World at War #89 - The Crimean Campaign 1941-42

From Decision Games:

The Magazine:

The Crimean Campaign: 1941–42 When Army Group South crossed into the Soviet Union, no part of its orders included taking the Crimea. The plan was, once Soviet forces in the Ukraine were destroyed west of the Dnepr River, peripheral areas could be taken bloodlessly in subsequent mop-up operations. That changed when Soviet planes based in the Crimea began raiding the vital Axis oilfield in Romania. On 23 July, Hitler therefore raised the capture of the Crimea to the status of a priority” mission.

Articles

• Missed Opportunity: The Japanese Indian Ocean Raid, 1942 Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, they turned their attention to the destruction of the British Eastern Fleet at Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Such a move offered the opportunity to cripple British power in the region, in addition to coordinating with German offensives in North Africa. A strategy to accomplish it was developed codenamed Operation C.
• The Hump: Strategic Heavy Lift When the Japanese cut the Burma Road in 1942 they cut the last Allied controlled land route to China. The US attempted to restore communications and strengthen China via a massive airlift. Known as the “Hump,” that costly logistical operation became the largest airlift ever conducted. Its impact remains open to question.
• Fortress Assault at Bitche In December 1944, the US 100th Infantry Division fought a bitter engagement to overcome former French Maginot Line forts the Germans were determined to hold. This is our tactical and operational analysis of that battle.

The Game:

The Crimean Campaign, 1941 - 42 (TCC) is a strategic level two-player wargame (with strong operational undertones) of low-intermediate complexity covering the fighting across the peninsula that climaxed with the German capture of Sevastopol.

The action simulated in the game took place historically between 28 October 1941 and 4 July 1942. The first date marks the German entry into the Crimea via the Perekop Isthmus, while the second marks the end of organized Soviet resistance across the whole peninsula. Those nine calendar months are divided into chronologically varied and unequal numbers of turns. That approach allows for the convenient simulation of the ebbs and flows in the action that took place due to bad weather and logistical and command-control constraints.

The Perekop Isthmus fight, which took place from 24 September through 27 October, just off-map to the north, is not included in the game because it took place across terrain too restrictive to allow for maneuver by either side. At this scale it would have come down to how lucky the German player got in rolling his inescapably low-range and mid-range initial frontal attacks. So that episode is considered to have taken place as the last act of the Dniepr River campaign rather than the first act in the Crimean campaign.

Components: 22x34 inch map, 228 9/16-inch die-cut counters.