Some on-line discussion of Guderian's Gambit (COMMAND 37)
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Lou Coatney writes:

Having obtained a copy of GUDERIAN'S GAMBIT, I think I'll review
  it ... after actually playing it.  :-)

A few preliminary impressions/comments:

1. Although I had thought it was predicated on the thesis of
  the book HITLER'S PANZERS EAST, that the Nazi Germans *could*
  have won World War II in the summer of 1941 if they *had*
  proceeded on to Moscow, instead of turning south to pocket
  Kirponos' southern armies, Ty Bomba mentions a book by David
  Glantz (I hadn't heard of!) instead, as a principal source.

2. *This* kind of "alternative history" wargaming I find much
  more legitimate than say ... gag! ... SS AMERIKA and its ilk.
  Ty has taken a serious historical thesis and given us a chance
  to test it!  ... to whatever degree of realism/objectivity
  he has achieved.

3. However, as to its accuracy, I do see it flawed, although not
  fatally, particularly concerning the map.  Only the Moscow-Minsk
  ("metalled") Highway is depicted, when the older Roslavl-Maloyaro-
  slavets route was just important -- especially before the autumn
  rains turned *all* the roads into seas/rivers of mud/"rasputitsa."

    There is also this strange "river" ... :-) ... which reaches
  down from the Volga reservoirs all the way to the Moscow River
  making ... along with the Volga-Moscow canal farther east ... an
  *island* of the Klin/Istra region to the northwest of Moscow!  :-)
  (The graphic impression of this isn't reduced by the super-wide
  rivers/streams, I'm afraid.)

    And ... coincidental to our discussion of cannon-counting ...
  I question why the Soviet tank units' strength should be concealed
  from the *Soviet* player (as well) before their first combat,
  since their strengths were much more material-based than the
  more human-factored rifle units and animal-factored cavalry.

    Was this just supposed to be an excerpt of your PROUD MONSTER
  campaign game in this format, Ty?

Anyway, neat game!  :-)

Lou Coatney, mslrc@uxa.ecn.bgu.edu

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Ty Bomba replies:

Coatney, I keep hearin' you's dead, yet keep poppin' up here like 
some broke Jack in the box. Damn. Anyway, to try to allay some of 
your concerns.

1. The Lama River: don't be overly concerned. Yes, it is a minor 
river, but it IS there. When you actually get into the play of 
the game you'll find the effects of river lines are minimal, as 
was the case just about everywhere along the front during this 
period.

2. Highways: Lou, have you ever noticed that no matter what east 
front game is under consideration you always happen to know of 
one more road than the designer put on the map? The significance 
of the Minsk-Moscow highway lies in its logistical effect. I'm 
sure something or other that could loosely be defined as a "road" 
or "highway" exists in virtually every hex on the map. This ONE 
was included, though, because it almost certainly would've been 
the one the Germans used to supply such a summer drive.

3. Soviet Hidden Strengths: The strength of Soviet tank units are 
hidden from both players for the same reason that of all the 
other Soviet units' strengths are likewise concealed. One of the 
theses of the game is that we have a higly professional and 
superbly organized army on one side (the Germans, Lou), at or 
near the peak of its strength, versus a huge, but 
organizationally and tactically inept army on the other side. 
Keep in mind, this game isn't set in December '41, or even 
October; it's set in July/August. The Reds are in the very pit 
of their crisis, at the nadir of their disorganization. 
Their army of June 1941 has by this point been completely 
wrecked, but no new structure has yet arisen to take its place. 
Their operations here are therefore the quintessence of 
"ad hoc." From that perspective, the strength of their tank 
units can be viewed as having no more of an "objective" 
strength than that of their straight-leg outfits.

Ty Bomba

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John Desch remarks that:

Lou writes:
> And ... coincidental to our discussion of cannon-counting ...
> I question why the Soviet tank units' strength should be 
> concealed from the *Soviet* player (as well) before their 
> first combat, since their strengths were much more 
> material-based than the more human-factored rifle units and 
> animal-factored cavalry.

Lou, please remember that at this point in the war no Soviet 
commander could actually count his tank units arriving at the 
front in any semblance of their paper strength.  Some units 
experienced an attrition rate of 70-80% in their _approach_ 
to the battlefield, mostly due to maintenance issues, lack 
of fuel and lastly, the Luftwaffe.  Even as late as 1943
Soviet units experienced a high non-combat attrition rate. 
The untried strength for Soviet armored units in Guderian's 
Gambit is entirely appropriate.

John T. Desch
jtd4@cornell.edu
(607)255-5014

----------

Lou Coatney replies:

> Coatney, I keep hearin' you's dead, yet keep poppin' up 
> here like some broke Jack in the box. Damn. Anyway, to 
> try to allay some of your concerns.


Reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated, as usual.  
Anyway, Ty, SOMEbody has to keep you guys honest.  :-)

> 1. The Lama River: don't be overly concerned. Yes, it 
> is a minor river, but it IS there. When you actually 
> get into the play of the game you'll find the effects 
> of river lines are minimal, as was the case just about 
> everywhere along the front during this period.

Ty.  You could have accepted my corrections with grace, maybe 
even saying you'd include them in a revision, if demand for 
the game ever merits a reprinting ... but NOOOOOOOOOO ... :-) 
... and your natural combativeness now gives me opportunity 
to expand upon/substantiate my case.  (Incidentally, 
Al Stewart's "Roads to Moscow" is playing in the background. 
My son likes it, too.)

The Lama River is a significant, natural defensive line 
extending down from the reservoirs southeast of Kalinin.  
Volokolamsk, where the "Panfilovtsi" -- the troops of 
Panifilov's fabled 316th Rifle Division -- fought to the death 
historically, in November, is on the river.

However the river does not extend down to or near the Moskva 
River, as is shown on the map, to give a continuous river/
defensive line. ... and there was no time to fortify that 
line in GUDERIAN'S GAMBIT's given scenario. It is unfortunate 
the Istra River leading up to the Istra Reservoir east of the 
Lama's origin and feeding into the Moskva was omitted at this 
9-mile per hex scale -- twice as large as PROUD MONSTER's ... 
and there are other neat features of the area missing, as well. 
(The argument for rail lines is twice as big/strong in this game 
as in PM, Ty.  The rationalization that the Soviets would tie 
up there railroads evacuating factories is irrelevant in a to-
the-death-struggle for Moscow.)

No matter how small the terrain advantage, any competent 
Russian player is going to grab it and try to build a defensive 
line around it, so it should be accurate.  In any case that -1 on 
the die roll *can* be decisive, especially in the case of evenly 
matched opponents ... such as ... say ... a "schwerpunkting" 
Panzer division vs. a rifle division or two rushed up to plug a 
gap.

> 2. Highways: Lou, have you ever noticed that no matter what 
> east front game is under consideration you always happen to 
> know of one more road than the designer put on the map? The 
> significance of the Minsk-Moscow highway lies in its logistical 
> effect. I'm sure something or other that could loosely be 
> defined as a "road" or "highway" exists in virtually every hex 
> on the map. This ONE was included, though, because it almost 
> certainly would've been the one the Germans used to supply such 
> a summer drive.

Ty.  The old Roslavl-NaroFominsk road is even on the map of Dave 
Williams' old S&T classic magazine game, "Battle of Moscow." 
There were in 1941 only *two* principal roads from the west to 
Moscow, and that was the other one.  Its route is easily contained 
by the game's map area, and the rivalry between Panzerkorps -- let 
alone the equivalent of two Panzer*groups* -- for a road-axis for 
advancing would have *guaranteed* the importance and use of the 
route.

The road appears on all the major studies of the (later) 1941 Battle 
of Moscow, let alone on the basic maps of RAZGROM-NEMETSKO 
FASHISTSKIKH BOISK POD MOSKVOI, the definitive Russian account. 
It also appears on the "Lage Ost" base map.  Finally, it was one of 
the principal invasion routes stipulated in Dr. von Luttischau's 
letter to me -- he is the author of the CMH's *first* volume on the 
Russian Front in World War II ... yet to be completed/published -- 
which I re-posted (with his permission) on CONSIM-L.

The German player should *indeed* have this additional route of 
advance/attack available to him, especially since it is going 
through a the concentrations of forest on the game map.  A mutually 
supporting two-pronged offensive is obviously stronger/better than 
hey-diddle-diddle-straight-up-the-middle from Smolensk.

(And I might add that the inaccurate configuration of the gamemap's 
forests bears a disconcerting resemblance to that of SPI's old 
contemptible, MOSCOW CAMPAIGN.  *Who* did the map research on GG? 
Joe Youst has done an excellent job resolving the forests in the 
recent Moscow games he did the mapping for, and check the official 
Soviet history of The Great Fatherland War for its partisan 
operations maps which necessarily have generally accurate 
representations of the major Russian forests at the time.)

> 3. Soviet Hidden Strengths: The strength of Soviet tank units are 
> hidden from both players for the same reason that of all the other 
> Soviet units' strengths are likewise concealed. One of the theses 
> of the game is that we have a higly professional and superbly 
> organized army on one side (the Germans, Lou), at or near the peak 
> of its strength, versus a huge, but organizationally and tactically 
> inept army on the other side. Keep in mind, this game isn't set in 
> December '41, or even October; it's set in July/August. The Reds 
> are in the very pit of their crisis, at the nadir of their 
> disorganization. Their army of June 1941 has by this point been
> completely wrecked, but no new structure has yet arisen to take 
> its place. Their operations here are therefore the quintessence of 
> "ad hoc." From that perspective, the strength of their tank units 
> can be viewed as having no more of an "objective" strength than 
> that of their straight-leg outfits.

>Ty Bomba

I hear your (and John Desch's) argument on this, Ty, but there is no
question that a brigade of 40-50 T34s and KVs is going to be more
powerful than a burned out division having a handful of T26s and
BT5s/7s.  Remember Stalin's little "accounts" book he carried which
he used to keep track of the numerical strength of such units?
Remember how Lelyushenko was told that if he lost his "Katyusha"
units, he would lose his *head*? ... later ... in the historical
battle.

What's more, letting the *Soviet* player know the actual strength of
some of his units would turn the tables on the Germans, intelligence-
wise ... and he could even deploy his weaker tank units as "maskirovka"
decoys!  It would add a LOT to the game system and to the game.
Think it over.

From just my cursory scanning of GG, it reminds me of Dunnigan:
brilliant in conception, flawed (but not fatally) in execution.

Lou Coatney