The British

On the North German Plain, the fighting had eased  just slightly. Constant, fierce, and near suicidal night attacks by NATO strike aircraft have destroyed all the major bridges spanning the Elbe River, and are wreaking havoc with the exhausted Warsaw Pact bridging units trying to maintain crossing sites. Pact troops and supplies have been seriously hampered getting forward into the line. SACEUR could not consider the situation anything like contained, but the pressure was certainly lessened. However, things were not going well at all south in "The Gap." SACEUR knew that all the sacrifice in the north would be for nought if Pact forces managed a breakthrough and the flank was exposed. A British taskforce, known simply as "Rover," and based around the 4th Armoured Brigade, was hastily formed and sent south to reinforce the West German III Korps. After a  difficult journey under cover of darkness over several nights, "Rover" pulls into the line northeast of Siegen. Mission: prevent Pact forces from bypassing Siegen-Kreuztal to the north, and breaking through the Rothaar Gebirge into the relatively open terrain around Bonn. As tired British troopers prepare their defenses, a fresh Soviet "Class B" division is rapidly approaching, with an Operational Maneuver Group less than an hour behind, waiting for a hole to be punched through... (16 turns, size small, Explicit Supply possible. Play as Warsaw Pact vs AI or H2H).

The .zip file "FG85Brits" contains the following:

- New OOB adding British "Roverforce" to West German III Korps. Adds Russian "117th MRD" to 3rd Shock Army. 117th MRD is a "Class B" division with all T-62 MBT and BTR-70 APC's.
- New British unit pictures with matching unit.dat file. Includes Chieftain MBT, Swingfire AT, Rapier SAM, Scorpion Recce, Striker, Lynx AH, Gazelle OH, more, plus spares to expand OOB later if desired. Also new British unitbox with flag and new 2D unit graphics map symbol display. Russian unit picture of SA-9 Gaskin SAM included, plus updated unit .dat file (replaces ZSU-57 in 117th MRD).
- New scenario "The British" with new map file.

Note: This package ties in with the  black and white photo art upgrade available at www.theblitz.org under the "Downloads" section. Go from there to "Mods" and from there to "Panzer Campaigns." Look for "FG85_NATO.zip" and "FG85_WARPAC.zip." It isn't necessary to do this to play the new scenario, things will just look more uniform.

Unzip FG85Brits.zip into your main Fulda Gap folder, making sure that "Use folder names" is selected in the Extract menu. The same holds true for FG85_NATO.zip and FG85_WARPAC.zip, should you decide to use them.

Scenario notes:

This is my first try at using all the editing tools included with the PzC/MC series. I found trying to get a mid-80's OOB for even a part of the BAOR (British Army of the Rhine)difficult with the few resources I had, so I just kind of winged it in the end. Thankfully, FG85 is hypothetical to begin with...The equipment values I'm sure may not please everybody- but these can be changed easily enough in the OOB editor to suit. I included the Rapier and Gaskin so I could experiment with AA values. In game terms, there isn't much difference between the SA-9 and the ZSU-57, but Rapier has a four hex range, so those pesky AI helo units that like to "park" next to one of your units and refuse to budge could be in trouble...The symbology I chose for these two units isn't exactly right either, but will allow the player to pick them out of the crowd more easily. I played the scenario through several times, and I think I managed to get the NATO AI to do reasonably well, but as with nearly all the scenarios in the series, head-to-head is the way to go.

If you see anything that I may have really cocked up, please let me know at KMP@telus.net, and I will fix it up.

Kevin "Hub" Peltz
