At the 1995 retreat, Rod Miller, Dave Powell, Dave Demko, Keith Fortner, Boyd Schorzman and I were able to delve headlong into the variant of Enemy at the Gates given in Tunisia under 4.0: Forget the Mediterranean. Aside from breathing new life into one of our favorite games, this variant allowed the exploration of a number of themes.

First and foremost is the question of whether Hitler's decisions in November 1942--his straddling the fence--doomed the Axis? I think the players in our game walked away with an unqualified answer to that question. Second, we wanted to look at the additional forces' effect the on the front in Russia. Lastly, we wanted to evaluate the variant as a new way to play an old favorite: is it fun?

We played the game until the Russians conceded. Unfortunately, this occurred before the main-line DAK units arrived in play. What we did see was a number of additional aircraft, assorted garrison quality troops, and the 334 Infantry Division. Also, the independent units from Tunisia-1 90 Pz Bn, KG Witzig, the Barenthin Infantry Rgt and the Tigers (when they could keep up, anyway)formed a really nice "pocket" panzer division.

[Ed note: Yes, I mentioned a sudden death outcome when I wrote about this game in Ops 19. Before the game officially ended, the Soviet side already admitted that, in Rod's words, the Axis had "turned their boat around. " We played on a while longer so Dave Powell and Dean could pursue some "antwars, " Icould retake Serafimovich,, and Rod could pile up some more Russian dead. During that time Stalingrad finally starved.]

How did the game bear up under the questions we posed at the outset? As for Hitler, I think all of us could agree that Hitler's choice of giving both Stalingrad and Tunisia nearly equal priority was a major mistake. In doing so he split Germany's none-too-generous resources between the two fires and ended without enough to put out either. The extra troops we had in Russia arguably might not have been a major factor in the defeat of our Soviet opponents--but the overwhelming concentration of air power (which ended up being much like, although less by an order of magnitude, that enjoyed by the Allies on the Western Front in 1944) played a major role in our outcome.

It is anyone's guess what happened in Mussolini's Italy after we denuded it of troops -- I would suppose the rapid collapse in Tunisia would have been followed by an equally rapid Sicilian campaign. By the time the Western Allies were ready to launch into Italy proper, we could have shifted significant forces from the stabilized Eastern Front to make sure the boot would be well defended. Such a shift would mean dropping any attempt to capitalize on the short-term gains made in Southern Russia in the summer of 1943.

Even with our success, Germany and her allies were reduced to defensive campaigning by mid-1943. But the point would be that by not trying both campaigns at once-thereby avoiding the simultaneous disasters in early 1943--the Axis armies would have some 600,000 more men (plus their invaluable equipment and training) that they would have otherwise thrown away. Hitler chose poorly.

I can only make detailed comments on what happened on my part of the map. Lots of events occurred in Rod Miller's area which I am only partially aware of (except that, as usual, when he was done there were no enemy units to his front). To be fair, our editor ably assisted Rod in destroying everything to their collective fronts. In my zone, my fascist slugs broke out of Stalingrad with the good mobile troops, a Soviet attempt at crossing the Donets was butchered in the killing fields I set up just east of the river, a major blob of Soviet troops to my front was rendered irrelevant while the Axis main effort occurred further north, and we ran an air campaign which cleared the skies of Red aluminum (thereby opening the door for the continuous Nazi sky terror ... ).

The effects of the Tunisian units were interesting. Most importantly, the additional air units (and there were a lot of them) decisively sped our attempt at gaining total air supremacy, which freed our ground attack aircraft to roam far and wide. I won't say that a similar result would not have happened without those aircraft (I'd like to take at least a little credit for my air campaign). I think it would have happened anyway-the extra aircraft simply made the process happen much faster. We played with the new optional air rules-if you haven't tried them yet, let me recommend them to you. We had a blast with them.

Also there was the addition of lots of little units (mainly Italian, but with some stiff Germans thrown in as well) that were available for garrison duties. This doesn't sound like much (and Rod Miller still disagrees with this view), but these troops allowed the mobile German forces a free hand to strike as they wished-the extra troops freed them from having to contribute to line holding activities.

Like I said, our game was over before the actual DAK units arrived (they arrive very late in the game-well after the SS Panzer Corps). Those troops would have finished the job in Southern Russia and we would have been looking at a summer campaign in 1943 to capture Moscow--unless our resources had been diverted to shore up Italy as I mentioned above.

In the end, we agreed that variant 4.Of (Forget the Med) might be too much for the available Russians and that 4.Oe (Forget Tunisia) might be a better balanced game. Looking back on it now, I can't say as I fully agree with that position. The difference between the two (in the bottom line) is the batch of little garrison holding units the Germans get. Our Soviet players may have walked away with an exaggerated impression of the effect of these units (certainly we Germans didn't feel they were that big of a deal), and the Soviets would argue the inverse of our impressions.

You can decide which version you like better based on your impression of the German position in your EatG games. What I can say for sure is that if you are looking for a slam-bang good time breathing new life (and situations) into EatG, everyone at our gaming table heartily recommends these variants. We had a hell of a good time, and so will you!

More Enemy at the Gates Special Section

Defense in the OCS
Doin' the Armored Two-Step
EatG and Tunisia: Forget the Med variant