Game of the Week, Nov 24-30

This week’s Game of the Week takes you to the brutal heart of the Eastern Front in 1942. Panzer Campaigns: Stalingrad ’42 puts you in command during one of the most infamous battles of the Second World War, as German and Axis forces drive toward the Volga and into the ruined streets of the city that bears Stalin’s name.

Available at 25% off all week until 30 November, Panzer Campaigns: Stalingrad ’42 challenges you to drive to the Volga and seize the shattered city—or hold the riverbank at all costs, weather the storm of Operation Uranus, and turn Stalingrad into Germany’s graveyard instead.

Rattenkrieg

In the summer of 1942, the German Wehrmacht launched Case Blue, a new strategic offensive in southern Russia. Building on the hard-fought spring successes around Kharkov – recreated in Panzer Campaigns: Kharkov ’42 – the German High Command sought to regain the initiative, this time with a narrower but vital goal: to seize the oil fields of the Caucasus and cut the Volga, the Soviet Union’s main north–south artery for transport and industry. Army Group South was split into two spearheads – one driving toward the Caucasus, the other, built around General Friedrich Paulus’s 6th Army and 4th Panzer Army, ordered to reach the Volga near the city that bore Stalin’s name. At first, Stalingrad was seen more as a communications and industrial hub to be neutralised than a prestige objective in its own right, but that perception would not last long.

Through July and August, German armour and motorised infantry swept across the steppe, forcing back shattered Soviet formations and crossing the Don on a broad front. Luftflotte 4 provided crushing air support, hammering Soviet defensive lines and, from late August, turning large parts of Stalingrad into smoking ruins. The German 6th Army reached the Volga north of the city on 23 August 1942 after a devastating air raid that killed thousands of civilians and refugees. What Berlin had hoped would be another encirclement battle fought in the open instead ossified into a brutal struggle for streets, factories, and riverbank strongpoints.

„За Волгой для нас земли нет.“

“For us, there is no land beyond the Volga.”

– quoted in Vasily Zaitsev’s wartime memoir Notes of a Russian Sniper

By September, the Battle of Stalingrad had become a symbol as much as a military operation. Hitler now demanded that the city be taken for prestige, while Stalin ordered it held at any cost. The German infantry, supported by panzers used almost as mobile pillboxes, fought their way into the northern industrial districts – the Tractor Factory, the Barrikady works, the Red October steel plant – only to find the Soviet 62nd Army clinging to every ruin and cellar. Chuikov’s troops crossed the Volga under fire to reinforce tiny bridgeheads; German assaults achieved local gains but never quite pushed the defenders into the river. Fighting devolved into close-quarters combat in rubble, sewers, and stairwells – the “Rattenkrieg”, or rat war, remembered by survivors.

While German attention and reserves were sucked into the city, the long flanks west and south of Stalingrad were held mostly by Romanian, Italian, and Hungarian formations, under-equipped with modern anti-tank weapons and short of armour. Soviet planners, having absorbed the summer’s defeats, quietly built up powerful offensive groupings on these sectors. On 19 November 1942, Operation Uranus smashed into the Romanian Third Army on the Don; a day later, a second blow fell against the Romanian Fourth Army south of the city. Within days, Soviet tank and mechanised corps linked up near Kalach, encircling 6th Army and parts of 4th Panzer Army, forming the Stalingrad pocket.

At this point, the 6th Army still had the strength to attempt a breakout to the southwest, but Hitler forbade any retreat and promised that the Luftwaffe would supply the surrounded troops by air – a promise Göring’s depleted air fleets were unable to keep. Manstein’s Army Group Don mounted a relief attempt from the south in December, but it stalled short of the pocket. As the winter deepened, rations and ammunition inside Stalingrad ran out, the wounded froze in open trenches, and organised resistance gradually shrank into a few isolated strongpoints amidst the ruins. On 31 January 1943, Paulus surrendered the southern half of the pocket; the last remnants capitulated on 2 February. The destruction of the 6th Army and its allies marked a strategic catastrophe for Germany, shattered the aura of Wehrmacht invincibility, and turned Stalingrad into one of the defining turning points of the Second World War – the epic campaign that Panzer Campaigns: Stalingrad ’42 invites players to explore in operational detail.

„Die Straße wird nicht mehr in Metern gemessen, sondern in Leichen… Stalingrad ist keine Stadt mehr. Bei Tag ist es eine gewaltige Wolke aus brennendem und beißendem Rauch; ein riesiger Ofen, der vom Widerschein der Flammen beleuchtet wird. Und wenn die Nacht kommt, eine dieser sengenden, heulenden, blutigen Nächte, springen die Hunde in die Wolga und schwimmen verzweifelt ans andere Ufer. Die Nächte von Stalingrad sind schrecklich für sie. Tiere flüchten aus dieser Hölle; die härtesten Steine ertragen das nicht lange, nur Menschen halten das aus.“

“The street is no longer measured in meters, but in corpses… Stalingrad is no longer a city. By day, it is a huge cloud of burning and acrid smoke; a giant furnace lit by the reflection of the flames. And when night falls, one of those scorching, howling, bloody nights, the dogs jump into the Volga and swim desperately to the other side. The nights of Stalingrad are terrible for them. Animals flee from this hell; even the hardest stones cannot endure it for long, only humans can withstand it.”

- Leutnant Joachim Stempel, Panzergrenadier-Regiment 103 / 24. Panzer-Division

What's in the Game

Stalingrad ’42 includes 86 scenarios, spanning a diverse range of sizes and types, including a solo tutorial and specialized versions for head-to-head play and against the computer AI.

The master map, spanning 75,000 hexes, encompasses the entire region from the bend of the Don River in the west to the Volga River in the east, with Stalingrad as its focal point.

The order of battle file details the Axis and Allied forces that participated in the campaign, with additional formations incorporated for hypothetical scenarios.

Order-of-Battle, Parameter Data, and Scenario Editors allow players to customize the game.

The sub-map feature divides the main map into smaller segments, facilitating custom scenario creation.

Design notes encompass the game’s production, campaign notes, and a bibliography of sources used by the designer team to create this simulation game.

Stalingrad ’42 offers multiple play options, including play against the computer AI, Play by E-mail (PBEM), LAN and Internet “live” play, and two-player hot seat.

Bibliography and Video Recommendations

Here are some book recommendations to get a wider understanding of the Battle of Stalingrad and Operation Uranus (Clicking the cover bringes you the book page on Amazon)

Screenshots

Below, you will find screenshots from the game, which will give you an impression of what to expect. There are two distinct interface variants available  (Clicking on an image opens it in full resolution)

We hope you enjoy this week’s Game of the Week: Panzer Campaigns: Stalingrad '42  Like all WDS titles, it provides countless hours of rich historical gameplay at a very attractive price.