Stuart Lee had an excellent article on the 2nd Australian Imperial Force in issue #11. He offered a number of good suggestions but also had a few things I disagree with. Here goes:

Allied Cooperation

There indeed was friction between the British and Australian governments over employment of the 2nd AIF from its arrival in the Middle East, in addition to some Pommie-Aussie hard feelings in general. (Some of the first Australian troops to arrive were officially welcomed by the British and then ordered not to steal anything-a slur on the Aussies' character due to the reputation of the original AIF from World War I.)

The fiasco in Greece, in my reading of the situation, blew this up into a major problem. Without this disaster, I believe the Australian government would have been more willing to let the British have their way with the 2nd AIF. However, the losses in Greece and Crete were quite heavy for a low population nation such as Australia (see chart below). This disregard for Australian lives together with a fresh display of inept British strategy and operations led the Australian government to dispute bitterly any British move that needlessly risked more Australian troops. The "War in the Desert" ("WitD") rule, whereby the Allied player loses victory points for putting Australians in precarious positions once the Greek campaign occurs, covers this situation.

Stuart's rule (the Allied player loses 1/2 victory point per turn per RE for dispersing the Australians, at any time) is another way to go about this. However, I think it builds in too much incentive for the Allies to keep the 2nd AIF intact. Historically, the 2nd AIF was rarely assembled in the same place at one time and never went into combat as an intact force. The "WitD" rule creates conditions more likely to recreate the historically employment of the 2nd AIF than does Stuart's rule.

Corps Artillery

Assembling the Australian corps artillery together as a unit is OK, although two field regiments and one medium regiment rate no more than a 2-8 Art X, and not the 3-8 Stuart gives it. Alas, this isn't a free unit. "WitD" merged the Australian support units in with the British. So, if you want to add a two point Australian artillery unit to the game, you'll need to shave two points off existing British artillery units.

Engineers

As with the artillery, the Australian engineers were lumped in with the British. If you really want to separate them out, 0-8 Eng 11 is appropriate, not 1-8 Mot Eng 11. Better still, let's merge the Australian pioneers, which aren't accounted for in "WitD," in with these, making a 2-8 (possibly 2-3-8) Eng X 1 Aus. Drop the engineer battalion and pioneer brigade from Stuart's order of battle and have this unit appear on Apr I 41 instead.

Railroad Engineers

Stuart's suggestion looks good, unless we find a way to dispense with RR engineer battalions, as I mentioned in my column last time. If so, then assembling all British and Dominion RR engineers into a composite brigade may be better. By the way, this is an eventual Grand Europa item, and there's no need to retrofit RR engineer units to "WitD." The effects of these units are built into the way the rules work, rather than shown explicitly with counters.

Railroad Construction

Wups! Stuart's giving my words from "Rails Through the Russias" (TEN #7) a twist I didn't intend. Yes, I did say that RR construction by construction units was "a major distortion of their function," and, yes, construction units did get involved in building a railroad in the Levant.

To resolve this seeming contradiction, let's take a look at context. "Rails Through the Russias" is about German railroad regauging and upgrading in the Soviet Union, for Scorched Earth. I didn't intend that it applied to all rail construction everywhere in Europa, because it doesn't. Very different conditions apply in the British Middle East than do in German-occupied Russia.

In essence, the railroad "business" (construction, regauging, and so on) requires a cadre of skilled engineers who know what they're doing and lots of unskilled labor to do the heavy work. in the USSR, the German RR engineer troops had the needed skills, and the Germans had no compunction in rounding up the local population to provide unskilled labor.

The German construction troops had important other skills, such as road maintenance, and would have been grossly misused to provide unskilled labor for the RR engineers. The British, on the other hand, didn't particularly care for slave labor and had to provide unskilled labor by other means, which their construction troops helped to fill.

"What If Units

Stuart's optional 1st Australian Armoured Division and 8th Australian Infantry Division are fine, but his OB needs to be fine tuned. The armored division had only begun forming in July 1941 and was scheduled to go to the Middle East in February/ March 1942. A Dec 1 41 appearance thus seems too soon. Mar 1 42 is better, but the Japanese threat is now a problem. Let's assume the British "buy" it by letting the 9th Australian Division go home, so withdraw 7-8 Inf XX 9 Aus on this turn, receiving 3-8 Arm Cadre 1 Aus as a reinforcement.

As for breakdowns, I don't know all of the 1st Armoured's components. It probably would have arrived using the 1941 organization of two armored brigades and then reorganized to the 1942 standard before ever entering combat, so let's simplify:

8-7-10 Arm XX 1 Aus
10 Arm XX HQ 1 Aus
5-3-10 Arm X 1 Aus
2-10 Mot X ? Aus

The 8th Australian Division might have deployed to the Middle East together with the 1st Armoured, but the Japanese entry stops this possibility, as they bag the division early in 1942. The 8th went to Malaya from Australia in February 1941 (although not fully equipped) and could have been diverted to the Middle East instead. Let's assume it got sucked up into the Ethiopian campaign and then sent to Egypt, arriving Aug I 41. Breakdowns are:

7-8 Inf XX 8 Aus
8 Inf XX HQ8 Aus
2-8 Inf X22 Aus
2-8 Inf X23 Aus
2-8 Inf X 27 Aus

Strengths

Stuart touches on divisional strengths, and I've gotten a number of letters over the years, particularly from Australia, on why the Australian divisions should be 8-8's, up there with the New Zealanders, and not at 7-8, stuck with the despicable British divisions. Yeah, well, the Aussies come out somewhere between the 8-8 New Zealanders and the 7-8 British, but no way am I going to introduce a 7.5-8 unit to Europa! (Also, 7-8-8 and 8-7-8 never particularly appealed to me, although 7-8-8 is a possibility.)

If you look at the long-term employment of these divisions, it isn't that of elite 8-8's. Rarely is more than one in action at a given time, and often two or all three are sitting in garrison in the rear. You could argue that this situation is more the result of BritishAustralian squabbling and not due to the capabilities of the divisions, so bump the divisions to 8's and add some complicated political rules to restrict them. I argue the opposite. It's cruel to give the Allied player a bunch of 8-8 divisions and then rig the rules so that he mostly can't use them.

Also, the effect of the squabbling meant the divisions were indeed less useful than they might have been- although not as bad as if they had actually been filled with the thieves and drunkards the British feared they were. Keeping them at 7-8 seems best.

Colors

Stuart doesn't mention this, but I get the occasional letter asking that the Australians get a different color combo than the New Zealanders and South Africans. Well, I figured out how to eke out a few more combinations from the British Commonwealth scheme: The Australians can be white symbols over black numbers on brown; the New Zealanders black symbols over white numbers on brown; and the South Africans can be white symbols and numbers on brown. With the British (black on tan), Canadian (black on brown), and colonial forces (brown on white), this gives each major component of the British Empire its own color combination.

More Inside Europa

From the Beaches: Second Front
On the Soap Box: What is Europa?
Those Saucy Aussies: 2nd Australian Imperial Force
Meanwhile, Back in the East: Soviet Victory
Panzers East: Options for 1941