Chapter Eighteen - The Longest Quarter
Yes! Another Very Original Chapter Title! Hey, if the enemy keeps doing the same thing over and over, I have to write about it. It isn't my fault.
For this entire battle, all I can picture is Hitler as a little kid in the backseat of a command vehicle/halftrack kicking the back of the driver's seat saying "are we there yet? are we there yet? are we there yet? are we there yet? are we there yet? are we there yet? are we there yet? are we there yet?" month after month. How long will this battle last? Nobody knows!
Well, that's all I could think of before I saw croguy's video, now all I can think of is Hitler saying "I hate hockey." Hockey hates you right back, Adolf.
For those who skipped over all the other Chapters figuring that by now things would have to be interesting: WRONG! But thanks for playing. The Axis continue their attack on Messina across the straits, approximately 750,000 men attacking 50,000 ish Canadians. It's like fifteen straight 50k vs 50k battles where the defenders don't get to rest and the attackers get a 98/99% stacking penalty. The Canadians were terrified at first, then settled in when Axis units dropped out, exhausted, one after another for weeks on end, and now may be getting overconfident. Groups of men have been seen headed off to battle wearing rough-hewn fur togas and carrying sharpened sticks shouting "For the Horde!" Those men prove very effective at prisoner transport.
You know, I can't help thinking back to how my unit's Org slowly reduced in the prior battles to think that this one is potential trouble for the good guys, especially with my 0.3% chance of reinforcements moving into battle. On the other hand, just like everywhere is within walking distance if you have the time, 0.3% is a sure thing if you get to try it often enough! However, there's nothing like a 98 or 99% stacking penalty to take the sting out of anyone's attack. So after a while, the primary Canadian concern came to be: who's winning the Euchre tournament, and what's with all this cross-boarding! Steal the deal, yeah, that's legit, it's hilarious, really, but cross-boarding is just cheating.
On the other other hand, we are losing guys, mostly to air attacks, such that we have a severe manpower shortage.
Canada needs nearly two months of manpower just to fill in reinforcements. Now, let me pause here to say that I don't really get this number. I assumed for a long time that it meant simply that until 7.51 manpower was gained and distributed through reinforcements that no builds would be possible. I suppose you could starve reinforcements to let manpower pile up (?). However, later on I notice it jumping up and then down and then manpower appearing to build up even when I have reinforcements largely funded and I still need quite a bit. So I don't fully get this number. The forum posts my searches come up with seem to reinforce my view - 7.51 means I have a deficit of 7.51 so as long as units are being reinforced, I'll use all that up before my pool goes to even 1 - but it's not 100% sure.
Canada knocks out another four Axis divisions, the equivalent of a full strength attack, when we make another research breakthrough which out to help this battle. Granted, heavy attack isn't a big deal here. Every unit which the attack works against is already suffering from a 99% armor-doesn't-float penalty as well as the "participation trophies for everyone" stacking penalty.
Still, it's nice to have. Now, we've only gone a week, and since as much fun as it is for me to hold off the bulk of the Axis forces, well nearly everything that's actually fighting, it does tend to be the same thing over and over. I had this crazy idea of a Logistics strike either at the mega-stack or in the two provinces behind it. When I played some as the USA, three units of B-17s took maybe two days to lay waste to any province's logistics throughput (and of course I stupidly attacked provinces which I needed a few days later). If I had cut off supplies, that's it for the attack. However, ground attack planes like the Hurricane aren't simply poor at logistic attacks, they are ineligible. Hey, I thought Wing Commander John E Johnson used to do ground attacks all the time. I mean, they were a waste considering the losses, but they were possible. Ah, well. I'll think of something. In any event, the next weeks of battle will largely be encapsulated for your enjoyment.
On the 10th of April, the Italians launched two air attacks on Palermo's ports, doing virtually nothing: .14 total damage to the port, and .028 to the AA. They're stupider than I am. Air attacks on troops kill 33 more soldiers, and my Organization is down to between 27 and 31. No great danger at the moment. Further air attacks kill 190 more men, far more than I'm losing in combat, I bet. And my Hurricanes are in! By the 20th, I've lost another 380 men to air attacks, though my manpower is up to a negative 4.43. Very odd. After the UK declines, twice, my offer to license two Light Cruisers, I get one from the French for almost nothing.
Over a few days, I lose another 250 men to air attacks (1100 total). I believe they now have two cave trolls. I bring my Hurricanes into Sicily, and consider having them do air superiority. Assuming that they'd be better at air attack and defense than the Stuka, I figure the Italian version of close air support can't be better, right? But before I try that, I let them build up some Org. Let's pause here to take a look at my build queue.
By early June I'll have the third Armored Car brigade, not much help in the Messina battle. I'll get two more Artillery brigades, which will beef up divisions which are also not going to take part in that battle. Plus I'll get a destroyer and two more Transports. These will be very nice to have, but they're not going to be much help in this battle at all, either. So good stuff for the future, but irrelevant for the time being. Right now, I'd like to use my shiny new air force.
I figure this: if the downside of Ground Attack air units is the need for micromanagement, then a game in which I don't get many units is the perfect place to work with them. If you're only dealing with twenty units tops, then giving orders is something interesting to do, not micromanagement. Let's hope this guy can make a difference. I assign him to ground combat in the attacking stacks area. He sits around a while "resting", and I'm not sure that the AA value of >50 units is what I want to throw these guys at first, so before his first attack I switch to test my theory that my Hurricanes are better at air combat than the Italian version of a Stuka. The Italian air attacks kill another 310 men while my Hurricanes are warming up on their "Intercept" mission. Now, the air base is in Catania, not Messina, but you think they'd reach the area before the enemy fled one of those half-dozen times.
Here's a look I got at that point when I had an unusually accurate look into the reggio de Calabria.
Hmm, 8 AA units. Perhaps I was right not to try ground attack there.
"I say old boy, what did you get out of those Hurricanes HMG let you build?"
"They were wiped out in their first action, next time we're gonna build Thunderbolts."
"Billy Bishop you're not."
So, um, well, Air Superiority isn't the natural environment for Hurricanes, and worse still, apparently the AI has heard of Air Superiority missions, too. Damn. Well, my Strength losses were only 15%, so my unit is 85% Str and ~0% Org. better luck next time. By the 9th of May, the Axis are down to 44 reserve units, and I've lost another 90 men to air attacks (1500 total). Then the unthinkable happens! Japan annexed Shanxi! Having never played in Asia, I have no idea what that means. Well, little enough anyway.
Some of my unit's Org is down below 24, but none are in the kind of serious shape that much smaller battles had caused much more quickly. I lose another 290 men to air attacks by May 13th, the enemy is down to 34 reserve Divisions, and their stacking penalty is 96%! You know, the worst thing for me might be the last 10-15 divisions here. I'll be amazing against 70 and then retreat in the face of to 7 (a gambler would let the 7 across, close the straits, and kill them). On the 14th, with the 6th Canadian Mountain division at 22 Org, I move them to Cefalu to the west of Messina to rest up, just in case.
By May 21, when this battle had been going on for more than three solid months, having lost yet another 175 men to air attacks (1950 total), my two new transports and one AC brigade are completed. Also, my Mountain troops are doing pretty well in the experience department. Euchre is a very potent form of military training, I guess.
Very nearly five stars, which I have to think is pretty good.
I get a few manpower finally, and assuming I'll have more IC than manpower for some time, I license a Light Cruiser from the UK. I don't even check France anymore. I figure the USA will be a great source once it's in the war, but until then I'll just offer low $ to the UK and figure rejection is fine so long as I take it with good grace. For $74 I get it first try. By the 23rd I've lost another 200 men to air attacks, and the enemy stacking penalty is down to 83% with only 14 reserve divisions.
Then, on the 16th hour of the 24th day the fifth month of 1941 - after approximately 100 days of continuous battle - the attack on Messina comes to an end.
Hah! Nearly 1.2 million enemy soldiers engaged! Our losses were never 445. They were six times that if you include air assaults (2150 total). However, we killed 103,000 Axis soldiers in the assault on Messina! Say what you want about the wisdom of the AI in this attack, what matters to me is that Canada kept roughly a million enemy busy for roughly three months, and destroyed very nearly the equivalent of the Canadian army. We have now killed or captured 205,000 enemy.
Let's hope that before too long the enemy decides to do something different, or gives me the chance to do the same.
[Reminder - next update the Tuesday after New Years]