The Competition & Teaser Thread

[ComradeP]

That Soviet airborne soldier holds a PPS 43, which wouldn't be impossible at Kursk (if it's a Kursk game), but I don't believe the weapon was common at the time as main production runs had only just started.

In War in the East, Soviet airborne units switch to predominantly SMG equipped organizations in late 1943, and were still fairly conventionally organized in 1943 with more or less standard Rifle squads (a leftover of their conversion from Guards Rifle formations I guess).

David, I'd say if a battle had clear phases that were distinct and not directly related/fought on the same terrain, people might be willing to pay for two titles if there's enough content.

To use Kharkov '43 as an example: maybe a Star/Gallop game and a German counterattack game. The problems with the Star/Gallop game would be that there wasn't a lot of fighting until the Soviets got close to Kharkov and Belgorod after the initial Axis frontlines were breached in the northern and central parts of the front (so after the Soviets break through, then what do you cover?) and that you'd need a very big main map on the Y axis to model the full initial Soviet offensive, but only a relatively small X axis to cover the interesting initial operations. If you'd split it up, there might not be enough content.

The German counterattack takes place in a more geographically confined area and would thus be more suitable for representation at this scale, although the map would still be huge.

There are not all that many battles that offer interesting scenarios where both sides can be the attacker in the same timeframe in a fairly small area (not larger than 100x100 kilometres). Kharkov (both 1942 and 1943), Smolensk, Stalingrad, Leningrad (though I'm not sure if a lot of fighting in forests and swamps will be enjoyable at a 250m scale), Moscow, Kursk, Kiev/Zhitomir or Zhitomir/Rovno (please? ), Korsun, greater Budapest area+parts of western Hungary, Debrecen (this could be interesting too, but I'm not sure if it would offer enough content as a standalone battle). Of course, these could be mostly covered in a single title, possibly two for Kharkov '43 and Hungary '44.

As there were no replacement portraits in the earlier screenshots for the divisional commanders of III Panzer Corps that were killed/left their command during Rumyantsev, I'm guessing the game will focus primarily on the German attack and Soviet response, if it's a Kursk game, but the Soviet response was so significant that it counts as a Soviet attacking phase I'd say.