Free Lend Lease Data Cards
From time to time I will be publishing FREE Data Cards on the Combat Action Command website. With every supplement we publish, size and price considerations put limits on the number of teams we can include. The newly released Eastern Front 1942-43 Supplement which includes Data Cards for more than 150 teams is over 1 inch thick and weighs in at well over a pound. And even with that it was impossible to include every team which fought during that time period!
I omitted some Lend lease tanks from the Supplement because they were used in limited numbers. Examples are the UK Churchill and US M3 Lee. Frankly I am not sure why a sane Russian player would want to use them. The Russian's had a nickname for the M3 Lee that loosely translates as "coffin for six comrades". The Churchill was not a coffin and had thick armor, but was snail slow and its 6 Pound Main Gun had a very poor HE performance. Several dozen are reported to have fought at Kursk.
Therefore, I have added FREE downloads of the M3 Lee and Churchill to the website so you can field them if you like.
The real value of US Lend Lease was not found in its armor, but in other items which are less obvious on the gaming table. It was found in tens of thousands of rugged US built Trucks which provided the logistical backbone of Soviet forces. In millions of warm boots which helped equip the millions of Russian conscripts. In thousands of hi tech (for the time) radios which vastly improved Russian command and control capability. And in high octane aviation gas which got maximum performance out of aircraft engines and helped blow the Luftwaffe out of the sky.
How are these reflected in CAC? When your Russian teams arrive on the table with full loads of fuel and ammo, you have benefited from the trucks. When your Russian Infantry Horde attacks through waist high snow drifts without frostbitten feet you will appreciate their US boots. And when your CiC radios in an Artillery Fire Mission or your P-39's strafe German Panzers into flaming wrecks, you will understand the key role that Lend Lease really played on the Eastern Front.
Visit the Downloads Page at combatactioncommand.com
Cheers! Enjoy! Lee – author
goes beyond the straight line.