This is a classic wargames article, originally published in Wargames Digest, Avalon Hill's The General, and in GHQs La Vivandiere magazine, Vol. 1 and 2. That was 25 years ago! It is reprinted here with the kind permission of GHQ.
The article, "Panzerblitz is Number One!" in issue number one of La Vivandiere magazine should be an inspiration to many who have seen Micro-Armour, to transform two dimensional Panzerblitz into three dimensional wargaming. Why is Panzerblitz so popular! Probably because the game mechanics of Panzerblitz are very similar to miniature wargaming. But unlike wargaming with figures, you don't require a 6 x 10 foot game table to have a World War Two battle. You just open up the Panzerblitz box, set up the "terrain" and bring out the panzers and tank armies.
Yet it seems to me that there are always too many counters covering different terrain and soon, it all looks alike. Since the introduction of Micro-Armour it would be possible to use tanks for counters on the Panzerblitz board. Yet this is little improvement over use of counters. But if you can build a three dimensional board that can be set up in minutes and give you a large enough area to allow tactics and a large range of movements, then miniature wargaming can be as convenient as boardgaming. I did it and I think it is quite easy to do. The results were rewarding.
T-34's rush the slopes of Hill 132.
The first step was to double the dimensions of each board to 16 inches by 44 inches. Assembled as in one of the situations in the game rules, the table top size is 48 inches by 44 inches, which
certainly does not take up too much room and would fit into apartment living. The "Kursk" layout would be 16 inches by 132 inches which presents an interesting "fog of war" situation when you try to see what kind of attack is forming, 10 feet away.
One half inch thick styrofoam was obtained and glued to 1/8 inch hardboard (or 1/4 inch plywood) with white glue. The styrofoam is an insulation material available in 2 by 4 foot sheets. Each board was then laid out with gullies and hills by taking measurements from two adi . acent sides of the Panzerblitz board to locate a "point" on the map, multiplying the measurement obtained by two, and then transferring the "point" on to the styrofoam board. After enough "points" are located, connect them with a crayon, thus giving you a double size copy of each board (except for roads which we will come to later after painting). Make certain that where gullies come off the boards, they match the other boards when they are joined together in different game situations.
With an X-Acto knife or equivalent, cut out the gullies making them about a half inch wide. Taper the banks another half inch on each side. Don't worry about some bad cuts at this time, since we will smooth and round off the edges by using commercial patching plaster from a can or a powder mix. You will use the plaster mix to fill in the bottom of the gullies or to shape gully streams.
After locating hills and ridges on the board in the same way as you did for gullies, measure across their widths and lengths, including slopes, multiply by two and then cut them out from half inch styrofoam. One or two of the larger hills can be made by suing two thicknesses to give height. Taper off the edges by cutting styrofoam at an angle, leaving a flat surface to the hills that show a flat top on the Panzerblitz boards.
Here again, we will use the plaster mix to ease the slopes so that the Micro-Armour AFV's can traverse them. I don't believe that you have to be exact here, but you should want to duplicate all of the salient features of the Panzerblitz boards.
If you are satisfied at this point that the gullies and hills are smooth enough after using the plaster mix, paint the boards with a green latex inside wall paint. You can slop it on with a brush. You can also sprinkle the still wet painted surfaces with scenic grass available from model railroad hobby stores.
Once again, you will have to take measurements from each Panzerblitz board to locate road junctions, turns and bends, and road terminations so that after doubling the measurements, you can locate them on the painted styrofoam boards. Using a half inch wide (or smaller) paint brush, paint on the roads in light brown, earth, or clay. If you make an error, paint over again with green.
Step back now and admire your work. It is beginning to look like a wargame table already. At this point you will have to decide how to make your trees. They can be mounted on cardboard, plastic, or balsa wood stands that are cut to the shape of the forests on the Panzerblitz boards. (Remember to double the size). Made this way, they can be removed for storage. However, I mounted my trees on the board by pressing them into the styrofoam. Different materials can be used for trees. In a fabric store, I bought a couple of yards of two different color green fringe material that looks like half inch balls on a ribbon.
After cutting them from the ribbon, I drove a brown wall paneling finish nail through each ball and inserted it into the styrofoam forming woods or forests. Other trees were made by purchasing plastic flowers and greens from the plastic flower department of a store and removing certain appropriate leaves from the stems. I inserted these same brown finish nails through three to five of those leaves and then pressed the trees into the styrofoam boards.
Other trees that can be used are "N" gauge trees or other model railroad scenery cut down to size (one to two inches tall). Lichen can be purchased in a hobby store, shaped into trees, and glued to these brown finish nails. I intend to use this method next when I build up the "Guerre 'a Outrance" France 1940 game published by Simulations Design Corporation in their issue number one of Conflict magazine. This game furnished a geomorphic two map game board which I will double in size. This will furnish a good battleground for the French Micro-Armour AFV's as well as British Matildas against German Panzer I, II, and III's.
Now the rest is easy. Panzerblitz towns become villages made up from Monopoly houses and hotels painted appropriate dull colors. Additional buildings can be made from a variety of balsa wood sizes that are available in all hobby stores. Even triangular shapes can be used for roof sections.
The houses can be cemented directly to the board after you have located town sites. I did it this way. However, you can mount them on green grass paper and painting the roads on to match the roads on the board. The idea here is to allow you to replace a village with a a burned out or damaged war-ravaged one.
The gullies can be painted with a thin line of gloss blue to represent water or you can leave it dry. You will need a few bridges which can be made simply from wood, plastic card, or you can vacuum form some. You should make them removable so that they can be replaced with "damaged" bridges. Swamps can be painted in using thinned-out blue or brown colors to duplicate those on the Panzerblitz boards.
Battlegroup entering between hills 109 and 126.
Now the fun begins. You can use your Micro-Armour to fight battles using Panzerblitz rules. You can mount the new Micro-Armour German infantry four or six to a 1/2 inch square stand and paint them khaki to represent Russian troops and gray for German infantry. You can continue to use Panzerblitz unit counters for infantry and heavy weapons except for artillery. I prefer the Micro-Armour infantry mounted on stands. I wasn't satisfied with Panzerblitz rules at all once I build up my boards. I then used what I consider to be the best World War Two rules published. The are the "1944" rules by Arnold Hendricks of NEWA. I really feel that they approach the problem of "historical realism" for World War II action. What we need now is some support weapons from Micro-Armour for the World War II action on a large format.
Figures were mounted three to a stand for a German platoon and six to a stand for a Russian company. 75mm anti-tank guns were made up by combining the Marder II gun on a British 5 inch artillery chassis.
(Ed. note: this was written in 1974. GHQ Micro-Armour now has a complete line of all World War II vehicles that may be used in the Panzerblitz scenarios).
Recently, I have found that the War Games Research Group rules for armor and infantry are somewhat easier to use and are very good. This is especially true for movement rules since both the " 1944" and Panzerblitz rules call for long movement rates based on 10 minute periods. If you have no rules of your own, I would suggest trying the WRG rules.
All three panels of Panzerblitz boards arranged for situation 7.
Regardless of whose rules you may use, the panzerblitz situations or scenarios can be used to give you a wide variety of actions. However, there is no need to only fight Eastern front 1944 battles. The terrain can just as well represent France in 1940 so that you can use Somuas, H-39's and Char Bis tanks. Using Shermans and Tigers you can refight the Battle of the Bulge. What proved to be interesting was to use some early German and Russian armor to fight the 1941 German invasion of Russia.
Once you have put together a three dimensional board as described and pictured here, you can use the wide variety of your Micro-Armour in your collection for more scenarios to try in your table top battles. You can fight the Battle of Kursk or you can fight a quick skirmish where a platoon of Shermans tries to hunt down a Tiger or two.
How do you store your three dimensional Panzerblitz board? If you do not mount the trees permanently to the board, but mount them on bases as discussed earlier, you can store the three boards vertically in a closet or against a wall behind a door. You can slide them under a bed. However, if you install the trees permanently as I did, it may be necessary to build a storage cabinet. Except for the price of the lumber (a 4x8 sheet of 1/2 plywood), you will find it easy to build.
Four shelves 48 inches long by 18 inches deep were cut and nailed between two sides 15 inches high by 18 inches deep, allowing just over four inches clearance between shelves. A thin sheet of hardboard 48 inches long by 15 inches high nailed to the back supplied rigidity to the cabinet. The four inches between shelves should be enough to allow the three boards to be slid into the cabinet without damaging any of the trees.
The tree dimensional Panzerblitz boards were fun to build, are easy to store, and will give more fighting area using Micro-Armour than a 9 foot by 12 foot battle using Mini-tanks and HO figures. Twenty inches (or 2000 meters) range is easier to accept in 1/285 scale than in 1/87 or 1/76 scale. Try it and you will see.
(Ed. note: currently there are many new WWII rules available. These 3-D Panzerblitz boards lend themselves to be used in one of the new WWII rules sets. Point of Attack, by Bob Jones in his Piquet series of non-sequential move games. Command Decision has become a very popular World War II set of rules).
Back to MWAN #103 Table of Contents
Back to MWAN List of Issues
Back to MagWeb Magazine List
© Copyright 2000 Hal Thinglum
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