Salerno is what I think of as a what if what if battle, as it is simply more than some what ifs because here was one of those moments where perhaps disaster truly awaited n Allied amphibious assault. Salerno was a battle fought on the knife’s edge, where like Sicily, the panzers were on the march. The fight on the beaches by the 16th Panzer were disruptive enough. Fast forward to the 13th of September where the 16th Panzer and 29th Panzergrenadier were able to attack in greater force. Unlike Sicily, the panzers here were fewer in number, less powerful, and lacking organizational cohesiveness as we think is necessary, but in the hands of veteran corps commanders like <PERSON> from the East Front, with veteran crews, they were a <PERSON> of the sort the Allies had yet to master. Add in their ability to put together scratch forces thanks to veteran NCOs, and there was indeed great cause for concern. Take away the American artillery line and the naval fire support that the Germans had no answer for, and disaster lurked. Take away one burned out bridge over the Calore River….
COMPONENTS
Salerno ’43 is by no means a component heavy game. It comes with a 22” by 25X” paper map, that almost seems shocking as it seems every GMT game recently we have received has a mounted map board. It looks and feels odd at first as we are always used to larger “regulation” size maps in GMT games. Well don’t worry, as with this terrain all that extra space would be wasted and more to the point, would throw perhaps the designer’s sense of scale off. Necessary tracking elements are nicely placed on the map sheet in a manner that is not distracting. There is one sheet of 192 counters that are 9/16th inches in size. sheet is a half-sheet of counters.
What can you always count on with any GMT game? Great Player’s Aid Cards. There are two (2) Order of Battle Cards. The Allied Order of Battle Card gives you the option of doing your own Avalanche invasion of sorts, or you can go with the reverse side of the card with units already on the board. I suggest doing it both ways to see which made more sense to you. Clear, colorful and easy to read. 993
I found no mistakes on mine. We have two (2) four-page Player Aids Cards with the various game tables on them. All are nicely set up and easy to read. I do wish, my one small quibble here, that the mountain section on the Terrain Effects Chart (TEC) was less dark. But the Combat Results Table, is a good size, clear and color coded which will come into play if the combat result leads to a Determined Defense.
RULES
Sometimes rule books put me off. Such was the case with Salerno…at first. Why? I think it was due to the fact we were deep into grading papers so, something that doesn’t register quickly in those weeks might feel iffy. In retrospect, I found the rules to be pretty darn sensible. In fact, they are very well laid out in a logical fashion that enabled me to quickly get into the game, this despite being some years out from this system.
Instead what we found were intelligently tailored rules that allow you to fight a battle which is one of the what ifs of what ifs. Sometimes to make some battles work you have to almost pave over the concept with so much chrome or special case rules to make it work. At first I thought that was the case here with <PERSON>. When I reread the rules and played the first game turn, I said a-ha! It feels like history. Except and here is the kicker, <PERSON>’s rules don’t make it feel either scripted or straight jacketed. What the rules do with this game is give you the GPS and where you go from there is up to you.
TURN 1 When I said the Germans get close….
GAME PLAY
One turn into the game and I said, dang the historians really got this game right, or was it the other way around. All I know is seldom does a single game turn convince me that stuff is right without so much added on stuff that the game isn’t a game as much as going down a rules checklist to reach a result. When design for effect meets and embraces playability, we get a game like Salerno ’43.
One thing that slows the Allied early advance is for one they can’t “run” off the boats and head inland. No, this is the very tentative armies of 1943. Second, there is the invasion CRT which can inflict some step losses. Better it dictates the invasion inland progress. 993