[Kiwikkiwik]

Well thank you for your replies scorpio rocks and Imp. I forgot to point out, but I am considering anything that is not a road hex to be cross country. So when I say cross country I mean travelling in clear hexes. You can see the 1/2 1/3 crosscountry speeds by just running any member of the relevant class across clear hexes. The point I would make is this, a clear hex is unlikely to actually be clear. How flat the clear hex is depends on that areas rainfall which can be measured by what's on the ground, if it's green, ie grass, then that's enough rain to make for the myriad little rivulets, edges, soft spots, general ups and downs, that's the rain drainage pattern which you have to pick your way through. So in Europe Russia Asia almost everywhere, clear is actually irregular enough to prohibit travelling around at anything more than about 10 or maybe 20 kph, for two reasons. The ground is uneven and sloped one way or another so you are constantly changing gears to adjust to the grade and to slow down and speed up because of various obstacles, Also if there is any sort of vegetation, you often can't see the ditches. Grass likes to have a level top but can fill in the ditch making it invisible. In the desert you can actually see the ground so that is a great help, but it still does rain, and there is usually some sort of a drainage pattern to negotiate after all it has had millions of years to develop. Imp I think a motorcycle is probably not a good example for what I am saying. I would challenge anyone that plays the game to take a drive in their car and at some open place (a clear terrain hex) just drive off the road then tell me how far you got before you met a little creek, a fence, a steep patch, soft patch, somewhere where the vegetation got a bit thick, or whatever it is that stopped you. Then If you can get a straight run long enough tell me how safe you feel safe driving wherever you are at 40 kph.
The other point is that as soon as you are driving off road you are in low gear which is slow.
If you look at ww2 video of tanks and trucks etc moving about in 'clear' they are invariably moving pretty slow. This is of course excluding propaganda type shoots of course.
The other commonsense point I would make is if you have a ferrari then you might get away with driving around at maximum speed. But in my car if I drive at maximum speed I can tell I won't live long.