As I mentioned above, the harassment, or interdiction, mission was a very popular one in every WWII Air Force except the Soviet. Until it was forced into the 'fire brigade' mode in the East, the Luftwaffe flew a large number of these missions, and the Allies always preferred them over ground support. The trouble is that the harassment mission in Europa does not do very much and is probably only used in specialized locations like choke points. Except where there is a special rule making harassment more effective, as in the Fall of France surprise turn, you don't see an air force being used to seal off a battle area from reinforcements as was done historically.

The best you can do is inflict a 2-movement point (MP) hit on passing units, and that's nothing to a combat/motorized (c/m) unit. And in the face of even a moderate enemy interceptor force you have to use too many fighters to cover a line of harassment planes to make the effort worthwhile.

I propose four things to make the harassment mission more historical and to increase its attractiveness for Europa players. The first is to double the movement cost for c/m units. This is a small increase but brings the cost as a percentage of movement points more in line with the cost for non-c/m units.

For example, a 2-MP harassment hit on a 7-6 infantry division is a 1/3 reduction in movement. A 2- MP hit on a 9-10 Panzer division is a 1/10 reduction when you add in exploitation. If you look at the hits as a time delay, then the leg infantry experiences a 1/3 delay, and doubling the harassment hits against the 9-10 Panzer division to 4 MPs results in a 1/5 delay. Not the same, but it's an improvement over the present system. For a 2-1-8 tank brigade the delay is 1/4, the same as for a 8-8 infantry division.

The second is to give harassing air units an air zone of control (AZOC) similar to that given to DAS in Leningrad: 1941. The difference is that this is a true zone of control and not just a reaction zone as it is for DAS in that game. If AZOCs from different harassing stacks overlap, add the number of harassment hits, not exceeding 2. Enemy fighters can intercept in any of the AZOC hexes. To offset the increased influence of the AZOC, increase the number of tactical bombing points needed to get a harassment hit to 6 instead of the 2 now required.

This rules change increases the effectiveness of harassment missions significantly, but I believe that the increase is historically justifiable. Also, this change will allow harassing air units to affect a larger area while still being escorted by one stack of fighters. The importance of this bears explanation. My change will allow an outnumbered air force to still have the chance to get a single mission through, whereas the current air system would require seven missions to be flown (and subject to piecemeal destruction) to achieve the same effect. Veteran Axis players of late-war FitE/SE scenarios might appreciate being able to at least have a chance of limiting Soviet breakthroughs...

My third suggestion is to not use FitE/SE Rule 38B- antiaircraft fire against harassment planes. Since there is no possibility of the harassing planes hurting the ground units, there should be no chance of the ground units hurting the planes. This also will eliminate the incredibly ahistorical practice of forming roving groups of AA units to pounce on harassing planes.

My final suggestion for the harassment mission is to leave a counter with the number of harassment hits on it in the target hex where the planes performed the mission and have them return to base during the owning player's air phase. That way they can be found and bombed by the enemy in his air phase. If they are bombed it doesn't affect the previous harassment mission or the harassment hits. The planes aren't sitting over the harassment hex for two weeks; they spend the vast majority of their time at base, especially at night. This has been suggested before by Ben Knight and others and I heartily concur.

I discovered an interesting figure on harassment while doing research for this article. On the basis of war games conducted prior to the war and confirmed by actual operations, the Luftwaffe found that one bomber Geschwader of three groups was required to keep a rail route inoperable. A look at the Europa bombing table will confirm that it probably does take two or three groups of He- 111s to break a rail line. Similarly, it will take three groups of He-111s to make an AZOC under the above rules.

"Messing" with the Europa Air System

Introduction
1. The Popularity of GS missions
2. Type B Bombers
3. Harassment
4. Patrol Attacks
5. Gratuitous Air Missions
6. DAS Reconsidered and a Revised Air Sequence
7. Optional Rules