The fact that White Death gives such a detailed appraisal of the final battle for Velikiye Luki is due to an intensive effort to produce an historically correct battalion-level Russian Front simulation. I Suppose that Jack Radey, in his fine Korsun Pocket, and I were both working by coincidence on doing an "Ostfront" game with heavy emphasis on accuracy; fortunately we chose different topics - but our subject matter approach was similar - to give the wargaming community a professional, well-researched product on a level never attempted before on the Russo-German War of 1941-45.

There is, of course, a great deal of difference in our final products, since Peoples' War Games was simulating an early 1944 situation while White Death deals with a late 1942 battle, and a lot had happened in the interim. Unfortunately, a full discussion of sources and resulting design judgments was deleted from the GDW package, and, as a consequence, there have been just complaints in harmony with a hobby-wide debate raging on historical methods of documentation. Others admit that the game reflects an obvious in-depth level of research but are dismayed that there is no way to see what fudging, if any, was done. This article thus addresses how such a detailed order of battle was arrived at, and some more background information on the state of the armies during the engagement.

The best place to start is with the sources used, both published and unpublished, in this area. There is a common myth that data - especially data pertaining to the Soviet war effort and Russian units - is virtually nonexistent. Not only did German frontline intelligence contain a lot of "hard" information on enemy units and their strengths, but the Russians since the war have been increasingly prone to publish very critical and honest books recounting the battles of their sector during the Second World War. This latter information is dampened by a lack of availability of such books in this country, and the spotty coverage given so far.

Fortunately for Jack Radey, ready Russian sources had addressed his area, which was a major Russian victory. Velikiye Luki was also a Russian victory, but this author was unable to find any one Russian source addressing the campaign specifically. However, two good overall Soviet works are available: The History of the Great War for the Fatherland of the Soviet Union, translated as Geschichte des Grossen Vaterlandischen Krieges der Sowjetunion in 6 volumes by Deutsche Militaerverlag of Berlin in 1963 (first published Moscow 1961) and the History of the Second World War 1939-1945 published by the East Germans in twelve volumes and first appearing in Moscow in 1973. Both had good background information on the battle of Velikiye Luki. German sources were more plentiful, but the published ones sometimes varied materially with information found in the actual divisional and corps records from the war. Heeresgruppe Mitte, by W. Haupt (Podzunverlag, Dorheim, 1968), has an abbreviated account starting on page 150, for instance.

However, a U.S. Department of the Army pamphlet (no. 20-234) printed in January 1952, Operations of Encircled Forces - German Experiences in Russia, had a whole chapter dealing with the Velikiye Luki battle written by German officers. This historical study was very frank and honest in addressing the lessons learned. Of most benefit was the unpublished wealth of documentation to be found in the captured German war records and available on microfilm at the U.S. National Archives (the original records have been returned to West Germany). Reports, teletype messages, correspondence, orders, charts, maps pertaining to operations, order of battle, personnel strength, and material status can all be found here; in short, everything the Germans knew about the tactical situation in the Velikiye Luki area.

The detail of such information is overwhelming in some ways - for instance, much of one roll was taken up with correspondence and telecommunications pertaining to the guilt of Major Kuhne, commanding officer of Pioneer Battalion 183 (you got that unit in the game, don't jump up to look), in the loss of a secret document to the Russians. The rolls this author found were most useful in the design of the game were in the T-314 series: specifically Rolls 1506-1514, all of which dealt with LIX Army Corps records and war journals. Rolls 15101511 contained daily reports, including aerial photographs, maps, and overlays relat ed to the defense and attempted relief of the besieged city of Velikiye Luki. Roll 1512 contained a detailed critique concerning the siege and loss of the city. Of course, much information came from other captured German records; for example, an excellent summay of Soviet unit movement into the Velikiye Luki battle during the time period covered was found in T-311, Roll 97, and accompanies this article (see Chart 1). German divisional records were also consulted.

The German Order of Battle

Thanks to the fact that most German wartime records on this action survived the hazards of Allied bombing, postwar neglect, and outright "ditching" by clerks later in the war stampeding from the Russian advance, a very accurate German order of battle was readily obtainable. This extended to the exact number of tanks per formation (see Chart 2), and this is faithfully reproduced in game terms in the counters.

Essentially, there was no fudging in this area because there was no need to. One interesting aspect was the myriad of security troops thrown into the battle; but this became a matter of common usage as the war continued. Most of those in the game came from the resources of the 85th Security Regimental Staff. The Witebsk Ski- Alarm Battalion was an anti-partisan battalion specially formed by the commander of the Vitebsk garrison and wrested from his control. Thus it has a separate entry on the order of battle set- up chart which probably should be labelled "from Vitebsk". One of the 20th Motorized Division's antitank companies should have been composed of Marders (the division had nine of them), in retrospect. While nitpicking, the II Battalion of the 10SS (RFSS) Regiment should actually be the III Battalion (the II was not present at the battle).

For everyone's information, Dr. (Lt. Gen.) Beyer was the "sick man" unable to lead his 331st Infantry Division. Other quirks of the German order of battle were very adequately covered in the rules booklet. Suffice to say that the very uniqueness of this OB (who could resist a panzer battalion stuck with Czech Pz38t tanks, a Reichsfuehrer-SS brigade with the Freikorps Danmark, an Estonian Police Battalion, Brandenburg commandoes, etc. - all in one desperate drive?) attracted me to the battle in the first place.

Chart 2: Panzer Assets
Unit	Assigned to	Total	PzIV	PzIII	Pz38t	Other
195th StuG Bn	Corps	20	-	-	-	20xStuG
8th Co, 29 Pz Rgt	20th Mot D	15	10	-	-	5xPzI, II
I Bn, 10 Pz Rgt	8th Mot D	32	2	3	27	-
I Bn, 10 Pz Rgt	20th Mot D	20	1	18	-	1xPz II
Pz Bn 18	291st Inf D	54	15	30	-	9x Pz I and II
2nd Co, 66 Pz Bn	20th Mot D	6	-	-	-	6xT-34
Exact Number of Tanks in individual and parent units fluctuated during the length of the campaign.

The Soviet Order of Battle

The fact is that German battleline intelligence on Russian troop movements during this stage of the war was as optimum as it ever would be (that is, not as primitive as 1941 experiences demonstrated, but not yet the shambles it would be in 1944). Here, not only did the Germans know what was coming at them from the front lines, but also where it had came from (Chart W So another aspect of the simulation which was especially nice was having a good idea of what the Soviets had.

As discussed in the rules, much of the corps and army level artillery and engineer support was known as to probable quantity but not as to exact formation number. Instead of fudging here, such lack of information was openly admitted. There have been questions raised on why such an absence of Soviet anti-tank (7.62 anti- tank) regiments and rocket support. First, the colossal efforts at Leningrad (the "Lake Ladoga" battles) and Stalingrad had drained may specialized formations. The Germans were reporting such units prseent in these fronts, as well as in the Caucasus route and the Kuban Peninsula Bridgehead (just a few months later). The very pinpointing of AT regiments in other sectors (i.e., the ability of the Germans to pick up this data) verifies the probable actual lack of it at Velikiye Luki.

And one cursory glance at the Soviet OB, totalling some 7 tank brigades, 3 mechanized brigades, and 1 mobile tank-destroyer regiment, adds to the conclusion that the Russians felt assured that they were certainly giving their infantry sufficient anti-tank coverage! Rocket support was estimated, and could easily be off by a regiment's worth. This much was already admitted in the rules, as the Germans trapped in Velikiye Luki weren't taking many prisoners for interrogation and weren't able to venture out on reconnaissance patrols to gather information any longer.

So it was up to radio intercept and German formations worried about what was in front of them to take up the slack and try to guess what the Russians were throwing against the city. We have recreated at least the essence of this effort by interlocking the city garrison's ability to survive with the amount of Russian rocket and artillery support as estimated by German after- action reports in the area during the war. And, after all, when you have a Russian battalion level order of battle including detached infantry regiments, tank battalions, and even a motorcycle battalion by correct numerical designation, then it is about as complete as humanly possible until the Kremlin throws open its archives to search scholars.