Rimini Airfield

[LiveNoMore]

Hi All,

 

I have been working on a three-part H2H scenario dealing with the battle for Rimini Airfield.  This was a part of British 8^th Army’s Operation Olive assault up the Adriatic coast. It took place in mid-September 1944. The 1^st Canadian Division, which included the Greek 3^rd Mountain Brigade (their first and last major engagement), New Zealand 19^th Armor and 22^nd Motor Battalion. In front of them were a combination of the German 1^st Fallschirmjager Regiment, 162^nd Turkestani Battalion and various support units.

By the 15^th of September the 1^st Canadian had moved up the coast were just south of the airfield. They needed to take the airfield before moving onto the town itself.

Lieutenant-General Sir Oliver Leese, commander of the 8th Army had this to say about the battle; "The battle of Rimini was one of the hardest battles of Eighth Army. The fighting was comparable to El Alamein, Mareth and the Gustav Line (Monte-Cassino)."

The morning of this battle the Canadian Saskatoon Light Infantry had probed north up the coast road and been stopped by fierce resistance. And this is where the battle begins. 

I broke the battle into three parts:

1. Santa Maria, which was the assault on the small village and church complex called Casalecchio, west of the airfield. 

2. Miramar, the assault up the coast road 

3. Rimini Airfield, the final attack on the airfield. 

Using the same map, I isolated the fighting areas for Santa Maria and Miramar. Then used the entire map for the Airfield.

Overall map

Saskatoon waiting for help.

PzIV on overwatch

Knocked out Panther Turret Bunker

Special thanks to BobWillett and Rocketman for all their help, input and play testing.  I hope to have it at the Scenario Depot in the next few days.

 

LiveNoMore

[Heirloom_Tomato]

@LiveNoMore this looks great.  Thanks for making it for us to enjoy and destroy!

If the attacker fails to achieve a victory in one of the first two battles, will it have an impact on the final third battle?

[LiveNoMore]

I haven't figured out the total scoring as you would see in a campaign.  What I did was set up the first 2 scenarios and use the average from the play test games to create the initial set up locations for the last one. Santa Maria is a fresh battle. The map is clean. Miramar has the Greek 3rd trying to get to the Canadian Saskatoon unit and moving forward from there. The map has burning wrecks and damage. Some of the units on both sides are also less than full strength because of battle losses. Rimini Airfield then starts with the map littered with wrecks and such from the first 2 battles. A lot of the units are at less than full strength. 

In my game with Rocketman his results closely mirrored the historical results that I had read about.

Right now I am trying to create a scale for the cumulative score from all three games. That's going to be the best I can do until a system is in place for H2H campaigns. 

[Heirloom_Tomato]

1 hour ago, LiveNoMore said:

I haven't figured out the total scoring as you would see in a campaign.  What I did was set up the first 2 scenarios and use the average from the play test games to create the initial set up locations for the last one. Santa Maria is a fresh battle. The map is clean. Miramar has the Greek 3rd trying to get to the Canadian Saskatoon unit and moving forward from there. The map has burning wrecks and damage. Some of the units on both sides are also less than full strength because of battle losses. Rimini Airfield then starts with the map littered with wrecks and such from the first 2 battles. A lot of the units are at less than full strength. 

In my game with Rocketman his results closely mirrored the historical results that I had read about.

Right now I am trying to create a scale for the cumulative score from all three games. That's going to be the best I can do until a system is in place for H2H campaigns. 

Great idea. 

[LukeFF]

Your preview images are way, way too small.

[LiveNoMore]

@LukeFF  really? On my screen they take up half the page.  I'll see about reposting them a bit larger.

[Ithikial_AU]

Looks nice. :)

To ask the obvious, why not wait until Rome to Victory is released given the time frame? Ensure correct date and TOE for Sept 1944 are used etc.

[sburke]

23 minutes ago, Ithikial_AU said:

Looks nice.

To ask the obvious, why not wait until Rome to Victory is released given the time frame? Ensure correct date and TOE for Sept 1944 are used etc.

He can do all the prep work then swap in the replacement units when the module comes out making the release date of the scenario within days of the module  

[Wicky]

14 hours ago, LiveNoMore said:

@LukeFF  really? On my screen they take up half the page.  I'll see about reposting them a bit larger.

Just looked at the dimensions of the Panther turret png  - 360 x 169 px   - which is quite titchy, more of a large thumbnail instead of a hi-res image.

Edited August 10, 2018 by Wicky

[Sandokan]

Seems interesting! Just a note, the place nearer the coast name should be Miramare, presuming the airport is the nowaday Felllini Int'l Airport.

[LiveNoMore]

@Ithikial_AU:   I've been working on this quite a while. If Rome to Victory does come out soon I can easily swap the units. Just got bored waiting.

@Sandokan:  I was working off an old hand drawn map I found online about the battle. It had the name as Miramar. Probably a misspelling from the Brit that made the map. Or the name changed slightly in the last 50 years.

 

Let me know if these screenshots are better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mjkerner]

Yes, they are!  That one of the Panther turret with the hit decals and open hatch tells me threre’s an interesting story there....

[Erwin]

Lovely.  Thanks...

[LiveNoMore]

The H2H Campaign has been completed. It will be on the Scenario Depot soon. A special thanks to Rocketman and BobWillett for all their help. Rocketman also devised the briefing setup and completed the hi res maps.  I thought I'd let you all see what the briefing paper looks like.

To get the proper lighting and ground conditions for a fall battle, the scenarios are set in September 1943. Once Rome to Victory is released I will change that to September 1944.

 

[LiveNoMore]

Thanks to Bootie's help I finally managed to upload the game. Even though it is called Rimini Airfield H2H Campaign it has been uploaded to the scenarios folder.

 

 

[Kaunitz]

Looks nice! How big is the map? Is it true to scale?

[Hardradi]

Looks great, its a three battle H2H campaign.

Edited September 18, 2018 by Hardradi

[LiveNoMore]

@Kaunitz The final map, which encompasses all three game maps is about 2100m x 2500m

The smaller maps are 624x1808 and 672x1296

It's not to scale. Probably a little short, but close to the width.