I am the “other designer” for this working group on the Alternate Version with Bud T. Thanks for the many questions and comments on this board that help us develop these rules. I think the Global AA map is an excellent start. The alterations we have suggested are key: terrain, a few spaces added in land areas, and some adjustment of sea spaces. We have altered the movements of ships for combat vs. non-combat movement to address realistic timeframes.
One area of concern for us is this: can planes and ships during a month complete a strategic mission AND a tactical mission on the player’s turn? In other words is there evidence that a bomber group based in England did strategic bombing raids and then perhaps went on a sub-hunting tactical mission in the SAME month? Right now we have gone back and forth with having a strategic mission OR a tactical mission but not both. We tried having both and it was not a great example because in our current test two of the countries have heavy bombers which were very advantageous to use in both a strategic and tactical manner.
It is hard to determine the size of a “bomber plane” on the AA board. We perhaps consider the plane to be approximately 500-1000 planes depending on quality, pilots, types, etc. If any of you find some historical examples, let us know.
Game set-up is a huge issue for us right now. The problem is that the game will never completely recreate World War 2 as it was. The idea of “Blitzkrieg” is very suspect in 1939 and even in France and Russia in 1940-41. German armor was of poor quality in the beginning of the war. It is hard to translate this into “tank” pieces on a board. Russia had 19000 armored vehicles in 1939. But in game terms this is not 19 tanks or even 10 tanks. The T-26 was not a great tank nor was the BT5 or even the KV1. The T28 was better but was slow. But German armor was not that good either. PZI’s and II’s and even III’s were not that effective. The Czech armor was better. But a “tank” on the board has a number of factors we are considering: number, tank design, mobility, range, skill of crew including leadership, communications, logistics, and especially tactics. In the beginning of the war in 1941 the Soviets fielded large numbers of tanks but lacked critical areas. So did the French (like not having radios in their tanks). German tactics and training and especially leadership (who can compete with Heinz Guderian?) were a large factor in Wehrmacht success.
During the Winter War with Finland, it took the Soviets at least 4 months (4 turns) to really take the small area east of Helsinki and maybe a northern part. They had 600,000 casualties. The Finns about 65,000. Recreating this in game terms but unit placement in the beginning of the game is one of our greatest challenges.
There are peculiar aspects as to actually what happened in the War that may be just lucky instances that are hard to recreate in the game. Almost 2.5 million Soviets surrendered in 1941. This is almost as many men as the US put in Europe in the entire war (combatant and non-combatant).
One other thing: what do you guys think of this? Mobile artillery gives infantry OR tanks +1 on offense? Tanks attack on 4. Too much?