NEW: Prokhorovka 5: The Historical Battle

[Crossroads]

Here's a comment from Alan regarding the Artillery situation, and how to depict Supply levels in a scenario of this size:

Although many think that the supply  level for both sides  is low (35% Russian, 40% German) they reflect more than just the artillery supply. Both the Germans and the Russian were not fully supplied on this day. The Russians had a fixed amount of ammo that was largely carried into the area with the units.  Once they used most of it on the attack, they had to hoard the rest for defense until they could be resupplied, this mostly applies to the infantry. The armor had fuel and supply points in the route along their road march to Prokhorovka, but no supply points in the area until they were brought up in a few days. The artillery was limited to firing a fixed amount of rounds a day per gun and mortar. About 90% of this was fired in the first 15 minutes of the attack, after this the firing was sporadic for the rest of the day.  The Germans just had problems keeping up regular supplies of all kinds because the supply columns from Belgorad were under almost constant attack from the Russian Air Force. The percentages that I gave both sides were just averages taking all of this into account. It's not easy putting in all of history into an East Front scenario, especially one the size of Prokhorovka.

I well under stand the problem with the artillery. When I made my first Prokhorovka scenario back in 2002 (Prokhorovka: The Real Battle) I found that it quickly developed into an artillery battle between both sides. So as I made my successive renditions, I looked for ways to scale back the artillery while keeping with history. But thereis only so much that I can do, given the current mechanics of the game.

So one solution I discussed with Alan, for the coming game engine changes, was a possibility to limit the artillery availability to certain turns only. It certainly would fit how it historically played out at Prokhorovka.

Please do continue to comment this scenario. It is such a huge one, there's bound to be more details and observations to come.