There's a Silver Lining in Every Groza

Charles Sharp's operation Groza (as originally conceived) focused its attention primarily on the Soviet side. With the help of some friends, I widened Charles's conception by creating a revised Axis order of battle and wrote rules modifications to simulate our vision of Axis reactions to "Operation Groza", thus more fully developing the scenario.

When Charles designed Operation Groza, he intentionally structured it to parallel Scorched Earth (SE) regarding both components and orders of battle, yet attempted to remain faithful to Viktor Suvorov's hypotheses as set forth in Icebreaker. The more complete modifications to FitE/SE necessary to model the Suvorov Soviet OB in terms of the long-term effects of Soviet occupation of the Border MDs would have required much more guesswork and time to research than was available.

Further, many more changes would have resulted from the Soviet factories not having to relocate to the Urals. There would undoubtedly be more artillery, for instance. There is also the likelihood that there would be no 6-4-8 tank divisions in September and October because the tank schools they were formed from would be training tankers rather than participating in combat themselves. Perhaps at some later date the various Europa researchers can collaborate on a comprehensive "what if" revision.

A Soviet surprise air attack against the Luftwaffe modeled along the lines of that given to the Germans in SE was considered, but dropped during development. I don't believe the Luftwaffe's fighters would be caught off guard; since several radar sets had been deployed to East Prussia by this time. An ordinary air phase seems to reflect things quite nicely, so long as the German air units are required to deploy close to the border. You might wish to experiment and use the new air ratings and counters from First to Fight for both sides, which is what I did in my playtest.

The Soviet artillery offensive was originally simulated by multiplying Soviet artillery strengths by 2 during the Soviet turn of Jul I 41. In retrospect, doubling of the artillery is probably too powerful, as evidenced in the playtest report elsewhere in this issue-hence the 1.5 modifier in the final version.

It should be noted that my partner Flavio and I conducted our playtest using my revised Axis OBs and doubling of all Soviet artillery units for the first turn, negation of all border rivers for the first turn, and Hungarian neutrality throughout play.

Notes on Changes to Axis Order of Battle

The combat values are from Balkan Front. Underlined units have had counters created for them on the back page of this issue.

You might experiment with the supported division rule from First to Fight (FtF) for Italian mountain divisions and all 3-5 security divisions, both German and Hungarian. If you don't have FTF it essentially says that supported divisions may not support other units, but are supported themselves, like a cadre.

Also, the detailed division-size rule from John Astell's column in TEM #17 could prove to be very handy considering the small size of many Axis units that will need to be railed.

The "silver lining" referred to in the title is the early arrival of the 2nd and 5th Panzer Divisions on Jul II 41 rather than Sep II 41 (for whatever good they'll do the Axis).

Operation Groza Stalin's Thunderstorm

Introduction and Rules
Axis Order of Battle
Soviet Order of Battle
Designer's Notes
Developer's Notes
A Few Disclaimers More
From the Editor