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governato -> For your consideration: Europe44 v6.1 (5/13/2021 2:05:26 PM)
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The Europe 1944 scenario is now available for TOAW4, playable both against the PO and a human opponent via PBEM. The latest version of the scenario and scenario description will always be available here, on the first post of this thread. This is an updated version of the one originally designed for TOAW3. Please feel free to ask questions, share comments and send "end of turn' files as they are very useful for testing.
HERE IS THE PDF FILE WITH GAME DESCRIPTION
HERE IS THE SCENARIO FILE
Map scale: 32 Km
Turn: 1 Week
Start Date: June 22nd, 1944
Scenario length: 46 turns from June 22nd to early May 1945. Additional 14 turns if the “Long Game” option is activated ( if the Allies fail to occupy the Ruhr region by April 1945).
Units scale: Mostly Corps, with additional Armored divisions and Heavy Panzers Battalions.
How to install: just place all files (pdf, scenario and image file) in the Scenarios subfolder of your choice. The pdf file contains a detailed description of of the scenario.
This scenario does NOT use a special eqp file.
(last update to v6.1 May 12th 2021 )
Historical Notes: June 44 marked a turning point for the War in the European Theater. The opening of the long awaited second front and the start of the Operation Bagration on June 22nd (3rd anniversary of the Axis attack to the Soviet Union) spelled the beginning of the end for the short lived Thousand Years Reich. About 10 million men, 20 thousand planes and tanks would fight over an area that spans from Italy to the North of Finland and from Normandy to Romania. The fight lasted almost another year with the unconditional surrender of the Axis powers to the Allied forces after the disastrous defeats in Russia and Normandy, but also after several failed Allies offensives that had the potential to end the war well before the Winter of 1944. The many operational choices available to the players makes this historical campaign an almost ideal scenario for The Operational Art of War. What if the Western Allies had focused on the Italy campaign rather than invading southern France? What if they had landed in Greece, or the Balkans? What if Hitler had ordered an earlier retreat
from Norway, Italy and the Balkans, freeing almost half a million fresh and experienced troops? What if the Ardennes Offensive had been only a limited (and far less costly) operation aimed at regaining the line of the Siegfried Wall? What if the Luftwaffe had tried a decisive operation to cripple Allied air forces based in Europe? As a last and very hypothetical scenario possibility what if Germany had started mass production of the revolutionary tanks, jet fighters and electric U-boats in time to stall the Allies before the conquest of Berlin and the Industrial Rhine/Ruhr region?
The emphasis of this scenario is on playability and operational choices rather than on details at the tactical level. The number of units has been kept to a relatively small number for a scenario of this size (about 500 per side). Individual Armored divisions and heavy SS tank battalions have been maintained as separate units. This version of Europe44 includes several of the design improvements made possible by the upgrade to TOAW4 and takes advantage of the flexibility allowed by support squads to model the flow of supplies to
different theaters. It also models much better the crippling effects of Winter weather on supply and air operations (this was inspired by the game Great War in The East by Matrix, where weather plays a major role). The scenario has several Theater Options. Some are available for a limited amount of turns, most of them offer unique opportunities to the players, but often come with some downsides associated with diverting resources from one theater to another. For example Operation Anvil (the Allies landing in Southern France) permanently cuts
supplies to the Italian theater. Players are advised to read these short notes and still be ready for some surprises. A small number of house rules are recommended.
- support squads in HQs to regulate the flow of reinforcement to individual theaters. As an example if the Allies player choses to implement Market Garden the HQ of Patton's Third Army is replaced with a new one with 70% of its assigned support sqauds missing. This has the effect of cutting supplies *just* to the Third Army, effectively stopping its drive West until sufficient supply squads come in as replacements, which usually takes a few weeks.
- Instead of having a Red Army infantry replacement rate proportional to the guns and tanks output, manpower replacement rates for the Red Army are more realistically linked to its advance West. As certain key locations are conquered, then large cadre infantry units are disbanded, filling the infantry replacement pool. This also has the desirable effect of giving an incentive to the Axis player to defend Romania and Hungary, instead of rapidly withdrawing to the Reich.
These and other features are fairly transparent to the user and should make for
more realistic play.
This scenario takes advantages of a few features of TOAW4 that allow designers to better model changing supply rates not only in time, but in different areas of the scenario. Two key features are placing supply points on the map through events AND having an individual supply rate for each supply point. Here is a short description of what I did in 'Europe 1944', where the challenge was
handling how the US and UK armies brought supplies to the front.
- Modeling the supply network from the Normandy Beaches: I placed a 100% supply source on the coast. This supply point is NOT connected to the railway system, it will give strong supply rates only to the nearby hexes. Cherbourg is connected to the rail network and has a supply point (at a 25% level) which will then bring low level supply as far as the repaired rail network will extend. Use of the Rail Repair unit is crucial.
- Ports: Calais, Brest (with a probability check), Cherbourg and Antwerp are supply points connected to the rail network. The Allies will then receive more supply as they liberate them, with Antwerp the ultimate objective before crossing the Rhine. Allies supply will also improve with the capture of Danzig, which was a base for German submarines.
[image]local://upfiles/38323/D237C6CB05604A1D8A152C2C12DDBDC8.gif[/image]
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