During the spring/summer of 1993 the National Monstergaming Society (NMS) played a full grand campaign game of FitE/SE . Over the past ten years our specialty has been week-long (16 hours per day) games of SPI's old War in the Pacific (heavily modified). Not having sufficient players this year, we opted for something new. All but two of our players had some Europa experience, four had played full campaign games and two had played multiple campaign games of FitE/SE. As our weeklong format would only allow an estimated 42 turns to be played, we decided to play-by-mail (PBM) the first several blitz turns to allow the face-to-face play to proceed into the later stages of the game. In August of 1993 we convened to conduct eight 16-hour days of face-to-face play. A report of our experiences follows. I might first say that as a player on the Soviet side, my comments may be a bit biased, but somebody has to write the article, so here goes...

Each team started with four players. The Soviets began with a CinC/West Front Commander (Cdr), North Front Cdr, South Front Cdr and Rear Area Watcher. The Germans began with an Army Group North Cdr, CinC/Army Group Center Cdr, Army Group South Cdr and Finnish Cdr. After some initial wrangling, the Soviet CinC/West Front Cdr became the CinC/Rear Area Cdr and the previous Rear Area Watcher became the West Front Cdr.

By the first week of May of 1993, the Soviet setups had been finalized and uploaded to Compuserve. German Surprise and Jun II moves and combat were completed by early June. The Soviets lost some 275 attack points during the Surprise/Jun II German moves. Highlights were: The Germans had 3 c/m division across the Dvina River in AGN; Riga had not been attacked. AGC had closed up to a thin Soviet line north and south of Minsk. AGS had landed two regiments of the 22nd Luftlande Division at 1B:4610 (supported by 15 chits worth of Hellls and Ju88s, as well as a dozen extended Me 109Fs) and had taken Lwow and surrounded the Soviet line in southern Poland. After the Soviet move, an almost continuous line from Bobruysk to Lake Peipus had been established and the Soviet Cdrs anticipated being able to hold the Germans on the 1939 border for three turns.

Notice I said `almost continuous.' Well the Soviet Northern Cdr had left about 5 holes in his line and then things got dramatic. The Germans poured everything they could through the gaps, and the Soviets shuffled their command structure once more. On the Jul II turn, a hole appeared in the Soviet West Front along the Berezina River, and Army Group Center got across. However, we had now begun our face-to-face play and the Axis offensive seemed to slow down considerably.

At this point I might take a moment to mention that in our face-to-face play we were using a timer, with one hour allowed for the combined initial phase and movement phase. This was very different from the 'search-for-the-perfect-move' style of play that had emerged during the PBM portion of the game. I do recall that as a Soviet, once I started attacking I basically pushed everything forward, making the stacks as big as possible, and used air power to get the odds I needed. There absolutely was not enough time to count points during the move. Players who tried usually made only one attack. Also the important sectors kept changing and one of the real challenges of the game was to shuffle the commanders and the command sizes to squeeze as much as possible out of the allotted time.

The Axis team might disagree with this assessment, but we on the Soviet team felt outplayed during the PBM portion of play, but heaved a big sigh of relief after the first day of face-to-face play when we realized that the Axis weren't handling the allocation of commanders/forces as well as us.

Anyway, back to the game. 

After having their front broken on the Berezina, the Soviets in the north and center shifted to the `runaway' defense. Use of the rails and poor Axis pursuit resulted in a very successful pullout. The Soviets kept large forces (about 22 REs of Armor and 100 points of Infantry) in the Valdai Hills. Most of the reinforcements went to Leningrad. The remainder of 1941 saw intense combat in the Leningrad area between Novgorod and Narva. Heavy combat also occurred at the 'Hauser Line' (the three hexes along the river just south of Lake Ilmen), and in the Valdai Hills. Along the rest of the front the armies were not even in contact. In fact, until late spring 1942 there was no contact between the Armies south of the Valdai Hills.

The reasons for this were:

a. Difficulties in regauging.
b. Soviets ran away too far?
c. Lack of Axis aggressiveness?

We skipped every 4th turn (starting with Oct II 41). Only production activities were allowed in skipped turns. As it turned out, we probably should have allowed regauging and repair of rail lines also. Some players felt that the skipped cycles made the Soviet Army expand too rapidly, as the Germans had 1/4 less turns to kill Russians. However, given the very low kill counts (-20/turn) during this period (Oct II 41 - Apr II 42), this argument has only theoretical validity.

Some may question why we were skipping turns, anyway. During the years our group played WITP, we began to use cycle skipping to allow the game to reach the later stages, since it was impossible (even in 8 days of 16 hour turns) to play to these stages normally. After doing this for some time, we came to realize that skipping also solved another problem with WITP-- the IJN comes out too far, too fast and the Allies come back too far, too fast. As skipping slowed development of the game down, this (for WITP) was good.

We determined to try skipping in SE untested, as we were sure we couldn't reach even summer 1943 without it. All in all I think skipping worked (though I would do some things differently given another chance). The game `felt' more like 1943 during 1942, and more like 1944 in 1943, though that is probably the case even without skipping.

During the winter of 1941, the Leningrad sector saw many manly 4:1 (-2) attacks on the Soviet side and a lot of 5:1 (-2) attacks on the German side. We were playing with the original SE CRT which has that `EX' on the bottom of the table. The feeling by the involved commanders was that with the new table a Leningrad campaign becomes much more difficult. (The Soviet Cdrs felt like there was no way the Axis could ever take Leningrad using the new, revised Collector Series CRT.)

Stack size in the Leningrad line was 20+ for the Soviets. In the Hauser Line and the Valdai Hills, it was 15+ prior to about Feb 42, and then was 20+. The Axis were making 1 or 2 attacks per turn, the Soviets 1. The bulk of both air forces were in this sector.

The Moscow line was a double fort line from Kalinin to Tula with 15 points in the first line and 7 (later 8) in the second. The Axis never closed with this line until May `42. There was a gap between Kalinin and the area around the rail intersection in the Valdai Hills. This gap was intentional and more will be said about this later.

As we approached the 1942 campaign season, the Soviet CinC realized that the Voronezh area needed to be held, as a number of Soviet Tank Corps appear in Orel MD. Without these TCs the Soviet Armor OB would been strapped, so I gave our Southern Cdr the bulk of the reinforcements for the next several turns and told him to hold Voronezh until July. This turned out to be a good idea regardless of the extra Tank Corps, as this move sucked up most of the Axis Summer offensive (which otherwise might have hit the Southern flank of the Moscow defenses or, less likely, headed for Rostov). In the event, there were a few skirmishes around Tula but I managed to distract the Axis by putting `stupid stacks' (one stack of 8 strength points) out in front of my line, which the Axis would be content to kill most every turn.

Meanwhile, the main Moscow line was never really threatened. Once the mud ended, the Axis Valdai Hills Commander ran about 12 divisions (plus supporting ants) through the 'Kalinin Gap' and toward the Ivanovo area.

Somebody forgot to cover the north side of Kalinin itself and in my turn I counterattacked out of Kalinin and cut off the twelve divisions, ten of which (the non-motorized ones) eventually died. This was as close as we came to a Stalingrad and it was in high summer 1942! 

After this, the initiative had definitely shifted and within a turn or so the Soviets went over to the offensive everywhere.

The Axis were real weak between Kharkov and Kursk, and I sent about half the Soviet armor to that sector, with the other half going to the Dnepr Bend area around Zaporozhe. The artillery divisions were split between Leningrad and Zaporozhe.

In the north (Leningrad) the Axis had a double fort line and it was one hex at a time.

In the center (from the Valdai Hills to Bryansk) the Soviets played an attrition game with lots of 3:1 and 4:1 attacks.

In north Ukraine an armor-heavy force pushed toward Kiev, uncovering the Axis left flank in the Kharkov sector.

In south Ukraine preparations to cross the Dnepr were underway. By the end of winter (early 1943) a viable (multi-hex) bridgehead had been established between Zaporozhe and Nikopol.

I might mention here that the Soviet Southern Commander had managed to hold the Crimea. What made this feat most amazing was that all his teammates thought this was an impossible proposition and had tried to discourage him. I'm not sure what the exact key was to accomplishing this, but the bulk of the Axis air units going to and remaining in the Leningrad sector likely played a large role. (Even though the Crimea was cut off for 20 or so turns, the Black Sea Fleet continued bringing in supplies the whole time--a strong Luftwaffe presence could have put an end to this naval supply lift.)

By the end of the game (Jun 43) Kharkov had fallen and the Axis southern front was starting to show cracks.

In late 1942 the Axis had changed tactics and gone to an everything-up-front approach. This made for stacks of 25+ which were difficult to attack, but we made as many attacks (avoiding AH or worse) as possible and by the end of the game I think we had gotten them to the point were this would no longer work. By the way, in late 1942 we allowed them to bring in the 5-7-6 Inf XXs.

During our 8 days of play, the Axis attacked for 4 days (through Jun 42) and the Soviets attacked for 4 days (through Jun 43). This in itself was almost perfect from a player's point of view. Turn skipping probably did help the Soviets more than we expected and I would reduce replacement points during the skipped cycles (but not reinforcements) if done again. Also, regauging should be allowed during the skips. Most of our players felt that air power was far too strong and that perhaps it should be halved in non-clear terrain (and possibly quartered in special cases).

I might add that what slowed the Axis offensives in 1941 and 1942 (skipping) would have had the same effect on the Soviet pushes in 1943 and 1944. I doubt the Soviets would have achieved a blowout had the game continued; whereas in games with no skipped cycles, this is virtually inevitable.

Oh gee, I almost forgot Finland! This was pretty much a backwater, but I'll give a few highlights. The initial setup up was conservative (with a long-view, pro-Finnish rather than short-run pro-German slant). There was lots of stuff around Hango and in the fort line north of Leningrad, and not much threatening the Murmansk rail. A major lunge was made down the `K-town' (Kandalaksha) railroad, but this was stopped. The Soviets retreated into Leningrad on the peninsula and the Finns pursued too closely. A well-planned Soviet airborne/amphibious landing went in behind the line and messed up a few divisions. After this the Finns went on the strict defensive in the south while still trying to maintain a threat in the north. I think by the end of the game each player had commanded in Finland a least a few turns. I (as Soviet CinC) axed the Soviet North Front Cdr's plan to crush the Finns in 1942. I wanted to beat the Germans, not the Finns. Thus the line remained fairly static from late 1941 on; so much for Finland.

Finally, everyone wanted to play again, but about half said they couldn't PBM the game. The large number of counters made the turns too time-consuming (more than one wife had complained). Thus we are looking for something else. Perhaps with Second Front out we just might give it a try for our next major face-to-face encounter!

Editors Note:

Mr. Wilkerson dubbed the Soviet fort fine near Lake Amen the 'Hauser Line' in honor of veteran SE strategist Victor Hauser, who proposed this defensive scheme while serving as a pre-war consultant. For the record, Victor advocates forts in hexes 2A:1930, 1931, 2029, 2030, 2130, and 2131.