Michael Faletti

As more of us play into 1942-43 in Scorched Earth, we have been unable to duplicate the historical pattern of the war. The Axis finds itself in constant retreat, and is unable to hold areas that historically held against determined Soviet attacks. For example, the Soviets attacked the Rzhev Salient with forces greater than those at Stalingrad yet were repulsed with heavy losses.

As anyone who has set up either the '42 or '43 scenario knows, AGC cannot hold that position with the current fort rules. The Axis and Soviets both created extensive fortified areas around Leningrad and in front of Moscow. The failures of Soviet attempts to relieve Leningrad can only be explained in terms of more powerful fortifications than currently exist. The Soviets didn't create the masses of artillery and assault engineers that appear in 1943-44 for nothing!

In our Second Front playtests, the Allies consistently advanced from Rome to the Alps by September/October of 1944.

Historically, the Allies were able to crush two intermediate lines and reach the Gothic Line in July. The Allies then stayed there until January 1945. Four turns from the Rome breakout to the Gothic Line, then twelve turns to take the next hexrow? Something is missing.

In Europa the first level of fortification is the basic trench line, digging in heavy weapons, surveying fields of fire for MG's and artillery, with limited bunker construction. All units are assumed to do this in the game as part of the basic CRT relationship. The second level, the fort counter, represents the hardened line, limited mine fields, wire, bunker construction of a higher order, and an increased level of heavy weapon emplacement and fire zone coordination. This level is considered effective against armored attack.

I propose a third level, the Improved Fort, representing the next step up from the hardened line defense represented by the current fort counter. The depth has been increased; multiple lines constructed; artillery positions have been hardened; mine fields, bunkers and obstacles have been constructed to a minimum depth of B-12 miles. Port fortifications would fit into the improved fort category, but with an intrinsic defense as spelled out in the Second Front OB. Several of my sources credit RAD forts with sufficient depth to also qualify as improved forts.

Improving a fort requires an engineer regiment to start in a hex containing the fort, one RP, and three turns (place a 3-hit marker on the fort, removing one hit per turn, and the final hit when improved). An improved fort may not be constructed in a major city hex (most of its effects already exist- the increased depth and hardening of targets).

The combat effects are to halve the attacker except artillery and engineers (assault engineers, siege and RR guns are doubled), no AEC, and -1 to the die roll. Further, DR results are ignored (but retreats due to DE, DH, HX, and EX still occur). Also, if an improved fort is captured, it is not destroyed until the attacker's next initial phase (giving the defender a chance to retake it).

My improved-fort rules are intended to provide a continuum of effects, and to fit separate special cases into a coherent whole. The idea behind not immediately eliminating improved forts is to prevent the sick trick of chiseling a fort line by armored hit-and-run attacks to create clear hexes that the enemy must either place armor in or leave his infantry vulnerable to the next turn's armored attack while they try to repair the line. Ignoring DR results reflects that the defender is not going to lose much turf to a failed or moderately successful attack, and would be able to quickly counterattack (unlike a standard fort where a breach shatters the line, and the defense has to reform after the attack has lost momentum.

Another goal is to prevent the entire world from being "improved". The time involved and the RP costs do this. Construction times are based on the Soviet efforts at Kursk. RP costs are debatable. In 1941-42 the Soviets are usually short of RPs, and thus cannot improve many forts. The Axis also tends to have few RPs, and would have to make some hard choices. Do you stay in a line that has been breached and risk encirclement because it's the only good position you have, or do you retreat into the open because your improved forts ate up so many RPs you don't have a second line?

Here is how Europa's forts (including improved forts), affect combat on a mathematical basis, assuming the item is built in otherwise clear terrain:

Terrain	Standard	w/Eng,Art
Clear	100%	100%
Fort	75%	100%
Improved Fort	45%	68%
Fortress [-1]	45%	60%
Westwail [-3]	50%	60%
Maginot Line	22%	33%

Note: The combat-efficiency percentages were calculated by determining the size of the enemy force that could be attacked at 3:1 by a friendly force with 3 times its printed strength. Die modifiers are treated as odds shifts.

If the enemy player captures an improved fort, do his units obtain any defensive benefits if the original owner counterattacks in his next turn? I presume not, but this should be spelled out. -RG

Stephen J. Grover

I note that no one has ever solved the "Ghost of Europa" puzzle from TEM #8. Here is my answer:

I believe the "Ghost of Europa" introduced in TEM #8 is Vito Genovese, New York Mafia kingpin, who fled to Italy in 1937 following the conviction of Charles "Lucky" Luciano.

Oddly, while Luciano spent the war years assisting U.S. Naval Intelligence from his prison cell (as a result his sentence was commuted in 1946 and he was deported to Italy), Genovese spent at least some of his voluntary exile raising funds (one wonders how) for, among other things, the construction of a Fascist Party headquarters building.

Following the Italian surrender in 1943, he became heavily involved in Black Market activities while working part- time as a translator for the U.S. Army. An army criminal investigator eventually realized who he was, and he was returned to the United States to stand trial for murder. The State's chief witness in the case died several days before Mr. Genovese's arrival in New York; the case was dropped and he was freed until the government could build a new one.

Uh, no, sorry, that's not right.

Okay, let me try again. My choice of Vito Genovese was based heavily on the verbal clue, as he was not, for some reason, often photographed. My second choice is a very close match photographically, but matching the verbal clue becomes rather tricky. However, the photos I've seen are so close that I've got to go with:

General Leonard T. ("Gee") Gerow, commander of V Corps at both Omaha Beach and the Bulge. As Chief of War Plans at the close of 1941, he assumed responsibility (at the various Pearl Harbor investigations) for having failed to notify General Walter Short (commander in Hawaii) that an attack was imminent. Pearl Harbor conspiracy buffs frequently contend that in so doing he was covering up for General Marshall.

Many feel that the controversial nature of his testimony impaired his prospects for promotion during the war, although he did ultimately attain an army command (the 15th, basically a training unit). He was one of very few high-ranking Army officers who did not attend West Point; he graduated instead from Virginia Military Institute in 1911. As the Boy Scouts of America were founded in 1910, it is highly unlikely that he was ever a Boy Scout.

Sorry, that's wrong, too. This was a tough one! The picture was actually that of the head of the German-American Bund. Now that we have told you what he did, you tell us who he was.

By the way, we plan on reviving the "Ghost" series in the near future. We think we've got some interesting items for the puzzle freaks out there. -RG

John M. Astell

Congratulations on issues #21 and 22--both are excellent.

1. The "Deployment Notes" are interesting. I've looked at parts of the set-ups, and they all look good. Will you run an article evaluating the merits of each?

The Soviet historical setup is indeed terrible, and I strongly recommend against using it. The problem with it is that it allows the Germans to have a full nine days' worth (22-30 June 1941) of surprise attack operations before the Soviets can respond.

As you know, the Soviets began responding to the invasion within hours, and even by the second or third day of operations, most Soviet frontier forces had moved from their peacetime stations into defensive zones. Thus, the 22 June deployment, historically accurate for that day, becomes badly ahistoric when you consider the entire time period it covers. The Soviet deployment rules in FITE/SE portray the situation over the Jun II 41 turn as a whole, thus allowing the Soviets a more defensible deployment.

2. Leningrad: 1941 looks excellent-very good job. Congratulations to Victor and Frank. I do have a few comments and suggestions on the scenario, which may be useful when doing future scenarios:

a) The "Arctic" portion of Rule 34A1 is possibly confusing. A better phrasing might be: "Arctic: The Arctic reinforcement (2-10 Mot III 9 (SS) on Oct I 41) enters play during the movement phase using naval transport from the Arctic (an off-map Baltic port in Finland), by using one of the available naval transports. The unit must spend the 4 MP cost for naval transport as usual."

b) I rather agree with Frank that the optional victory conditions should be made standard. I'd even strengthen the award for bombing the Red Banner Baltic Fleet, such as 1 VP per hit scored on each warship, and +1 VP for actually sinking each warship. The Germans really went after the ships in September 1941, and sinking the Baltic Fleet would have been a worthwhile accomplishment.

The 1 VP for each bombing hit on Berlin, on the other hand, may be a bit too much. Yeah, the Soviets launched "revenge" raids on Berlin in June 1941. But, as I remember, they add up to about a group's worth of activity for about a turn. I'd give Berlin a flak factor, ignore the night fighters, and then give the Soviets 2 VPs for the achieving a single bombing hit on Berlin (and no VPs for any subsequent hit).

c) The "Replacement Records Chart" section of the Developer's Notes probably should have been included in the rules in Part 1.

d) The "State-of-the-Art" game is an unfortunate phrasing for Section Ill. I hate to pull rank, but if you want to declare something "state of the art" in a GR/D Europa publication, you MUST clear it with me first. To do otherwise implies the rules have more official stature than they may actually possess. A much better phrasing would be "The Designers' Choice" game-this conveys the idea that these rules are how the designers prefer to play the game, without suggesting that they are official Europa rules.

As you may have guessed, I have a problem with opportunity intercept, defensive air support, and dedicated air missions.

Opportunity intercept does get around patrol attacks and looks like a good try, but the complexity it incurs gives me pause. For example, simply trying to keep track of how many MPs the individual air units in a mission force have spent is not a trivial task when substantial numbers of air units are involved-it's far more difficult than you imply in the rule. This is especially so when you ramp the rule up the way it probably should work: air units can split off from the mission force at any time to fly to different target hexes.

With this modification, which I believe is historically accurate, you'll get lots of air units joining a mission force to get through the ' qir defenses with the maximuin 'of close escort, after which the bomber stream divides to attack multiple targets. Even without this modification, the rule seems hard to use in games where lots of air units fly to the same target: TFH, FITE/SE, and SF.

I have tried a variant of this rule before. Judging that remembering the air MPs spent by several units at once was too difficult, my variant allowed the phasing player to fly two air units at once: one being an air unit on any air mission and the other an escort.

They could assemble in the air at any time and fly together for a ways. The non-phasing player could fly one interceptor at a time, intercepting whenever the enemy was in the patrol zone. (However, only one interception per hex per "mission force" was allowed.) A mini air battle would take place, using the standard air combat rules. If anything happened to either of the two phasing air units, the phasing player could start flying a new air unit in its place.

(For example, if the escort got scragged, the player could fly a new escort. If and when it reached the hex of the other air unit, they could join up and fly together.) This got around the problem of remembering MPs for lots of air units (two at a time is manageable), but it was unsatisfying to play. It also had gamey aspect similar to the patrol attack rule, where you'd let the escorted bombers through to pick on the unescorted ones.

By the way, I am not unhappy that you've published the rule itself, just that you've called it the state of the art. Despite my reservations of the complexity it seems to entail, if it is well received I can see developing it into an optional rule for the Europa games.

The defensive air support rule seems to be a case of lots of complexity for little effect. True, DAS gets a 7-hex coverage, rather than the 1-hex all-or-nothing rule, which gives it some flexibility. However, it doesn't seem to have enough flexibility to warrant the complexity. I've tried two different ways for flexible DAS, with mixed (and hence unpublished) results:

"On-Demand" Air Phases: Rather than one air phase per player turn, players can call for air phases on demand. At the start of each game turn, all operative air units at airbases are a ready." As the game turn progresses, players can execute air phases whenever they want. (For example, the non-phasing player could demand an air phase at the start of the phasing player's movement phase, in order to fly harassment missions.

Later, the phasing player could call an air phase to fly ground support for an overrun, after which the defensive player could call an air phase to fly DAS against the overrun.) In an air phase, the "demanding" player is treated as the phasing player for air ops and the other as the non-phasing player.) In an air phase, players fly missions, make interceptions, resolve air combat, etc. as normal. Air units that participate in an on-demand air phase return to base at the end of the phase and are no longer "ready" for the rest of the game turn (for transports and bombers) or player turn (for fighters, thus allowing them two missions per game turn).

The best way to track "ready" is to have the air units face up when ready and face down when not-inoperative air units would either need markers (probably an impractical number would be required) or be removed from the map into an inoperative box while awaiting repair (which people wiII cry is inaccurate-wanting to bomb or overrun the suckers on the ground).

This is the bare skeleton of the rule, as lots of extra details are required to make it work. Its strength is that it allows air missions on demand-you want DAS somewhere, just call an air phase and fly DAS there. It also allows air ops with overruns. (This is a mixed blessing, as it is difficult to reconcile the two; usually the attacker gets too much of a boost with air power in overruns.) Its weak points are complexity (the idea is simple, execution less so), slowness (lots of air phases every turn), and possibly ahistoric results (too much flexibility, perhaps DAS range needs to be halved). Patrol attacks become problematic (you end up needing a marker to track if a fighter made a patrol attack or not), requiring even more complexity through some form of opportunity intercept.

Still, the idea almost works and has an elegance I like: flexible DAS, bombing ships without complex patrol rules, etc. If you like the idea, experiment around with it and see what you come up with.

"Air Zoneff Air Ops: The map is divided up into air zone megahexes of 5-7 hexes in diameter. The air phase comes once per player turn, BEFORE the movement phase. Both players fly missions to the various zones each player turn. (Fighters can fly each player turn, bombers and transports can fly in either player turn but not in both player turns of a game turn.) Escort and intercept missions are merged as an air superiority mission.

All air units flying to a zone undergo zone-wide air combat: air superiority fighters are divided into escorts and interceptors at this stage.) After air combat, air units on bombing missions can execute their missions at any time during the rest of the player turn, such as phasing air units providing ground support or non- phasing air units doing DAS or harassment, to any hex in the zone. Again, patrol attacks are problematic, but opportunity intercept seems easier to manage on a zone basis. This rule probably would work well, but Europa players decisively are against printing megahexes on the maps. (Clear plastic overlays, as some suggest, are economically impractical.)

Dedicated air missions probably should be labeled "experimental" vice "state of the art." The concept is fine, but the rule is difficult to express. Half bombing strength on "R" results and quarter strength on "A" results may be too strict: full strength for "R" and half strength for "A" might be better, as the player is already paying a high price by having the "R" and "A" results bumped to "A" and "K" effects. Perhaps players should declare air units on dedicated missions only after the result is rolled. Perhaps there should be a die roll to see if the dedicated air unit actually is dedicated or chickens out. All told, this rules needs more experimentation and testing.

e) The Auction Victory Bidding is a pure "game" rule, as it has no believable historical rationale that I can think of. Rules such as this are either best presented in the designers' notes or noted in the rules as being a nonsimulation element.

3. "The Regia Aeronautica over the Balkans": Howard Christie's article is fine research, but I disagree with some of his conclusions as they relate to the Italian air OB in Balkan Front.

a) Howard gives the Italians an extra fighter on Nov I 40, justifying it by noting the approximately 80 G.50s and 12 MC.200s warrant another counter. However, the CR.32bis is seriously understrength, with only 23 aircraft when a counter requires 50. (Italian air units are rated on the basis of 50 aircraft per counter.) I used the MC.200s and some extra G.50s to fill out the CR.32 counter in this period. There are still some G.50s left over, but not enough to justify another counter. Thus, the BF OB is correct here, and no G.50 withdraws on Dec II 40. (35 did leave for Africa, but enough remained to justify a counter.)

b) By itself, the Z.506B does not have enough aircraft to warrant representation until Nov I 40, as Howard points out. However, there's 19 BR.20Ms not accounted for, and these are enough to justify the inclusion of the Z.506B with the initial forces, per BF.

c) It's a judgment call whether the SM.79-1 should show up on Nov I or Nov II, since the last 14 aircraft showed up in late November. I felt the later date penalized the Italians too much, as not only was the bulk of the air unit operating before this turn but the contribution of the 20 Italian Ju 87s in this period is ignored.

d) The withdrawal of the SM.79- 1 on Dec II instead of Dec I may be more accurate. I need Paul Dunigan to double check this sometime.

e) Do not add any of the Ro.37bis air units! According to Italian Civil and Military Aircraft, 1930-1945 by Jonathan Thompson, "At the time of its introduction the Ro.37 was classified as a fighter-reconnaissance biplane, but it was never employed in the fighter role due to advances in that field in the later 1930's." The Ro.37 and Ro.37bis equipped various Italian observation units, and recon air units aren't represented in Europa.

f) The conversion of the Z.50613 to a Z.1007b on Jan II is another judgment call. 15 Z.1007s were received to reequip the Z.506 unit. In my opinion, this is not enough to warrant bumping the Z.506 to a better-rated Z.1007.

g) Howard states to ignore the withdrawal of the Ju 87B/R on Jan II, because although the 96th Gruppo left for Africa, the 101st Gruppo arrived in its place. True, except the 101st didn't arrive until March. Thus, BF is correct in withdrawing the Ju 87 on Jan II and returning it on Mar I.

h) The withdrawal of the Ju 52 on Mar I instead of Feb II may be more accurate. I need Paul Dunigan to double check this sometime.

i) My sources indicate the SM.79-1 should return Apr I (per BF), and not Mar I as Howard indicates. I need Paul Dunigan to double check this sometime.

j) Do not add the Ca.311 air unit on Apr 1. The Ca.311 was a reconnaissance/bomber aircraft. (As a bomber, it would probably rate 1A1 1-1/14.) However, it was assigned to observation groups, not bomber units, in the Balkan campaign. It probably did little bombing except for occasionally harassing targets of opportunity during its recon missions.

I hope you don't find the above too negative--I think issues 21 and 22 are excellent.

When the Europa deity speaks, mere editors tremble and obey! Issues #21 and #22 must have been thought provoking indeed to have inspired such interest from our busy designer. We normally do not publish "letters" from the GRID staff in the EXchange column, but in this case it seemed appropriate.

Issue #28 will have an expanded and engaging EXchange segment, until then, take care.