Old time readers of ETO will know what I speak of when I mention "slime", but for the balance of the readership I will provide a brief background to this trick.

"Slime" was the Europa term coined by Harold Hansen and Jeff Millefoglie in their scathing expose of this "tactic" in ETO #30's "Slime in the Ukraine" to describe the "morally bankrupt" use of German airborne units to cut Soviet supply lines and place entire fronts out of supply.

Spurred by Harold and Jeff's unrelenting wit, GR/D clipped the wings of the Brandenburgers and their brothers of the 22nd Air Landing and 7th Parachute Divisions in the rules of The Urals module. This revised Rule 25F appears in the Leningrad: 1941 scenario elsewhere in this issue. Basically, it restricts the ability of airborne units to drop deep in the rear and cut the enemy's supply lines in his following player turn. Axis Rules Lawyers have been busy ever since trying to find legal loopholes in the fabric of this "fix".

First it had to be clarified that "the initial phase of the next friendly player turn" meant the Jul I41 turn, and not the Jun II 41 regular turn for any Burgers dropped in the Jun II 41 Surprise turn.

However, this only forestalled the inevitable--yes, this self-confessed Nazi sky-gangster has come up with another dastardly twist.

Rule 25F specifies that such air-dropped units do not gain immediate ownership of a hex they drop in or enter for enemy supply tracing purposes. They do, however, gain immediate ownership of any airbase in a hex they drop in or enter if that airbase should be left ungarrisoned. If this airbase is captured before or during the friendly air phase, a follow-up unit can be air transported to it. Since this follow-up unit is not air-dropped, it is not governed by the provisions of Rule 25F. Therefore, it would gain immediate ownership of the hex for enemy supply tracing purposes-no matter how far in the rear this occurs!

Now competent Soviet players will garrison all airbases in range of German air transport in their opening set-up. But I am willing to bet that over the course of a long game the Soviet player will eventually leave a permanent airfield, reference or dot city within range ungarrisoned. As the Axis player, I would not hesitate to drop an airborne unit onto it, and follow up with another ground regiment if this would sever an important Soviet supply line. (As I have admitted before, I am a gamer first, and a historian second.)

Should airborne drops be allowed at extended range in any revised version of FitE/SE (as in Balkan Front) it would present the Soviet player with good reason to garrison every airbase on the map with at least one point of Pos AA. However, the availability of Pos AA has already been greatly reduced by The Urals Rule 39M, which mandates that all major city hexes in the USSR must be garrisoned by at least one point of Pos AA. In any future revision much of the Pos AA will likely be intrinsic. This could require other Soviet combat units to man the smaller cities, reducing front line strength accordingly.

Donning my Developer's hat to conclude, I do believe that this is an unintended loophole. The weight of opinion among the Europa community is that the entire concept of ants cutting supply is untenable, whether it be via air or overland using 0-1-10 motorized Lt AA IIs. Several fixes for this have been advanced, and are under consideration.