by Gideon Marcus

Here in sub-tropical San Diego, the change of the seasons is a subtle one.  As summer turns to fall, the nights slowly stretch, there is a pleasant chill in the morning air, and a marine layer of clouds hugs the ground like a blanket for the first sunlit hours. 

Across the sea, on the Ukrainian steppes, things are much different.  Autumn brings torrential rains that turn plains into bogs, and soon after come the freezing winds that herald the approach of winter.  It was just twenty two years ago that these savage twins, Comrade Mud and Comrade Snow, along with millions of human comrades in uniform, stemmed the advancing Nazi tide within sight of the towers of the Kremlin — the most titanic clash of peoples since Genghis Khan left Mongolia.

Big events invite dramatic speculation: What if the Soviets had faltered, and Hitler's 3rd Reich stretched unchallenged from Brittany to Vladivostok?  One shudders to contemplate the heights the Holocaust might have reached in such a world.  Or take the other side of the coin.  Imagine if the Red Army had been better prepared for the invasion and had stopped the Wehrmacht in its tracks.  Why, the Sickle and Hammer might have flown over the Reichstag before Western troops could set foot on Europe, and Communism might hold sway over most of the continent. 

Making History

It is no surprise that the fellows at Avalon Hill, who have made their mark with innovative board game simulations of conflicts, chose Operation Barbarossa for the topic of their newest wargame.  In their words:

Now YOU can re-fight the most gigantic military campaign the world has ever known.  You command all the major units that took part in the actual battles.  As the German commander, you begin your great offensive near the Polish-Russian border — leading the powerful Wehrmacht toward Leningrad, Moscow and Stalingrad.  Or, as the Russian commander, you direct a strategic defensive in the hopes of stopping the German thrust before the gates of Stalingrad.

By piecing together information from captured military records in government archives, Avalon Hill has set the stage for you to recreate history.  It is now June 1941 — time to mobilize your forces in this historical World War II battle campaign —

STALINGRAD

Well, who can resist a pitch like that?  I snatched a copy of Stalingrad as soon as it appeared at our local hobby store (the same folks who sold me Waterloo) and threw down a panzer-driver's black leather glove at my wife's feet.  Her lips curled in a menacing grin, and I shivered as I saw the frost of a Soviet December in her eye.  The challenge had been accepted.

The Game

In many ways Stalingrad and Waterloo are much alike.  Both feature maps of the contested region with a hexagonal overlay that serves as the game's chessboard.  Hexes, of course, are the ingenious innovation that makes each space equally distant from its neighbor (whereas with squares, distance is longer along the diagonal).  Armed forces are represented by cardboard chits with unit designations and types printed on them: The Soviet 2nd Infantry Corps, the 41st Panzer Corp, etc.  Even the troops of Nazi satellites like Hungary and Romania are represented.

Surprisingly, the two games even share a Combat Results Table, a chart of die-roll determined outcomes that is consulted every time enemy forces come into contact.  Results include circumstances like "Attacker Eliminated" and "Defender Retreats 2 Spaces" and the deadly "Exchange" in which BOTH sides suffer losses.

But Stalingrad also features several innovations.  For instance, each side is able to replace a certain number of units every turn — and the Soviet capacity for this is much greater than that of the Germans.  Thus, though the Nazis start out with a significant numerical advantage, their opponent recovers its losses more quickly. 

Another advancement is the depiction of railroads.  Whereas in Waterloo, units moved solely under their own power, in Stalingrad, your troops can zip around the map on the printed rail lines.  Any successful battle plan relies on careful consideration of these quick routes.

Supply is also a factor at the strategic level (it was not at the tactical plane of Waterloo). Forces that cannot trace a line of logistics to their side of the map are eliminated after two months of isolation.  Thus, "pocketing" the enemy is a viable alternative to direct confrontation.

Finally, weather is simulated, as it must be for Stalingrad to emulate history.  And, as is real life, weather cannot be predicted; instead, it is determined each autumn and winter month by a die roll.  Rainy weather slows movement to a crawl.  Snow does so as well, but it also negates the defensive value of rivers, and it makes lakes and swamps as easy to traverse as highways.  Both are, thus, mixed blessings to both sides.

The terms of victory are simple: The Germany player must conquer all three major Soviet cities (each conquest reduces the replacement pool available to the Russians) by May 1943.  Failure to do so results in a Soviet player win.

The Play-through

Well then, how did Barbarossa, 1963 edition go?  Like this: Janice set up a most formidable defense, perhaps as perfect a line as could be devised.  There were no obvious weak spots in her frontier, certainly not along the Finnish border where a good portion of my army was rendered momentarily impotent.  So I did the only thing I could — I marshaled my forces into three strong spearheads and hunkered for a drawn-out brawl.

The Russians maintained good order, giving up an inch only after the most tenacious fighting.  Each month, I had to shift my spearheads around on rail lines just to get reasonable odds.  June, August, and September passed with the Wehrmacht making only nominal advances north and south of the Pripyet Marches and along the Black Sea coast toward Odessa.  By October, the Germans had punched some big holes in the Soviet lines, but then the rains came, preventing significant exploitation.  The Red Army retreated into two defensive fronts, one in the north to protect Leningrad, and one in the south to stop the Ukrainian offense.

It might have worked. 

But November's weather, instead of being inclement as occurred historically, was surprisingly balmy.  The rail line to Moscow was open, and an opportunistic panzer army was able to roll right into the Soviet capital.  This split the nation in two, making it difficult for Russian forces to shift fronts.  Other elements of the German army were able to strike deep into the USSR, putting themselves in excellent position to threaten the other two target cities.  When the December snows came and the lakes and marshes around Leningrad froze, the Finnish forces were able to spring into action, surrounding the city of Peter the Great. 

By January 1942, the Soviets had lost two of their three sources of replacements, and the Nazis were threatening Stalingrad.  Janice conceded at that point.  One falter had turned a brilliant beginning into a crushing defeat.  But make no mistake — there will be a rematch, and I suspect I will be the one flying the white flag next time.

Lessons learned

All in all, it was a tense exercise filled with countless bouts of nailbiting.  In the final assessment, it makes sense to compare this game with its predecessors.  Stalingrad is a game with endless replay value, thanks both to the variable weather and also its sheer scope.  A chess board has but 32 pieces.  Stalingrad has more than twice that, and a far more varied map.  And unlike Waterloo, whose battle plans felt strictly dictated by terrain, Avalon Hill's latest game seems to offer a lot more flexibility in strategy, both offensive and defensive.  I don't know that I'll be playing much of Waterloo (or Chess!), but I do expect Stalingrad will hit the table again, soon.