Russia:
>1 month to deal with a situation on par with Somalia (or even messier) seems a bit quick
If you go much longer then it raises reasonable questions about time to bring in reinforcements and new builds etc, etc.
>Also looking at making 'Artillery' a special ability and SAM
>a sub ability with 'artillery' the prereq.
What would be the benefit? I have always though of some artillery and SAM included within any unit, the separate units that we list are only those formations which are large concentrations of artillery and SAM.
>Highly doubtful the dice roller hiccups up a spread like that again.
<shrug> It is combat
What I want to know is a breakdown of what actions on your part took x time ( y% of your time). I worry that what takes an unacceptable amount of time is damage allocation.
As far as bringing up reinforcements, this may be an apples and oranges situation. Essentially Zimbabwe is a better armed and trained Somalia facing a less effective (but still superior) intervention force. It's not quite a conventional war and not quite a guerrilla one...where the rules in place are more for a conventional war.
I used a 'rehabilitated' Juju (the guy is kicked out of the ANC for now but the ANC is trending his direction...if he moderates his position a little I think he stands good odds to come back) to explain why South Africa would put it's hand into the hornet's nest and the mission drift. Bringing up troop numbers from the original force deployment\mission...well we pretty much only really have Iraq and Afghanistan as recent historical examples for big redeployments for these kinds of things but the cycle seems roughly to be 3 months for heavier forces from a logistical perspective. Looking back on similar historical situations... forces bring up reinforcement at a slower rate than their raw movement rates would indicate (at least if you want to do something other than shell coastal settlements or bomb them from the air;-).
As far as artillery...I don't really want to create a whole new category of 'self-propelled artillery' units and there are a number of different types...from foot infantry motar maggots;-) to MLRS or even something along the lines of the cancelled Crusader. Essentially viewing each unit a brigade level formation with a focused specialty (so the artillery brigade won't need around 3 units\brigades of normal infantry to protect it).
I'm really just outlining a few things but not making any hard decision for now.
As far as time spent... I'm not familiar with these mil rules yet and work was a bit busier this week (worked late twice this past week whereas the previous week was a bit easier). I'll get through this turn and we'll look at things before next turn starts. I may find an old avalon hill game with some good ideas to yoink (or at least keep the Good Ideas Fairy busy).... but overall the philosophy of this game I do really want to trend towards automating as much as we can on the excel sheet and find a happy balance between realism and simplicity.