OCS Smolensk is a real tour de force in just how bold you can be in the system. Unlike RE and Tunisia, there are quite a few units on the map, though the map is smallish, but despite that, the permissive nature of ZOC allows for a lot of maneuver. In fact, I would go so far as to say in OCS, that’s one of the interesting facets of the game. Most of the time, units can get around and do what they want, the trouble is moving supply. ZOC in that game only affects truck movement, and truck movement is mostly motorized infantry in move mode and supply.
Oh yes, supply. Supply is the heart of OCS, it’s what truly makes the system different, and what also makes it difficult. Supply is tracked as discrete numbers in dumps on the map. All truck/track units need it just to move, artillery needs it to do its thing, and units need supply to take part in any kind of combat, especially on the attack(Defense pays a flat rate, offense pays per step). It’s not that hard to mechanically do, especially in VASSAL, but trying to understand what to do with it is what makes the game difficult. The mechanics of it aren’t that complex- you have your dumps, where the supply is, which can be collected by HQs at a 5 hex range, and then the HQs have a MP range where they can throw supply out. In between HQs and the supply dumps, you can choose to spend your transport resources to set up repeaters which allow tapping the supply dump from a long way away.
In addition to the normal spending of supply, you have to consider trace supply, which is typically simply being able to draw supply from somewhere. This is how you starve out enemies through attrition- denying this, though if the enemy has supply in their pocket, they can eat that supply to avoid attrition. In Smolensk, you’ll often finding yourself pocketing Soviet troops as a German player just because it is cheaper in supply to maneuver and cut off units than to actually spend the SPs attacking and destroying them that way.
There are some problems, though, in addition to the mental and physical overhead that supply has- artillery costs a lot of supply. There’s not really much getting around it, but a lot of the time, firing an artillery barrage isn’t worth it. The last few games in the series have tried to bolt on solutions(in OCS Smolensk, it’s supply cache markers which give a one-time use coupon on firing artillery) In a different OCS game, the US/UK artillery groups are extremely powerful… but cost 2 SP to fire. On an average turn in Beyond the Rhine, that’s almost the entire supply allocation to a sector just to fire a shot. It, too, has an artillery discount, but this is given via random event. It basically means that air power(which doesn’t cost supply) ends up being supreme as the primary bombardment option.
Still, I haven’t seen a game that really shows why operations might stop or happen in fits and spurts. Some make you stop for other reasons (TITE’s HQs for example), but OCS is fascinating in showing the whys of things, and it does a pretty good job of showing different armies and their strengths and weaknesses.
