Some thoughts that you can say are bad ideas!

[Mike Bowen]

Had man flu so been bored (only so much day time TV I can watch without wanting to slit my wrists) anyway thought I would mention the following thoughts which might be worth HPS looking at depending on how you all tink.

1 Helicopters I know its boring but I am playing NGP with a view to southern front arriving on my door mat Royal Mail permitting at the weekend (pure speculation on my part) and I have tried only allowing helicopters to work within the command range of an HQ. This works quite well I am finding does anyone think this is a good idea and if so could it be done (I in my simple way assume its possible as command ranges are used for many things including artillery spotting)

Does anyone have any real life experience as to the sort of ranges that helicopters would be expected to work behind the lines and or from HQs.

2 Would it be useful to have the ability to have the command range and the movement range highlighted at the same time or indeed ant two shadings. Some other games can do this and it would help with helo movement setting artillery up in range etc. If one range was an outline and the other shaded that might work.

3 I am not sure this exists or not but when setting up wired hexes can you see what ones have been set up already and if not could it be done so you can.

4 Could the modifier that applies to bridging by battalions apply to mineclearance and could that become odds based please. I find it odd that size does not matter I had a 2 man company of Australians clearing mines whilst at 250 plus fatigue for days at El Alamein behind the lines of course but they were still very useful and I would suggest shows that something ought to be done.

5 Could the strength of units passing through a hex be tallied and then have a MP penalty applied. Its difficult to explain but say you have a Div stacked on a road max stacking. Then there is a wood the road passes through and then a bit of clear the otherside. What you do is unstack and move and restack the otherside. What happens in real life is the lead unit goes as far as it can in the given period of time or it may stop but the last one to move is not going to make it because the rest took longer to cross therough the wood in T mode. That is not my best attempt at explaining the point but I think you can see what I mean.

6 Scenario descriptions could there be an alternative description I like often to play the scenario blind in taht I do not look at the scenario prior to play from the otherside of the hill perhaps I should. I am playing a Minsk game where the Russians appear way behind the German flanks on the north side of the map. Now there is not much I could or would have done but it was a bit of a shock. If there was an alternative description that said eg the line to your north has been ruptured and you can expect eenemy armoured units to threaten your flank that would have been useful but not given the game away by looking at the othersides reinforcements etc. It may be my odd way of approaching the game. I suspect its a lot of work for not much benefit any one agree disagree etc?

7 Strategy options some one else mentioned this and I am sorry I forget who but it seems wrong that you can delay your para drop or whatever. Is there a way that if the reinforcements that arrive are not placed they are lost? In return you should have the ability to delay the choosing of the option.

For example on turn 10 you get to choose an option of a para drop but you do not think any choice is well advanced yet. At the moment you can choose one and then delay till game turn 9999 the units. What would I think be better is if the choice was offered each day or turn and the reinforcements had to either be used X turns later or lost. so if it takes 20 turns to arrange the drop then if you delay the options acceptance on turn 10 next day (turn 20) you accept it the paras arrive turn 40 and MUST be used or lost.

That I think is the way an operation like that would be planned/put into effect but I have no knowledge to back that up. If thats right can it be done?

Mike