Forum-improving lively topic #KKR1/10

[Larry Reese]

TRUCKS. Just the ordinary old truck, not the vast plethora of exotic types, covered or otherwise, clogging up the OOBs.
Can anyone explain the following:
1. Standard desert terrain, no roads.
British truck travels 7 hexes
German truck 6 hexes
Italian truck 4 hexes
This makes no sense to me, having owned in the last half century at least one vehicle from each of the above nations.

2. This is not new, but regularly goes unanswered......Why are trucks now 3VPs? Having done some infantry courses during my long time in the Navy, no one values the amenity of a deuce-and-a-half ride more than I. I just have trouble with the value...... 2, fine, but 3???
If nothing else, surely such a huge change renders the balance stats of the great stock of truck-containing old scens very suspect, even noting that truck carrying capacity has been doubled.

BTW, if any of my current foes reads this, I will try hard to get back to you ASAP, perambulations having finished for a while, I hope.

I"ve been disappointed with some similar disparities between off-road movements of various nations half-tracks too. However, from a truck perspective, I think you would have to hope that the disparity resulted from an averaging of national truck types (if the Italian fleet had predominantly civil-models, their cross country values would be less than another force that had historically mostly purpose built high mobility four by fours - look at the ridiculously poor reliability and mobility of the German truck fleet in Russia as an example - the impressed civvy French and German vehicles didn't have the mobility or the robustness to serve in the theater and the catastrophic loss rates were severely felt). We could also add in modifications for national doctrines, fuel availability, maximum usable top speeds, etc.... Of course, not having access to the minds of the people who actually put the figures together way back when, this would all be guess work.

As for VPs, I'm all for it being three, particularly for nations, like the Axis, that did not have vast fleets of trucks waiting in the wings. When you lost those, you didn't get them back. You walked, and abandoned your heavy equipment from there on out. Trucks should equal gold for those nations. Now, the US, for example, I can see trucks being of less intrinsic value individually since literally millions were available and losses were made good, historically, in most cases in a matter of days. It's unfortunate, in my opinion, that the original valuation took such a narrow, tactical "today's battle only" view to things. How the battle contributes, or detracts, from your side's ability to win the campaign and the war is the critical piece. But I've always been one for the larger picture and I'll get off my soap box and spare you!

LR