Slitherine

I thought I'd mention this to see if others support it. I'd suggest making the Bosporous Strait near Istanbul a canal/major river so that their is a one hex land connection between European and Asian Turkey (separated by a river) with control of Istanbul neccessary to control the Bosporous strait (to allow sea units to move between the Mediterranean and Black Seas. This would allow rail movement once control is established - but it would be a difficult chokepoint to take. I'd move the port hex for Istanbul over one to make room.

The width of the Bosporous is similar to some other major rivers, less than 1/2 a mile at its minimum width = see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosporus_Strait

ncali wrote:I thought I'd mention this to see if others support it. I'd suggest making the Bosporous Strait near Istanbul a canal/major river so that their is a one hex land connection between European and Asian Turkey (separated by a river) with control of Istanbul neccessary to control the Bosporous strait (to allow sea units to move between the Mediterranean and Black Seas. This would allow rail movement once control is established - but it would be a difficult chokepoint to take. I'd move the port hex for Istanbul over one to make room.

The width of the Bosporous is similar to some other major rivers, less than 1/2 a mile at its minimum width = see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosporus_Strait

This sounds really good. And the movement by sea could be implemented with transportation loops on either side of the Bosporous strait.

Also the map scale is a problem, the port serves as a natural bottleneck to game play which would have occurred historically.
This is so it is not easy to go through Turkey to reach the Middle East.
As for rail movement there was no rail bridge crossed the strait.

pk867 wrote:Also the map scale is a problem, the port serves as a natural bottleneck to game play which would have occurred historically.
This is so it is not easy to go through Turkey to reach the Middle East.
As for rail movement there was no rail bridge crossed the strait.

True, but I believe that considering the very short distance (like a major river) and regular ferry service between the rail terminals, it's appropriate to allow the rail movement if the straits are under one side's control. From my searches, it looks like the ordinary (not fast) ferry trip is about 15-20 minutes. Gibraltar is much farther from Africa, as is Dover, England from Calais, France.

As for transportation loops, they are for naval units and not for ground units. The port functions well in this respect, costing 8PP's to cross the strait.
Turkey owned the strait and re-militarized it. The water depth is anywhere from 120 to 420 feet. If this was an easy river crossing
it may have been considered by Germany to attack, but historically it was very hard. So to keep a historical feel to the game it must be difficult to maneuver across the strait. It is a natural bottleneck. The map change would change the game balance drastically. There is no historical merit. The first bridge across the strait was built in 1973.

I don't think that it was neccessarily a more formidable obstacle than the Nile, for example, or parts of some of the other major rivers like the Rhine. The Axis and Allies were not always able to use bridges when trying to force their way across rivers in combat and for rail purposes the ferry crossing of the Bosporous appears quite quick and easy. I'd suggest a one hex-one hex connection with Istanbul being the hex in Asiatic Turkey - so it would benefit from both the river and city combat modifiers. But I don't think I'll convince pk and I know this is just a judgment call. I just thought I'd throw the idea out there.

The Bosporus has a minimum widt of about 700m and the Rhine an average width of 400m. So technically we could have the Bosporus as a land link, but then we might consider many other links as well (the Dardanelles, Messina strait, Öresund and others). One strait that is a land link is the Store Bælt between Jylland and Sjælland in Denmark. This strait is actually much wider than the Bosporus and didn't get a bridge until after 1980. The Öresund bridge is also very new.

The biggest problem with closing the straits is that we will then need more transport loops and it requires quite a bit of coding to implement that. By closing the Messina strait it means Sicily is no longer an island.

I can see that for game play reason that sea straits are simulated by having ports in the strait. This means you need to control the adjacent city to be able to sail naval units through it. This works well for Copenhagen, Messina, Ajaccio and other straits. I also think it works quite well for the Bosporus (closed unless you control Istanbul. If we create the land link we need another transport loop so it won't be fixed quickly.

If we should make any changes then it would maybe be better to open the Store Bælt so you can't move by land to Copenhagen. But then Germany can sail from Kiel to the North Sea without using the Kiel canal. This is actually quite historical because the German warships heading for Norway in April 1940 were spotted in the Store Bælt strait a few days before April 9th.

Tinkering with an already well balanced mod, simply for the sake of addressing concerns about Turkey's role seems unnecessary to me. Turkey is a tough nut to crack, and I don't see much in the way of payback for either side to do it.
In nearly forty years of wargaming, I have rarely been involved in a WW2 game where Turkey was active, and on those rare occasions that I can recall, the guy who activated it (by attacking it) usually ended up regretting it for one reason or another.