certain you would still need to time it right.

[Outlaw Josey Wales]

Or if possible, any unit can attempt to blow the supply dump, but maybe a turn to wire and a turn to blow only a percentage of the dump, then a unit would have to wire again and blow up another percentage of the dump so it may take several attempts to blow the entire dump. So one has the ability to blow dumps, but may have to start early to avoid some of the dump being captured.

[Ricky B]

Regarding supply dumps, and supply units in general, remember that the capture of one results in the immediate loss of half the supply points. This obviously covers the fact that even if captured intact, most ammo is unusable. However, fuel, food and any water (drinks in general - the Soviets capture a supply unit and find alcohol and get drunk and go disrupted :) ), is useful.

How easy was it to totally destroy a supply dump? Very hard without a lot of engineer work and time. You don't just throw in a grenade and destroy an entire dump. As not all supply is represented in supply units in the game, only the ability to keep a unit at "full" supply, I think the loss of 50% on capture works well - it was common to capture at least a few supplies while moving forward. Most games only rarely use fixed supply dumps anyway, not sure how much in Sicily so maybe a tweak to make them mobile would work better - they could even be fixed to that they can't move until an enemy unit appears in view, I think that would work?

Rick

Edit: good points above mine, they weren't there when I started replying but it took me awhile to post my changes. The blowing a portion at a time is reasonable, would just require passing the normal HPS/JT test for whether to implement based on their factors.

[Al]

You don't just throw in a grenade and destroy an entire dump.

Unless, of course, they're using the vaunted "blinding grenades"
Seriously, you bring up a lot of valid points.

[Volcano Man]

In regards to using HQ units as recon or defending units, from my evaluation, any HQ unit is worth a lot of VPs and doing this would be extremely wasteful in that regard. It may not be noticeable on a 1:1 basis, but if this is a common strategy overall then it would definitely take a toll on your VP levels. In many cases HQ VP levels are 2x that of regular infantry and most often they are 1.5x the best infantry in the OOB.

Of course this depends on several factors such as the quality of the HQ unit itself, but given that the HQ unit has no ZOC and is completely defenseless, combined with the higher VPs for their loss (and the fact that you may be inclined to use them again and again since they are replaced, constantly losing these VPs) then it makes sense to avoid doing this as much as possible. But I suppose it depends on how desperate the situation is and how many VPs you have to spare. There are indeed cases where cooks, admin personnel and other HQ staff were put in the line in emergencies and this can represent that.

[Glenn Saunders]

just a little more on HQs.

The ability to regenerate is dependant upon the Quality - so low quality Italian HQs won't come back very fast and if this was aDiv HQ for a Inf (non - Coastal Div I mean) then I myself wouldn't want to part with that HQ.

As for the German HQs - and I am not looking at the OOB so they may even have RHQ units - but a formation will not recover from discrupt or low supply ect with an HQ so I certainly wouldn't want this to happen with the German Units.

The bottom line guys is we can't legislate against stipidity - we tryu to make the rules to encourage people to use units historically. The last round of changes to HQs were done to help push things in this direction - IE no ZOC, no digging in for HQ ect. I really don't know if it is a good thing to go further.

Glenn