In Issue 29's "Europa On Line," the harp section of the great Europa orchestra plays upon the theme of non-overrunnable double lines. (These have the silly acronym of "NODLs"-the crux of the matter is, however, overrun-proof lines, OPLs, and doubled lines is a secondary detail.) In a nutshell, the plaintive tune goes: You know the maximum stack the enemy can build. You thus know the minimum stack you need so that the enemy can't overrun you. Now, if you have enough troops, you form an OPL to limit the enemy advancewith overruns impossible, the enemy now can only move up to the OPL and attack it.

If you have even more troops, you form a second OPL somewhere behind the first, to limit the enemy exploitation after combat. The tune is played in a frustrated key of The Ride of the Valkyries, because, of course, only the Soviets have the troops and space to take advantage of OPLs over the course of many turns. (By the way, OPLs allow almost exactly the reverse of a runaway defense. It's ironic that Europa gets criticized in the same issue for allowing both runaway defenses and forward defenses. No pleasing some people, I guess.)

The first question is, is this even a problem? It certainly isn't a central failing of the system, as the trumpet section in the article blared forth. Let's take a look at a few factors:

• Stifling Advances: OPLs can be used to stifle advances. Simply put an OPL next to the enemy and a rear OPL directly behind the front OPL, and the enemy can only advance one hex per turn. Repeat this turn after turn, and you've stifled the advance. This is certainly true, but other considerations intrude.

  First, when the enemy has overall superior combat strength, the casualties incurred by this plan are horrendous. Turn after turn, you get your front line wiped out, and you have to form a whole new OPL. Even the Soviets run out of troops after a few turns. (If they don't, then my play experience tells me that the Axis has let them off the hook some other way.)

  Second, when you have rough parity with the enemy, OPLs are exactly the defense in depth you need. The Soviets use this tactic throughout the war. Kursk is the most famous example, but even in June 1941 the Soviets are in effect using doubled OPLs in places. Just take a look at the deployment and depth of Southwestern Front, and you'll see why Army Group South got off to such a slow start.

• Controlling Advances: If the enemy is superior, stifling his advance through forward OPLs doesn't work because of excessive casualties. Still, you can control the pace and perhaps the direction of his advance through spaced OPLs. A forward OPL absorbs the enemy advance. A rear OPL is positioned near enough behind the front to limit the enemy exploitation but far enough back so that it can escape immediate destruction in the next turn. It then falls back while the enemy closes up, while a new rear OPL forms farther back, repeating the process. When you've got the ground to give up, this can work quite well. In broad outline, it's also how the Soviets did operate. Even before the outbreak of the war, the Soviets in effect were forming a second line, with their 16th, 19th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd Armies, well behind the border armies. When the Germans burst through, this "Group of Reserve Armies" became the new front line--and the Soviets began forming a new, deep second line. Throughout the summer of 1941, the Soviets formed and tried to maintained the Reserve Front, commanded by Zhukov no less, behind the critical Western Front. As the Germans smashed up Western Front, Reserve Front kept getting sucked into the front lines.
• Optimizing Play: The last major complaint about OPLs is that you know for certain what constitutes an OPL and thus you can optimize your play. This is held out as something bad, and if only the rules were changed it wouldn't happen. This is, at best, short sighted. The rules, by their very nature, define a closed system: unless someone cheats, you can always calculate what is possible and what's not. This lets you optimize your play. Change the rules, and you optimize your play for the new rules. If the changed rules don't alter the basic idea behind a play tactic, then you really haven't changed anything. For OPLs, the basic idea is that defense in depth works. Since this is one of the basic lessons of World War II, don't expect cosmetic rules changes to alter this situation.

If there's no real problem with OPLs, then what's with all the harping? Well, I think that there is a problem somewhere else, which people blame on OPLs. Fire in the East/Scorched Earth doesn't quite simulate the extent of the confusion and loss of control the Soviets suffered at the start of the campaign. The Soviet plan (stopping the enemy on/near the borders, then counterattacking and advancing into enemy territory) proved unrealistic, its execution was botched, and, in true Soviet totalitarian style, the high command didn't know how bad things were because no one dared to tell them. FitE/SE's surprise turn and first turn Soviet restrictions cover a part of this, but allow the Soviets to recover from the shock too quickly. This lets the Soviets extricate troops, form OPLs, and start limiting the German advance sooner than they should. It's not a fatal problem, but it's enough to be dissatisfying.

What can we do? First, let's dispense with requiring the Soviet player to set up with an exact historical deployment for 22 June 1941, as some have suggested. No way am I going to force the Soviets to sit in barracks for over a week while the Germans range at will. (Would you require a defending football team, no matter how inept, to stand still for the first 30 seconds of a game?) Things simply did not happen this way. We can, however, tune up the initial deployment. In the border areas, the mechanized corps were actually deployed some ways back, while the infantry typically hugged the border. (The mech corps were to move up as the situation developed and counterattack the invaders.) This deployment situation can be represented legitimately. Instead of all forces of the border armies deploying "within 5 hexes of the Soviet border," let's try:

• Border Armies: Deploy within 3 (not 5) hexes of the Soviet border (or coast, for the 8th Army). This applies to the forces in the main army listing but not to the mech corps of the armies. It affects:
  Baltic Special Military District: 8th and 11th Armies.
  Western Special Military District: 3rd, 10th, and 4th Armies.
  Kiev Special Military District: 5th, 6th, 26th, and 12th Armies.
• Mechanized Corps: For the mech corps of the above border armies, deploy their forces 4 or 5 hexes from the Soviet border (or coast, for the 8th Army). This deployment affects:
  Baltic Special Military District: 12th and 3rd Mech Corps.
  Western Special Military District: 11th, 6th, 13th, and 14th Mech Corps.
  Kiev Special Military District: 22nd, 4th, 8th, and 16th Mech Corps.

In theory, these deployments reflect the situation, allowing the Germans to pierce the infantry screen before the mechanized forces can move forward effectively. In practice, these new deployments need to be tested thoroughly, to see if they work or if they make the Soviets too weak.

Next, insert a Soviet reaction phase at the end of the German surprise turn (and before the first regular German player turn). The reaction phase represents the Soviet defense plan kicking in and going awry. In the reaction phase, the Soviet player gets to move Soviet units (except position AA) that are within 7 hexes of "active enemy units" but are not adjacent to any enemy unit. (Active enemy units are all Axis units in Greater Germany and the Soviet Union, as Axis forces elsewhere (Norway, Finland, Romania, etc.) haven't started operations yet.)

Units qualified to move have their movement allowances halved in this phase. For each hex containing units allowed to move, the Soviet player rolls one die and consults the success table; roll for all hexes before moving any units. Success means the Soviet player can move these units as he wishes (including not moving them at all). Failure means the Soviet player rolls one die for the hex and moves the units there one hex in the following direction:

Location of Hex	Die Roll: Direction of Movement
Baltic MD	1-3: West; 4-6 Southwest
Western MD	1, 2: Northwest; 3, 4: West; 5, 6: Southwest
Kiev MD	1-3: Northwest; 4-6 West

Note: If all units required to enter a particular hex cannot enter the hex due to stacking, units up to the stacking limit must enter the hex and the rest do not move.

This rule simulates the overwhelming confusion and misfiring of plans that went on in reaction to the invasion. Expect odd things to happen, such as mech corps wandering into swamps. Historically, two tank divisions reportedly did drive into a swamp and got stuck. The German player in the following player turn gets to exploit this confusion, just as the Germans did historically. As above, this rule needs to be tested thoroughly to see if it works well or is too favorable for the Germans.

The net effect of these rules is to let the Germans pierce the Soviet front more effectively and to prevent surviving Soviet border-area units from forming a new line as easily as before. The Soviet first turn restrictions remain in force, with these additions/changes:

• Soviet rail capacity is 25 REs on Jun II 41 and 45 REs on Jul I 41.
• On Jul I 41, Soviet construction units more than 7 hexes from any enemy unit may not begin to build forts.

Well, here's a lot for Europa players to test. If you try these rules, please report your results to EX-change.

Inside Europa You Ask, I Answer

Questions and Answers
Victory in Europa
Mountain Units and Operational Flexibility
Grand Europa Economics
Partisans
Finland
HX: Exchange Commentary
Army Group North Operations
Leningrad 1941 Tournament Cancelled
Overrun-Proof Lines