Operation: SLAPSTICK

My compliments to Lt. Col. Manka on a fine article that addresses what will certainly be necessary sometime in Europa: landings from warships.

First a quick comment on limiting naval transport by the calendar. This gets very "gamey", since the limitations really seem to be based upon play balance considerations, rather than historical simulation. Both Dunkirk and Narvik happened in the same time period, after all, along with the British landing and withdrawal from western France (Ist Canadian Div, et al). How one comes to the conclusion that this ability could be used Y number of times over X time period is beyond my abilities. I fear the actual situation was much more "situational" than presented here, and not really so dependent upon some imposed limitation upon use.

Granted there is ample precedence for limiting naval activity to a certain number of uses per X months - NGS for example, and this method does work from a game standpoint.

Second, I would like to comment on the statement regarding the rules: "I assume that a land unit aboard naval transport or amphibious units would fulfill the requirements of Rule 38132."

This can be argued a number of ways, and I would personally be tempted to argue against this interpretation strongly. However, the rules as written certainly do not have a "unit" cease to be a unit simply because they are being transported by naval units.

Therefore this seems to be a valid interpretation. However, it may well be difficult to put into practice. Italian surrender is judged in Axis player turns, so to be within three hexes of potentially defecting Italians, the embarked Allied units would have to be at sea, and would have to have arrived within three hexes during the previous Allied player turn.

This leaves the Allied units unsupplied and isolated, and it leaves their naval transports sitting off of a hostile shore. Since Naval Patrol Missions are declared after air reinforcements/replacements, the smart Axis player will have a sizable air force close at hand to bomb these poor boys throughout the Axis player turn, with a very good chance of finding them, their being so close to shore. So even if the Italians do surrender, these Allied troops and their transports may be sacrificed to gain some defectors and a port that the Germans will take back during their turn. (Note well, that since the Allied units are isolated, their loss counts as a disastrous loss, as well, giving the Axis VPs for this little maneuver.)

Did the Allies do this in real life? No. The SLAPSTICK forces embarked and sailed after the surrender terms were signed, which in game terms, means they do their landing the player turn (Allied) after Italian surrender has already taken place. More to the point, however, there were no Europa scale Italian or German troops in Taranto at this time. Certainly, no Italian troops at Europa level defected to the Br 1st Para XX.

So what we are really seeing is the occupation of an uncontrolled port, in Europa terms. One way to show this would be to allow Allied amphibious landings, without pre-planning, in uncontrolled ports on the turn following Italian surrender. (Of course you have to change the rules here in other ways, for example by saying that not all non-Allied owned hexes in Italy pass immediately to Axis ownership; ports remain uncontrolled until ownership of them is gained in the normal manner.)

Finally, since the Axis player can and should have German units stacked with potential defectors, the whole question is moot, really. Any Axis player who would leave Taranto without at least a half RE of German units stacked with the Italians there is making a huge mistake, and one not to be repeated, if they read the rules after they get burnt once.