captain18
Posts: 31
Joined: 6/10/2010 Status: offline
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23% of Lend Lease arrived via Murmansk. Despite one particular Kriegsmarine interdiction the stats show 97% of sipments to Murmansk arrived. Most of this material found deployment immediately primarily in the Leningrad Front, with some also to Moscow and aother fronts. 27% of Lend Leas came via the very long Persian route which wasn't opened until mid 1942. The majority of this material was employed on the Caucasian Front. 50% of Lend Lease came via the Pacific Route, however this had major drawbacks. Besides being so far away, the Japan-USSR neutraliy treaty meant that only non-war material could come via this route and it had to be transported by Soviet ships. This route wasn't opened unti AUG1941. So in summary approx a quarter of badly needed war material arrived at the critical time and at the critical locations dircetly from Murmansk. Especially 1941/42 Murmansk was essentially it, hardly insignificant! Added to this that critical lifeline was dependent on a single rail line running the length of Axis allied Finland. Further more the historical reality is both sides "did" commit signficant resources to those fronts for that very reason. Now no-one is debating that in compariason to the major eastern fronts the military allocations were less. Of course they were, but then so was every other European front in comparison to the "main" Russian Fronts. To a great degree that is an irrelevant viewpoint. A "definitive" game is one that covers all aspects of the chosen simulation. GDW recognised this with Europa and included Finland without the bat of an eyelid (and Archangelsk for that matter). The Urals expansion was optional (or chrome if you prefer). There is little doubt Fire In the East/Scorced Earth/The Urals were the difinitive east front boardgames and rightful heirs to Drang Nach Osten. In the computer world WIE is perportly the heir of those cardboard predecessors in terms of being "definitive", and I for one wholly support that as it is an excellent production, except for the above mentioned caveats. Jedkos (later AHs) "Russian Campaign" chopped off Finland in almost the same place as WIE but then no-one would consider "Russian Campaign" a series "definitive simulation. Gary Grisby has a reputation for producing games to satisfy grognards and be historically accurate. WIE without Karelia/Murmansk obviously cannot fit in that category. When I first purchased the game the first thing I did was scroll over the map, the absence of Murmansk stood out like a sore thumb and I immediately regretted the purchase. This was somewhat alleviated by the rest of the game being up to Gary Grisby's usual standard :-) Now grognards are a resaonable lot (we have been around to see many editions, companies, productions over the years), and to this end we accept the production teams rationale for not including the arctic in the original game. Now given we have assurances that the ommission is to be corrected in the next edition, we all just have to wait and see before purchasing. But it just seems a shame on such an otherwise worthy successor to the East Front crown. Whilst we wait it may be time to jump across to Gary Grisby's WITP and play that. (please tell me Australia is on the map ;-)
< Message edited by captain1 -- 9/17/2012 2:37:48 AM >
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