This game was originally designed over half a decade ago by my good friend and comrade-in-arms, Joseph Miranda, using his well liked Balkans '41 system, which was published way back in the 20th. Since then, however, the component structure of S&T has evolved considerably. What 'fit' then, in terms of word-counts and page-counts, isn't a 'fit' now. That was why the decision was taken to redesign DoM to use the similarly well liked system from Drive on Stalingrad.
Concerning the air-system of DoM: this is an area of disagreement between JM and me. That is, my belief is, the air system of Balkans '41 is historically inaccurate in that it allows players too many clear-cut and well developed options for that stage of the war. It, in essence, presents a system that allows players, particularly the German, to regularly gain operationally significant results with tactical airpower. My belief is, that kind of thing - operationally significant results as an outcome of the application of tactical airpower - was really only achieved three times during WWII: Poland in 1939, Southeast Asia in 1942-45, and northwest Europe in 1944-45. Further, those operational successes were, I think, due to unique circumstances that prevailed in each of those cases.
In 1939 the Germans got such powerful results because the Poles, for political reasons, didn't begin their armed forces' mobilization until war was already upon them. Since that mobilization was inescapably tied to a handful of important and easily identifiable rail-junction cities, the Germans, by returning again and again to hit those places, were able to achieve the operational disruption of much of the mobilizing Polish army. They were in fact able to delay all of, and completely overturn parts of, that process.
In Southeast Asia, the overall topographic situation across that vast region at the start of the Pacific War could be summarized as an immense, under-developed, agricultural and semi-wilderness tied together by a few major, easily recognizable, transport arteries and large ports. That meant, despite the vast size of the overall theater of operations, tactical air forces of both sides could achieve operationally significant results by concentrating their efforts against its few transport arteries and nodal points.
In northwest Europe in 1944-45, the Allies got such good results, first, because they simply had such immense aerial resources to bring to bear against the Germans. Second, aerial technologies and doctrines had by then been improved to the point nighttime and bad-weather operations were no longer entirely ruled out.
In terms of what was lacking for tactical airpower early in the war in Europe - in order to dependably expand tactical airpower into operational airpower - what was needed was: nighttime and all-weather attack capability, air transport and supply doctrine, and corresponding amounts of equipment designed specifically for those kinds of operations.
The primary source that's most affected my understanding this aspect of World War II's air war is the transcribed, book-length debriefing of Luftwaffe Gen. A.D. 'Fritz' Morzik, head of that air force's transport arm during the war. His memoir of that aspect of the struggle runs to 417 pages, and was published by the USAF in 1968 through Arno Press, under the title: German Air Force Airlift Operations. (Interestingly, in World War I, Morzik flew as a combat pilot in the 'Pasha' squadron Germany sent to the Middle East theater.)
Morzik points out in his book that, contrary to popular wisdom, German air-transport and air-supply doctrine didn't simply arrive, full-blown, on 1 September 1939. At the start of the war the only troops the Germans believed would need that kind of thing were the relatively small numbers of paratroops, and perhaps the single army division of light 'air landing' troops. In particular, no one was imagining large numbers of regular German ground force troops would need to be supplied by air as they fought to survive behind the enemy front in large pockets. A further important upshot of that failure of imagination was the fact the only air-droppable supply canisters on hand were, again, small and light affairs intended only for use with paratroopers. German Paratroop doctrine, in turn, called for them to be quickly linked up with advancing ground forces - and hence their rapid reintegration into the regular supply net.
Thus, when 'air supply' was used during the portion of the war fought prior to the pocket-formation battles, which started taking place for the first time early in 1942, it was used to speed the forward movement of some critical type of commodity (for instance, gasoline being moved in 'Gerry Cans') along existing overland supply routes. It was not conducted as a logistical operation independent of the on-the-ground German supply system.
The need for large air-droppable supply canisters became apparent, at places like Kholm and Demyansk, only in 1942. The tube-like containers used by the paratrooper 'sticks' were then found to be inadequate. Not only were they too small to hold the kinds and quantities of supplies needed by trapped German conventional units, they were also too light to hold together against the stresses inherent in being air-dropped when crammed full of those other types of commodities. Thus Morzik had to pretty much start from scratch, overseeing the speedy design and initial production of a whole new set of supply canisters. (The fact he was able to do that in a matter of weeks, rather than months or even years, is remarkable.)
In pockets large enough to contain airfields there was also a problem in that the Germans trapped on the ground there, no matter how bad the tactical situation might become around the airfields, would inevitably report via radio that it was OK for the transports to come in and land. From those men's perspectives, of course, they were managing to survive in the terrible conditions of a pocket; so they certainly weren't going to let some flyboys get by with abandoning a supply mission because of a 'little enemy gunfire' over an airfield.
Morzik solved that problem by quickly instituting Luftwaffe logistics command liaison teams, who were air dropped (or landed on the airfield) into such pockets as soon as they were formed. Those teams were independent of the chain of command of the pocketed troops, reporting directly to Morzik; and they had the yes/no say-so on whether conditions actually allowed for landing Luftwaffe transports.
Morzik's changes and reforms worked so well that during 1944-45 it wasn't unusual for pocketed German troops to get better supply via the Luftwaffe than their comrades outside the pockets got through regular German Army logistical channels.
In the realm of operational combat results, as I mentioned above, the great weakness of most World War II tactical air forces was their almost universal and complete lack nighttime and bad-weather attack capability. The common north European weather feature of daytime low-cloud cover could often overturn one side's tactical air dominance above a fighting front. And it never took long for ground commanders on the losing side of the tactical airpower contest to realize it was time to put their units, in so far as operational maneuver was concerned, on the 'night shift'.
For all those reasons, then, I've come to view the original air system from Balkans '41 as what amounts to an 'alternative history' view of that component of the early-war fighting in Europe. I think it could be easily adapted to the widening powers and uses for tactical airpower for campaigns that began in 1942 and after, but it allows for a way-too-sophisticated use of airpower in campaigns prior to that time.
The traditional Soviet winter counteroffensive scenarios are also missing from DoM. The simple reason for that is, the map scale is wrong for that to be an interesting option. That is, at this map scale, the farthest penetration into the Germans' position, after three-and-a-half months of Soviet hammering (14 game turns), was nine hexes. In contrast, the Germans go about three times that distance in nine game turns.
My experience with that kind of thing was set in place decades ago when first playing the original AH Battle of the Bulge game. That is, both players would sit down to it while swearing they were both ready to fight it out to the bitter end. Of course, come 23 or 24 December, and it became clear the Germans weren't going to jump the Meuse, etc., that player would sigh and say something like: 'Say, I believe we can see where this is going. Why don't we put it away and get something else out to play that we can both enjoy?'
We used to call that kind of thing the 'Bulge Syndrome'. I sought to avoid it here. The idea in DoM is to make it be as accessible as possible in terms of a big game. That means one scenario - which works to focus everyone's play, most quickly generate AARs and strategy articles, etc., while also controlling playing time and overall rules length.
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