East Front Battles #1 - Blitzkrieg in the South

Ground scale is five miles to the hex; turns equal two days of real time; units represent divisions, brigades, regiments or battalions. The game covers the Axis assault on the southwest Soviet Union, which began with the attack by Army Group South with 41 divisions against a Soviet force of 60 divisions. The game concludes in mid-August 1941, at which time, historically, 20 Soviet divisions surrendered in the "Uman encirclement."

The game contains a wealth of different unit types, including bridging units, motorcycle infantry, an armored train, a soviet river flotilla, combat engineers, rocket artillery, anti-aircraft guns, as well as the standard armored, mechanized and infantry units. Supply, weather and terrain all player their parts, as do fortifications, strong points, air power, artillery, reinforcements, replacements, headquarters and reserves. The game sequence includes reaction movement by units in reserve status, as well as separate motorized movement phases. A particularly elegant piece of design has the Axis motorized movement following standard movement and combat, thus facilitating armored breakthrough. For the Soviets that order is reversed, leading to poor coordination between tanks and infantry.

There are four scenarios. "The Siege of Kiev" is an introductory scenario lasting seven turns and using only Map B. "Rundstedt Attacks" depicts the German assault on the strongest portion of the Soviet frontier; it lasts five turns and uses only Map A. Scenario 3, "Optional Deployment," is a variant of scenario 2. The "Campaign Game" lasts 27 turns and uses all three maps. Victory is judged both in terms of combat looses and the Axis capture of key objectives.