World at War #93 - Baltic Offensive, Fall 1944

From Decision Games:

The Magazine:

The Soviet Baltic Offensive, 14 September–24 November 1944
After crushing Army Group Center, the Red Army cleared the north flank of the front during the late summer and fall of 1944. Along the Baltic, the Soviets regained Estonia and most of Latvia and Lithuania. Even so, German Army Group North—renamed Army Group Courland—remained a strategic thorn in the side of the Soviets until V-E Day, despite repeated Soviet attempts to eradicate it.

Articles

- Strike on Rabaul, 2 November 1944 The Allied air campaign against Rabaul was aimed at choking off the Japanese supply network and stopping matériel from reaching it and locales farther south in the Solomons. The campaign proved to be one if the longest of the war, lasting from 23 February 1942 until August 1945.

- German Helicopter Development The Focke-Wulf Fw 61 is considered to have been the world’s first practical helicopter. Facing the war without aircraft carriers, the German Navy saw great potential in helicopters as observation platforms and anti-submarine weapon carriers that could be launched and recovered by small ships.

- Hard Luck Division: The US 36th Infantry in Italy The US 36th Infantry Division would suffer nearly 20,000 casualties during its time in Europe, almost 50 per day for every one of its 400 days of combat. Other American divisions served in the line longer, and a few suffered more casualties; however, none faced a tougher series of battles and campaigns than the 36th Division in Italy.

The Game:

Baltic Offensive, Fall 1944 (Javier Romero) Baltic Offensive: Fall 1944 is a two player simulation of the Soviet offensive in the Baltic countries in the Fall of 1944. The Soviet player must conquer as much territory as possible within a limited time frame, while the German forces must try to delay the Soviet advance as much as possible. The Soviet player has a positional advantage and numerical superiority, but it has a tight timetable to clear the Baltic countries so that the Red Army can return to the decisive direction of the war: the Vistula-Oder-Berlin axis. Each game turn represents 10 days. Each hexagon is 10 miles (15 kilometers) from side to opposite side. Units are corps, divisions, brigades or equivalents, and specialized smaller units.

22 x 34-inch game map 176 5/8-inch counters.