Stalingrad: Hitler's Highwater Mark

[saracv3]

No land battle of WWII cries out for more attention in PG than the crushing of the 6th Army..Yet it has been somewhat ignored. Why? I think it has to do w the perception that wide scale urban battles don't work in PG. Au contraire! We just haven't tried very hard.

Operation Mars, Italia defeats, Red Warriors; these battles were only part of the Stalingrad campaign. But what about the battle where the 6th drove to the city? The game would have 50 scenarios at least. The time frame would go from dry August 1942 on the Steppes to Feb. 2,1943 = Surrender! I would like to read Glantz' exhaustive 3 part history to get an idea for things. I can't say I know much more outside of Esposito's Atlas of WWII.

Feedback?

[plloyd1010]

I don't think that the issue is that PG isn't up to urban warfare, I think that close quarter infantry fights tend to not have a lot of variety. Big town fights are usually methodical and incidentally predictable. However, rarely being one to knock down an idea directly, here is a hex-scaled map of 1942 Stalingrad. Now your part is to section it off, get out your EFDx/FitS and RW counters, and start experimenting.

Personally I think you are going to find it to be about as much fun as hedgerow & jungle fighting. Then again, sometimes something interesting happens.

Glantz is a really good source, though sometime tedious to read. You can get some of his lectures on YouTube. S.L.A MArshall is pretty good too.

[leonard]

Calais 1940 was a kind of small Stalingrad. I tried a hand at real city fight scenarios in Road to Dunkirk, on a true city map but ... it seems you will have to wait ...

[Hugmenot]

I fear the wait is now dependent on Guy to have some availability because there is no way AvP can substitute maps for this game. 

[plloyd1010]

Guys, you know there are always 2 options here: HexDraw and Inkscape with Pelle Nilsson's Hexmap Extension.

[Hugmenot]

Peter, we're talking about final production maps. The maps for both Philippe's games already exist in HexDraw.

[plloyd1010]

Are we? Craig started with a "how about this?"

[Hugmenot]

Sorry, I thought you were answering me, not the OP.

[plloyd1010]

No worries.

[saracv3]

There's another board out there that might be playable for a mini urban battle: Panzer Leader has one with a large city area.