By Shelby L. Stanton
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From the outset of Europa, however, some basic foreign unit categories of World War II vintage did not conform to standard military symbolic usage of the 1970s. For example, Drang Nach Osten introduced Axis Security and Soviet NKVD political troops to the cardboard battlefield.
The "Letter Box" designs, as they became fondly known (along with the old Europa battlefield jingle, "return to sender, address unknown," upon destruction in game play) employed basic abbreviations instead of endeavoring to devise new symbology. While these were initially adopted for clarity and ease of wargaming identification, the resulting profusion of various lettered designs during the course of Europa development soon created their own identity problems. The fall 1973 release of Europa's east front follow-up simulation, Unentschieden, presented Border units abbreviated as BDR, Replacement units abbreviated as ERS, and Police units abbreviated as POL. Unfortunately, the latter was also the Army abridgment for "Petroleum, Oil, and Lubricants" as well as the accepted dictionary-authorized shortening for Poland. English comprehension problems were further alienated by abbreviations such as ERS for Ersatz-German military terminology for replacement, brought into English as a variation for substitute, such as ersatz coffee and ersatz mink. Yet, more were to come. Within three years, Their Finest Hour presented the Europa community with SG encased in a box, for Support Group. The previous employment of S as part of Security caused some disorientation within the context of possible Security Guard, not to mention the more common English employment of SG for Solicitor General. The first Balkans campaign game, Merita-Merkur, gave us another boxed gift when RES was used to signify Reserve. To many players, this appeared within diminutive counter rectangles as an eye-crossing reversal of ERS. Finally, Fall of France and Scorched Earth demonstrated the inherent limitations of combining graphics with abbreviations when BDR and POL designators, respectively, were squeezed atop "Old Smokey" peaks to represent Mountain Border and Mountain Police units. Letter Boxes shortly became an unchecked monstrosity that threatened to obfuscate and ultimately undermine basic counter symbolic logic in Europa. There were enough abbreviations on air and naval counters, and the abundance of more letters in land designs caused even more clutter. About ten years ago, in 1982, John Astell rightfully decided to initiate a carefully planned substitution process to slowly rid the Europa system of unwarranted boxed abbreviations. He began phasing in new ground counter symbology over the course of several Europa games for ease of player transition. The GRD Collector Series has completed this necessary evolution and forthcoming simulations will harmonize counter symbols by dispensing with Letter Boxes altogether. In the meantime, boxed design symbology in Europa development continued to both conform with and evolve away from standard Army and NATO employment. The small nucleus of initial designs, introduced by Drang Nach Osten and described fully in the last issue, was standardized and expanded. Some Europa landwarfare components were modified, but a few received completely new symbols.
The reconnaissance title in Europa reverted to the standard Army terminology of "armored cavalry" upon the publication of Narvik a year later. In actual fact, the recon battalions of most World War II national participants--including the Germans--evolved directly from prewar cavalry regimental squadrons, complete with horse-cavalry riding traditions. Thereafter, this unit type has been categorized more appropriately in terms of Europa usage instead of traditional sentiments, and it has been labeled either Light Armored, Light, Reconnaissance, or Light Tank. The symbol itself represents the tread of an armored fighting vehicle being crossed by a cavalry saber to connoted its lighter, slashing agility. The "Sandwiched Armor" has appeared so far in UNT, NAR, TFH, CW, MM, FoF, SP, TOR, FitE, SE, and BF. (Game abbreviations used in the following descriptions can be referenced within Tom Johnson's "Lexicon of Europa Abbreviations" of Europa issue #16).
The Parachute-Panzer Grenadier symbol was restricted to UNT and SE only, because Europa functional symbols have prevailed over complimentary designations incorporated previously within counter symbology. Second Front shows honorary status more properly as part of the unit title instead of the counter symbol. In the future, "Fs (Fallschirm)," or Parachute, will be added beside Hermann Goering's name to represent the German Air Force's bestowing of this token honor to the formation, and the counter symbol will plainly depict its actual combat mode as a regular armored-infantry formation.
This particular combination provided easy identification for specialized infantry or ski troops equipped with machine guns, and the "Heavy Hockey Sticks" of SkiMachinegun units made their appearance in both UNT and SE.
When John Astell took over Europa design work, he swiftly put his stamp of authoritative consistency on the matter and motorcycles have been motorcycles ever since. They have appeared in NAR, CW, MM, FoF, FitE, SE, and BF, where their Europa design-inspired nickname of "Cavalry with balls" was doubtless underscored by countless war movies showing hapless German cyclists abruptly separated from their machines by partisan-strung wires across country roads.
Several Royal Naval Troop counters were printed with this same symbol in the original version of Their Finest Hour (although not listed on the unit identification chart) but these counters did not appear in the revised product. Case White used the symbol for Marine National Guard units, and Merita-Merkur employed it for Marine Defense units. The symbol was used in NAR, TFH, CW, MM, FitE, and SE. The plain anchor, now enlarged and unboxed, has since been reserved for River Flotillas.
The use of the counter as a proper Infantry Gun (later Motorized) was initiated in Their Finest Hour, but it has also been used as a Shock Army headquarters symbol. The design has been used so far in NAR, TFH, and SE. No nicknames are known to the writer.
The symbol was first designated as Amphibious Panzer and represented an armored fighting vehicular tread moving over a series a shallow waves, indicative of armor having amphibious landing capability. This distinctive symbol has been limited so far to TFH, and the author knows of no nicknames (perhaps some Marines out there can help).
In Drang Nach Osten, the abbreviation "Jgr" (for Jaeger) simply appeared beside a standard infantry rectangle to differentiate this type of organization. By this point in Europa development, however, the "Lone Rifles" have been found in TFH, MM, FoF, SP, FitE, SE, and BF. Frank Chadwick's Light Infantry design also commenced the true "breakaway" tradition of Europa-specialized symbology. This trend has increasingly distinguished Europa counters from the straight orthodox military mold. Typo Finally, Robert Gesling of Davenport, Louisiana, corrected a typo in a previous "Facts Behind the Counters" column by observing that railroad artillery was not limited to just DNO, UNT, FITE, and SE. He notes correctly that the symbol appears extensively in Fall of France, where the armies of France, Belgium, and Germany all contain railway artillery units. Corrected in the MagWeb.com archive.--RL As a fellow Louisianian (having been born in Baton Rouge and educated at Louisiana State University), I am most pleased to print Gesling's observation. His response is typical of the sharp field input required from the readership to insure that game listings are complete. Future columns will continue to credit readership entries that provide information, catch misprints, illuminate more counter nicknames, or otherwise add to the wealth of Europa counter trivia." Back to Europa Number 19 Table of Contents Back to Europa List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1991 by GR/D This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com |