[WarInEur] A thought on ports and things

[John Pace]

Yes it is difficult, one of the problems is trying to fix these little ‘holes’ is that they can creates lot bigger ones.  For example, DG made Cagliagri in Sardina a minor port, thus Olbia in NE Sardinia cannot be attacked except with an OOS attack which most sane players are very reluctant to do (and also Olbia cannot be amph attacked until the allies occupy Rome and place Olbia within 12 hexes of an allied major supply hex, at which point Italy have already surrendered anyway).   Thus, Sardina and Italian surrender can be difficult unless the allies sacrifice a unit in an OOS attack on Olbia.
 
For me, the key for the Allies re-entry into Europe is to stretch the Axis defences to the max, ideally no Allied player wants an opposed amph attack (especially before allies can use combat-results-table 1 in 1944).  One overlooked allied avenue back to Europe is Albania.  Right or wrong, Albania has two juicy major ports, and after the fall of Tripoli the CW has at least 4 unemployed supply units. Being OOS after Italian surrender, Albania is rarely German garrisoned, so the Allies amph attack the Albania major ports and 10 turns later ship the underemployed CW supply units to them.  With FOG just watch the Axis player’s face go into panic mode, when a few major supplied CW units surprise kick Bulgaria out of the war and threaten Romania and Ploesti.  An additional attraction are those 2-5 Yugo partisan divisions can be used to guard the allied flanks, once the inevitable ad-hoc German counter attack start. With a minimum CW 8-10 attack force and
 the Yugo 2-5, who retreat into the excellent Balkan defence hexes, once the Germans organise their inevitable counter attack.  
 
Of course, once for this Balkan counter attack, the Germans will have stripped bare their other Axis beach defences. Allowing the Allies to elsewhere take out a major port or two with minimum interference from the Germans, including France.  
 
Lovely bluff and counter bluff, as in real war.  I love it.
 
John
 


      
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