Eastern Front fan here. Not such a fan of every second thread being about it though.
For Eastern Front it needs to be zeroed in to a specific time. 41-45 just won't work.
The unfortunate thing is that a big dynamic on the Eastern Front are that whilst the Germans are at a tactical advantage for much of the fighting, they're screwed strategically. If their heavy armour
arrives then things go well, if they've struck mines, caught fire or broken down on the way (the Panthers at Kursk lost a ridiculous number of vehicles to breakdowns before they even arrived. Plus their crews were inexperienced and they'd only got off the train from Germany the day before) the front then they lose. How do you fit that into a game? Then there are also the issues of inadequate German intelligence in key battles of the Eastern Front (Kursk is a classic, where they don't realise there's a massive muddy ravine in front of the advance of one of their units that results in hours of delay and Soviet artillery observers zeroing in on their position). And this is just the start.
I say this a lot, but mid-late '42 would be the best option imo.
The armoured forces are balanced. There is a variety of battles (Blue, Stalingrad, Uranus, Mars) and there aren't any Tigers to mess balance up. Plus, a 10v10 map of Stalingrad would be the height of awesome. After playing Colombelles with the 91. for a long time I am confident that SD can do city fighting very well. Unfortunately though it appears ruined buildings can't be moved through like they could before. I think that is unfortunate given the infantry can basically go anywhere on a modern battlefield.
Other options would include 41-42 Moscow, if you wanted to see weather conditions (deep snow etc) added and to have the dynamic of veteran Germans in inferior armour against regular Soviets in superior armour.
Kursk is a no go. Largely flat rolling hills, open land would make it a spam fest. To balance the wide open sight lines the Soviets would have to receive overwhelming armour. It'd be a nightmare to balance and the Germans would likely end up constantly under attack by artillery and air power to balance their armour's superiority. Doesn't sound like much fun to me.
Bagration is a widely popular option. I'm not sold because I think everyone would find fighting in swamps and marshes not too much fun. That said, the variety and range of units for the Red Army could be awesome (Engineer Sappers anyone?) Lake Balaton could be good as well for when all the heavy armour of both sides goes head to head.
A wild card option could be the battle of Brody. Early war fighting, lots of tanks for both sides, huge variety of units. (T-26s, T-28s, BT-7s, T-35s (if the devs felt charitable) vs Pz.35Ts, Pz.38Ts, Panzers I,II,III,IV, StuGs...)
My concern is that the developers will go for a stereotyped Red Army and not what it actually was - a huge army with a vast variety of units. Unfortunately many games (Company of Heroes 2 and Flames of War are prime examples) go for a stereotype of the Red Army as this mass of human wave assaults. This is simply not true. Some units were incompetently led, others (the classic example is the 62nd Army) were competent, highly motivated and led very competently. Even during Barbarossa there was one unit that advanced into German occupied Poland on the 22nd of June. (Its commander would be taken into custody by the NKVD and was only released when his unit demanded that he return to lead them).
The Eastern Front is a subject that gets a large number of games that never do the thing justice. Please get it right Eugen if you do it.
