This is, I hope, the beginning of an irregular column where I will address various issues that have attracted my attention and comment on some of the various proposals and ideas that have been expressed in these pages. I must make it clear that the sentiments expressed are strictly my own and should not be ascribed to John Astell, Winston Hamilton, Victor Hauser, GRD or any other person other than myself.

My first targets are a number of issues that John Astell raised in his column in issue #31.

Partisans

If you're going to use Rule 40 in SE, I really like the idea of making the partisans go from partisan mode to conventional mode before they can block a hex. This happened far less often than even John may be aware. Contrary to his account, the partisans behind AGC during the summer of '44 were ordered to stop the Germans from retreating by sabotaging the transportation net behind them, not by fighting them head to head.

His bi-modal system for partisans solves many of the problems with partisans, both in SE and in the proposed revision in issue #30. 1 agree with him the proposed attack ability against 0-strength units was too strong, but I'm not sure the herding of partisans by trash units is really a problem, since I personally don't think that any partisan unit is really worth all that effort.

As best I can ascertain, the Luftwaffe had dedicated airfield security troops in Russia that aren't shown in the game in any manner. I have not much information on them, but I do know they existed, probably at company level and below and that they are entirely separate from the flak units.

It is these units, in addition to any flak stationed at the airfield, that persuaded the partisans that discretion was the better part of valor. I would amend the partisan rules to prevent sabotage of any airfield occupied by any unit, or that was used during the German player turn. This would protect an unguarded airfield that had its air units flying DAS during the Soviet turn.

My only quarrel with John is that he would have the German player guard his air fields with units, whereas I believe that they were already guarded by units not directly shown in the game.

There is one effect that the partisans had that isn't addressed in any rule or proposal that I've seen. They spent most of their time and effort sabotaging and ambushing German supply convoys, both on railroads and on roads. The current rules portray this situation only for the rail convoys. But what about the trucks?

I propose that partisan-mode partisans add one point to the cost of tracing supply through a hex, much like a swamp hex adds to the cost of tracing supply. This may not be worth the trouble, but it could make the German supply situation somewhat more precarious in bad weather or if partisans are used en masse much as they were behind the Orel bulge in the summer of 1943.

Based in the woods and swamps around Bryansk during the Battle of Kursk they were pretty effective in hurting the German ability to resupply the northern wing of the German attack and also hindered their retreat when the Soviets kicked in the north face of the Orel salient.

For all the ink that has been spilled over the partisans in the last couple of issues, I still play SE using Rule 33, just for simplicity's sake. The only problem with it is that it is too lenient on the Germans. Far too many security troops are placed on the front lines by the German player. This doesn't correspond to the way the Germans used them. They only ended up in the front lines in the early part of the war if the Soviets made a breakthrough that had to be plugged. This needs to be fixed.

I've calculated that if the major city garrison requirement is raised to 7 REs, every Axis security division received by April 1942 and most of the regiments will be required to garrison everything behind the 1942 scenario start line instead of being on the front line as is currently the case.

Winterization

This indirectly brings up some problems with the current list of German winterized units. The SS-Police units are winterized, which is historically correct, but this causes the Germans to rush these units forward during the first winter to help nullify the Soviet winterization bonuses. This is not what happened.

Some of these units did indeed see action, but only because the Germans tried to stem the Soviet penetrations with any and all units available. To prevent them from being used in this ahistorical manner, I propose that they be stripped of their winterization ability. This ought to encourage the German player to keep these units in the rear where they belong.

In addition, Grossdeutschland's unit history complains rather bitterly about their lack of winter clothing and the consequent suffering of its soldiers. It sounds as if GD isn't winterized. This renders suspect the winterization of all the Lehr units as well, because GD and the Lehr units all had first call on the best the Wehrmacht had to offer, though I've no hard data to back up my suspicion.

Rather than relying on the Wehrmacht, both the SS and Luftwaffe got their winter clothing through their own supply channels and from their own stockpiles. The Wehrmacht was stuck on the horns of a dilemma and could either move forward food, ammunition and fuel needed immediately to maintain the advance or winter clothing needed in the future and chose to supply its immediate needs. German supply trains were few enough that doing both was simply not possible.

It's a little-known fact the Americans faced the same dilemma in the winter of '44-45 and Bradley made the same choice the Germans did. Fortunately for the GIs, that winter wasn't anywhere near as severe as that of '41-42.

In issue #27, John mentions some of the divisions that went through the winter combat school at Heuberg before Barbarossa. These units were properly equipped and would probably rate as winterized. I would recommend players trying this option set up with historical IDs, as there is nothing else to separate the winterized units from their identical cousins. Supplemented with draft information supplied by John Astell, I determined the following divisions in Scorched Earth are winterized:

4x 8-6 Inf XX 1, 11, 21, 61 in 18th Army of AGN
1x 7-6 Inf XX 198 in 11th Army in Romania
1x 7-6 Inf XX 169 in Army Norway
1x 7-6 Inf XX 163 arriving via Sweden on Jun II.

You also might wish to substitute the 7-8 Mtn XX 73 from BF for the 8-6 Inf XX 73 that arrives on Jul II. This division converts from 7-8 Mtn XX to 8-6 Inf XX status Mar I 42.

Trucks

I'd always disliked trucks as a kludge to get the supply system to work in the East, but I've changed my mind. In SE, the problem is that you have too many of them and they hang around until destroyed.

Historically, the onset of mud caused a real decline in serviceability of trucks. This was amplified by the host of different models of trucks in German service and aggravated by the fact that most were not well suited for cross-country travel to begin with.

In Russia, once mud hits, every road outside the major cities virtually disappears. According to Siegfried Knappe's book, Soldat: Reflections of a German Soldier, 1936-1949, even the vaunted Minsk- Moscow highway was only a two-lane cobblestone road that was over two hundred years old. He marched down its length with his artillery battery in 1941.

The solution is to withdraw one truck every mud or snow turn until only two or so are left. That is enough to supply the drive on the Caucasus the next summer. In addition, the truck in 4th Panzer Group is questionable. They didn't go so far so fast historically that it would take a truck to replicate that performance in SE.

Finland

I disagree with John on his comments on Finland in issue 31. There is a considerable amount of truth to what he is saying, but I think that he is taking it further than can be supported.

The prime difference between Poland and Finland was that the Western Allies did indeed have access to Finland if they chose to exercise it, albeit not great access, but they had no way of getting to Poland. Thus Stalin could act with total impunity with regard to that isolated nation.

During the summer of 1942, Churchill had toyed with a plan to invade Northern Norway and Finland, Operation Jupiter [a Europa scenario-in-planning coming not so soon to a magazine or newsletter near you], and how was Stalin to know that it couldn't be dusted off and implemented? Granted, he knew that the Western Allies were not going to attack him directly, but their mere presence in the Arctic would have given them much more leverage on Finnish affairs than they then had.

Without an overwhelming need for bases to carry the war to Estonia, he took the easiest route and accepted the armistice the Finns offered after revising it more to his favor. I agree with John that he would have driven on to Helsinki if he'd seen a military need to do so, so some sort of stop line is an inappropriate solution to the situation.

On the other hand, the current rules in Scorched Earth are flawed as well, particularly with regards to the lack of a Soviet garrison in conquered Finland. Stalin must have known that the Soviets were as hated by the Finnish people after the Winter War as the Russians hated the Nazis, and consequently any occupation of Finland would be bloody and require a large number of troops to contain and suppress.

My interpretation of the proper way to handle Finland is given below. These rules also clear up a few holes in the existing rules for garrisons and other stuff. Unless specifically mentioned otherwise, the standard SE rules apply.

Geography: Southern Finland

Southern Finland consists of all hexes within the 1941 Finnish borders south of the A weather line, plus all hexes within three hexes of a Baltic Sea coastal hex within Finland.

Rule 32B. Finland

1. War Aims (Addition).

Finnish units may not move outside the Finnish theater unless they can trace an overland supply line to a Finnish supply source.

3. Surrender (Addition).

The Soviets must garrison Finland and its border with Sweden if it has surrendered beginning the following Soviet initial phase after Finland has surrendered. See Rule 3 1 H3.

4. Armistice (Replacement).

At the start of any game turn on or after the Jan I 42 turn, Finland will offer an armistice to the Soviet Union if 10 REs of Soviet units are inside the 1941 Finnish borders south of the A weather line and have an overland supply line to a Soviet supply source or if 9 REs of Finnish units are in the replacement pool at any one time.

If Finland offers a armistice, the Soviet player may then either accept or reject the armistice. If the Soviet player rejects the armistice, Finland remains in the war on the side of the Axis until surrender.

If the Soviet player accepts the armistice the following conditions apply:

• The Soviet player gains control of all Finnish units north of the A weather line beginning with the following Soviet initial phase. However, the Soviet player does not gain control of the Finnish rail net.
• During the German player turn on the turn the armistice is accepted, German forces must leave southern Finland. During this turn, German forces may use Finnish ports, airfields, and rail capacity. Any German forces in southern Finland at the end of this player turn are interned and are treated as eliminated. For the rest of the game, German forces may not enter any hex of southern Finland and may not use the Finnish rail capacity.
• All Finnish reinforcements and replacements are no longer received and all accumulated replacements are lost.
• Finnish forces may not move outside the 1941 Finnish borders and are eliminated if forced to do so.
• Soviet units must leave southern Finland as quickly as possible, but this may take as long as necessary. Once all belligerent forces have left southern Finland, this territory is treated as neutral as per Rule 31B for the rest of the game.

  Note that only southern Finland is treated as neutral; the rest of Finland remains an active theater of war for both sides.

Rule 31H. Soviet Garrisons (Change)

For each transportation line crossing a neutral border that is not occupied or in the ZOC of a Soviet unit, the Soviet player loses one infantry replacement point per turn.

1. Border Areas (Clarification).

A unit may only be counted as part of one garrison per initial phase. Zero-strength units may not be used to satisfy garrison requirements.

3. Finnish Occupation Garrison (New)

The Soviets must garrison Finland and its border with Sweden if it has surrendered, beginning the following Soviet initial phase after Finland has surrendered.

• Each reference city in 1941 Finland must be garrisoned with 1 RE.
• Each dot city in 1941 Finland must be garrisoned with 3 REs.
• Helsinki must be garrisoned with 9 REs.

NKVD political troops and security units have their RE size doubled when determining the garrisons of Finnish cities.

4. Swedish Border Garrison (New)

The Swedish border must be garrisoned with 30 REs if Finland has surrendered. Treat this garrison the same as the other border area garrisons, except that it is never released.

Rule 37-Victory (Change)

Helsinki is not counted when determining victory points, count Danzig instead.

The above allows a Soviet player to conquer Finland if he deems it necessary to do so. However, I suspect he will think twice before doing so. The Swedish border garrison isn't precisely guarding just the Swedish border with Finland, but also represents those troops operating against 20th Mountain Army's lines of communication with Narvik.

With the release of Second Front this can be superseded after Apr I 43 since the counters for the Norwegian coastal defense troops will be provided and we can thus dispense with the intrinsic defense strengths of Norwegian ports, but a minimal garrison will be required nonetheless,

Airborne Units

There is a problem in Europa with regards to the total freedom to drop airborne units anywhere a player's transports can reach. This gives far too much latitude for the players. Not counting the various forms of paracommandos, no parachute or glider unit, unless dropping on an island, dropped more than 3 or 4 hexes distant from their own units.

Parachutists were valuable people and far too much had been invested in them to be used without hope of rescue by friendly forces. You cannot find any example of such abandonment to sure decimation on any front during the Second World War, noting that island landings like Leros are excluded from this sweeping statement.

Market Garden was the deepest airborne operation that the Allies executed and it was only 3 hexes from the front line. It was done with the full expectation that the lead elements would be reached within a matter of days. This isn't quite what happened, but not through any fault of the paras.

There was a plan, Operation Giant, to drop the 82nd Airborne on Rome to support the change of government, but this was canceled when, among other reasons, it became clear that Allied ground forces had no chance of reaching Rome before the Germans.

This is probably going to be a problem in Second Front with the very large number of airborne units and the transports to carry them. Nothing currently prevents you from dropping these puppies anywhere you might desire. For example, how about the 6 or so rail junctions that connect Western France with the rest of Axis Europe? Never mind that many of these targets are hundreds of miles away from most Allied landing sites.

Admittedly, the brave paratroopers will die pretty damn quickly, but they would delay the German reaction for a turn, or at least act as speed bumps. Combined with harassment, it might actually be worthwhile from the Allied player's perspective to sacrifice these people in a vast effort to short-circuit all Axis communications.

But this freedom ignores historical reality at the political level and within the sacrificial units themselves. No leader of the Western democracies could have afforded to sacrifice 50,000 men in an airborne operation without any hope of rescue, no matter how large the possible military benefits. It simply provides too much ammunition to their political opponents.

Remember that 1944 was an election year and a consummate politician such as Roosevelt always has an eye towards his reelection campaign. Fortunately for him, he had 3 years to provide enough victories to distract the voters from the disasters of the first year of the war. It seems safe enough to speculate that if the election had been held in 1942, rather than in 1940, that he could have been voted out of office.

Churchill was somewhat more secure in office, but he only narrowly survived at least one vote of confidence in the Commons earlier in the war and would have been disinclined to provide ammunition for another.

Let us now go to a level that Europa generally ignores, that within the units themselves. Can you imagine Maxwell Taylor's or Jim Gavin's reactions to orders that the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions were going to drop around Lyons when the Allies were coming ashore in Normandy? And that they were to contact local Resistance leaders to exfiltrate their men through Spain and Switzerland?

Well, I can, but it's a mite bit too colorful to reproduce here. I feel fairly confident in asserting that all the commanders of the units involved would have handed in their resignations rather than sacrifice their men without any hope of relief.

This is particularly true in the British Army where commanders frequently told their superiors to bugger off if the plan was unworkable or too expensive in the blood of their soldiers. Now it's true that para- commandos might have been persuaded to do something that insane, so I'd exclude them from the restriction laid out below.

To reflect this limitation, simply restrict airborne units, except for paracommandos, from dropping more than 4 hexes from other friendly ground units that can trace an overland line of supply to a supply source. Units planned to amphibiously assault a hex during the turn of the air drop may be used to satisfy this requirement. Units executing commando raids would also satisfy this requirement. This restriction would still allow you to execute every air drop ever made in the Europa theater of operations.

An associated problem is that of supported status for just-dropped airborne troops. This is used to represent the confusion engendered by a para drop where no paras ought to be. This works quite well for the early war period, but not at all after 1941. After Crete every commander was at least aware of the possibility of airborne troops being landed on a large scale behind his rear. Thus there is no possibility of airborne landings producing the panic and paralysis they achieved earlier in the war.

For Grand Europa purposes, airborne units should be considered supported on the turn they drop until one side or another has made an airborne operation of 2 REs or more, after which time they are no longer considered supported.

Airfields in Cities

John's Leningrad tactics advisory in issue #31 reminded me of a phenomenon that people have complained about for years. This is the idea that center hexes of cities sl.ouldn't have any airfield capacity at all since there isn't any room to build them. This is more often true than not, but exceptions exist, Moscow with Khodinka airfield being one of them.

Major cities had very few airfields actually in the city itself, but scattered them among the suburbs along its fringes. Those airfields actually in the city usually were used solely by transports, like Berlin's Tempelhof airfield. In fact, the number of airfields in East Anglia and Yorkshire considerably outnumber those in the London area.

In the games I've seen and played in the usual Soviet practice is to concentrate the VVS in Moscow and Leningrad, resulting in one or two dozen fighters in Leningrad itself.

This poses a major obstacle to any serious drive on Leningrad in 1941. The current airbase rules allow the Soviet to stack 30 air units in Leningrad itself and up to two thirds of these will be fighters, if needed. There is a problem with this in that the Soviets could not have based 1,800 aircraft in Leningrad even if supply difficulties had allowed them to do so. There simply weren't airfields at which to base them.

Having maps that locate every airbase ever used by the RAF and a significant number of Luftwaffe air bases as well, it is clear that major cities have no larger number of airfields than do dot or reference cities. I propose that the airbase capacity of major cities be reduced to that of dot cities-three air units each.

Fire on the Mountain

There is a problem that the "Fire on the Mountain" proposal in issue #29 was designed to address the inability to replicate the Greek counterattack against the Italians that led to the Greek occupation of parts of Albania. In my experience, just the non-halving of mountain units is insufficient to recreate this.

As presented, the rule explicitly gives mountain troops a die-roll modifier against wooded rough, rough and ravine hexes as well as mountain hexes. This is about as much a stretch as can be argued for mountain units. Some argue that other troop types, principally light or jager units, should also have this benefit when attacking the first three listed terrain types.

Well, I don't see why not, except that the DRM should only be for wooded rough and rough. Ravine terrain, I imagine is equally difficult for all troop types. The principal benefits that jager type troops have over other types is that they are more lightly-equipped than ordinary troops, and thus are more mobile in bad terrain, and that they are better trained to show initiative at low levels than your average infantry unit. This is true of troop types other than jager as well. These would include light, jager, parachute, para-infantry, glider, commandos in all their flavors, ski and all mountain category types.

To easily show this on the Terrain Effects Chart perhaps a new class of troops should be designated on the Unit Identification Chart. They would move through bad terrain types more easily than most everything else. As a number of other unit types would fall under this class, it should be specified that the light category applies unless the other class is relevant. An example would be mountain terrain in which mountain category units move at a different rate than light troops.

Ski Troops

While I'm on the topic of light units et me bring up the subject of the proper treatment of ski units. These admittedly skilled units are currently overvalued in Europa. The system currently treats them as mountain units and, with few exceptions, that is not correct. Virtually all the ski units depicted in Europa are not raised from mountain units, but from ordinary infantry or jager units.

The only exception that I'm aware of are the Italians; their ski units are alpine trained and raised for that duty. All other units are converted from either infantry, jager or cavalry units.

Remember that ski units spend their time skiing cross-country, not downhill. Ask anyone who's skied downhill and cross-country and you'll find out that not many skills are applicable between one type of skiing and the other. Also remember how most of these units appear. The German units in SE were raised from units in theater and appear as East reinforcements, not at the mountain training schools in Greater Germany.

Ski units should move as per light infantry units, except in snow or frost weather. As an optional rule all Italian ski units use either mountain or ski movement costs, whichever is cheaper.

I trust that these outgoing salvos will generate some rounds headed my way. My ready ammunition stocks are nearly exhausted, so until I'm resupplied, I'm gonna follow the modern artilleryman's creed: "Shoot and Scoot."