The Siege of Kirkenes

In issue #31 our redoubtable Europa designer, John Astell, describes a ploy he has used as the Soviet player. I reprint it here for further discussion:

"Some German players don't realize that Norway is fair game. They subconsciously believe that Norway is 'theirs' and the Soviets aren't allowed to enter. If you face one of these players, he may let you do an end run around his lines in Finland and get on the road to Kirkenes. I've twice fought the Siege of Kirkenes, with unsupplied rifle regiments trying to push construction troops out of the town. This does wonders to induce the Germans to leave Murmansk alone and send a division back to clean up the rear area--so much for that summer's offensive."

These sieges must have occurred while John was playing Fire in the East, before the advent of Scorched Earth. In SE, Norway does indeed belong to Germany, at least until Russia can afford to press a major offensive from the Murmansk area. Certainly a few stray unsupplied Soviet rifle regiments aren't going to accomplish much against Kirkenes. After all, there is the Army of Norway to be considered.

On June 22, 1941 there were some 150,000 German troops in the Army of Norway, independent of the 40,600 soldiers dispatched to Finland in 36th Mountain Corps. This sizable force fluctuated greatly in number and quality thereafter (reaching a peak strength of 372,000 in mid-1944), but stood ready to counter any enemy movements into Norway right up to the end of the war.

This is represented in Scorched Earth by Rule 31J, German Intrinsic Defenses. Rule 31J states, "The German player has intrinsic defense strength points in various cities in Norway ... as follows: 8 points: ... Trondheim (513:2532, Narvik (513:0911) 4 points: ... each port in Norway other than Trondheim and Narvik. An intrinsic defense strength of a city is treated as a supported German combat unit.."

Given the above, the city of Kirkenes possesses an intrinsic defense strength of 4 points. Since Kirkenes is an Arctic port in Norway, it is itself a regular Axis supply source per Rule 12C1, and therefore immune to any supply effects of a Soviet "siege." Furthermore, since the city of Kirkenes lies in a rough terrain hex, any attack against it would incur a die roll modifier of -1 to the combat roll.

This means that even a force consisting of three unsupplied 4-6 rifle divisions could only muster odds of 1.5:1 (-1) against Kirkenes. This allows only a one-in-six chance of taking the city, and an equal chance of an AH. Would you spend a resource point on such an attack? It is hard to imagine that a Soviet player would dispatch so large a force on such a dubious mission.

Also note a direct thrust to Kirkenes by sea is not possible (even should the Soviets wish to risk the Arctic DD Flot on such a suicidal mission). Rule 28C2 states that "Due to coastal defenses not represented in the game, Soviet units may not make amphibious landings in or adjacent to coastal port hexes outside the Soviet Union." More evidence of the presence of the Army of Norway.

First to Fight Rule 27A1

In Fire in the East, not only was there no Rule 31J to reflect German intrinsic defenses, but there were no provisions in Rule 32 for any of the Axis Allies to surrender, defect, or seek an armistice with the Soviet Union. I am guessing here, but suspect that this was so because the GDW design team did not deem such rules necessary in a game covering the first year of the war, depicting a historical campaign in which Axis forces carried the fight deep into Soviet territory.

Yet John's saga of the Kirkenes sieges bears out the fallacy of such an assumption: there frequently are serious incursions into Axis territory by Soviet forces in games of Fire in the East. I have heard of or seen many games where Rumania or Finland have suffered ignominious ruin during the supposed salad days of 1941.

The addition of German intrinsic defenses and Axis-Allied surrender rules to Scorched Earth definitely enhanced that game. I would only argue that these rules should have been in Fire in the East in the first place. Complex games like those in the Europa series can unfold in myriad ways and if unusual possibilities are ignored, one can end up with dubious happenings and strange sieges.

It was this line of reasoning that led to First to Fight Rule 27A1. This rule has been the object of quite a few raised eyebrows from Europa savants. In short, the rule describes what transpires if the Poles capture Berlin. Given a superior German Army in the field and the fact that each German major city hex has an intrinsic defense strength of five, it is an uncommon occurrence for the Poles to fight their way to Berlin hex 37:0121--in fact you could argue it is impossible. In the two years since First to Fight was released I have yet to hear of a Polish player capturing Berlin or scaring the German player into evacuating his government into Central Germany.

However, I remain in favor of including this rule in the game. What if a Polish player should somehow manage to pull off the feat? I can just hear our imaginary Polish hero lamenting, "You mean to tell me I just captured Berlin and nothing special happened? This game is totally broken!"

And if future hypothetical variants give the Poles a better chance of doing the deed, it will not be necessary to revise the rules or VP schedules. I recall a "Plan G" Balkan Front battlefield report where Italy, with only token German assistance, swept the Greeks before them and captured Athens in June 1941.

However, the Italian player went from elated to deflated when he discovered that he had just lost the game. There was no major victory point award for his feat-perhaps because this weird twist was ovdrlooked when the VP schedule was laid out.

It's hard to anticipate every oddity that can occur in a game, and this makes the designer's job a tough one.