Frank Watson

In the campaign game version of the "Operation Crusader" scenario, the Allies have already been penalized 13.5 Victory Points for putting Australians in precarious positions. This is assumes that the three Aussie RE rule goes into effect in June and relies on the withdrawal schedule given in the British official history.

It further assumes that one brigade was left in the garrison the whole length of the siege. Actually only half of a brigade plus some Headquarters and miscellaneous troops were left in Tobruk. This is not what a Europa player would do, mind you. A Europa player would have gotten the Aussies out of Tobruk the second week of June and cut the VP hemorrhage. The WitD player doesn't need to worry about naval losses during the evacuation.

I was very encouraged by TEM #28's EXchange. Everybody was constructive and doing their best to help improve the system. It was also nice to see a lot of fresh, new names on the letters. I also thought Victor's italicized comments were quite insightful in many cases. After reading the GEnie transcript on NODLs, I would also compliment Victor on his solution of allowing an extra attack on a DE. It was much simpler than any of the other solutions, and would have less complications on other fronts. I have no problem with anybody getting an extra attack after a DE.

I only wonder about making all "first round" attacks before the second attacks. This does complicate matters because you have to remember what the result was in Rostov when you've finally finished attacking at Murmansk. I think it would be better to require the attacking units to make their second attacks immediately. This might make the rule a little stronger offensively (which might be bad or good, I don't know) but it would simplify its use.

If general consensus is now that the well-played Germans bog down against the well-played Soviets (and the general consensus seems to change every other year) maybe Charles Sharp's historical deployment is part of the answer, since it presents bigger problems to the Soviets. I haven't played SE with that deployment, but it would address part of the situation without system-wide changes.

Peter Gallagher

A Winter War is fascinating. I experienced that long-forgotten excitement in wargaming when the Finns rolled a "3" for Allied intervention on the second turn; I highly recommend that anyone who has this game duplicate this, and watch what happens.

I did First to Fight with all the Baltic states siding with the Poles: very interesting. This puts a new slant to the German strategy when they know somebody will be marching into Prussia unless it is guarded, and it was fun using the new counters.

Love that scenario Leningrad 1941! Perfect size too in all respects and nice for experimenting with rule ideas. It is also a downright good game. Above all, this is the best way to break in someone on Europa. They can really get the feel for the nerve and verve of panzer tactics and do it again until they get it right. Set starting positions for most units gets the game going much faster and easier.

Some miscellaneous ideas: How about publishing some generic counter sheets? These would be in the proper colors with the crossed rifles or tank treads, and some blanks for aircraft. I can ink in almost any other symbols and the numbers/letters. I could easily do with only three colors: Soviet, German, and British; other allies would just have to adopt thecolor of their nearest partner. I love fooling around with the rules and counter modification suggestions in Europa, but my home-built counters are ugly compared to the game counters and this discourages me a little. Also, this would be for replacing those few lost or mangled pieces that occur. I'd pay for these types of sheets.

I am disturbed by the air rating of the Hs123. Those weak "H" units in FitE/SE were not that easy to shoot down when in their proper role. Their slowness and maneuverability at very low altitudes (where they were supposed to be working) made them difficult targets to find, track, and stay on to shoot down. They seemed to be good at what they did. The Germans even wanted more Hs123's later in the war but couldn't find the manufacturing jigs.

Re Mr. Hamilton's query on a freely offered counter sheet, I would prefer the upgraded Luftwaffe. I don't know what to do with colored primary hit markers.

[You will have a better idea after you fly the Allied airforce in Second Front. The SF demo game in Ft. Worth saw the Allies spending the first three or four turns of the game blowing up everything in France. The colored markers would aid in deciphering the nature of such damage inflicted. -RMG]

Tony Morgan

I enjoy the process of Europa's evolution, and the friendly camaraderie to be found on the pages of the magazine.

We are supposed to be a community, and members of a community derive warmth and satisfaction simply from interacting with each other. But let's keep things in perspective. Europa (well, wargaming in general) is a hobby. Recent comments about the GRD team's non-Europa lives really hit home for me. Like them, I would love to be able to devote myself to wargaming full time. But there are other things in life. Balanced, responsible people have balanced interests.

To answer Alan Conrad's question in TEM #28 about "Facts Behind the Counters" ("Are folks really interested in this stuff?")

Yes!! Sorne of us (maybe a lot) really are interested. Not all of us know every detail of every order of battle that fought in WWII. "Facts Behind the Counters" help bring our beloved games to life.

Jim Arnold

How about a die-mod advantage for AA fire against aircraft on "low-flying" missions: ground support, bombing bridges, air units, and naval units. This might add a realistic discouragement to using Allied air power in those roles in Second Front.

I've mentioned it before: Army HQ counters to regulate attack supply in SF; a HQ with combat supply might be able to support, say, four hexes in attack-it seems to work really well.

How about providing panzer division breakdowns in your next counter sheet offering that would reflect Germany's ability to field combined arms combat teams, as the US will be able to do in SF?

A German 12-10 panzer division, for example, should be able to break down into full AECA 6- 10 and 5- 10 KGs.

By the way, I hope to have results from playtests of the Balkan Front computer support soon.

Anthony Hanford

After reading the last several issues of The Europa Magazine and thinking things over, I decided to send you this set of comments. Let me start by stating that I believe Europa to be the foremost simulation on its scale, both in scope and overall accuracy. However, that does not mean there is not room for improvement, or that the designer's view, no matter how well he did his job, is the only correct view. Thankfully, GR/D not only allows debate on Europa, but actually encourages diverse opinions and experimentation with new rules.

In terms of general comments on what you are doing, you are doing many things well. TEM is enjoyable to read, and the mix of historical to gaming articles is impressive and useful. The components of the games you have recently produced are top rate ( ... maybe with the exception of the First to Fight counters). The rules have, on the whole, been clear and complete, and the module-specific rules are generally concise, yet sufficiently reasonable to portray the significant constraints in the different campaigns. I also applaud the amount of input you take from players (not specifically playtesters) when it comes to rewriting rules or revising games.

However, I do have some suggestions. I really believe that a more compact air system would be more accurate and would improve the flow of the game. The current system does a wonderful job of providing close air support, but some of the other missions are less useful. Gary Dickson presented some very good ideas and backed them with convincing arguments. I would add that I have always wondered why a perfectly healthy tactical air force would only fly for one week and then sit on the ground for the second week in a standard half month turn (... and they want to be paid for two weeks just like the army and the fighter boys!).

Mr. Dickson's ideas add some flexibility to tactical air power, as well as making non-ground support missions more attractive. I also agree that air units flying missions should be vulnerable to attack at their air base, because they could not be in the air continually through an entire two weeks. However, all active air units should probably receive a beneficial modifier during an airbase raid to reflect that they are not quite as vulnerable to being damaged on the ground as inoperative units.

Another rather strange aspect of the current air system is its total disregard for air crew quality (except in Fire in the East/Scorched Earth). It is rather peculiar that the Me109E groups of Yugoslavia and Germany both have the same combat ratings. While I admit that both groups use the same aircraft type, I would expect training and experience within the Luftwaffe unit to be much better. As such, I believe all air forces should have an experience modifier, which could be a function of time period and geography.

This would help "explain" differences between various air forces as well as differences in capability within the same air force over time. Good examples are the decrease in crew quality of the Luftwaffe as the war progressed, and the increase in quality not only in Allied equipment, but in Allied crews as well.

Also praiseworthy are recent attempts to streamline the air phase. The single-dice-roll (SDR) antiaircraft table mentioned during a description of Second Front development (TEM #25) would be a welcome addition. To produce a table which generates results similar to the current table should be a straightforward probability exercise.

[A test version of such a table is contained in this issue's Second Front Report. -RMG]

Another welcome change to the air system would be SDR air-to-air combat and bombing tables. While speeding play would be one benefit, I would also suggest that such an approach would be more realistic. A SDR bombing table would accurately represent the ability of a theater-level staff to choose targets, but prohibit the staff from dictating the attack details, which were usually handled by the groups and squadrons. Allowing a player to choose between one five-point attack or five one-point attacks in Europa terms is really micro-management similar to planners in Washington D.C. choosing the target list during the Vietnam War.

An SDR table for air-to-air combat is also justifiable by the argument that the current system allows players to micro-manage all air combat. From another viewpoint, it is unrealistic to suppose that air groups paired off against each other for an entire two weeks. While two groups might engage only each other on a single day, it was common for a single group to contact elements of more than one enemy group on a single mission.

Further, it was not uncommon during a two-week period for a superior air group to take out more than its share of inferior enemy aircraft, something the current group-on-group system does not allow.

A further ahistorical aspect of the current system is the ability of the intercepting player to dictate the composition of each air-to-air combat even when the escort for the mission force has superior speed and/or quality. I agree that an intercepting player should be able to choose which elements of a mission force are attacked, and by which of the interceptors. However, a heavily- laden and unmaneuverable mission force is much easier for an attacker to dissect to his favor than a comparable number of fighters.

Therefore, I believe that an SDR air-to-air combat table, such as the one provided with Supermarina II, would be more realistic for fighter-on-fighter combat, and one could still allow normal multiple combat resolutions for those interceptors that make it through to attack the mission force.

I like the ideas for a new Europa naval system contributed by Dean Brooks. I have always felt that for games on this scale the standard hexes used for the land game are grossly inadequate for naval operations, and that "areas" are more appropriate. Mr. Brooks' ideas also reflect this sentiment , and he even makes use of the standard hexgrid in defining his naval boxes.

I feel that the time scales used in Supermarina, while exact, are rather cumbersome, and are also not in keeping with the rest of Europa, nor are they necessarily "realistic." By "realistic" I'm alluding to whether the naval units interact with the ground and air units in a manner which is in keeping with their actual capabilities.

I would further add that it would be desirable on this scale, and in keeping with the rest of the Europa system, to do away with damage allocation sheets as found in Supermarina. In most cases I would expect ships on average to take damage in a fairly constant ratio. That is, the ratio of upper-body/structure hits to water-line/flotation hits will probably not vary much from one engagement to the next. I admit this is a gross assumption, but it is in keeping with the scale of Europa as a whole.

As such, each ship could have a number of "damage steps" with corresponding reduced values printed directly on the counters. For example, if a cruiser has three damage steps, it would need counters for an undamaged state, a one-hit state, and a two-hits state, with the third hit sinking the ship. Using the format found in Supermarina II with all the essential data on a single counter- face, this cruiser would require three counter-faces, or only two discrete counters. While this damage system would require additional counters, it would be consistent with the current step reduction system used for divisions, and it should not, on average, be significantly less accurate than Supermarina.

I also believe that there is too much information available to players about their opponent's dispositions. While the Germans may have had a good idea where the Soviet units were in the western MDs, they surely did not have access to the exact positions of the Soviet reserves around Moskva. The ability to fake a build up in one position while the major forces were actually elsewhere, or to hide a build-up of forces, comes through as a major element in the success or failure of operations at the scale portrayed by Europa. While I would consider any set of rules which introduces numerous die rolls or great complexity unfavorably, I really think this issue needs to be addressed.

Here's a suggestion for incorporating limited intelligence of enemy units into Europa. The corps markers are already present in the system, and could be called upon to mask the true composition of units that are not in contact with enemy ground units, nor within the range of the enemy's reconnaissance aircraft. This would make reserves more important than they currently are-one might not be so anxious to push a combat-motorized division too far behind an enemy's line.

However, this approach adds counters, complexity, and playing time for a questionable benefit in realism, especially for the Eastern Front campaigns. It may, however, be suitable in specific situations or in smaller campaigns.

After Second Front, I would most like to see either War in the Desert or the combo game covering the war in the west in 1940 ( ... maybe titled The Price of Peace in our Time or The Price of Appeasement or Versailles Avenged?).

Personally, I'd prefer to see the war in the west first because the original campaign was badly mismanaged by the Allies initially, leaving room for many interesting "what-if" improvements, plus it's the first time the Nazi blitzkrieg really engaged a reasonable adversary of the "old school."

Further, First to Fight should be more interesting if the Allied player has the opportunity to bring the French in, because otherwise all the Poles alone can hope to do is "better" than the historical outcome (in other words, "save" more Polish units to fight in the west and/or inflict greater casualties on the Germans.) The war in the west in 1940, including the actions in Norway and maybe even a possible invasion of Fascist Spain, is a major campaign, but yet it does not require the same investment in time and space as Fire in the East/Scorched Earth.

War in the Desert is also a strong offering. The war in North Africa provides a wonderful opportunity to play Europa using only a few pieces, yet in an exciting and important theater of the war. Maneuver is most important here and every regiment (or ant) means something. This contrasts with the later periods of the war ( ... and other Europa games) where corps are important and multiple divisions can disappear in a single battle. (Coupled with a good set of naval rules and Balkan Front, this could also be a Greater Europa campaign that gamers with less time and space could enjoy.)

Narvik is my third choice only because it's possible to get along without it. The historical campaign was important, especially if simulating the events of 1940 with regard to the Anglo/French-German foreign policy decisions. The strike into Norway came as a scrimmage for the decisive battles a month later.

For Whom the Bell Tolls is my fourth choice, and Peace in our Time is my fifth choice. Both are worthy and interesting projects and have their place in Europa. However, I prefer to see the major campaigns of the Second World War in Europe completed first, realizing that your resources, especially your time, are finite. This desire for completion includes the desire for a standard naval system. My ordering of these two stems from a greater interest in the Spanish Civil War versus a module which is completely based on "what if" (even though a German-Czech war in the late 1930's is a very real "what if").

There were some recent comments in TEM ( ... in the EXchange?) concerning whether the 1941 and 1942 versions of the Red Army are too strong or too weak. If there is a problem, it may not be that the units are incorrectly rated, but that the historical Soviet leadership is not correctly simulated.

In 1941 Red Army staff officers at all levels were mostly inexperienced, accounting more for poor performance than the unit equipment and training can explain. Similarly in the French Army of 1940. As such, the unit ratings might be "correct." Rather, some of the Red Army Fronts might initially be considered "inexperienced", reducing the capabilities of the units within their commands. (Yes, I realize this is difficult at best to implement except on a "per nationality" basis.) Likewise, the 1942 units, while not as materially rich as their 1941 ancestors, had more experienced staffs which allowed the units to operate closer to their full potential.

Note that I do not propose any rules to reflect the traits of the historical commanders, such as Hitler or Stalin, because the players take on these roles. Rather, this reflects important conditions which the historical commanders had no control over.

An interesting scenario then becomes "what if" Stalin had not purged the Red Army in the mid-1930's and how this alters the 1941 campaign.

Brian Adams

More and more, Europa seems to be becoming a matter of feast or famine. When I received issues 26 and 27 in December, after receiving No. 25 in early July, I had a pretty keen appetite. Fortunately, these two issues were indeed food for the hungry.

The articles on the British and German orders of battle were the highlights of the two issues, representing significant pieces of the Grand Europa puzzle, and my mouth waters at the thought of the Indian Army order of battle from Messrs. Broshot & Hughes. The scenarios as well are elegant compact designs, and being ever mindful of the value of a buck, it was doubly pleasing to get two-for-the-price-of-one in No. 27. The ongoing series of detailed designer's notes on First to Fight and A Winter War are absolute masterpieces and I hope that this will become a regular feature with the release of future titles. In general, both issues were quite excellent, and the magazine continues to visibly improve with each issue.

There was, however, one small item which left me scratching my head. In his comments in No. 26, Winston mentions a survey would be undertaken to check out the level of interest in, among other things, For Whom the Bell Tolls. I thought this a bit peculiar, as I understood from periodic reports that FWTBT was scheduled to be the next release after Second Front.

Reading on, I was further informed that the 1938 Czechs and the naval system were also included in the questionnaire. Both of these projects, if not as advanced as FWTBT, have received a lot of exposure in the pages of this publication. I find it a little unsettling to realize that the viability of these three projects is apparently under review, and I can't help wondering if Winston's comments reflect some uncertainty as to where Europa is going and what it will look like when it gets there.

I hope this doesn't sound too critical. I know that whatever the enthusiasms and special interests of individual Europaphiles, in the final analysis all of GR/D's activities are dependent on the realities of the market place, and that sinking precious design and development resources into games that don't sell is of no benefit to anyone and does nothing to advance the cause.

In any event, perhaps it's time for the GR/D General Staff to provide your faithful and loyal members and readers with an product line update, with special emphasis on if, how, and when you see all of the peripheral subjects so dear to so many of us (the Spanish Civil War, the Czechs, East Africa, the Far East, etc.) ultimately fitting into the overall scheme of Grand Europa.

[Winston speaks to this in his company briefing, and there is more information in the Origins/Europafest report. GR/D is continuously evaluating its options with regard tofuture products. As you astutely, point out, both capital and design time must be managed very carefully. At this time we plan to publish For Whom the Bell Tolls in 1994. On the other hand, based on market research such as the aforementioned survey, the Supermarina naval system has been put in mothballs while we consider other, less complex, naval models. And finally, Peace in our Time is still being evaluated. Frankly, we're just not sure how to market this game. -RMG]

Peter Robbins

Flavio Carrillo's article in # 29 was right on the mark. Victory points are a neglected aspect of the Europa series, probably because Europa is a system that relies on detail, not simplicity. Most of a Europa player's time is taken up with odds calculations, terrain and armor modifiers, and endless hex counting.

These are all tactical activities, not strategic ones, and VPs are a measure of strategic success. It is not clear to me that most Europa players even worry about VPs. For myself, I have a rollicking good time driving my panzers across the steppes, or invading helpless neutrals who have carefully prepared for WWI.

At the end of the game, or (more likely) when exhaustion sets in, I get out my Atlas of WW2, and compare my front line with the historical front line. Did I do better than history? Avoid squandering my forces? Outguess my opponent to prevent a historical defeat?

I seem to remember a set of rules in which the game designer stated something like: "for those of you unable to quantify victory by looking at the map, here are some victory conditions." I think that most of the Europa series is like that, and that is not bad in and of itself.

However, as Carrillo points out, lack of VP penalties for moves that would lead to unacceptable political events leads to ,gamey' play. I agree that tweaking the OBs is not the solution. Instead, how about a set of "General Orders" for each theatre? These General Orders could be presented as optional rules for each game in the series, and would represent the demands of the political leadership. Would other Europa players be interested in writing such orders? They could be presented as a series of priorities, something like this:

Commander, Arctic Front:
General Order #1: Defend and keep open the railway line to Murmansk.
General Order #2.- Release units not required for #1 to Leningrad.
General Order #3: Force the Axis to divert fighters to Finland by a vigorous campaign of rail bombing, etc.

If the General Orders are detailed enough (and this would mean giving options in the event of other developments), they could actually replace VPs. Victory would be determined on the basis of which side kept to more of their General Orders. In the case of multi-player games, General Orders could also state at what point the front commanders would be replaced (or sent to supervise airfield construction in Iceland, or, in the case of really serious players, shot).