Date: Wed, 5 Oct 1994 00:46:26 -0500 From: Louis R. Coatney Subject: *Final* GEvsRB revisions! German Eagle vs. Russian Bear Addendum, with discussion. 4 Oct 94 by Lou Coatney IV. Victory Conditions: *Replace* the last sentence in IV., "However, for victory ...." with: In 1941 only, the instant the Axis Player takes Moscow for the first time in the game, *and* in his Victory Determination Phase of that *same* turn *if* he *controls* it, he can pick any 2 numbers on the die and roll for *immediate victory*. Neither chance ever comes again. VICTORY DETERMINATION TABLE: [Replace the one on the (Number of cities to win) appropriate charts and Year: \ Axis Soviet tables sheet.] 1941 (2+) 3 (8+) 1 1942 (2+) 5 6 1943 (2+) 3 7 1944 * (8+) 1* * = Axis win if Soviets cannot *DISCUSSION*: I changed the rule for 3 basic reasons: 1. Making Moscow worth 2 victory cities meant that Axis control of it means a virtually automatic Axis victory. I am not *that* sure a Soviet loss of Moscow *would* have meant certain Soviet defeat. 2. Tyrone Bomba's "Moscow Sudden Death Victory" rule -- in the game PROUD MONSTER, in COMMAND magazine, Issue 27 -- specifies an immediate 50% chance of German victory, the instant Moscow falls. Ty raises thereby raises a valid variable to consider: the momentary psychological impact of the loss of Moscow which *is* difficult to quantify/assess -- especially since Moscow never fell. I see the psychological effect of a fall of Moscow as being at 2 different planes, though, neither one of them having a 50% prospect of Axis victory. First, there is the less than likely possibility that Stalin (and therewith his entourage) would panick: "Stalin *Flees*!" Were Stalin & Co. no more than opportunistic criminals capable of cutting and running at the traumatic prospect of *them* being strung up? *Possibly*. The other plane is the will of the Soviet people(s) and their respect for/fear of Stalin's ability to coerce and lead. It is entirely possible that a Czarist or democratic Russia in 1941 would have lacked the steely Communist discipline and ruthlessness necessary to stop the Nazi Germans in 1941, as happened. So: If Stalin & Co. canNOT retake Moscow or at least surround/cut off the Germans therein -- thus my use of the word "control," requiring (in the GEvsRB game system) a supply/communications line to the Axis units still occupying Moscow -- the Soviet people and Red Army might (after drastic efforts presumably inspired by the NKVD, etc.) lose heart at that moment, too. The GEvsRB gameturn sequence -- putting a player's Victory Determination Phase at the *end* of his opponent's playerturn chance to retake a victory objective -- lends itself to this 2-phase "shock" opportunity. Statistically, each Axis Moscow-taken victory opportunity is only 33%. However, for the Soviet Player to survive *both* threats -- .66 x .66 -- his odds of survival are only 4/9s: *less* than 50%. Thus, the Soviets will be motivated not only to defend Moscow before its capture, but to react actively against its occupation. 3. By 1942, Stalin was phlegmatic enough -- in early December 1941, while the Wehrmacht was coming into sight of the Kremlin!, Stalin was entertaining Polish Generals Anders and Sikorski with bland allusions to "the missing Polish officers" being in "Manchuria" or somewhere -- not to panick upon the loss of *anything*. By then, also, the Soviet peoples knew what the Nazi Germans were like, and were (more) willing to fight to the death no matter how badly the war was going. VIII. Dispersal: A.2. *Replace* the second, "A dispersed defending unit loses *all* defensive advantages of terrain, ....", sentence in the first paragraph with: The combat results against dispersed units are read 2 columns higher (than against UNdispersed units) -- to the *right* -- on a Combat Results Table (CRT). Thus, using Index X on Table A, a die roll of "3" at 3:2 odds against a defending group of Soviet units would instead be read under the *3*:1 column (as a DE/Defender Eliminated result, instead of a DR/Defender Routed) for any already-dispersed Soviet unit in the group. *DISCUSSION*: It is just one heck of a lot easier to do it this way, than to individually determine which units do/do not get terrain advan- tages or get attacked on CRT A. (For those unfamiliar with GERMAN EAGLE VS. RUSSIAN BEAR, Combat Results Table A is what the Axis Player gets to use in Good weather and on good terrain. It simply/implicitly simulates the ground-supportive effect of the aerial component of "Blitzkrieg." *This* should finally end my (re-)design of GERMAN EAGLE VS. RUSSIAN BEAR: 7 years! ... not counting all the other Russian Front designs/designing that contributed to my little classic over the past 25 years! Lou Coatney mslrc@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu