"Barbarossa - Kicking in the Door..." Topic

"Barbarossa – Kicking in the Door…" is a wargames campaign covering the German invasion of the Soviet Union between June and September 1941. It is designed for games in which a stand represents a platoon, such as ‘Blitzkrieg Commander', ‘Command Decision: TOB', ‘A Fistful of Tows', ‘Rapid Fire' and others, including those which wargamers may have written themselves.

The system generates 150+ hours of gaming spread over 50+ individual battles which are fought over fifteen weekly campaign turns. Bookkeeping is kept to a minimum as players take command of four of the German panzer divisions spearheading the invasion or the Soviet tank and infantry forces opposing them. Straightforward German attacks will be interspersed with Soviet counterattacks, storming city outskirts, holding bridgeheads or trying to break through the fortifications of the Stalin Line. Each type of battle has its own terrain specifications, victory conditions, set up restrictions and likely opposition. Individual battles are reinforced regimental/brigade sized, with some battalions of each division selected to fight whilst others are rested.

In addition to managing the individual battles, however, the German player also needs to manage the campaign. Ever increasing Soviet resistance needs to be curtailed by encircling their forces. Such encirclements reduce the availability of ‘mobilisation points' which the Soviet players use as currency to ‘buy' greater or better equipped forces and fortifications with which the slow the German advance. A rapid, deep advance, however, will exact a heavy toll in attrition. Supply will also become a problem for the German players, limiting the numbers they can commit to battle and their artillery/air…."
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Amicalement
Armand

Interesting, anyone out there buy this and actually try the campaign?

It is not been out that long, so I doubt anyone has had time to run the full campaign yet. Looks very interesting.

Played the authors "Race to Smolensk". Provided a good campaign. It this is similar it will be fun. $5.00 USD, just ordered it.

Glad you like it boys!.

Amicalement
Armand

As Andrew notes in the book, it is based on the original Race to Leningrad campaign I wrote a very, very long time ago but extended to cover the whole Eastern Front.

So it works very well, but I am biased:)

There's very little to go by in this ad. We don't have a clue if there is a single board or paper maps or a computer game. What are the colored squares for? Somehow the number of play hours is more important to game equipment.

It looks like it generates OOB for miniature games. So you have to supply the miniatures and rules for the scenario solution.

There's very little to go by in this ad.

Really? Are you reading the same ad? The following passage makes it pretty clear.

The book also includes
a brief history of the campaign
background information (such as time and groundscale) useful in adapting the system to different sets of rules and some suggestions for additional optional rules
a system for generating table layouts for individual battles
a comprehensive set of Appendices covering
the Tables of Organisation and Equipment to both platoon and company level for all divisions and regiments involved
42 colour terrain squares to assist in creating the terrain for individual battles
a worked example of the terrain generation system
a Campaign Quick Reference Sheet
an example Campaign Turn
a complete set of very quick play rules
a full colour A4 Campaign Map

To answer your questions:-
(1) It is a book, not a board game or computer game.
(2) It is designed for use with rules where 1 stand = a platoon and some examples of commercial rules are given.
(3) The coloured squares are to assist in creating terrain for the individual battles.
(4) It generates the OOB's for each battle.
(5) If you play with miniatures, then yes you have to supply them yourself. No reason you couldn't play it with counters and a map of course.
(6) There is a full colour campaign map.

Also have race for Leningrad. Trying to adapt the ideas to Guadalcanal. Japanese could attack anywhere along the perimeter but inure progressively harsh attrition to get into position. Basic reinforcements as they arrived historically. Need to figure replacements and ammo availability.