2nd Edition Note: For the 2nd Edition, All internal components will receive the same full color treatment that we presented in Barbarossa: Army Group Center, 2nd Edition. We will also be adding a new map (JJ), several 11x17 scenario cards, and new player aid cards.
June 1941 --The German juggernaut rolls over the Soviet Army. As the tally of encirclements and surrenders mounts, the German advance appears unstoppable to Hitler and many others. However, the officers and men at the front are beginning to have serious misgivings -- not in themselves, but in the pre-war intelligence estimates that they had received. They had not been prepared to encounter hundreds of KV-1's and T-34's, tanks far superior to anything they possessed. For the moment, German tactics provided the margin of victory over better material, but the Russians were proving to be quick learners. Worse yet, by western European standards, Russian losses had been so staggering that there should have been no army left to fight. Not so. There seemed to be no end to these tenacious Russian defenders. As the German forces continued their eastward advance, more and more soldiers began asking, "what have we gotten ourselves into?"
Kiev, the first major German objective in the south, did not fall on schedule. In fact, Soviet resistance was so fierce that it required diverting Guderian's Panzer Group away from the advance on Moscow. Kiev fell in one of the greatest encirclements of the Second World War, but the German advance on Moscow was delayed for several critical weeks. Quite possibly the delay at Kiev might have cost the German forces victory in the battle for Moscow.
This game is part of the other East Front Series (EFS) of games and can be combined with these games. There are nine game scenarios that cover important phases of the campaign, as well as the entire 33 turn Campaign game itself.
This game can be added as an extension of the Army Group Center, 2nd and Army Group North, 2nd games that covers the preceding Operation Barbarossa offensive to form a 99 turn combined game from 22nd June. The other games in the series can also be combined to cover the massive East Front offensive in 1941.
Scenarios
- Kirponos Attacks! This is the Learning scenario. With the Stalin Line breached, Soviet Southwest Front commander, Col.Gen. M.I. Kirponos, found it increasingly difficult to plug the ever-widening gap between his 5th and 6th Armies. If it were not plugged, 6th Army, and others, would find themselves surrounded.
- Assault on Kiev The first Germans appeared outside of Kiev on 11 July, but the newly arriving panzers were under orders to keep moving south and east to complete the Uman pocket encirclement. Taking Kiev was left to the follow-on infantry formations, and it would take another two weeks before they were able to deploy in force.
- Odessa: Hero City Capturing Odessa became the responsibility of the Fourth Romanian Army, commanded by Gen. Nicolae Ciuperca. This represented an expansion of the Romanian war effort, engineered by Marshal Ion Antonescu. Romania's initial reason for entering the war was the recapture of Bessarabia which had been annexed in 1940 by the Soviet Union. The Soviet defenders lacked equipment and organization at first, but they resisted fiercely. They were greatly aided by three concentric rings of fortifications (again built largely by civilian labor), and the presence of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet which contributed infantry, coast artillery and naval gunfire support.
- Rundstedt Attacks! The primary Axis thrust into the Ukraine would be made through the Lvov Gap against the greatest and best prepared concentration of Soviet armor found anywhere from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt's 730,000 Germans and 800 tanks were poised to take on Col. Gen. M.P. Kirponos' Southwestern Front containing 864,600 men and 5,465 Soviet tanks.
- Operation Munich Early plans for the Bessarabia offensive included an armored attack from Romania, but fearing for the safety of the Romanian oil resources, Hitler ordered the German 11th Army to stand on the defensive until 2 July. Then the 11th Army, plus 3rd and 4th Romanian Armies, initiated Operation "Munich." The objective for all armies was to clear the Soviets from Bessarabia.
- Uman Pocket With the conclusion of the border battles, the Soviet 5th Army, pursued closely by the German spearheads, retreated into the Stalin Line and the Pripyat Marshes. On 30 June Moscow also authorized a full withdrawal by 6th, 12th, and 26th Armies into the Stalin Line, hoping to stop the Panzers while strategic reserves dealt with the more threatening German Army Group Center, well to the north. With German Panzers once again driving out ahead of their infantry, Kirponos saw another opportunity for counter-attack.
- Campaign Game Code-named "Operation Barbarossa," The German plan for defeating the Soviet Union called first for the defeat of the Red Army. Planners generally expected it to be deployed west of the Dvina-Dnepr river line. In a manner similar to that practiced in Poland and France, Barbarossa called for a Blitzkrieg campaign spearheaded in the central sector by two Panzer groups in parallel drives. Of the three opening drives in Barbarossa, the Army Group South attack was tasked with the most ambitious objectives while facing the heaviest Soviet opposition. Stalin judged that the Ukraine would be the primary Axis objective.
2nd Edition Components
- Four 22" x 34" inch maps (Maps E, F, G, and JJ)
- 1680 die-cut ½ inch counters in six full counter sheets
- Five Countersheets of 1400 Die-cut ½" Counters
- One Rulebook
- One Playbook
- One double-sided 8½" x 11" chart card front side Axis/Soviet Scenario Card for Scenario 1 and backside with Super-Heavy Artillery Effects Table
- One 11" x 17" Map Card (with Scenario 2 and 3 Maps either side)
- Two 11" x 17" folded double-sided Soviet Set Up Cards (with backside of one card containing a Game Card displaying all Scenario 2 and 3 units)
- One 11" x 17" folded double-sided Axis Set Up Card
- One 8.5" x 11" double-sided Axis Set Up Card
- One single-sided 8½" x 11" combined Axis and Soviet Step Reduction Organization Card
- Two double-sided 11" x 17" inch folded Chart Cards with Combat Results Table, Terrain Effects Chart, Overrun, AA, Air Combat, CAB, etc. charts
- One double-sided 11" x 17" inch folded Chart Card with Units and their Symbols, Movement Phase, Effects on Movement Chart, Artillery, etc. charts
- Two single-sided 8½" x 11" Air Unit Status/Unit Rebuilding Cards (one Soviet and one Axis)
- One double-sided 11" x 17" inch folded Chart Card containing Scenario Victory Conditions
- One double-sided 8½" x 11" Chart Card containing Replacement Table, Fuel, ASPs, RR Conversion, etc.
- One single-sided 8½" x 11" Chart Card with Turn Record Track, Weather Table, and various scenario information summaries
- Two 11" x 17" Expanded Sequences of Play Cards
- One ten-sided die (Green)
Hersteller und/oder Verantwortliche Person innerhalb der EU:
Hersteller:
GMT Games LLC
PO Box 1308
93230 Hanford
Vereinigte Staaten
eMail: gmtoffice@gmtgames.com
Web: https://www.gmtgames.com
Verantwortliche Person für die EU:
BNW Distribution GmbH
Winkelsweg 169
40764 Langenfeld
Deutschland
eMail: sales@bnw-distribution.com
