Well we're into numbered campaign #62 now, and so we brought the very first alternate campaign (Beach Head Breakout) to a close and figure it was a reasonable success despite a few issues regarding it's early promotion as such, and the ensuing confusion about "intermission" and so forth for which we were partly to blame with the first notice we posted opening the event.

Also partly to blame by virtue of assumptions many would make, was that any period between numbered campaigns is an intermission since many refused to believe we would ever do something different than their experience led them to believe.

This was really part of the heart of what lay behind the first alternate campaign. Something less "red versus blue" and more controlled and structured with a stronger nod to some historical periods rather than the pure fantasy of players always rewriting history that never really happened. Maybe one day as we learn more about these possibilities within the subsets of the game content/systems and the player base itself, we can have such things all the time, instead of intermissions of play anything all the time which serve the training/practice aspect of the games learning curve well but get old fast.

Imagine a numbered campaign scoreboard (such as you have now and have had for years) and a scoreboard for "alternate" campaigns that play quite differently to regular numbered campaigns. Victory conditions that can be changed and configurations of supply, war material, and so on; that are dynamic and unpredictable like real wars are to those that fight in the line and on the battlefield. Wouldn't both kinds of campaigns be a lot of fun ? The traditional BE:WWIIOL numbered campaign you're used to, and some more structured less free form scenario type campaign like the first one we just ran. Maybe run them one after the other. We could still have "intermissions" of low import where you blow off steam and maybe learn some new/risky stuff you don't want to try when a campaign is on the line, but having alternate campaign that are like really long special events would be a great alternative to enjoy don't you think ?

Ok, so anyway, that was what we were kind of thinking when we came up with Beach Head Breakout. Yeah it was an experiment but we think it was a good one. Numbers playing exceeded those of an average intermission population but a large degree. I met a lot of people in both the High Commands and the regular player base who seemed to be enjoying the "not sure whats gonna happen because this isn't like a regular campaign" and this bodes well for maybe expanding on this kind of thing in the future. Battleground Europe can be much more than just a campaign you win or lose and then do again next time.

So here's a small summary to paint a small picture of what really happened. Some have their own opinion of what happened but this is what happened from the side of the curtain those who managed were doing.

On day 1, the Allies were crammed up along the western coast of France much like they would have been if it was day 2 of an invasion along that coastline. They didn't have much armor at all as the tanks had not arrived yet, but they had a lot of men and they had a good supply of infantry anti-tank equipment. The Germans lacked manpower but had more machine guns, automatic weapons (sub machine guns) mortars and tanks, although a lot of those tanks were assault guns (StuG's) and a broad mix of older tank types, as was the case in uncontested France before the invasion. The Allies also held total naval and air supremacy although the Germans had a good number of dive bombers and fighter bombers.

It was a tough fight. For 2 whole days the Allies could hardly move away from the coastline region they already held. The Germans could not push them back to the Channel. It was, in all reasonable analysis, a stalemate. Massive amounts of men and equipment died and were destroyed trying to gain supremacy, but no real gains were made by either side. By day 3 the Allies had made a small point of pressure on the lines and wee focused on St.Omer, the obvious prize of that region.

But the Germans were not going to let go of St.Omer no matter what the Allies threw at them. As the conflict stretched into day 4 the Allied tanks arriving from across the channel began to exert their influence, but it wasn't quite the influence that might have been expected. Given that the hell on earth which became the battle for St.Omer, which raged for 3 full days without rest, was fought mostly house to house and from street to street, the Allied tanks might have seemed impressive in the sheer numbers of them, but they died by the dozen and became the hulks of St.Omer that littered the streets and approaches to the city on all sides.

The city held out almost in sheer spite of what was thrown at it.

Then somebody blinked. The Allies capture St.Omer and the floodgates open. German manpower in the line dwindled, and even though they had more armor coming into front from Germany, and technically outnumbered the Allies in tanks, they lacked the trained manpower to use them. For the next week the Allied juggernaut rolled through France and Belgium, with a huge battle for both Brugge and Gent delaying things in a similar manner to what had happened at St.Omer but not with quite the same brutality. Allied supply began to slow down as they stretched their lines further and further from the ports of the Channel coast, and the German supply lines were getting shorter and their resupply faster. All that Germany really lacked by the time the Allies were outside Antwerp and Brussels was manpower. The German air force was massing planes for the big counter attack to wrest control of the skies from the Allied air power, and after the Allies took Antwerp the Luftwaffe received a huge influx of fighters and fighter bombers from Germany in order to attempt this.

The Allies had exhausted their armour and equipment by this time on the ground after the lines had slowed down, but re-established supply with the capture of the hugely important port of Antwerp. Now the push was on. However, again we saw the Allied supply time increased as they mover futher and further away from their port of supply at Antwerp. As the Allies neared the borders of Germany large numbers of later model tanks, assault guns and even a spike in Tiger numbers inflated the battered German divisions. It was now likely that Allied movements along the German border and probing into Germany itself would encounter dangerous pockets of tank and assault gun defenses. The Germans again had the advantage in armor numbers, had held onto their automatic weapons numbers advantage, but still appeared to be lacking manpower to use the new equipment that had flowed into their brigades. The Luftwaffe was able to throw up a lot of aircraft, enough to meet the Allied challenge and some bitter battles were fought over Germany and her border.

After 2 weeks however, the Allies managed to push a small sharp point of concentration on the lines in Divisional strength all the way to Koln. Germany released the last great hurrah of equipment and tanks into the front lines, and after 2 days had pushed the Allies back to her border between Maastricht and Liege. for the remainder of the campaign this is where the most bitter fighting played out with one exception.

Two German divisions were trapped behind the lines by the rapid Allied advance, around Trelon in the central plains of France, even while the battle for Koln was a raging inferno in Germany. The scene that erupted when the Allied rear guard surrounded Trelon with everything their supply divisions could get to them was unbelievable. For a whole day the town of Trelon was plastered with bombs, shelled from guns and attacked by brigades and brigades and brigades of infantry. Eventually, because the Germans were cut completely from their lines, it would fall, but only after a monumental conflict of sheer will and war power. It was one of the most intense battles I have ever seen, and while it didn't last as long as the 3 day battle for St.Omer it was every bit as furious and extreme.

Finally, on the last day, the Allies pushed across the German border into Germany and were surrounding Aachen as the time came to close the campaign for the release of the latest patch and a return to the regular number campaign series, with Campaign 62. It was a more auspicious debut of the "alternate campaign" idea than we might have hoped for given we were involved with so much else at the time (v1.31 release development) and maybe it will lead to more unique and different campaign style events for the future. We spoke to a lot of players who were having fun and enjoyed a "campaign" game but of different nature than the usual numbered style campaign the game has already staged over 60 editions of.

Congratulations to both the Allied forces for achieving their goal of reaching and invading Germany all the way from the English channel, and congratulations to the German forces for almost stopping them before they had even progressed beyond the beaches, despite everything against them, and for their intense and passionate defense of Germany once the Allies had crossed their borders.