FAQ
Q. How far along is this game's development?
A. The game still needs the services of a software developer and a map designer. If you are either of these, or would like to offer suggestions or comments, please contact me.
Q. How did you make determinations about the combat effectiveness of each nation's infantry?
A. The study described at this link (http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/pdf/e-4epw1and2final.pdf ) provided the kind of analysis I needed. Unfortunately, the study did not include the relative combat effectiveness of Chinese or Japanese infantry. To determine that, I examined the exchange ratio of Chinese soldiers against Japanese soldiers, as well as the exchange ratios Japan typically experienced in its land battles against the Soviet Union and the U.S. However, Japan typically had fewer soldiers, and many fewer tanks, planes, and artillery in such battles than did its enemies, so one should not necessarily assume a poor exchange ratio was the fault of its infantry.
Q. Neither Germany nor Japan developed aircraft analogous to the Superfortress or the Lancaster. Why are those nations allowed to research strategic bombers level 7?
A. I normally did not allow nations to research technology they had not developed in the real war. But Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union did field large, four engine aircraft during the war, and I do not feel it was beyond the abilities of their engineers to develop such aircraft further, had that been a major priority. Similarly, I felt that Japan, Britain, Germany, and the U.S.S.R. could have developed fleet carriers. The main obstacle there was the price tag, not the underlying technology.
Q. It seems as though Germany can research the fastest, Britain and the U.S. the second-fastest, and Japan and the Soviet Union the slowest. Is this true, and if so how does it reflect on historical reality?
A. Soviet equipment from WWII and the early postwar era was tested against Western democratic equipment during the Korean War. Similarly, the British and Americans sometimes sold or otherwise provided the Israelis with early postwar military equipment, while the Soviets did the same for Israel's enemies. Based on how the Soviets' and Western democracies' equipment performed in the Korean War and some of the Arab-Israeli conflicts, I have concluded that during WWII, the Soviets had started to lag behind technologically. This would have been more noticeable had the war continued another five years. Toward the end of WWII, Germany had started to pull ahead of the war's other participants. Its jets were significantly more advanced than those of any other nation, its Type XXI U-boats were several steps in front of any other participant's submarines, and its long-ranged Panzerfaust anti-tank weapons and its assault rifles went well beyond the effectiveness of the weapons employed by the war's other participants. However, Germany was unable to put any of these weapons into widespread deployment before the war ended. While the V2 proved militarily useless, Germany's Aggregate Series rocket program laid the foundation for America's Moon landing. Early in WWII, Japanese military leaders did not fully appreciate the importance of new technology. That perspective changed later in the war. Japan made increasing efforts to develop radical new weapons to salvage its declining military fortunes.
