Scheldt '44 - Realism versus Playability?

[Volcano Man]

Personally (not that anyone asked!), regarding unit quality:

I think that using lower quality units is not done enough in wargames, in general. If you go back and look at the past PzCs, the quality levels are usually all very high - which I have referred to as the "quality level arms race". The attacker is usually given high quality levels (like B, average), because its felt that they need it to be successful. Then it is discovered that the defender must be given good quality to defend, or else they get run over, surrounded and destroyed, so you end up with both sides being rated very highly, typically.

I think Scheldt '44 takes a realistic look at the quality levels, and I applaud that.

We are so used to everything being A-B, but A quality should be used rarely, with C and D being used most often, and then you end up with some realistic performances. Especially in PzC series, where the attacker almost always has a near total advantage, except in cases where the front line is heavily fortified (its one of the reasons I like N44 and K43); more realistically lower quality levels helps give the defender some ability to conduct a historical defense rather than being overrun everywhere, all the time.

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Side note regarding the differences between Market Garden in MG44 and S44: I would guess that it has to do with more research being available. Its the same reason why so many books can be written about the same campaign, and yet they can each still contain different information as more becomes known, and research digs deeper.