News As History - May 12, 2008
News As History - May 12, 2008 |
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Battles In ItalySSG and Matrix Games
 Up the Bloody Boot...“I had hoped that we were hurling a wildcat onto the shore, but all we got was a stranded whale.” - Winston Churchill is the latest title in the award-wining Decisive Battles in WWII series from Strategic Studies Group. It takes you to three of the toughest fought battles in the Mediterranean -- the invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Husky, the landings at Salerno, codenamed Operation Avalanche and the landings at Anzio, codenamed Operation Shingle. While the invasion of Sicily went more or less to plan, the result in the two subsequent amphibious operations was less certain, with the safety of the beachheads at both Salerno and Anzio in considerable doubt for some time. Neither side has sufficient resources to do the job properly, and improvisation and desperation are the order of the day, and as a result all three battles are tense and exciting affairs. All three campaigns incorporate many new improvements and enhancements to the Decisive Battles series. Some of these updates include rules for surrender, political units, cooperation between countries, and improved amphibious invasions! In Operation Husky, the invasion of Sicily, the Axis player must plan carefully in order to extract the best possible performance from some less than committed Italian troops, while the Allied player must somehow find a way around or through the many natural defensive obstacles in their way. In Operation Avalanche, the invasion of the Italian mainland, the Germans can exert severe pressure on the Salerno beachhead, but must defend against Allied forces coming to the relief of the amphibious forces. The Allies must hold fast to their bridgeheads and their vulnerable supply sources, while speeding other formations to the rescue. Operation Shingle, the Anzio landing, was a bold Allied move to break the stalemate caused by the strength of German defensive lines. The Germans have a real chance to crush the Anzio bridgehead, especially if they transfer troops from their main defensive line. However, if the Allies can break through the weakened lines while avoiding disaster at Anzio then a truly decisive victory is possible. This engine features an integrated move/combat system that exploits the computer's processing and data storage powers to create an opponent that is more fluid and realistic than in traditional computer wargames. Prior combats can influence movement, units have a wide variety of combat and supply abilities, and SSG's legendary AI routines make for truly fearsome opponents. All aspects of a battle are reported to the player, allowing them to make fully informed decisions before a battle, and to determine whether a particular outcome was the result of good/poor generalship or blind luck. BACKGROUND Did the Italian campaign ultimately constitute a Churchillian thrust into the ‘soft underbelly of Europe’ or was it the strategic sideshow predicted by many, including most of the American high command? The answer, as so often with the big questions in history, depends on the criteria used to measure success. Viewed purely as a military exercise in gaining ground, the campaign was an Allied failure. The secondary nature of the theatre, the weather and terrain, German tactical excellence and high level command failures on the Allied side all conspired to prevent the dramatic military breakthrough that might have caused history to re-evaluate the campaign. It also has to be said that it is doubtful that any success, no matter how staggering, could have decisively affected the outcome of the war, which was being settled on the Russian front. However, war has always been about more than just lines on a map. The Italian campaign was the almost inevitable outcome of Churchill’s successful politicking, which had convinced Roosevelt to support Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa. Once the Allied war machine had been cranked up and aimed at the Mediterranean, it was easy to find any number of plausible reasons why further operations in the theatre were necessary. This situation perfectly suited Churchill and the British command, who wished to avoid what they saw as a premature confrontation with the German army in the European theatre in 1943. They were successful in this, and as the Allies initial lack of progress in Normandy in 1944 showed, their caution may well have been justified, as the German defenders of Europe in 1943 would have been a much tougher proposition. As well as avoiding a high risk invasion, the Italian campaign provided other benefits. The Allied war machine, at all levels, still had a lot to learn about warfare, as embarrassing reverses in North Africa at Kasserine and elsewhere had already shown. The technical mastery of amphibious warfare shown at Normandy would surely not have been possible without the experience gained in battle in the various Mediterranean operations. It was also useful and necessary to show both the Russians and the home front that the Germans were being confronted. In some ways, Allied soldiers in the Italian campaign were like the airmen of Bomber Command. They were thrown against the enemy as a necessity of war, and the fact that these battles were not on the direct path to victory does not in the slightest diminish their dedication or sacrifice. Their German opponents showed similar dedication, and could at least console themselves with the thought that they were not serving on the Russian front. Far removed from lofty strategic considerations, the fighting in the Italian Campaign was some of the hardest of the war. Conditions in Sicily were relatively benign, and the Germans were content to fight a delaying campaign, withdrawing more or less at their convenience. However, terrain and weather on almost all of the Italian mainland were perversely unsuited to offensive operations by a modern mechanised army and these factors, together with the fighting abilities of the German army meant that Allied attacks were usually made at great cost for little gain. New Game Features Include:
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