From: mjunkin@turing.toronto.edu (Mike Junkin)
Newsgroups: rec.games.board
Subject: Re: The Longest Day (again)
Date: 31 Jul 92 02:44:37 GMT
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto

> There is a mechanised movement phase in the game, it just happens during the
> opponent's turn. Historicly there were no breakthroughs until the germans
> were 'ground into dust' in front of the units that made the breakout. You
> make your breakthroughs in this game by using the defensive fire on a weak
> screen in front of you and then moving through the hole in your movement
> phase. Units have no ZOC except in very specific terrain. Defensive fire
> comes after your mech move phase before opponent's combat phase.

Yes, there is a mechanized movement phase as you say but it occurs *between*
the opponent's movement and combat phases. Thus, it is most useful for the
defender (i.e. German player) to react to enemy attacks by moving mechanized
units into the about-to-be-attacked hexes. The mere fact that this movement
is automatic heavily biases the game to the defender, who can pick and choose
where to make his line strong with complete foreknowledge of where the attacks
are going to come.
   The idea of using artillery to create holes in the enemy line is a bit 
artificial, don't you think? And, how often have you managed to do it in the
game?

> >I can't comment on the game's supply mechanics, since I don't know them, but
> >I do know that the Allied commanders insisted on having HUGE amounts of
> >supply before they'd get off their butts at all.
>
> Especially Montgomery.

This isn't the point. Yes, the supply requirements of the Allies were about
three times that of the Germans (a very lean organization, the Wehrmacht),
but the real issue here is that the game does not allow one to build up 
supplies past a certain point. The Allies can in theory not attack from the 
middle of June to the middle of July and there will be a point at which there
will be no more supply 'units' to bring in. This is plainly wrong, and very
much a blatant machination of the game designer.

> >I'm not really sure just how many truly mechanized units the Allies had in
> >France at the time, but I don't think there were that many.  There probably
> >SHOULD be something like a mech movement phase for the units that were
> >mechanized, but then consider that vehicles had particular difficulties in
> >many areas due to the terrain (hedgerows, swamps, etc.).
> 
> Almost all the infantry was truck borne for transport and fought dismounted.
> Only a very few tanks swam ashore with the initial waves.

The Western Allied army was the most highly motorized army the world had ever
seen. True, the infantry got out of their trucks to fight, but they went 
everywhere else in them, including following the armoured divisions through 
breakthoughs. By Cobra (July 25), there were ten Allied armoured divisions in
the bridgehead (Hmmm... Guards, 7th, 11th British, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th,
9th and 10th American). A tremendous concentration of force, which, according
to the game, would sit around after breaking through a portion of the line
while the Germans brought up their foot-borne reserves to plug the gap...
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