BF and TF played out in a similar manner using similar tactics. PoA played somewhat differently which we expected, given its very different mechanics. In all three games, the Soviet player placed wire and mines in what he considered to be the most inconvenient spots and tried to cover those spots with antitank guns and infantry. The German player had several choices as to how to make his attack, while the Soviet, stretched thinly, was forced to place troops more consistently from game to game. In the first two games, the hamlet and farmhouse acted as a flame, drawing the attackers to it even though they could have attacked around the built-up areas. In the third game, the Soviet finally kept his troops out of these two killing zones and the progress of the battle went quite differently. In all three games the Germans picked a point and applied pressure until it broke, with predictable results. In the first two games, had the Germans bypassed the built-up area, the Soviets would have had to redeploy to block them, which would have made for a much more open game. Unusually, the Germans had artillery superiority over the Soviets; this was for two reasons. Historically, KG Meier had the 19th Panzer Division's artillery battalion attached to it for the attack, providing much more support than it might otherwise have expected. The Soviet troops, for their part, were stretched thin and still awaiting the movement forward of their reserves, so their artillery support consisted of whatever could be scraped together at regimental level. In the first game, even though they conceded before this could have any effect, the Soviets began a redeployment of their remaining troops to block the obvious line of advance. In the second game the Soviets basically fought and died (or retreated) in place. In the PoA game, the Soviets fell back to a second defense line before the game ended. Artillery was, despite the different methods of getting it on-target, equally effective in all of the games. The German artillery arrived on time and on target in the first two games while the Soviet artillery did so (on the German first grenadier company) in the third game. We took a hard look at the scenario's balance after all three games had been played. Initially, it seemed that the Soviets couldn't win but after reconsideration, it seems that a cagey Soviet player who doesn't deploy into all of the expected places might have a good chance of frustrating the German victory conditions. This was clearly demonstrated in the third game, though the random turn nature did as much to foul up the German plans as the Soviets did… One thing that was made abundantly clear was that putting Soviet infantry in the farmyard is a great way to get them shelled! What could have been done to balance the scenario better? After each game the Soviet players consistently suggested more Soviet infantry… We thought about the axis of the game map, too. Playing down the length with the existing forces instead of across the width would have made things much more challenging for the Germans but the game would have to be longer, to give the Germans a reasonable chance to cross the battlefield even without opposition. We plan to try this and if we do, we'll feed back to The Courier our results. The most entertaining part of playing out the scenario with each rule set lay in seeing how each treated common tabletop occurrences. As noted, the three rule sets all used deterministic spotting but they could not have treated it much more differently than they did. BF's spotting rules were the most complex but, I think, had the best feel to them. Units could, given the proper circumstances, be seen at a fair distance, but generally units in cover needed to do something to reveal themselves to be seen. The suspect target rule and fire die modifier did a good job of allowing combat against indistinctly-seen targets. TF's spotting rules worked similarly but were a bit simpler in execution and a bit less detailed-feeling. PoA's spotting rules were the simplest of all; they basically abstracted the whole basic issue of spotting in favor of one of target acquisition, which was governed by the sequence deck. When it came down to it, all three rule sets' combat rules were pretty basic. All three games dwelt much more on the "soft" aspects of combat than on equipment metrics, with very basic ratings, at best for AFVs and equipment. BF and TF used a very similar system though BF included equipment data on full-color data cards a bit smaller than playing cards and TF did it on a single consolidated chart for each nationality. Both worked just fine though BF's seemed a bit simpler to use. In both cases, AFVs had front, flank, and rear (TF) armor values that needed to be penetrated in order for the attack to have much effect. TF's infantry fire combat resulted in more out-and-out fatalities than did BF's, but they were similar. PoA took things in an entirely different direction, rolling an attack die customized to the firing unit against a standard defense die. Tactical considerations including cover, armor thickness, range, etc., all modified the type of attack die rolled. Infantry fire combat worked in exactly the same way. A big difference was in when combat could occur. As noted above, BF used a sequential move/fire mechanism that just about did away with the need for opportunity fire and was not interactive. TF generally had the player with the initiative making the attacks but minimum range and opportunity attacks kept things quite mixed up. PoA did it in an entirely different way, making the players subject to the sequence cards drawn during their initiative phases for the ability to fire on a target. This made fire combat - its sequence, anyway - entirely unpredictable. In several occasions, German infantry fired several times against the opposing Soviet infantry with no reply, due to the order of the sequence deck. We generally agreed that we preferred the illusion of armor to PoA's dice method though, to be fair, PoA's way worked smoothly and simply. BF attempted to pay attention to low-level organizations - squads and sections - and generally did a good job. TF completely abstracted things below a certain level - the platoon (or in the Soviet army, the tank company). PoA likewise abstracted things below the platoon or battery, organizing them all in a uniform manner. Morale is handled in three very different ways by the three rule sets, too. BF's morale is firmly ensconced at the company level - in fact, platoons might well not even exist in those rules - and isn't even treated, really, as morale but, rather, as combat efficiency as reflected by the maneuver chart.. That said, the morale rules work quite well, incorporating (as noted above) a discipline rating that is affected by how stands are feeling and that affects everything a unit does. It is the most transparent of the morale rules and worked, I think, most smoothly. TF exercises morale at the company level, too, but more explicitly. Morale checks are actually taken at turn's end and companies (as in the second game) break and flee. This morale system feels the most traditional of the three. PoA's morale checks are performed at the platoon level and have traditional results (i.e., units become shaken, fall back, etc.). The unusual feature of PoA's morale, as noted above, is that morale checks are triggered by the playing of a morale chip against the player by the enemy. This is an interesting game device but we weren't sure how closely related to reality it is. It has a similar feel to the mechanism in West End Games' board game series "Tank Leader", when players bid for the right to move troops… Indirect fire was, as one might expect, handled in different ways by the different rules. Resolution wasn't so very different and in fact, in all three cases the actual resolution for indirect fire matched that for direct fire. The method of getting the artillery onto the table did differ, though. BF, if you managed to contact the battery via a die roll, brought the fire in almost immediately. TF, using a similar mechanism, delayed it's arrival by a turn. PoA relied on a sequence card turn to request the fire and then on another sequence card turn for the fire to arrive. At this scale it arguable that PoA's way of doing things might be the most fitting, as it is indeed the most uncertain! Bottom Line What's the bottom line? Which rule set is best? Not gonna say. All three games played smoothly, were good and bloody, and produced a battle decision within an hour or two of game time. They all rewarded good tactics while punishing bad ones (do not group infantry in farmyards in LOS of an enemy FO!). They were all reasonably simple to play; none felt like work… Battlefront and Tacfire felt much more normal/comfortable than Point of Attack but that may simply be because we're a bunch of reactionaries who don't adapt well to change; the former two sets of rules simply felt more like what we perceived this level of WW II combat to be like. Each has strong points and weak ones and all three provided an enjoyable game. To be fair, this was our first exposure to Point of Attack. We plan to play more of it to get a better feel for things, but our first impression was "lots of innovative ideas but do they have anything to do with WW II land combat?" because of some of the more obvious game devices used to make the game work. People either really like the Piquet game system or really dislike it. Our jury's still out, pending further play. This article only addressed three sets of rules that leapt out at us because of our relatively recent exposure to them. There are other sets out there that bracket this game scale - Mein Panzer is actually one level lower, right between these rules' scale and skirmish scale, with individual tanks, guns, and fire teams. Any of the platoon-level rules (Command Decision, Kampfgruppe, Microarmor: The Game, etc.) could be used to play out this scenario, though it'd be a smallish two-player scenario. As usual, any inaccuracies, insults, or other offenses launched by this article are entirely my fault. The good things - valuable suggestions and feedback, and the enthusiastic play of the scenarios - are thanks to Victor Graulau and John Lewis. Bibliography Please note that these are only the most useful of the books used in preparation of this article… Glantz, David; The Failures of Historiography: Forgotten Battles of the German-Soviet War (1941 - 1945); Foreign Military Studies Office, Ft. Leavenworth, KS; 1997. This was actually a 3-page article I found on the internet that referred only peripherally to the Magnuszew Bridgehead, in noting the severity of the German counter-attacks against it. It was one of the first citations I found about this battle, though, so I include it here. Haupt, Werner; Army Group Center - the Wehrmacht in Russia 1941 - 1945; pp. 208 - 210; Schiffer Publishing Ltd., Atglen, PA; 1997. Provides a high level description of Bagration and notes, almost parenthetically, the outcomes of the bridgehead counterattacks. Useful because it put everything else into context! Nafziger, George; The German Order of Battle: Panzers and Artillery in World War II; pp. 125 - 128; Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA; 1995. Provided a wealth of information on the German panzer forces in general and on the 19th Panzer Division in particular, tracing its evolution through the war and showing its changing composition. Also very useful to the scenario designer… Sharp, Charles; Soviet Order of Battle World War II Volume IV: Red Guards; pg. 63; George F. Nafziger; West Chester, OH; 1995. Provided a wealth of information on the Soviet Guards Rifle formations in general and on the component units of the 28th Guards Rifle Corps in particular. Very useful to the scenario designer… Sharp, Charles; My Collected Email Correspondences With…; March 2001. Charles, as usual, ferreted out obscure information on this battle, especially on low-level German formations present, and even found the name of the German KG involved… Thanks! Zaloga, Steven; Bagration 1944; pp. 73 - 82; Osprey, London, UK, 1996. This volume in the Osprey Campaign series (Number 42) provides a high level description of Bagration and, more importantly for this article, provided both a description of the events leading to the German counter-attacks and a nice map of the bridgehead area and dispositions of the various forces engaged therein on pages 78 - 79. Comparison of Features of Rules Played Rules Feature Battlefront Tacfire Point of Attack Overall Complexity Simplest Simple Simple Combat Complexity Simplest Simple Simple Direct Fire Complexity Simplest Simple Simple Indirect Fire Complexity Simplest Simple Simple Close Assault Complexity Simplest Simple Simple Pre-Game Setup Complexity Simplest Average Most complex Command Control Level Company Platoon Platoon Command Control Simplest Simple Simple Morale Simplest Simple Simple Time Scale per turn 10 minutes 10 minutes 30 minutes Ground Scale per inch 40 yards 40 yards 50 yards Troop Stand Unit Scale Squad 1/2 platoon 1/3 platoon Vehicle Model Unit Scale Section Pair 1/3 platoon Equipment Stand Unit Scale Section Section 1/2 platoon Spotting Deterministic Deterministic Deterministic Play Sequence Sequential Mixed-Sequential Mixed-Sequential Ideal Player Force Battalion Battalion Battalion Please note that these ratings are entirely subjective and are the opinions of the author and the scenario players and nobody else. Comments on this chart and rules comparisons will appear further along in this article. To the Vistula! WWII Rule Sets Reviewed Introduction Battlefront Tacfire Point of Attack Scenario: 5 August 1944 Overview Scenario Replay: Battlefront Scenario Replay: Tacfire Scenario Replay: Point of Attack Comparisons and Conclusions Back to Table of Contents -- Courier #82 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com