STALINGRAD, THE CLASSIC: A REVISIONIST'S REVIEW. by Lou Coatney Copyright 1996 Louis R. Coatney Early on in the military history boardgaming hobby, around 1960, there were only a half dozen games available to be played. The Avalon Hill Game Company was breaking new design ground with every new game. The most basic questions of appropriate (let alone optimal) game format--double-blind?, square or hexagonal grid?, randomized combat result stables?, etc.--were still largely unexplored and undecided. It was also before the computer age, when the recently war-spawned discipline of operations research was still using basic mathematics readily adaptable to a manual display format, and serious academic theoreticians like Dr. Jerry Pournelle could hold forth with professional legitimacy on the game theory and strategy implicit in the new boardgames. D-DAY, (square-grid) GETTYSBURG, CHANCELLORSVILLE, and TACTICS II were some of the very few land warfare games available to us, the mass market in 1961. That was also the period of the greatest fear of a Soviet mechanized invasion of Western Europe and of the greatest admiration for the Germans' World War II armored operations against the Soviets, as portrayed in the alltime classic account of armored operational art, PANZER BATTLES, by F. W. von Mellenthin. And so, Avalon Hill's publication of a World War II Russian Front campaign game was awaited with keen--indeed, frenzied --anticipation by wargamers everywhere. Avalon Hill manager Tom Shaw, himself, was heading up the project. However, once STALINGRAD was finally released and in our hands in 1963, our first reactions were usually of bitter dismay, if not a sense of having been deceived and cheated. After opening a box covered with a factual-looking collage of documentary German war photos, we surveyed the crude, bleak, and occasionally inaccurate mapboard and the unexpectedly small number of Russian units. Laughably, Sevastopol was at the wrong lower corner of the Crimea. Rivers ran through the middle of the hexagons, producing tactical ambiguity and confusion. There were vast, useless, wasted areas of the large, standard-sized 22"x28" mapboard. The Russian units, in particular, were questionable. They were, for the most part, individually stronger than even the German units, and far fewer in number: 34 vs. the Axis 65. Worse, the Germans had no superiority in operational mobility. Absurdly, the Russian cavalry units were stronger than their tank units--validating the prewar "KonArmiya" fantasies of Soviet Marshal Semyon Budyenny--although the unit-type symbols were meaningless, anyway, since there was no differentiation of them in the game system. The combat factors of the units were unnecessarily high and computationally burdensome, with two 7-10-4 Russian infantry corps having the largest. Another area of contention was the Finnish front. Finland had *no* swamp and only one lake, 2 hexes in size. Worse, the Finnish units' strengths were as weak as the other Axis allied nations', wholly contrary to the Finns'effective historical performances (expelling Germans in 1944, as well as annihilating Soviets previously). The German units were based on the standard 4-4-4 infantry corps, reminiscent of the 4-4-4 Allied infantry divisions of D-DAY. Besides the 11 expected, doubly large armored corps, there were some 5 3-3-6 and 4-4-6 "armored infantry" corps included which had little basis in historical fact. (There were a few "light" motorized infantry divisions, but hardly 5 corps worth.) The game's components were standard Avalon Hill fare. Besides the big box, mapboard, and half-size unit countersheet, there was: an instruction leaflet; the nifty"STALINGRAD Battle Manual" containing historical commentary and examples of play; the standard "classic" Avalon Hill (Delim, Exchange, D back 2, A back 2, A elim) Combat (odds) Results Table (*with* cross-indexed attacker vs. defender factor resolution table for the arithmetically impaired); a "Time Record" chart for keeping track of turns and accumulated replacements; AND (maybe the most intriguing component enclosed) an "Order of Battle Reference"/"Weather Table" card which not only showed the array of units on the sheet, but included a "German-Russian Strength Comparisons" breakdown of totalled "German" (Axis) and Russian attack and defense factors, by unit type. However, the design itself produced a game which simulated World War I era combat more than it did World War II. There were no tactical advances after combat, unless--illogically--the defender had been in a bonussed defensive position (in a major city, on a mountain, or behind a river). The game was basically one of attrition, unlike the actual, historical campaign, which was initially one of pell-mell maneuver. The Axis player had no serious prospects of deep breakthroughs, usually being stopped at a Dvina/ Dnieper river(s) line after a questionably long, 24-turn Jun41- May43 gaming ordeal. What was worse, the completely randomized bad weather table enabled a bad weather winter as long as 7 months/turns or as short as 3, which alone could determine a game's outcome. On the otherhand, "Snow" weather could actually help the Germans, even in the first 1941/42 winter, because it froze/eliminated rivers and swamps as defensive aids and movement obstacles! Despite all these reservations and our exasperation, STALINGRAD --hereinafter "STAL," partly in rueful reference to its pace of German advance--exerted a strange mystique on all of us and eventually caught on, possibly becoming *the* alltime classic of the military boardgaming hobby. The reasons for this bear noting and remembering, especially by game designers and publishers. First, there *was* some strategy-spawning subtlety in the game system. The attacker's ability to split up a group of defending units on a hex made attritional combat acceptable and workable--not an all- or-nothing risk. Coupled with the old-style, "active" zones of control, the mid-hexagon rivers meant that attackers could end their turn astride a river, basically confronting the operational defender with a breakthrough-threatening bridgehead requiring immediate counterattack--a principle of anti-Soviet operations von Mellenthin had emphasized. The high, railroad-abetted mobility enabled masses of forces to be shifted from one front to another, producing strategic offensive surprise(s). Moreover, the game's initial, hind-sightedly historical imbalance to the Russian's advantage beckoned with a siren's allure to any Quixotian wargamer driven to attempt to better history. The relatively simple game mechanics, Russian defensive advantages, and limited number of pieces--especially Russian pieces --encouraged, enabled, and empowered new players. Kid brothers found a fiendish new way of bedevilling their older brothers, by passively demolishing their hard-wrought schemes for finally conquering the Communist bastion (or at least finally besting the game system itself). Despite its legion shortcomings, STAL quickly caught on as a tournament classic. The game's single-action mechanics commended it to play-by-mail tournaments, as well. With an officially authorized reduction in the Russian replacement rates--4/Sep41 to 5/Dec41 and then to 6/May42 (later revised back upwards to 7) replacement factors per victory city, a modicum of gamebalance was attained. (However, Avalon Hill still wouldn't include an "automatic victory" rule, like the one in its AFRIKA KORPS game, to prevent those *despicable* little 2-3-6 Russian armored corps from halting the advances of entire German army groups.) Lengthy wargame magazine and newsletter articles about STAL (detailing the optimal Axis setup, the stubbornest Russian defense, promising tactical innovations, etc.) abounded. A cult of "STALnards" [my term] developed (with charter wargaming "grognard" Dr. George Phillies its acknowledged dean). Don Lowry, editor/publisher of PANZERFAUST/CAMPAIGN magazine, published a WARGAMER'S GUIDE TO STALINGRAD in 1972. The GUIDE was edited and prefaced by Avalon Hill's own Don Greenwood and included articles by such longstanding wargaming personages as Lou Zocchi. Even international/Swiss wargaming raconteur Nicholas Palmer used STAL as a principle example of game play and theory in his excellent little book, THE COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO BOARD WARGAMING (1979). And besides George Phillies, STAL commentators in just THE GENERAL included such wargaming personalities as Gary Gygax (co-?)progenitor of the DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS pestilence--("The Southern Gambit" Nov/Dec74 11/4), Dr. Joseph Connolly ("Starting STALINGRAD in 1942" Nov/Dec75 12/4), Joe Angiolillo ("Taking the Offensive in STALINGRAD" Nov/Dec76 13/4), to name only a few. It is STAL that is probably responsible for the "factor fetish" that has come to afflict our hobby like a dogmatic numerology. "Killer stacks" of 2 8-8-6s and a 5-5-4 acquired supernatural powers against balky Russian 5-7-4s. A demonstrated ability to isolate and annihilate 7-10-4s achieved wargaming black belt status for its possessor. However, despite its enduring popularity as a classic war*game*, STAL was obviously and infuriatingly inadequate as an historical simulation. Probably the most astonishing and amusing article on STAL game tactics (and absurdity) was the one written by the fellow who urged making attacks intended to obtain an "Attacker back 2" result, which would--if the attacker had shrewdly blocked his breakthrough unit's route of retreat back behind his *own* lines--enable the attacker to "retreat" his unit *forward* into/behind the *defender's* lines! ... a "retreat-through"?? :-) Another fellow presented his formula for a smashing Russian counteroffensive at the very start of the game, reasoning that the narrow frontage of the 1941 border was to the benefit of the individually large Russian units. (This strategy also decided games with unusual speed, typically to the Germans' advantage.) For those of us who attempted to excuse our "GRAD" losses with its mockery of history, the game stimulated our revisionist and then "supercessionist" instincts ... and a still-lengthening list of would-be successors. Beyond the Russian replacement rates, revisions to almost all of STAL's components were proposed. I myself dropped by Avalon Hill in Baltimore in the 1970s to personally plead the case for STAL's revision with Tom and Don. (With a sympathetic, pitying smile on his face, Tom graciously said they would think about it.) To their credit, I *was* allowed to make two revisionist contributions to the GENERAL: "STALINGRAD: Revisited and Revised" (Jul/Aug78, 15/2, 16-19) and "STALINGRAD: A Revisionist's Reply to Unjust Criticism" (Jan-Feb81, 17/5, 15-16). However, my extensive revisions drew the censure of George Phillies *hisself*, who accused me of attempting an outrage on a par with a repainting of Mona Lisa's smile. (My riposte to George was that if he preferred games to the detriment of history, he could instead opt for *checkers*. :-) ) And George had a point. Rather than violating MonaLisa-- and invalidating much of the past and future gametheory dialogue that STAL had stimulated--my time and effort obviously would be better spent starting from scratch and creating my own corps- level Russian Front game. STAL, alone, may be responsible for spawning most of the present generation of wargame revisionists, critics, designers, and publishers. Those 20 blank counters-- 13 German and 7 Russian--lay there positively *enticing* us to come up with historical and/or substitute units, to "enhance" the game. Among the first corps-level Russian Front campaign games intended to succeed venerable STALINGRAD was Simulation Publication Incorporated's BARBAROSSA, which featured a highly fluid, movement factor system enabling the kinds of German breakthroughs and envelopments which so characterized the historical campaign. As importantly, both Axis and Soviet units could be combined into army units for greater power ... and game simplicity. The orginal STRATEGY & TACTICS magazine "Test Series" edition/kit even boasted magnum-sized hexagons and units. However, BARBAROSSA's map was smaller-scaled than STAL--Warsaw to Moscow was only 13 hexes--and not very accurate: e.g., Rostov finds itself *south* of the Don River. Also, it had hundreds of units, requiring a very lengthy setup time. Of course, the strongest contender to succeed STAL was/*is* THE RUSSIAN CAMPAIGN, designed and originally published by Australian John Edwards. (The game was purchased from "JedCo" for American distribution by Avalon Hill.) TRC features a comparatively dashing order of battle, an adequate map, and a double-impulse movement system which enabled dramatic breakthroughs and envelopments. It included Luftflotte air units, Soviet parachutist corps, SS units, and a host of other wargamer appetizers. (Oddly, it did omit Soviet "shock armies" which so turned the tide during the Winter 1941/42 Battle of Moscow with their smashing counteroffensives.) TRC also generated a wealth of analytic literature, itself, and with "sudden death" victory conditions it often relegated old STAL to the "Classics 500" category, for convention tournament play. However, TRC's 2-month gameturns prevented its Axis players from matching the historical pace of invasion, while denying its Soviet players the early "frontier" maneuver and counterattacking which fully shared in determining overall Axis success. A very intriguing 1970s submission was Fusilier (Aberdeen, UK) Games' WEHRMACHT. The map was ... shall we say ...uncomfortably similar to STAL's, although Sevastopol was on the correct side of the Crimea, this time. Both the pieces and map were silk-screened, beautifully. The Russian order of battle was fascinating but undefined (in terms of unit levels or unit designations), and the Russian player could declare general, across the board "attrition attacks," in the manner of THIRD REICH. My own initial contender, STURM NACH OSTEN (I SHTURMY NA ZAPAD!), was published by Keith Poulter in issue 19 of 3W's magazine, THE WARGAMER, and was a critical success. SNO's single- month, single-action gameturns, which featured breakthrough game mechanics and a simple, double-sided "rubber-band" strength penalty against over-reaching advancing units, enabled realistic gameplay. It also modelled the campaign's historically significant and dramatic "breakouts" convincingly. However, it only factored in those 1941 Soviet mechanized corps which played such individually important roles in those early, crucial weeks of the campaign. I have since published an army-level Russian Front boardgame kit, GERMAN EAGLE VS. RUSSIAN BEAR, which may be the best-for-its- scale/simplicity simulation available for the campaign. (It is available for free school and library use on the U.S. government's Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) microfiche-- ED 361 256--and is available for your examination via your local library. Check with me about obtaining a personal, recreational copy or shareware rights.) However, it again lacks the operational/ tactical specificity which a corps-level gamescale provides. There have been many other would-be successors to STALINGRAD, of course. One of the most intriguing was GDW's 1941, designed by John Astell--see my review of it--which features "Panzer-ogre" monster Panzergruppe units bashing around the battlefield, stomping any Russian units in their way. COMMAND's Ty Bomba christened his magazine with the enclosure of his own corps-level Russian Front "Meisterwerke," BLITZKRIEG '41--which is already a very high-priced collector's item. (I have never been able to find someone to play it with me. The game uses multiple step-reduction units.) Continuing to ignore *my* offers to redesign STAL for them, Avalon Hill's next Russian Front venture was Craig Taylor's RUSSIAN FRONT. RF's quirky combat system unhistorically allows only one unit to attack to attack a given defender at a time, in chow line -like manner. Boasting no zones of control, its adjacent-hex, "reactive" counterattacks were little improvement on history and a definite impediment to simplicity and ease of play. However, there still has been no real successor to STAL's status as a classically *simple*, corps-level Russian Front game. One of the real, though little-known, disappointments of the collapse of Jim Dunnigan's SPI wargame empire was the permanent cancellation of any plans to produce a simple little World War II Russian Front game in the SPI "folio" format: a 17"x21" mapboard, a maximum of 100 units, and abbreviated rules outlining a simple gamesystem. The reason for the popularity of Dunnigan's literally overnight little masterpiece, BATTLE FOR GERMANY, was not only its novel Western-Allies-and-Eastern-German player vs. Western-Front- German-and-Soviet player format: it was the almost regressive simplicity of the game itself, which made its "plot" so readily enjoyable. More recently, I had hoped that Avalon Hill would release an official successor to STAL as part of its "Smithsonian Game" series. However, these supposedly introductory games are overpriced and rather too complex. Also, Avalon Hill's own future has become a matter of conjecture, and nothing has been said about another Russian Front game. Well, I am *pleased* to announce that I am putting the finishing touches on a classically refined contender to old STALINGRAD's throne, but more on that ... later. As to STAL itself, to make it *minimally* acceptable as a wargame, I revised and refined my revisions of it into "Five Simple Revisions of STALINGRAD" in a followup letter to THE AVALON HILL GENERAL which Don Greenwood posted in its 16/2 issue. Following, is a further revision of those. (Brace yourself ... again ... George. :-) ) 1. STACKING: Russian units may only be stacked 2 deep per hex, while the Axis may still stack 3(, unless you are using Revision 6., below). (The strength of STAL's Russian infantry units would have made sense, if they had been designated armies.) 2. REPLACEMENTS: Use a 2-4-6, Jun41-Dec41-May42, Russian Replacement Rate, and make Kiev a 4th victory/replacement city. Replacement units enter the game dispersed--see below. 3. COMBAT RESULTS: A "D back 2" result means that the retreated defending units are dispersed and not recovered to the owning player's control (to be moved or to attack with) until after his next player- turn is over. (I have used this dispersal/momentum/reverse- initiative mechanic in-all my games.) An "A elim" result requires the attacker to lose only the number of factors he would lose in an Exchange. (This makes the 2:1 attacking odds column valid.) The attacker may *always* advance (1 hex) after a successful D elim, or Exchange combat result, if the hex has been vacated. German armored units may do so upon a similarly decisive "D back 2" combat result, and Russian armored units may do so, starting in 1942. 4. OVERRUNS: So *use* the AFRIKA KORPS "automatic victory" rule! 5. WEATHER: Either October *or* November--but not both--must be a bad weather month. Thus, if October rolls "Perfect weather," November is automatically Snow. If October is "Mud," November will then be "Perfect weather." Likewise, if March is "Mud" or "Snow," April will be "Perfect weather." (Figure that the precipitation comes once, either before or after the freeze. I have used this design concept in most of my Russian Front games.) Snow freezes only rivers and lakes, now--*not* swamp. 6. NEW/REPLACEMENT UNITS: Put little ovals in the boxes of the Russian cavalry units. They are now *armored* units. (Redesignate the 2., 4., and 6. armored corps as the 12., 14., and 16.). Make 3 1-2-6 cavalry units--the 2., 5., and 6. Cossacks. With the last two Russian blanks, make 5-7-6 and 6-9-6 armored units (the 9. and 8.)--or you can use a couple of those already rendered in Joe Connolly's article. For the Germans, throw out the 3-3-6, 3 of the 4-4-6s, the "5R" 5-5-4, and 11 of the 4-4-4s and make a 10-10-3 (the 4.), 2 9-9-3s (the 6. and the 18.), and 5 8-8-3s (the 2., 9., 11., 16., and 17.) armies. (IF THESE GERMAN ARMY SUBSITUTION UNITS ARE USED, AXIS UNITS MAY ONLY STACK 2 UNITS DEEP, AS WELL, AND NOT MORE THAN 1 OF THOSE UNITS MAY BE AN ARMY.) With the remaining blank German counters, make 2 4-5-4, 2 3-4-4, and 1 2-3-4 subsitute Finnish corps. 7. And maybe the map could be realigned so that it could be be reduced to a 17"x21" size, ... and maybe ... I should just design an entirely new game. HEY! WAIT A MINUTE! Why didn't you guys stop me? This was more than 5!? :-I :-) In any case, STALINGRAD is essential to any "compleat" wargame collection, both as a game and as the subject of so much wargaming commentary and theory. I *highly* recommend it --even if it is now out of print and selling at an extortionate price--and I add my own congratulations and thanks to Tom Shaw for his early, seminal contribution to our hobby ... and even to George Phillies, for his able and unflagging defense of "the integrity of the game." Lou Coatney, mslrc@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu 626 Western Ave. Macomb, IL 61455 USA 309/836-1447