Of course, nothing is official until John Astell applies his stamp of approval, but that doesn't deter the Europa Development Group (who wish to remain anonymous until they see which way the wind blows in Massachusetts) from forging ahead. This issue's topic is "mountainization".

With mountain terrain becoming ever more formidable in Second Front (-2 combat die roll modifier, air support possibly limited to only the modified attack strength point total, overall weather modifiers, etc.), there is concern for the ramifications this might have in other games. For instance, the Greek offensive into Albania in Balkan Front has already been watered down, even if using only Balkan Front rules without additional SF penalties.

One idea that might allow the Greeks to attack more forcefully, as well as give the French Moroccans some extra punch at Cassino, would be to treat "mountain units vs. difficult terrain" similarly to "combat engineers vs. fortifications". Add the following paragraph under the "Mountain Units" section of Rule 14-Special Unit Types:

"Mountain units also have the following ability. When at least 1/7 of the RE s attacking a mountain, wooded-rough, rough, or ravine hex are mountain units, the combat resolution die roll is modified by +1. The REs of attacking artillery units are not counted in this calculation. If this special ability is used, then required losses (see Rule xxx) are incurred for the mountain units."

Note that (absent of other considerations) an attack force with a 1/7 mountain-unit ratio would attack a mountain or wooded-rough hex with a -1 terrain mod, and rough and ravine hexes at even odds. The presence of mountain units in the defending stack would not cancel the above +1 modifier.

As already mentioned, the rule models itself on the combat engineer example, where a 1/7 engineer attack force can attack a fortress with only a -1 die mod and cancel a fort die mod.

Would such a rules change open a Pandora's box, with clamoring from every quarter to grant a special attack modifier for this or that pet unit type? And potential rules problems arise if there are too many different cases where units must take required losses. Consider a panzer division and a mountain division attacking a rough hex in clear weather. This force is both 1/2 AEC and 1f7 mountain. An HX or EX would be really bad news for these attackers; both divisions would be reduced to cadre due to required losses!

Please send any comments to "EXchange".