Unit representations and timeline

There’s a discussion about unit representation currently going on over here:

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=38330.0

Many aspects of Global 1940 are “elastic” in one way or another, given that the game is meant to be a simplified and rather abstracted WWII-themed board game rather than a historically accurate simulation.  The unit representation, as already discussed, is elastic.  The geography of the map is elastic, in that the size and shape of different areas of the world are altered for various practical reasons.  And the timeline of the game is elastic.  For an example, see Larry’s own designer notes in the Europe 1940 game:

Larry starts by saying that Turn 1 is set in June 1940: “In June 1940, the British and other remnants of the Allied armies had just evacuated Dunkirk, leaving behind tons of equipment. I decided to begin the game at that moment.”  So that part is straightforward enough.

Larry then says “With the fall of France, the possibility of Operation Sea Lion—Germany’s plan to invade England—had to present itself. If it’s going to happen, it has to start on turn 2. The Brits can’t be given time to recover.”  In real life, from the point of view of meteorology alone, Sea Lion could technically have taken place either in the summer/fall of 1940 or the spring/summer of 1941 – so depending on whether you pick the earliest or the latest possible date, Turn 2 takes place anywhere from one month after Turn 1 to one year after Turn 1.

Larry then says, “Turn 3 was when Pearl Harbor would have to occur, but not before Operation Barbarossa—Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union. This would be especially true if Sea Lion was called off.”  Leaving aside the complicating factors of Barbarossa and Sea Lion which Larry mentions, and skipping over Turn 2 entirely, let’s just focus on Turn 3 being the turn in which Pearl Harbor was attacked.  In real life, Pearl Harbor was attacked in early December 1941, or 18 months after June 1940.  On that basis, Turn 1 in June 1940 and Turn 3 in December 1940 would mean that Turn 2, if it was halfway between Turn 1 and Turn 3, would be in March 1941; by that calculation, a turn represents 9 months rather than the 1 month or 12 months at which we arrive on the basis of the Turn 2 calculations mentioned previously.

The six-month duration you mention sounds reasonable as a rough framework for a turn length, if you’re looking to put an approximate time span on a turn, and it should do fine for that purpose as long as you keep in mind that it’s not a figure that corresponds rigidly or consistently to the actual course of the war.

Sean,

I don’t have an answer on the timeline stuff. That came up in my last game when we made it to 19 turns before the Axis surrendered. We joked that a young new Roman Catholic president was taking Washington by storm, the space race was just kicking into full gear, and a group of teenagers from the UK had become the hottest band on earth. We had assumed it was the early 60’s but with the 6 month per turn theory it would have only been 1949.

@low_roller:

That came up in my last game when we made it to 19 turns before the Axis surrendered. We joked that a young new Roman Catholic president was taking Washington by storm, the space race was just kicking into full gear, and a group of teenagers from the UK had become the hottest band on earth. We had assumed it was the early 60’s but with the 6 month per turn theory it would have only been 1949.

This 1960s time frame actually fits pretty well with the 25-year duration of WWII that was (incorrectly) projected by the 1936 movie Things to Come.  :-)

From the first time I played the MB Classic A&A back in 1989, I have tried to figure out exactly what a unit or a turn represent in the real war. My best answer so far is that the Designer is correct when he says A&A is supposed to be a balanced and playable game set in the age of WWII, and with abstract units and timeline. Bit since a real A&A player never quits, this is my take.

The timeline in Global 1940 is intriguing, it may look like the first Turn represent a year of political actions, the next is 8 months, then 6 months, 3 months and after 20 Turns I would say a Turn equal a week. So it start slow and speed up on the political part of the game.

When it comes to land combat, and land units operational level in campaigns, I figure a Turn in the European map is like 2, 3 or 4 months. That was the time it took to capture a territory that size in the real war. I would prefer a Turn to be 3 months, because then we can cut the year into winter, spring, summer and fall seasons, the 4 distinct campaign seasons that was in the real war. I would also take into consideration that Napoleons Army, that walked on feet, combat moved from Poland to Moscow in less than 3 months. That was faster than German Tanks and Blitzkrieg 100 years later.

But then we have the non combat move, which in A&A is total bedlam. A Tank dont need 6 months to drive a few miles in peacetime. Put the men on a train, and they will be anywhere on the map during a Turn. When the real Germans were a few miles away from Moscow, Stalin moved half a million men from Far East to Moscow on train and it only took some days. On the A&A map, if a Turn represent 8 or 6 months, the Russian infantry in Far East would need many years to drive to Moscow, its like turtles would outrun them.

Then we have naval movement, and this is funny. A US ship unit take two turns from US to UK, a trip that would take from 5 to 14 days in the real war depending what kind of ship it was. A Cruiser at 30 knops would use 5 days and a Tranny at 15 kops would use like 14 days, and a Submarine at 9 knops a few days more. Now, if the first Turn is like 8 months, then an A&A naval unit sailing from US to UK would still be at open sea in the middle of the Atlantic, its like a raft would sail faster. I read in the news some years ago about a madman that crossed the Atlantic in a bath tube, and he was still pretty much faster than an A&A naval unit. So basically its pretty obvious that so far the naval part of an A&A game is concerned, a Turn is like one week or less. Another fun fact about A&A is that bridging units from UK to Normandy takes as long time as sailing that unit from UK to Canada. In the real war, a Tranny would use like 4 hours to cross the channel and dump some men at the beach in Normandy. This same Tranny would use 14 days to cross the Atlantic. Obviously its something derogatory about the A&A OOB movement rules. But, try to fix it with house rules, and balance get offset and the game broken.

The A&A aircraft range is funny too. The A&A fighter can fly from UK, cross Axis Europe and sink Italian ships in the Med. All in one move and without refueling in the air. In the real war a fighter could barely cross the channel in one move. But a long range Bomber could cross the globe in a move, but in A&A it got slightly longer range than a fighter. I figure a Turn would be like one day when it comes to aircrafts.

@Narvik:

The timeline in Global 1940 is intriguing, it may look like the first Turn represent a year of political actions, the next is 8 months, then 6 months, 3 months and after 20 Turns I would say a Turn equal a week. So it start slow and speed up on the political part of the game.

In a way, it’s a bit like the process that’s used to convert dog years into people years.  Unlike the conversion of weights and measures, in which you always use the same formulas, dog year conversion gets done differently depending on whether the dog is young, mature or elderly, and to some extent depending on whether the dog is a large, medium or small sized breed.

It is intended to be an abstract game.  Such detailed, granular comparisons to the real war are not very apt to AxA.  Chit-based and 25mm type wargames tend to have more of the level of realism and verite that you are seeking.

@seancb:

We aren’t really seeking any realism. We used our imagination on this and simply like to say “It’s 1944, where’s D-Day?” and throw other such taunts as appropriate for the Axis or Allies. We’ll just continue with our 6 month system for simplicity. […] At the end of the day it doesn’t matter it just makes it fun for us to imagine where we are in the war.

One advantage of knowing what year of the war you’re in at any given time is that, if your game includes any house-ruled Otto Skorzeny-type German infiltrators wearing American uniforms, it will influence the answer to the identification question “Who won the World Series last year?”  :-D

Come to think of it, I think that a casting error (similar to the one in the original Guadalcanal printing) actually did once produce some “green German” infantry units, which are now prized by collectors.