Commemorating the 55th Anniversary of the End of World War II in Europe

Reviews of some of the absolute best (and slightly less good) operational-level games of WWII

Cobra: Patton’s 1944 Summer Offensive in France
Game Design: B. E. Hessel
Physical Systems Design and Graphics: Redmond Simonsen
Game Development: Dave Werden
New York: SPI; 1977
Originally appeared in S&T 65

Cobra is a derivative of the PGG system, as applied to the much different situation of the Western Front in July and August 1944 (in 13 turns). This is a game with highly attractive physical components that is in many ways a failure. There was an attempt to rectify some of the game’s shortcomings in a follow-up game, Cobra, the Normandy Breakout, which was brought out (or perhaps reprinted from a reworking already done earlier by SPI) by TSR. The latter game begins on D-Day, leaving it up to the players to decide the comparative success of the Normandy landings, and just how quickly the Allies can move deeper inland. But this game has also not been particularly well received.

With some of the finest formations in both the Allied and German armies of that time available to the players, this would seem to be a game with inherent appeal to historical war gamers. However many aspects of the campaign at this point were difficult to include into the game. The historical German actions in this period can only be explained by other factors.

Specifically, this was the time of the culminating attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Secondly, Rommel, who might have substantially aided the conspirators, had been badly injured by a strafing Allied plane. On the other hand, Rommel might also have tried for a decisive resolution against the Allied forces in the Normandy lodgement. What must be understood is that at this time, Hitler (who was only slightly wounded in the bomb-blast, but consumed by an uncontrollable rage, even by his standards) was ferreting out all the real and imagined conspirators against him in the German Army, of which some knowledge would eventually reach the frontline troops, thus probably lowering the morale of at least some regular Army (Wehrmacht) officers and soldiers.

In Cobra, given only one turn of Storms weather (which has a one in six chance of occurring on any given turn) the German player can safely exit nearly all his Panzer divisions, thus gaining (in game terms) a major victory. Despite the attempts in the Errata to modify victory conditions, it seems that even a rather incompetent German player will be able to have nearly all his Panzer forces escape. It is difficult to understand why, historically, the Germans seemed to do almost nothing after Patton had broken through along an exceptionally narrow salient on the far-west of the front, and then rampaged in their rear. There was the counterattack at Mortain, but it looked like a half-hearted attempt.

What is notable in Cobra is that, because of the limitation on the number of Allied attacks due to supply restrictions, the Allied player finds it extraordinarily difficult to keep up the pressure on the entire German line, to the point where it would virtually be pinned into place, thus allowing even a narrow breakthrough to make Patton-like rampages in the rear. A breakthrough will not occur quickly enough for the Allied Player to begin blocking the retreat paths of German Panzer divisions. One indeed wonders why the Germans allowed so many of their elite formations to be, as it were, suspended in mid-air after Patton’s breakthrough beyond Avranches. Although Allied airpower is factored in to reduce German movement to one-third on Clear turns, and two-thirds on Overcast turns, the German Panzer divisions still have eight movement points a turn (including their second, Mech move), on Clear turns.

It appears that the relatively poor German performance in this period of the West Front was conditioned by factors such as the turmoil around the plot to assassinate Hitler, the severe wounding of Rommel, and, generally speaking, a paralysis of command, which it would be difficult to properly portray in the Cobra game, unless you limit the number of units -- and especially Panzer units -that the German player can move in a given turn. Indeed, nearly all of German-occupied France fell to the Allies with surprising ease and rapidity. The most savage fighting occurred in the first few days of the Normandy landings, in the vicinity of Caen, and in the struggle around Falaise.

The most salient role in sealing the Falaise Gap was played by the Polish 1st Armored division. Equipped mostly with the fine British tank, the Cromwell, the Polish 1st Armored division endured ferocious assaults of several Panzer and SS Panzer divisions, in the position known as the Mace. Doubtless, the righteous rage of the Poles against the horrific atrocities the Germans committed against Poland, particularly at this time (the Warsaw Uprising had begun on August 4, 1944, and was being suppressed with unspeakable cruelty), allowed them to match the different sort of ferociousness with which the SS was motivated. Over 200,000 Poles died as a result of the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising, and the rest of the population was deported to concentration camps.

Warsaw’s buildings were then systematically destroyed in the order of their importance to Polish national culture, beginning with the Royal Castle. The role played by various Russian and Ukrainian collaborator formations against the Polish insurgents was particularly unsavoury, as they were given tasks considered too gruesome even for regular German soldiers. The soldiers of the 1st Polish Armored division derived a degree of satisfaction from their participation in the trouncing of the vaunted German SS and Panzer divisions at Falaise, but it was little compensation for the destruction and ruin in Poland, which was further exacerbated by the imposition of Soviet Communism on Poland in the aftermath of the war.

It could be argued that the real World War II victory parade for Polish soldiers took place on Polish Soldiers’ Day, August 15, 1992, when Polish veterans from around the world gathered to celebrate the emergence of a new, free Poland (the Third Republic), and the end of Soviet Communism.