There have only been a couple of barrages aimed my way, and I've still got plenty of targets to service, so... shoot, over!

Paratrooper Limitations

Winston disagrees with my proposed limit on para-drops in issue #33 for two reasons. He believes that political limits shouldn't be imposed on the players, and that countries did, in fact, essentially throw away their scarce and valuable airborne troops for minor tactical objectives.

The first is essentially a matter of concern to the designer. If he can make the costs of ahistorical behavior high enough, in game terms, that no rational player will act in such a manner, then fine, he needn't overtly address the issue. If, for some reason, he cannot, then a rule limiting players' actions to historical limits must be considered. Such a rule is only necessary if the ahistorical behavior is such that it unbalances the game-minor things can safely be ignored, and usually this is the case.

The current rule limiting replacement of Allied airborne REs to 1 RE per 3 months is strong incentive not to throw these units away. However, the quantity of Allied airborne units is so great that the slow rate of replacement is almost meaningless. So what if 82nd and 101st Airborne are in the dead pile? New units like the l3th and 17th Airborne arrive in late 1944 and '45, so the Allied player can still make large airdrops at will. On the Jun I 44 turn there are 21 1/2 REs of Allied parachutists with a combat strength of over 60 and sufficient transports to simultaneously drop them all. I submit that if used deep in the German rear, they can have such an enormous effect as to constitute a play balance problem. Hence my rules suggestion.

Due to the limited numbers of airborne units on the Eastern Front, my proposal, although still valid, isn't needed because the possible damage caused by ahistorical usage isn't enough to matter.

Now I'd be the last to argue with Winston that the Soviets were sparing of their men, but all, I say again, all of their airborne operations fall within the limits that I've proposed. They were all dropped within 4 hexes of friendly units and usually within one or two hexes. To be sure, most Soviet drops were disasters, but hey, whose fault was that? They certainly weren't meant as such.

Korpsabteilungen

I rather like Thomas Kolley's proposal in issue #32 regarding Korpsabteilungen. I do take issue with his proposed RP cost to break them down, however. Once the Korpsabteilung is assembled it should be allowed to break down just like an ordinary infantry division.

Jim Broshot's proposal to give them a cadre strength of 1-6 seems unnecessary given the flexibility of the German command system. German units were frequently attached to other formations and had little trouble adjusting. It didn't really take them all that long to get used to a new command structure.

I also disagree with his limitations on their ability to break down and to receive replacements if reduced to cadre. The research for the "Battle for Kiev" scenario revealed that Korpsabteilung C did receive some thousands of replacements during the course of the battle. Also, the Lage Ost maps reveal that they did, in fact, break down occasionally, with portions of the "division" operating separately.

The ability to rebuild these is a bit more arguable as none, in fact, were ever rebuilt. As only Korpsabteilung B was ever destroyed (in the Korsun Pocket), this is hardly enough evidence to make a firm decision. To my mind, once assembled into a "division," these units should be treated exactly like all other divisions.

Engineer Abilities

The temporary bridge and causeway rule in Jim Arnold's "Lunge to Stalingrad" scenario reminded me of an article that Charles Sharp published in ETO some years ago. In it he described some of the abilities of engineers that Europa doesn't reflect. If I remember correctly these included the ability to negate the higher cost of tracing supply through swamp and forest hexes by building corduroy (log) roads and cutting roads through the wilderness respectively.

However, Jim's rule goes a little too far. Engineers did indeed build pontoon bridges and ferries to cross rivers as expeditiously as possible, but the divisional engineers hadn't the capacity to handle much more than their own unit. A number of independent bridging engineers exist in all armies and are built into the game through the low cost actually paid to cross a river. While not particularly accurate, it's a far easier system to use than explicitly showing these non- divisional engineers. I mean, who wants a lot of 0-6 bridging engineer counters cluttering up the map?

In short, Jim's rule is too much of a good thing in terms of reducing the cost to cross rivers.

RR Engineers

While I'm on the topic of engineers, I'd like to comment on the railroad specialists. I was recently playing my first game of the Barbarossa scenario of Scorched Earth with John's new RR engineer brigades and was amazed at the difference they made. By mid-October AGS had regauged all the way to Poltava, the long way! The route ran through Cherkassy and then north before veering east.

Admittedly, my worthy opponent didn't do much in the way of building or even repairing airfields, but boy did he repair the numerous rail hits that I had strewn in his path.

Despite all the tinkering with the rail regauging rules and units, this convinces me that we may not yet have a final solution. I'm inclined to think that all these new units may allow too much rail to be regauged. Bear in mind that the cost to regauge was reduced in SE to correct the problem of German supply lines lagging behind the German spearheads even more than historically.

One solution might be to reintroduce the original regauging cost from FITE. This should be playtested to see if it is indeed the correct solution.

Breakdowns

Europa currently shows a divisional breakdown as the division's actual components. For example, a late-war British armored division breaks down into an armored brigade and a motorized infantry brigade. This is correct, but ignores the fact that these and many other armored divisions cross-attached battalion and companies all the time. By 1945 most British armored divisions operated in four battlegroups, each composed of an infantry and tank battalion operating together (actually, one of the tank battalions was really the divisional armored reconnaissance regiment, but tell them that). Before writing in to urge that each such division have 4 REs, note that they had only two brigade HQs to command the battlegroups. 7bus 2 REs.

An armored division usually has 3 REs worth of AEC and ATEC. When broken down that same division will generally have only 1 RE with full AEC/ATEC, while the other two REs drop to neutral status. (American armored divisions are a notable exception.) This can be fatal in defensive situations when trying to distribute ATECcapable units so that everybody has 1/2 ATEC or better.

Aside from being deadly, it is also ahistorical: many nations operated combined-arms teams within the division as needed.

In my playing experience, 3 REs of half-capable units are generally far more useful than one fully capable RE and two neutral REs. Generally I tend to break an armored division down only in defensive situations, either to help hold the flanks of a breakthrough or to bring my defensive line up to snuff with regard to ATEC or AECD.

Note that forming the 60-point panzer corps during Barbarossa's opening phase only requires a non-divisional unit of the appropriate strength. AECA/ATEC abilities are irrelevant, as they are not invoked during overruns.

Infantry Special Replacements

I found Charles Sharp's article "Bloodbath" in issue #34 very thought-provoking, but I was somewhat unclear about exactly what constituted recoverable losses. I recently found a source that confirms Charles's data with much additional detail.

The multi-volume history of the LSSAH Division has a detailed chart of the casualties suffered by its Panzergrenadier Regiment 2 during the period August '43 to April '44. Leibstandarte was quite active during this time and fought in the battles around Kiev, the relief of Korsun Pocket and the encirclement of 1. Panzer Army (a.k.a. "Hube's Pocket").

Notes: "WIA remain" is wounded, but remained with the unit; "WIA evac" is wounded, but evacuated to the rear; "Sick" includes accidents.

Close examination of the numbers proves rather enlightening. Excluding the sick from the totals yields 2257 combat casualties. Of these almost two-thirds (61%) stayed with the unit, 18% were killed, 7% were missing and 13% were wounded severely enough to require evacuation. Only the 25% that were killed or missing can be considered permanent losses. Some portion, however small, of the evacuated wounded will likely return to duty of some sort even if after a lengthy convalescence.

I find this powerful evidence in favor of amending the special replacement rate to 50%. Higher proportions are arguable, but since we only have a limited database with imprecise definitions to work from I'd prefer to be conservative, especially when 50% is by far the easiest ratio to calculate.

This would have major implications in the way Europa plays, but it would solve some major problems with the system as it currently stands. The system is too bloody for the defender and too bloodless for the attacker, especially with easily- achieved ZOC kills. This would be a good way to mitigate that problem, especially if used in combination with special replacements for armor.

Armor Special Replacements

A number of people have proposed that a certain proportion of armor unit losses should be returned as armor replacement points, much as infantry losses return as infantry RPs. This is appropriate only for the side that holds the battlefield at the end of the turn. Possession allows the recovery teams to recover and repair damaged tanks. If you've been driven off, your retrieval teams have little to retrieve.

The best known incidents are in North Africa where German and British units attempted to recover tanks under the cover of darkness. Reputedly, the Germans were somewhat better at this, but both sides recovered significant proportions of their losses, often to include some of the enemy's losses as well.

The same was true in other theaters. I remember seeing some Soviet data in S&T #15 years ago. As best I can remember, 5th Guards Tank Army repaired some 500 tanks by the end of July after Kursk. I'm sure that Charles Sharp can furnish much more data if need be.

Here is a proposed rule for armor special replacements. Tank, light tank units and Soviet mechanized corps (only) receive armor special replacements at the ratio of 1 point per 3 points of strength lost, but only if the owning player owns the hex in which the losses were incurred. If the owning player doesn't own the hex, then 1 point is received for every 7 points lost. Infantry special replacements are not received in either case. Fractions less than 1/2 round down, 1/2 and above round up.

This is a gross oversimplification, but is much easier to use than any alternatives I could think of. It's designed to average out the special replacements between the armored and mechanized units, since they should yield both armor and infantry special replacements. The 1/3 ratio is strictly a shot in the dark, but should be reasonably close. I would not expect the ratio to be as high as 1/2, but it's possible if data can be found to support it. This ratio could well vary by time and by nation, as the Soviets had few assets to repair tanks early in the war without shipping them to the factory, but developed very extensive facilities during the course of the conflict.

A related topic is the use of enemy AFVs. The British 7th Armored Division used M13/40s after annihilating the Italian 10th Army, and Das Reich Division used T-34s during Kursk. The Germans were never adverse to using enemy AFVs against their former owners and impressed many a Crusader and Valentine in North Africa. These vehicles must be considered, in game terms, as part of the armor special replacements.

Romanian Neutrality

Recently I've been fortunate enough to find some detailed information on the Romanian preparations for Barbarossa in the unit history of one of the divisions of the 11th Army. Aside from the OB data on the Romanian 4th Army (look for major changes in the SE revision) I was struck by one thing.

The Germans didn't attack out of Romania until 2 July and the Romanians followed a day later. This would mean that Romania should be neutral on the Jun II turn, exactly like Hungary and Finland.

This has some interesting implications for the opening phases of Barbarossa. The Soviets could be able to strip the Odessa MD and redeploy those troops to Kiev, Odessa and the Dnepr bend if they choose.

Messing with the System

Over the years I've been playing Europa, I've heard and seen innumerable proposals to change Europa to the better (and made some few of them myself). Some of my own ideas would have had repercussions I never dreamed of. Since those early days, I've developed a routine of letting an idea vegetate in the back of my mind (where it's dark and well-fertilized) and then taking a second look after it's had time to mature.

Unfortunately, many of the ideas I've seen in print lately do not seem to have undergone a similar process. The guys who propose these things often don't seem to have realized all the implications their high-speed, low-drag ideas will have on each individual Europa game and/or rule. This is where John Astell comes in. John has a great ability to see these repercussions and will either suggest possible fixes to the rule proposal or point out those unanticipated side-effects. If he didn't exist it would be necessary to invent him.

So let those proposed changes keep rolling on in, but please think through all the ramifications.

Quite a few rounds have been fired from this position, so it's time to move out before any incoming shells arrive to the discomfit of my gun crews.