FROM SALERNO TO ROME: THE ITALIAN CAMPAIGN 1943-1944 vol I
from DSIMULA-EDIZIONI in Italy!
Ziplock version, as the boxed games are all gone (at $88 apiece after Euro conversion!)
MINT NEW & UNPUNCHED
Here is a link to the full description, mpas, reviews, etc. at the publisher's website:
Part of that description here:
FSTR is a wargame that allows to simulate the first ten months of the Italian campaign during the Second World War, from the landing of Salerno to the capture of Rome, from September 1943 to June 1944.
The game begins with the US Fifth Army just landed in Salerno and the British 8th Army advancing in Puglia as the Axis gathers its forces to launch a powerful counteroffensive against one or the other of the two armies...
Some notes on how FSTR works
I guess it's very strange to see a game about the Italian countryside with only 10 rounds; in fact, each shift is then divided into a variable number of pulses. Each pulse is in turn divided into two segments, one for the ally and one for the axis where the initiative is variable.
In fact FSTR has a very flexible structure: a campaign with a fixed shift structure and a rigid mechanism, given the scale of the terrain and the forces I have chosen to use, risks making any game on the subject perhaps heavy and interminable (of course, it would exactly reflect the reality but ...) and in the long run it would be decidedly frustrating.
Not ideal for a gaming experience! At least for me.
The focus is on the concept of Operation. Every time players have to move, fight, put intelligence into action, move reserves over great distances, land, strengthen the defensive system, aviolanciare parà, put air forces in flight, in short, almost anything, they have to launch an operation.
The operation in turn is constrained by the number of activation points that players have available. These points are not very great, it is imperative to plan the strategy carefully and stick to it, at least until it has yielded the desired results.
Or it failed miserably and then it is urgent to change its approach...
The most common operation typically involves ground forces moving and fighting. Here too, however, the decision is crucial: activate one or more bodies at the same time and launch a large operation aimed at achieving decisive results or better to activate only one or two divisions and proceed more cautiously, saving the points?
Both solutions have advantages and disadvantages. In the first case I may finish the activation points quickly, but I have a remarkable attack mass. In the second case I may be able to make a small local breakthrough, but I will still have the points to reactivate in the next impulse the same divisions that can thus go even further.
Thus summizing the choice is always between moving maybe 6 or 7 divisions for one or two pulses within a turn or moving, always within a turn, 2 or 3 divisions for 3 or 4 pulses ... difficult decisions!
And of course, the military bureaucracy also demands its pound of meat: until Monty leaves to participate in Overlord, the US Army Va and the British VIII have a divided points system. Unable to coordinate them for our player-Alexander! Kesselring certainly doesn't have this problem...
The map and the terrain
From an allied point of view it is terrifying! The terrain is really hell from an operational point of view, as the forces move northward the mountains become more extensive, the roads necessary for the most intricate supplies, the rivers to cross more and more numerous and always on the direction of travel ... and of course, if the German did a good job, Cassino and the Gustav Line are waiting...
Playing FSTR quickly realizes how impossible it is to use large armored masses!
And then, in addition to all this, the climate! The chances of a rain fall in the central months between October and March are high. That means mud, getting in the way of movement, planes on the ground... welcome to 'Sunny Italy!'
Seriously I hope I've done a good job with the map and that it helps make the gaming experience at least interesting.