My gun crews are exhausted from digging their guns in, but more targets have appeared and require servicing. Time to roust them from their sleeping bags and make `em earn their pay!

Meine Herren, How Would You Like Your Frog Legs Served Today?

Reflecting the French command philosophy of Bataille Conduite (I prefer to translate this as "orchestrated battle") presents a number of problems for Europa. The French believed that they could control the pace of battle and dictate their opponent's actions. This philosophy pervaded their doctrine to the detriment of their ability to fight. They believed that decisions should be made at the highest level possible, because the high command would have the best information and could optimize the proper response. While theoretically correct, it totally ignored the "fog of war" and presumed that the necessary information would reach the proper echelons correctly and quickly. Unfortunately, the French had neglected to invest in the up-to-date communications equipment that might have allowed them to properly implement the Bataille Conduite.

The French high command never broke out of the chateau style of generalship left over from the First World War. They ignored the lessons of the abysmal failures of the Nivelle offensives and focused instead on the successful attacks on the demoralized German Army in mid-1918 as a guide to future operations. To minimize possible casualties the French believed in massed firepower rather than maneuver, hence their desire to centralize decision-making at the highest levels. Consequently, they didn't believe that maneuver could be used against them; they firmly believed that any future war would be a repeat of the previous one. Unlike the Germans, they firmly embraced the lessons fof which they had paid a million and a half lives.

This doctrine makes the 1940 French situation a different one entirely from that of the Soviets in June 1941, despite some superficial similarities. The French also believed in centralization of authority, but not to the extent of the Soviets. The problems of the Soviets were more from untrained leaders and idiotic stand-and-die orders. Once Stalin allowed them to retreat and the incompetent officers either learned how to fight or died, the Soviets did just fine. I would argue that at the operational and strategic levels the Soviets were superior to the Germans by 1944; but were still vastly inferior at the tactical level. All other things being equal, I don't believe the French High Command could have planned and executed with any degree of success the offensives successfully mounted by the Soviets from Stalingrad on.

The current set of rules for Fall of France attempts to recreate these limitations. They work reasonably well when using the historical setup, but far less well for the free deployment scenario. The challenge is to allow for a delayed breakthrough by the Germans when using free deployment, because that is what I believe would have been the historical result. Reading accounts of the fighting in 1940 amazes the reader with the depth and extent of French confusion, inertia and panic. These factors would have prevailed even if the Ardennes had been stoutly defended. I'd prefer to avoid special rules to cover the situation, but some are probably necessary.

Peter Robbin's suggestion of reduced stacking for the French has some merit. Reducing their movement rating by one from the standard is also attractive. This is not to say that the French marched or drove any slower than anybody else, but that the orders to do so were very slow in arriving and in execution, thus giving a net speed of movement below that of most armies. The attempted counterattack by 3dme DCR and 36me DIM against the Meuse bridgehead illustrates exactly what I'm talking about. After a delay of 10 hours (!) to refuel and contradictory orders, no counterattack was ever made-the units were finally ordered to disperse laterally along the line of resistance.

Reduced ZOCs might also be an effective way of representing the French command and control problems.

The French emphasis on massed firepower meant that their artillery was centralized as much as possible. Generally, each army and corps centralized all its assigned artillery rather than distribute most of it to their subordinate formations; FoF shows the artillery in all its multitude of regiments. Combining these into one brigade per corps and one or two brigades per army would probably aid the Germans to break through by denying the French the ability to form a NODL not every stack could have enough non-divs to make it non-overrunable. If this didn't do the trick, the various proposed variable overrun rules might offer a solution, but they could cut both ways. Reducing French movement allowances would vitiate against this, as well as reflecting French command problems.

Philosophically, I'm opposed to game mechanics of the type proposed by James Vandine in issue #38/39. I would prefer to build restrictions that have the same effects into the rules or counters. At any rate, only rigorous experimentation will demonstrate what restrictions will inhibit the French in a properly historical manner.

Panacea or Cure-AII?

I found John Gordon's piece in TEM #37 thought provoking, but fundamentally flawed. The one-week turn does solve one problem, namely the lack of infantry movement, and also allows us to dispose of the heavy-handed surprise turn mechanic. But, I would argue, it does nothing to address the fundamental problems in the Europa system. There are several, and movement ain't hardly the most serious of them. I'll just briefly mention the top three: 

• Over the long run, Europa is very biased towards the attacker, as the attacker does not often take casualties when attacking.
• NODLs prevent deep breakthroughs and pocketing.
• There are no logistical constraints on attacks other than those imposed by supply line length, with the obvious exceptions of the Arctic and the Desert.

A thorough discussion of these items is contained in Flavio Carrillo's Europa: The Next Generation in TEM #38/39. To be fair, John Gordon also mentions several of these issues, but the panacea of the one-week turn does not solve them.

True, the two-week turn is unable to replicate a number of historical campaigns without the use of either surprise or shortened turns. However, I believe this is an artifact of other systems rather than movement alone. Some sort of variable overrun system would do much to open things up and put an end to the NODL problem.

I agree that Europa currently understates infantry movement rates, but would use a different mechanism to fix it. I've played with Duane Romfoe's infantry exploit system from issue #10 and it doesn't work. The infantry goes on shallow raids much like the panzers. However, coupled with John's reduction of movement allowance if a unit engages in combat during the turn, we may very well be on to something. For infantry units, I would eliminate exploitation movement entirely if they engage in combat during the turn. However, this still may not allow German infantry to move as fast as it historically did during the opening stages of Operation BARBAROSSA. The unopposed movement rules proposed by Tom Johnson in "Master Europa" and Flavio Carrillo in Combined Arms #9 are possible alternatives.

As you can see, I fully approve of John's solution of limiting "panzer raids." I've struggled with a cure for this "tactic" myself, as it is incredibly ahistorical. Armies simply never did that sort of thing, but Europa rewards players for doing so. Now I can't say I've ever seen 14-hex gaps between opposing armies before, but that's probably just because of differing styles of play.

The main problem with implementing the WitD supply system is that of sheer scale. I have absolutely no intention of playing "Quartermaster in the East" by counting the number of attacking REs between Murmansk and Grozny. While ideal in concept and the most realistic system out there, it's just too damn much trouble. My general ideas on the subject run towards some sort of compromise. Either a supply depot or HQ unit that has a short radius of supply and is difficult to move; or a system where attacking units must expend 1 attack supply point per attack, unless fewer than three REs are attacking.

I agree that the Soviets are far too powerful early in the war, but I think that some of John's remedies may be excessive. I believe his restrictions on the numbers of c/m REs in a stack that may attack at full strength may be too much. Giving c/m divisions only half AECA does a better job of showing the limited attack ability possessed by the Soviets during this time period, in my less-than-humble opinion. When coupled with Charles Sharp's OB changes that convert most tank brigades from the tank divisions, I believe that most Soviet players are going to be very hesitant to try and pick-off some German infantry corps at only +2, with no ability to exploit to safety. As for the later periods of the war, his suggestion would certainly encourage players to distribute their c/m assets rather than consolidate them in 11 or 12 killer stacks. But I'm just not sure how accurate this is. I do know that Cav-Mech Groups did stack two c/m corps deep on occasion.

With modified infantry exploitation and a variable overrun rule, the Runaway Defense might be very dangerous for the Soviets. We would be well rid of it, as I agree it is a very ahistorical strategy. As for an Arctic Runaway, the proposed increase in armor RPs arriving in Murmansk at the end of 1941 should be motivation enough to try to hang onto that area.

I rather like the idea of penalizing the attack ability of anyone who spends a lot of time sitting in rail cars during a turn. And any offensives mustered by the Soviets should have to be prepared at least a turn in advance, reflecting the slow decision-making cycle at all levels in 1941.

Now I would like to backtrack and comment further on some of John's other suggestions regarding weekly turns.

As I've said before (one unexpected problem I've discovered in writing this column is that I must always review previous columns to confirm that I did indeed say something in print, as opposed to in a conversation or, even worse, not at all-the dank, unlighted recesses of my mind and all that... but now back to our regularly scheduled programming...), based on my experiences at the National Training Center and in numerous field exercises, I believe that ZOC exit costs should be abolished, and replaced by ZOC entry costs.

Arguably, a rearguard must be left behind to slow down the enemy by ambushes and whatnot, but I believe this rearguard can be small enough so that it can usually be furnished by the unit itself. I've seen two platoons of AFVs enormously slow down the advance of a reinforced battalion. This is not at all similar to the situation of a point of position AA allowing units to op-rail through an enemy ZOC with impunity (although I note that the Soviets were able to run trains to Leningrad through a 6-mile wide corridor, despite the presence of German units within artillery range of the railroad). Retreating infantrymen aren't trains; they can "exfiltrate" an area by many different paths as opposed to two steel rails.

Experience also tells me that advancing reconnaissance forces tend to abruptly slow upon encountering enemy forces. Given that they don't know the enemy's size and composition, it is only prudent to be cautious until more information is collected. And this takes time and, often, lives. (Scouts tend to place a high value on an unperforated hide. It's hard to look particularly dashing minus a leg or other assorted body parts, you know.)

The replacement rate is probably OK as it now stands, but the rate of special replacements does need to increased to 1/2. Spec reps should also be received for c/m units, probably at the same rate as for infantry. Artillery spec reps should be used if artillery points are used; antiaircraft units should be lumped in with artillery. (And I note in passing that Romania had more men under arms in 1944 because she systematically starved her units in Russia of replacements beginning in 1942.) 

Admin movement does need to be liberalized somewhat. You should be able to use it if you begin the turn adjacent to an enemy unit. This ties in with the whole ZOC movement cost thing, as retreating units can move at full speed through friendly territory while the pursuer must worry about mines, ambushes and booby traps, all guaranteed to ruin his day. I can't think of any examples where a retreating enemy was caught from behind in WWII. Generally only encirclements, as opposed to headlong pursuits, bagged large numbers of people.

From a Grand Europa point of view, I would dearly love to be able to dispense with surprise turns, but I'm just not sure how to go about it. It seems the one-week turn solves this problem, but only at a significant cost in playing time. I like John's concepts for operational surprise, but they may not go far enough. Given my druthers, I'd use something similar, but more extreme, in lieu of a surprise turn. I don't want to go into this in any depth since I have nothing concrete to propose, but I will note in passing that John's proposed disruption rolls are probably too low for many armies.

Allied Air Contingents

I've heard some complaints recently about the difficulties of locating that one South African Spit 5 amongst the piles of Allied air units. This can be very difficult, and if you don't want to bother, don't. Those of us who worked with the air OBs for SF waffled back and forth on whether or not to differentiate the various Commonwealth air contingents or to lump them into generic Commonwealth units. David Hughes' views prevailed, so you have him to praise for illustrating their individual contributions to the Allied aerial campaign, or to damn for the hours of frustration trying to find that one crummy unit.

Leningrad or Bust?

I must say that I find the willingness of everyone who submitted their setups for the Leningrad: 1941 scenario very commendable. It took more balls than I've got, though I'm probably biased-Victor Hauser handed my head to me on a platter in the one game I've played as the Soviets. Sigh. Maybe I should just stick to playing the Germans. Based on the results of "Groza II: The Great Eastern Grand Slam" and that game of L'41, I just don't seem to be suited to play the Soviets.

Attrition, Europa-Style?

I think Mark Swenholt missed one key point in his article in TEM #38/39. The attacker's ability to easily seize territory makes the bloodless, at least for the attacker, ZOC kill rather common. I don't believe that Mark's table is necessary because a properly redesigned CRT, that is to say, one that inflicts more casualties on the attacker, will have much the same net effect.

I don't entirely agree with John Astell's column in TEM #40 on the accuracy of A-X results. The problem with AR, AH, and AE results is that I cannot find examples of their occurrence, with the possible exception of the Soviet counterattacks during the opening phases of BARBAROSSA. Counterattacks of the type mentioned by John occur at the tactical, intra-hex level as the defender retakes terrain initially lost to the attacker. I remain unpersuaded that an attacker would fall back some 15-20 km. Show me where and when it happened and I'll believe.

I'm also not fond of the AS result. Oh, attacks were certainly rebuffed, but from my reading, the attacker usually suffered at least some type of losses. An example would be the losses suffered by the American units advancing on St. Lo. I'd prefer to see an AQ, attacker quartered, rather than AS.

If you haven't guessed already, I believe that the CRT is broken. The attacker suffers too few casualties while dealing death and destruction to the defender. This is particularly pernicious when combined with the easily obtained ZOC kill. The net result is that the attacker doesn't suffer enough, but is shorted on replacements in compensation. Unfortunately, the pummeled defender is shorted on replacements as well.

The historical record shows that the armies suffered enormous losses in combat, both in men and equipment. Europa simply doesn't show this. It's as if both the highs (the replacements) and the lows (the losses) have been trimmed. This would be acceptable if the razor was perfectly symmetrical, but it slices heavily in favor of the attacker.

I'm willing to bet that if the forces involved in a campaign scenario are compared with the published orders of battle of shorter scenarios, the attacker will be much stronger and the defender somewhat weaker than they were historically. This is true in my own experience when comparing the ending forces from a BARBAROSSA scenario to the starting forces listed for the 1942 scenario. This was true even without the excesses of both the historically overextended attacks of Operation TYPHOON and the Soviet winter counterattack!

What we have now in Europa sorta works, particularly over the short term where the Germans are attacking, which is probably why John believes that it ain't broke. But it breaks down in scenarios over 10 turns in length. I wholeheartedly agree with John's philosophy, but I think that in the loss and replacement systems are indeed broken.

I think that Charles Sharp and I have provided compelling evidence that a far higher proportion of losses returned to duty than the current twenty or twenty-five percent. But upping the special replacement rate to one-half only changes the nature of the problem rather than fixing it. Creating a balanced package deal is the key to addressing the issue.

The additional replacements must be balanced by additional losses for everything to work out properly. These should come from the attacker, as he currently gets everything his own way, barring the odd exchange or half-exchange. The CRT should be amended so that the attacker gets little for free, every gain should come at some price. Frankly I think that the A-X and AQ results are a good mechanism to accomplish this. But the addition of these new results does nothing to address the easily achieved ZOC kill.

The best cure for the ZOC kill is to allow most units to retreat onto their own troops much as German c/m units are currently allowed to do. See issue #28's "Second Front Progress Report" for more details.

Some of the CRT's problems lie in the fact that it is a linear 1D6 table with die roll modifications. They act to limit losses suffered by AECA-capable units: adverse results become almost impossible to roll except through the odd EX or HX. A bell-shaped 2D6 table with column shifts would allow for the possibility of substantial losses for all units except at extremely high odds. Anomalous combat results occurred in the Second World War and the current CRT doesn't allow for them. Granted the odds of losing some attacking troops isn't likely at 7:1, but the possibility should exist.

The table presented by Flavio Carrillo in Combined Arms #9 looks to be workable. But only playtesting will reveal if it is indeed so.

The final portion of this package is that the requirements to rebuild or replace a unit must be liberalized. The current system is somewhat ludicrous given the widely dispersed barracks and training grounds throughout Europe. When I was stationed in Germany I visited friends stationed in semi-renovated Wehrmacht barracks in towns that don't even qualify as point cities and I spent far more time at Wehrmacht training areas not shown on the map than I care to recall. I can't even find them on the Europa maps because I don't know where they are in relation to the cities that are on the map.

You should be able to replace units anywhere you like. This includes on the front lines, though there should be a price to be paid for doing so. That's what the Americans habitually did in Normandy and there was a real price in unit cohesion paid-the n8wbies sent to a line infantry unit were often dead before any veteran deigned to learn their names. That price might be an extra inf RP per unit or some such. At the very least, players should be able to rebuild or replace their units in point cities. C/m units would be an exception, and they shouldn't be allowed to replace in the front lines at all. Otherwise we'd never recreate 3rd Panzer Group's halt to reconstitute its armor during the late summer of 1941. Even then that task took six weeks or more, since they also needed to accumulate the necessary supplies for further operations.

In total, I would expect these suggested changes to increase casualties, particularly for the attacker, but this would be more than offset by the flood of special replacements. Trying to stem these would provide a good reason to pocket the enemy, thus reducing his spec reps. The constraints placed on replacing units really depends on how the rest of the game plays.

Armor Special Replacements Redux

I finally found that old issue of S&T that had the detailed figures for Soviet tank repair. It was in issue #83 from 15 years ago if anybody cares to read it for themselves.

The Soviets consistently managed to repair about 1.1 tanks per day per repair center. Not many were repaired early on, as few mobile repair shops existed and many of the fixed sites were overrun. For example, in late 1941 the Western Front had only 5 repair units assigned to it. Others were deployed at lower echelons, as 1st Guards Tank Brigade had its own Repair and Restoration Battalion, but these were very uncommon.

At Kursk 5th Guards Tank Army lost 420 tanks in 5 days and repaired 288 by the end of the month using its 14 repair shops. 2nd Tank Army lost some 171 tanks at the same battle and repaired 85 by the end of July. This seems to justify standardizing the special replacement rate at 50% for both infantry and armor.

Lest anyone fmd me less than clear in the previous column, I wish to emphasize that eliminated mechanized, panzergrenadier and motorized units do not generate armor spec reps, only infantry spec reps.

Artillery Special Replacements

It follows that artillery special replacements should be used for those nations that have a separate artillery replacement system, if only for consistency's sake. This is hardly the hobgoblin of little minds, as artillery losses are far higher in Europa than in real life. In my experience the main culprits are the player's desire to keep that infantry division intact by eliminating small change instead, or the sheer lack of small units to eliminate other than artillery.

In reality, artillery losses were minimal unless the gun emplacements were overrun or pocketed. Most losses to heavy guns occurred as the result of abandonment during retreats. Counterbattery fire injured the crews far more often than the guns themselves. They're made of solid steel, you know. Only certain parts such as the tires, sights and recuperator cylinders were vulnerable to shrapnel, and shrapnel was usually the only threat-direct hits were exceedingly rare (but powerful enough to turn the gun into scrap metal when they did occur).

Barring discovery of any detailed numbers, which probably don't exist, we might just as well use the 50% spec rep rate for artillery as well as everything else.

Everybody (and not just the Soviets) should use artillery RPs, but it's a real pain in the ass to convert the raw data to artillery RPs. The numbers and types of guns within newly-formed units must be deducted from the production totals. Even more daunting, production data for each model of gun is often not available. (Only this year did I fmd a comprehensive source for Germany. Now if it only broke down production by factory by month, I'd be in hog heaven.) Next, guns sent off-map must be deducted; this is a major problem for the Allies. Finally, weapons that go to create defenses not explicitly shown as counters must be deducted. This primarily applies to AA guns that reinforced static AA defenses. I know that nearly 3/4 of the German artillery production during the war was flak. Most of this was static. Out of 1675 Luftwaffe batteries of 88mm flak, on 1 Sep 44 only 229 were motorized or self-propelled. A motorized Luftwaffe flak regiment only had 24x 88s, as well as lots of 20mm guns.

A related aspect is that rocket and mortar units should be much cheaper to replace than tube artillery units, as they were far less expensive or difficult to manufacture. I would suggest that the replacement cost of these units be reduced to either the defensive strength or 1/2 the attack strength, whichever is cheaper.

The 1 artillery RE per month replacement limitation for the Germans in SE is an attempt to reflect this disparity, but is only approximately correct. The introduction of artillery RPs for the Germans would require its abolition.

An additional reason to introduce artillery RPs for all combatants is that a nation's infantry RP rate is based on its population: 1 RP per 5 million citizens. That's all well and good, but the Soviets get a number of artillery RPs in addition. Every other nation must purchase artillery using their infantry RPs. Lest it be argued that this merely reflects the more thorough mobilization of the Soviet state, I'll point out that this is adequately shown by the arrival of infantry RPs every single turn for a year and a half, unlike any other country in Europa. The British manpower shortage would not have been much of a limitation in replacing an eliminated artillery division group, unlike the existing situation in Second Front. Artillery RPs would cure such anomalies and is thus worthwhile, even with major difficulties in research.

Anti-Aircraft Command 1941-1945?

I want to commend Alan Philson on his article on the British Anti-Aircraft Command 1939-1940. This is OB research at its finest. I must congratulate him on his use of primary sources, as they are usually the hardest to access. All too much Europa research is based on secondary sources of variable reliability. I hope to see further articles covering the rest of the war.

I most especially would like to see material covering the defenses of Malta and Egypt. I'm curious if my belief is correct that most of the AA therein should be considered static. Are you up for it, Alan?

The Secret History of Hitler's Bodyguard

Reading the history of Leibstandarte has revealed several changes that need to be incorporated into the SE revision.

The first is that the division should be motorized rather than panzergrenadier. It was originally rated as such because a battalion of AFVs was added after the Balkan campaign. It was originally thought that Abteilung Schonberger was a full Sturmgeschutz battalion, but the unit history states that it consisted of one battery (6 assault guns) of StuGs and a selfpropelled company of 9 Jagdpanzer Is. This isn't enough to justify the panzergrenadier status or the strength increase. Use the 6-10 Motorized Division Group counter from Balkan Front as a substitute.

Another dirty little secret is that LSSAH didn't enter combat until July 2nd, near Luck. It is shown as initially available because its HQ was forward deployed to eastern Poland while the bulk of the unit was back in Brunn, in the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia. It was assigned to Panzer Group 1 and that seemed prima facie evidence that it participated in the initial attacks when FitE was being researched. But the proper thing to do is to delete LSSAH from the Panzer Group and add it to the July I reinforcements.

Shore Bombardment in the Med

I agree with Frank Watson that the Inshore Squadron needs to be represented, but I'd severely limit its presence. The RN simply wasn't available every turn; it had too much else on its plate. The naval correlation of forces in the Med was far too narrow to risk the loss of any sizable ships.

The loss of HMS Terror foreshadowed the results of naval operations within enemy air cover. Consequently, the RN was extremely reluctant to do so unless the benefits outweighed the risks. And frankly, naval gunfire support wasn't worth the risks. When they did bombard the shore, ports were the usual targets.

Offhand, I can only recall two real incidents of ground support in North Africa. The first was the bombardment of the Italian camps and Fort Capuzzo during Operation COMPASS. The other was during Operation EXPORTER, where a couple of cruisers and some destroyers provided intermittent gunfire support between duels with French super-destroyers. I would be inclined to rate this gunfire support as only worth a point. A quick perusal of both the British and Australian official histories reveals very little mention of naval gunfire support, so it couldn't have been worth very much.

For use in War in the Desert, I would advocate a system similar to that of Second Front. Leaving aside, for the moment, the concept for an overall naval system for WitD, the amount of gunfire support should not be a fixed constant, available each and every turn. Even aside from the highly episodic nature of the desert campaign, the RN had many other missions to perform than supporting ground troops. The Allied player should only get a couple of turns per year of NGS and it should probably be no more than a point or two. Bombarding Tobruk or Bardia at night really doesn't compare to standing off the Normandy beaches for weeks on end.

My observers seem satisfied that the available targets have been suppressed, aside from some ninny who persists in calling in reports of train-type noises to his front, but until he gives me something more substantial than noise, I'm gonna ignore him. The opposition doesn't seem to have registered this location, so I'll let the gun crews catch some Zs while I go remind the cooks that there's no such thing as sugar-free bug juice, at least not in my battalion.

Jason Long has been a wargamer since 1977, when a friend introduced him to SPI's War of the Rings, and he's been playing Europa since 1983. Jason spent four years in the Army as an armored cavalryman on M-3 Bradleys. He was stationed in former Luftwaffe barracks in hex 16A:3331 while assigned to the scout platoon of the 1/64 Armor, the descendant of the 758th Light Tank Battalion (1-10), for 2 years. He then transferred to Ft. Hood, Texas, former home of the Tank Destroyer Corps, where he was with 2nd Squadron, 1 Cavalry Regiment, then part of 1st Armored Division.

Jason is an irregular attendee at the University of Chicago, where he's intermittently working on a BA in political science.