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RE: cow-toaw 3 Fire in The East
Cav Corps,
For all the changes (I think) since COW, see the whatsnew.pdf file posted by Fulcrum on 9-26 at 10:19am, in the thread "New Patch!!!" on this page. Read from the bottom, for the full history of changes.
I'm a great fan of TOAW/COW, but honestly, if you didn't like COW, you might still not like TOAW III. Basically, how effective armor is in a particular scenario is highly dependent on the scenario designer, and it is still possible for it to be slow-moving, and have trouble slipping through the lines to execute wide-ranging envelopments and encirclements. Part of this is because the ZOC's are rather sticky, so you really need to hammer down the opposition, sometimes on a three-hex-wide front, to really create a "break" in the line. Of course such "breaks" were hard to produce historically, although it was possible, if conditions were right.
By putting sufficient transport assets into his units, a designer can make a scenario much less sticky. One I'm playing now, Holland-A Bridge Too Far- 1944 (NOT the original Market Garden scenario included with COW) is very fluid. Braunschweig by Dan McBride is also quite fluid except for the area immediately around Stalingrad. One key factor is that the designer used the proper map scale, and didn't have so many units pressed together, that a breakthrough is precluded. He also judicially uses shock effect, to allow breakthroughs at certain times, simulating surprise and similar factors.
In another scenario I'm playing, Campaign in North Africa, I (as Rommel) just broke through an extremely heavily defended portion of the line, but only created a two-hex-wide breakthrough, so the best I could do was push a panzer regiment through for three hexes (15 km) to occupy Mersa Matruh, supported by some back-up units in the corridor to keep it (hopefully!) from being cut off. But consider the history of the North Africa Campaign: there weren't many free-ranging, long-distance, major breakthroughs; Rommel's "race to the wire", for example, was notoriously ineffective. His great victory at Gazala was a relatively short-distance envelopment. Some of the Crusader scenarios seem to replicate very well, the reality of mobile warfare in the desert.
You'll find armor in TOAW is also extremely hard to destroy, especially if it's dug in. And it is pretty much impervious to arty and early-war infantry without HEAT AT weapons.
Finally, remember that the Blitzkrieg phenomenon (and later-war iterations, such as the short race of the Allies across France, and the collapse of Army Group Center) were isolated events (except in the broad wastelands of North Africa, and the steppes of Russia in the eary days of Barbarossa), and involved much more than tanks racing through opposing lines. Large masses of infantry, arty, air support, etc., were involved. Scenarios which try to be very "balanced" are unlikely to permit either side such a breakthrough.
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