Game of the Week, May 19 to 25
Hi everyone,
It’s Monday again, and it’s time for Game of the Week!
This week’s Game of the Week is Panzer Campaigns: Kharkov ‘42. In May of 1942, the Axis forces were recovering from the Soviet onslaught during the 1941/42 winter. Unable to attack on a broad front, Southern Russia was prioritized with an aim to take the Caucasus oil and deny the Soviets the same. Before the Germans could launch their strategic offensive for the summer, the Russians saw their own opportunity to attack out of the Izyum bulge. The stage was set for the opposing offensives to go head-to-head.
Panzer Campaigns: Kharkov ‘42 covers the 2nd Battle of Kharkov: May 12 - 29 1942, as well as the initial Soviet operation around Barvenkovo that formed the bulge in January 1942.
Panzer Campaigns: Kharkov ‘42 is the current 4.05.1 version (to be updated to the upcoming 4.05.3 version soon), and our product description encapsulates this campaign well:
The Soviet Spring Offensive to reclaim Kharkov from the Germans in 1942 is not very well known. This battle was neither exploitation nor attrition, but a nasty combination of both. Each side took turns with mobile offensives that lead to surprising outcomes sure to challenge the serious wargamer. In the summer of 1942, Stalin planned an attack that he was certain would thwart the expected German offensive. From a bulge in the line formed by fighting that previous winter, he launched a mobile assault with armored and cavalry forces with the goal of taking the key city of Kharkov. However, the German 6th Army had other ideas, and their panzers were poised to counterattack. In the wild melee that followed, who would prevail in that critical time of war on the Eastern Front?
The game comes with 69 scenarios which include all the historical forces that were allocated to the campaign.
The longest campaign scenario is 177 turns, with most scenarios a very playable sub-30 turns.
The master map (87,420 hexes) covers the entire area from Dnepropetrovsk in the west to Kharkov, Belgorod and Svatovo in the east.
In addition to the aforementioned scenarios and campaigns, Panzer Campaigns: Kharkov ‘42 includes a Getting Started scenario to introduce new players to the game system. The included scenarios are a good mix of small (Division), medium (Corps) and large (Army/Army Group) engagements.
The Order of Battle has 3,300 units from the German, Luftwaffe, Hungarian, Italian, Rumanian, Russian, and Russian Guards forces that participated in the campaign.
We included a lot of historical documentation and notes with this title. You can review each by clicking on the links below.
There has been a range of books covering The 2nd Battle of Kharkov in 1942. Following are some representative books for anyone that would like some more background on the campaign. You can click on the book images below to be taken to the publisher or Amazon, if applicable.
Informational
“Kharkov 1942: The Wehrmacht strikes back” by Robert Forczyk.
Robert Forczyk has written a solid overview title for the "Campaign" series of books published by Osprey. Perfect to understand the campaign with less than a day's reading.
“Kharkov 1942: Anatomy of a Military Disaster” by David M. Glantz.
Amazon reviewer: Colonel Glantz brings not just a historian's perspective to his study, but also that of a seasoned officer whose Military Intelligence branch experience helps to ferret out the reports and documents to provide an incredibly detailed history of this obscure but important operation. Stalin completely underestimated the resiliency of the German army following the winter counter-offensive and discounted the warnings of some of his senior officers (Zhukov, Shaposhnikov and Vasilevsky) and the General Staff, choosing instead the argument for an offensive proposed by Timoshenko, Bagramian and Khrushchev.
“Death of the Wehrmacht: The German Campaigns of 1942” by Robert M. Citino.
This is a great book to understand the Kharkov operation in the context of what would be the highwater of German advances in 1942. This the first book in Citino’s trilogy on the Wehrmacht. The other two volumes are linked below as well.
“The Wehrmacht Retreats: Fighting a Lost War, 1943”
“The Wehrmacht's Last Stand: The German Campaigns of 1944-1945”
Now for video content:
The Mack has a series of six videos covering Panzer Campaigns: Kharkov ’42. The introduction episode is below:
The full playlist is here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZF8xPbQMJqfLVOnLlCitRgJxyayDbkfP
Following are some historical background videos, worth your time:
Dragoon Commander (Armchair Dragoons) has an hour-long livestream with an overview of the campaign.
From channel WW 2 Documentary:
Following are some in-game screen shots of what to expect. Each image can be clicked for a full-sized view.
As mentioned above, the build we are making available today is the current 4.05.1 version. A range of new features have been included, and you can read the Changelog here. All new purchases will be this latest version.
If you don’t already own this title, what are you waiting for? You can buy it directly from the dedicated product page.
We hope you enjoy this week’s Game of the Week. Like all WDS titles, there is a lot of game play included at a very attractive price.
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