Several Moscow 42 Questions

[76mm]

Now that we're talking about the weather, I have a bigger complaint... After reading the designer notes and playing 34 turns into the Grand Campaign, I'm not sure if I agree that the weather is being modeled properly in Moscow 42.

For instance, I noted that some of my units which had crossed (unnoticed) rivers during Frozen turns were suddenly Isolated when the weather turned from Frozen to Snowy, which apparently caused the rivers to instantly thaw, leaving my poor comrades unsupplied.

This result does not make sense to me--the rivers were frozen, and would hardly thaw during a single day of "warm" weather ("warm" is applied loosely because according to the weather data provided in the designer notes, the temperature did not rise above zero degrees Celsius during the entire period of the Grand Campaign and was generally much lower).

From the Designer notes, it seems that the designers took the temperature as the basis for ground conditions. Here is a quote: "Ground conditions were predicated off the temperature. There was 100% chance of frozen if
the daily temperature was -20 deg C or more. For every percentage point to 0 deg C there was 5% chance of snow. For example at -10 deg C there would 50% chance of snow. If the temperature was -6% deg C or less then there was 5% chance of mud and if less than -2% deg C, 10% chance."

Maybe I am misunderstanding something, but this approach seems fundamentally flawed to me for the following reasons:
1) Ground conditions, and rivers, should be frozen throughout the campaign; a rise from -20 to -10 or -5 does not mean that rivers should thaw.
2) The formula described above seems to confuse atmospheric conditions with ground conditions: as the temperature rises, snowfall becomes more likely, but this does not mean that there should be a 50% chance that rivers will thaw if the temperature increases to -10, for instance.
3) The game engine does not directly model snowfall or any other form of precipitation (which is another issue...)--it only models ground conditions (with associated temperatures) and visibility. Therefore, to replicate snowfall in an already frozen environment, it seems to me like you should simply decrease visibility while leaving ground conditions as Frozen.
4) Visibility under some presumed precipitation conditions also seems overstated. (2 for blizzard, 3 for snow). I suggest that visibility should be reduced to 1 for blizzard and 2 for snow. Also, why is a blizzard treated differently from a Storm, I thought a Storm was a blizzard?

Again, maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like the game engine generally treats weather in a very crude manner, and the current weather modelling in M42 doesn't accurately reflect how the game handles weather.