Arrigo Velicogna

Thanks god someone said that... Anyway to put thing in perspective... today the ROKMC is a around 29,000 men and ladies in 2 divisions, two separate brigades, and one independent battalion plus. It has no organic helicopter or air... Back in the Cold War you had three full USMC active divisions (1st, 2nd, 3rd), the 4th Marine Division (Reserve), each supported by its own active or reserve Marine Air Wing. The 1st Division at Pendleton had as primary mission reinforcement of Korea/Japan or Middle East. 2nd at Lejeune was tasked with European contingency mission (Norway, Denmark, Mediterranean). The 3rd at Okinawa was the primary reinforcing unit for Korea. Several set of Maritime Prepositioned Squadrons were available close to the action to bring heavy equipment and then fly the Marines. So plenty of scope for amphibious assaults... The Airborne/Air Assault divisions were in the XVIII Corps with the 24th Infantry (Mechanized). They were contingency, and reserve. Now let's me say these were basically valuable assets and non replaceable in the short term. And the XVIII Corps was the only thing that could be moved quickly (the 24th thank to the Algol class fast transports) anywhere in the globe. But once committed... well they were stuck there. Of the proposed spots... Norway and Denmark, basically NATO north, had already the 2nd Marine Division, the allied ACE, the UK 3rd Commando Brigade, and the 9th Light Division assigned. Okay the latter... was more a paper project than anything serious... Norway had also the 29th Infantry (L) assigned. Austria... well this is the least plausible. Why? Austria was a Soviet attack option but not that attractive. First, you can either use the Central Group of Forces or the Southern Group of Forces. But the CGF was supposed to push against southern Germany otherwise you are freeing up a full German and almost a whole US corps... the SGF primary mission was Yugoslavia and then Italy... okay you can divert one of them, but if you do not put pressure on the Italian... You have basically three Italian Corps poised to move into Austria (as in the old VG NATO), if you keep the Italians busy, and use the CGF... well you play into NATO hands anyway. To be blunt, an invasion of Austria would have been a strategic mistake (something that some Soviet planning documents argue), and even if there was an opening there were NATO reserve quick to move. Dropping the 82nd to Austria would have been a waste. Southern front... basically Med... okay good spot and if the Soviet did a mass push on Turkey or even Italy that could have been plausible. On the other hand you have the Middle East. Oil would have been critical for both sides. With Iran no more the US shield after 1979, Iraq being more or less a Soviet Ally, and Syria being a clear Soviet ally... well the XVIII corps would have been probably either dispatched there quickly or kept has a reserve hand... there is also the question of the 101st Air Assault. While the 82nd could be dployed quickly, but once on the ground it is basically stuck, the 101st had the inverse problem. It needed a strong airlift effort to move (or better using the Algol class fast transports), but once there, as long air superiority could be provided and fuel could be supplied it is muh more mobile, but it is not something that you drop like the 82nd. Just two eurocents from a veteran NATO/WP wargamer... Arrigo

Anyone one but me has problem in viewing the Marine preview? I can't access that page or the other new pages on battlefront website... including the ordering page! Arrigo

started at 2 beacuse: I was a bit puzzled by the new keys; Playing by turns having ot watch twice the battle was boring like pressing the end replay become 1 after I become used to the new commands and the new infantry scale. Btw I am running it with a P4 2ghz, 1gb ram, geforce 6600GT128 witohut problems... yuppieeee

Ok I am sold... now I have ti find a way to preorder the beast without having mom notice it or to use my paypal account...(I am in shopping hiatus...)

Ok, so My little machine will run it or not? (scary question); Btw playing in WEgo will make slow downs more accpetables I think

I have a P4 2ghx, 1gb RAM and a GT6600 128mb I can run this on WEgo mode?

I have got my copies today and I live in italy!!!! Is possible? Or this is only a dream? Arrigo

Whow! Hundreds of Quadriremes and quniqirems ramming each others! Catapults! Flaming arrows! Raking oars! Diekplus and Periplus maneuvers! Also at least one Heptares! The battle Of Egadi Islands, The battle of Cape Ecnomus! The possibility of drowning Chikens if they don't deliver the right Divinatio... Hint: check always if a Roman historian is neraby before starting to talk of Punic Wars... Arrigo

Whow! Hundreds of Quadriremes and quniqirems ramming each others! Catapults! Flaming arrows! Raking oars! Diekplus and Periplus maneuvers! Also at least one Heptares! The battle Of Egadi Islands, The battle of Cape Ecnomus! The possibility of drowning Chikens if they don't deliver the right Divinatio... Hint: check always if a Roman historian is neraby before starting to talk of Punic Wars... Arrigo

My suggestion are Arab Israeli Wars. Lot of tanks, interesting situations and terrain! Arrigo

My suggestion are Arab Israeli Wars. Lot of tanks, interesting situations and terrain! Arrigo

First: being italian I am deeply involved in the Rommel controversy. In my view Rommel was a very good commander at regiment/division level. He was a gifted tactician, very agressive and inspiring. When he was given corps and army level commands he began to show serious deficiencies. As someone here has stated he was prone to tunnel vision, he was ignoring logistical reuiremetns and he was utterly comptentous of his italian allies. Each time he suffered a defeat he was ready to blame the italian navy, the italian army or Kesserling and the luftwaffe. Italian navy fought to death to mantain open the sea lane betewwn Italy and North Africa with a 90% of supplies transported to destination, albei at high cost. Also one the so called "rotta della morte" (sea lane of death) between sicily and tunisia our sailor acheive an impressive 70% of succesfull transfer. The main problems was the supplys system in Africa. The only good port was Tripoli and Rommel constantly refused to allow his engineer to work on Benghazi and Tobruk to improve these ports. He also refused to allo cargo space diverted on port equipment rather than combat equipment. On the italian army our soldier where on par with DAK ones and, citing only one of our achievement, where italian AT gunner with 90L53 and 88L56 guns who have defeated the majority of the british attacks at the Cauldron. The constant offensive activities have rapidly exausthed the Luftwaffe and Regia Aereonautica mainly due to low priority of supply allocation (fuel was reserved to german panzers first, italian tanks second and last to axis aircraft. Operationally Rommel was severly beaten in spirit and mind during Crusader (but the brits where on the losing side on ground as testified by their rapid break down some weeks later when Rommel again reasoning counterattacked). And at El Alamein was severly outfought by Auckincleck. In contrast the big battle plan of Montgomery was an huge failure due in large part to the stubborn resistance of italian infantry divisions. As Malta the Rommel interference with Herakles/Eventualità C3 was a lost opportunity. Churchill will have undoubtely commited the scarce resourec of the meditarranean fleet and DAF to the defence of the island and the big fllet engagement of the mediterranean would have fought under Luftwaffe and Italian AF superiority and in the summer of 1942 we have yet enough battleship and cruiser to obliterate the british (and in the period the central meditarranean was an italian lake). If Malta would have fall the entire british position in the near east would have been put in jeopardy until American direct involvement. In the end probabily also the 8th army would have suffered (no more direct convoy). Of course in the end nothing of this will have mattered. The US forces would have launched torch (commiting the bulk of USN atlantic fleet in the mediterranean and shattering italian navy) or better (for them) sledgehammer and the glorious axis force in north africa would have been another useless diversion of german forces (Hitler would have certianly refused to evacuate force forma victorius advance in near east...). Just my 2 eurocent. Arrigo

I I was Mussolini on the verge of Dunkirk my chiches where very limited: 1st Version (no crystal ball): My army was't bad (good tanks for the period, good navy, biggest air force of europe); France was almost done, England short on the list, Soviet Union allied with Berlin and USA isolationist thus or I will oppose Hitler in a war without allies or I will strike fast France, hope that England will yeld to a negotiated peace and thus grab some prestige maybe a little land and continue business as usual. After a quicke rview I will go for option B. 2) (with crystal ball). My armed forces are losing their technical advantege. My mediumn tanks are good for the moment but we don't have any capability to improve them. The air force number are impressive but some crazy guys at the Air Ministry has stopped all work on liquid cooled engines thus depriving us of any chanche to have fighters capable to match the next generation machines without outside help and my pilots are too aerobatic instead of energy management oriented. War will be long. Hitler isn't going to invade England, England isn't bound to a settlment, Hitler will invade soviet Union, USA will enter the War. Solution mantain neutrality and enter the war after Overlord obn allied side. Arrigo

I have tried thre solution and works. Sorry for the second chip (32mb....)

OK, but then I will have only 32 mb of video RAM instead of 64 (wich of course are a big boost to graphic performance). I hope to find a nother solutions (Ehi, I can play on my mom PC 233MMX 32 mb RAM and Vodoo 2 16 mb video RAM...)