The Flashing Sword of Retribution - Kharkov 43

[Marquo]

Congratulations on the official release of K 43; it is great that this extraordinary campaign now finally has been officially published and is for sale. One evening 8 years ago I was staring at the K'42 map and an idea started to germinate: Von Manstein's Backhand Blow. With much help and encouragement from Glenn Saunders, Ricky Bancroft, VM and even a bit of encouragement from the Man himself (JT), I set out to make my first mod. Seven years ago I posted FSR (The Flashing Sword of Retribution), and after receiving input and suggestions, it was revised and FSR Gold was posted a shortime thereafter. Further Ricky B posted his great mod - obviously there is interest in this campaign.

I read and took copious notes from Glanz (From the Don to the Dnepr - great maps and OOB info), When Titans Clashed, Nipes "Last Victory in Russia (phenomenal info OOBs, numbers of tanks/unit, chronology of the fight); Nafzinger, Feldgrau etc. Once I had a true time line of the entire campaign and OOB down to the gun as best I could glean from all of these sources, the next phase began.

Since the action was in 1943, the older stock OOBs did not have the units or values needed. I went to the Campaign Series and TOAW playbooks to assign relative values to the newly crrated units. I was given permission to import B'44 artwork into the FSR OOB, and VM taught me how to make art for the units which were not in the B'44 OOB.

During playtesting it became evident that the units were moving too quickly, so Glenn taught me how to adjust the PDT values and sure enough, the units slowed down just right. Something was missing - the weather file needed to be adjusted from the stock file. I reread Nipes and Glanz, and took notes about the weather, and looked up various sources on the internet about weather in Russia in 1943; Glenn then guided me through the process of constructing an historical weather file which will cause the rivers to freeze, and atrocious mud to arrive in February/March.

I struggled over minute details such command radius; Popov's command was the first Soviet tank units to use radio for communication and this had to be modded. Popov's drive failed because he outran his supplies; there are accounts of his tankers leaving stranded tanks and walking back in long lines. The supply values decrease over time to reflect that the entire Soviet operation was jsut at the very end of their supply teather. Also, there are accounts of Soviets overruning Axis supply depots and this had to be modded.

Another major issue: this campaign was the last time the Luftwaffe ruled the air over Russia, and it played a major role in defeating the Soviets. The Luftwaffe was able to effectively plug large gaps in the Axis lines and also decimated scores of Soviet tanks; FSR models this well.

One thing that has always bothered me about the stock mods and campaigns is that invariably the entire map can be covered with units present, and the edge of the map is overly important as it protects flanks from being turned. FSR is much different: the map is much larger than the units can possibly cover, and therefore the game has much more suspense given the large holes in the lines and the need to cover the flanks and use reconnaissance. It is akin to large ships bumping into each other on a foggy ocean.

The main handicap of my mod is the lack of a few bands of hexes to the north and south of the map, so I had to improvise a bit as explained in the notes; this shortfall has apparently been remedied in the new official iteration.

All in all I am eager to see the expert version of this great campaign.

Marquo