World at War #73 - Spring Awakening

From Decision Games:

The Magazine:

Spring Awakening - The Third Reich’s Last Offensive: As 1945 opened, Allied armies besieged the Third Reich on all fronts. In the Balkans, Soviet forces had overrun Bulgaria and Romania and seized Budapest after a fierce battle. Believing there was still an opportunity to stave off defeat, Hitler ordered the Sixth SS Panzer Army to spearhead an offensive into Hungary.

Other Articles:

• The Cost of French Pride: During its short reign, Vichy France made a number of controversial decisions that created conflict between itself and the Anglo-American allies. This conflict had a high cost in men and material that was unnecessary and only slowed the Allied victory in the war.
• Second Stumbling at Schmidt: At the beginning of November 1944, the 28th Infantry Division was ordered to make an attack through the Huertgen Forest to capture the key crossroad town of Schmidt. The battle would turn into a needless tragedy as US forces would suffer 5,000 casualties in an attempt to seize Schmidt.
• Operation Oboe - Borneo, 1945: Between May and July 1945, Australian-led Allied forces launched Operation Oboe to liberate the island of Borneo from Japanese troops. It would mark the last major Allied campaign in the South West Pacific Area.

The Game:

Spring Awakening is a two player wargame of Operation Fruhlingserwachen, the final major German offensive of World War II. The German plan was to launch a two-pronged attack to secure a defensive zone for the Lake Balaton oilfields in northern Hungary. The offensive failed in the face of Soviet resistance, and the ensuing Red Army offensive swept into Vienna. While historically, the situation was dismal for the Third Reich, the objective is for players to do better than their historical counterparts. Each side is divided into two sub-commands. For the Axis, this includes the Nord Armee Kommando and Sud Armee Kommando, for the Soviets, the Third Ukrainian and parts of Second Ukrainian Fronts, as well as a Bulgarian army and a Yugoslav corps. The scenario starts on 6 March 1945 (the opening of Spring Awakening) and carries through to 16 April (following the Soviet capture of Vienna). Each game turn represents one week of operations. Each hex is 18 kilometers across. Most ground units are corps, representing two to five divisions.

Components: 22x34 inch map, 176 die-cut counters.