Part 1

The publication of Drang Nach Osten in June 1973 laid the groundwork for pictorially representing ground military units in the Europa system. As explained in previous columns, the counters contained boxed symbols that largely reflected standard military images. There was scant variation from the official Department of the Army Field Manual FM 21-30, Military Symbols (1970 edition). The same designs were used by other allied nations within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) by virtue of the STANAG 2019 standardization agreement on military symbols. Most of these standard symbols already enjoyed "graphic recognition" within wargaming community circles.

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.

These elements had no symbolic association within either a U.S. Army or NATO framework. At first, such unique classifications were simply given lettered abbreviations on the counters. For instance, boxed designations for the first two unit types became SEC and NKVD, respectively.

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 Light Armor symbol represented Paul R. Banner's employment of the Armored Cavalry symbol from Army FM 21-30. STANAG 2019 alternatively described this design as "armored reconnaissance" and, true to form, it was originally known as Reconnaissance in the September 1973 edition of Unentschieden. The design did not appear in the basic uniform symbol code of Drang Nach Osten, and thus represented one of the first new Europa designs in series progression.

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 a distinctive Unentschieden adaptation by Paul R. Banner that joined mechanized infantry "crossed potatoes" with parachute "gull wings." The smaller gull wings broke the bottom of the tank tread in the original Unentschieden design before Winston Hamilton cleaned up the image for Second Front. This combination symbol followed the then-current Europa concept of "double-crossed" parachute infantry, having crossed rifles over reduced "bat wings", to distinguish non-jumpable units (possessing only honorary paratrooper status) from those jumpable units having "full gull wings." Essentially, the German Hermann Goering Parachute PanzerGrenadier Division was unable to drop anywhere, but at least its members had the honor of dying with their "(paratrooper) boots on".

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.

The Ski Machinegun symbol, still in current use, was another Unentschieden innovation by Paul R. Banner that furthered the case of the traditional Europa "heavy" or "specialized function designator" along the left side of a counter box. The shaded left-side vertical stripe, employed as part of the standard Machinegun symbol in Drang Nach Osten, was simply linked to the ski symbol by dropping the crossed infantry rifles portion of the design.

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.

The September 1974 publication of Narvik presented some new Europa symbols from Paul R. Banner. Among these was the Motorcycle design representing the cavalry sword, indicative of light slashing agility, joined with the twin wheels of a motorcycle. There was some early confusion occasioned by the adoption of this design, evinced in both Their Finest Hour, where the unit identification chart mistakenly illustrated this symbol for bicycle units, and in Case White, where it denoted both Light Motorized and Motorcycle categories.

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.

The Motorized symbol, now universally used throughout the Europa system, was introduced in Narvik by Frank Alan Chadwick, when he attached wheels underneath the infantry box. The resulting "Boxcar" represented wheeled infantry and was known as Motorized Infantry or Motorized Rifle, showing up in NAR, TFH, CW, MM, FoF, WD, NE, SP, TOR, FitE, SE, and BF. The wheels have been added to many other functional boxes in the meantime. So far they have formed Motorized Artillery, Motorized Light and Heavy Flak, Motorized Rocket, Motorized Antitank, Motorized Infantry Gun, Motorized Jaeger, Motorized Reserve, Motorized Machinegun, Motorized Political Police, Motorized Assault Engineers, Motorized Engineers and yes-even Motorized Cavalry. Winston Hamilton has recently redrafted the wheel shapes as part of his improved design imaging of all Europa symbology.

The plain Naval anchor, representing the anchor of static Marine capability (without further specialization), was introduced by Paul R. Banner as a "special case counter" for Narvik. In that game, the symbol was termed Naval Troops to categorize the "stranded crews of sunken destroyers."

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.

Mountain Artillery was another modification adopted by Paul R. Banner for Narvik. The basic artillery symbol was combined with the mountain peak triangle to produce a standard military design combining functional duty performance with branch symbolization. In Europa, the design represents the traditional artillery cannonball implanted on a mountain, the intended operational terrain of such units. Independent mountain artillery units have appeared in NAR, MM, and FoF.

The Infantry Gun symbol, joining the traditional artillery cannonball with crossed infantry rifles in Europa, was developed by Paul R. Banner for Narvik as a special case counter for "artillery formed as infantry." This uncommon categorization was reserved for personnel remaining after their artillery supplies were captured, and who could then be organized as ad hoc infantry and used for infantry combat.

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 Amphibious Armor symbol appeared in February 1976 with the Europa simulation, Their Finest Hour. Paul R. Banner utilized the standard military design for amphibious function, described by both FM 21-30 and STANAG 2019 as waves, that was invented by the U.S. Marine Corps.

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).

Marines themselves were given their final symbol by Paul R. Banner in the July 1977 production of Case White. The Marine symbol was created by joining the crossed rifles of infantry with the anchor of amphibious capability in Europa. This also distinguished them from static naval infantry forces. Marines have appeared in CW, W FoF, TOR, FitE, SE, and BF. Nicknames for this symbol, however, are unknown to the writer (again, any Marine assistance?).

Glider Infantry was also introduced in Their Finest Hour, and depicted Paul R. Banner's usage of the standard military crossed rifles of infantry fixed upon the wings of a glider. This deviated slightly from the placement of glider wings lower in the infantry box within some World War II army graphic representations, but was well within the standard graphic treatment of such forces in most World War II texts. Also known in some simulations as Air Landing units, the design has appeared in TFH, MM, FoF, TOR, WD, FitE, SE, and BF and more "Bar-Crossed Infantry" is programmed to show up in future simulations.

The Light Infantry symbol in Europa was developed by Frank Alan Chadwick for Their Finest Hour. His perceptive design represented one carbine held straight, halving the number of infantry crossed rifles and thus signifying lighter infantry, for Europa purposes. Initially such light infantry forces (known to German ground forces as "Jaeger" [Hunter] units) were not given distinctive designs at first.

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."