We aren’t really seeking any realism. We used our imagination on this and simply like to say “It’s 1944, where’s D-Day?” and throw other such taunts as appropriate for the Axis or Allies. We’ll just continue with our 6 month system for simplicity. […] At the end of the day it doesn’t matter it just makes it fun for us to imagine where we are in the war.
One advantage of knowing what year of the war you’re in at any given time is that, if your game includes any house-ruled Otto Skorzeny-type German infiltrators wearing American uniforms, it will influence the answer to the identification question “Who won the World Series last year?” :-D
Come to think of it, I think that a casting error (similar to the one in the original Guadalcanal printing) actually did once produce some “green German” infantry units, which are now prized by collectors.
