Drop Zone
Great Battles of World War Two
Volume 1 and 2
Review by Mark Hannam
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Volume 1If beach assaults and battling Panzers is more your bag, then I guess whilst I`m at it, I should really tell you about Bruce MacFarlane`s previous WW2 epic, Canadians in Europe. This first volume of Great Battles of World War Two is similiar in design in every respect to Drop Zone. There are chapters on campaigns, organisation, weapons, and tactics ; well thought out scenarios and of course, the revolutionary rules which to my mind are an as yet unrecognised wargames classic. The A4, 75 page book is worth buying for the scenarios alone. These include a solo Dieppe game, Agira and Ortona (Sicily & Italy 1943), Juno Beach (a D-Day plus mini-campaign) Totalise 7th-8th Aug '44, Totalise 9th-10th Aug '44 and Tractable (Normandy), a combination scenario for Totalise and Tractable, and finally Hochwald Layback (Rhineland 1945). At last, your tabletop battles will play they way they read in the WW2 history books. Highly Recommended. Volume 2Drop Zone is the latest exciting release from The Canadian Wargames Group. I briefly mentioned it`s sister publication Great Battles . . .Volume 1: Canadians in Europe in my editorial of Issue 10. Well, this is another winner from wargame author Bruce McFarlane. Drop Zone is a set of rules. No, it`s a scenario book. No, its a wargamers` guide to WW2 airborne operations. Well actually, it`s all of the above. Each stand of figures represents a rifle or support company with the battalion as the manoeuvre element, the scope of the game being such that it allows you to play divisional and corps level actions over several days of actual combat and not just the 3-4 hours of combat for the odd farmhouse and crossroads prevalent with other rules. A German Parachute Regiment has a HQ stand, a Heavy Weapons stand and 3 rifle battalions each of 4 SMG stands (3-4 figures each), giving a total outlay in 15mm of about £ 10. The Maleme scenario for the German airborne invasion of Crete requires around 20 packs of Germans and 12 packs of Commonwealth figures. The rules themselves are not just limited to airborne operations. They are the same rules found in Great Battles . . .Volume 1, only tightened up and expanded to cover the mechanics of airborne drops. As such, they can be used for other campaigns or even WW1, Spanish Civil War and Korea. For me they capture the essence of Second World War operations. At last, the mechanics of battle as opposed to combat are represented on the tabletop. For instance, when you attach armour to infantry formations, the infantry feel the direct benefit of the armour by being given a bonus in their attacks rather than having you fight the infantry and tanks as two separate entities. Artillery models are not required as artillery is abstracted and appear instead as Artillery Templates representing fire missions which are laid on the tabletop. The scenarios include Galatas, Heraklion & Maleme for Crete; Malta (hypothetical based on German plans); Pegasus Bridge Solo (each stand = platoon); Eindhoven, Nijmegen & Arnhem for Market Garden. There are also two major campaigns, Operation Mercury: the invason of Crete and Operation Market Garden : Arnhem. The 68 page A4 book includes the generic Great Battles. . . WW2 rules; a concise history of airborne forces; a guide to organisation for German, Italian, US and British airborne divisions; weapons and tactics. A true wargamers` guide, with playable yet realistic rules which don`t expect you to own a shed full of lead before you can play the scenarios. Back to The Gauntlet No. 14 Table of Contents Back to The Gauntlet List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1998 by Craig Martelle Publications 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 |