#94 w/Kesselring's War

W94 Kesselring’s War: Decision in Italy 1943-44 (Joseph Miranda) is an operational level two player wargame covering the campaign in Sicily and southern Italy, July 1943 to February 1944. The game covers the months from Operation Husky through the initial landings in the southern peninsula up to the Anzio invasion and first battle of Monte Cassino. This was the time when the Allies could have gained a decisive victory but were stopped when German forces under the command of Field Marshal Albert Kesselring fought a series of delaying actions and then held a line south of Rome. The game system portrays operations across the theater within a framework of logistical and command/control restraints, modeled as Action Points. The objective of the Allied player is to seize major objectives in Italy, while the Germans are trying to stop them or, by judicious counterattacks, turn the tide in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations.

Each hex on the map is approximately 30 kilometers across. Each turn of play represents a month of operations. Ground units represent mostly divisions, independent brigades, and regiments. Air units represent the equivalent of a Luftwaffe Geschwader, USAAF wing or RAF group (9 to 15 squadrons). Naval units represent task forces.

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

Articles:

Battle of the Bismarck Sea Japanese forces on New Guinea had been defeated along the Kokoda Trail and at Buna and Wau by the end of 1942, but they continued to contest the southeastern part of the island. Having been forced to abandoned Guadalcanal in the southern Solomons and Buna on New Guinea, they still strove to reinforce their positions at Lae and Salamaua. They therefore sent reinforcement convoys from Rabaul, on New Britain, to those locales. The result was the Battle of the Bismarck Sea on 2–4 March. Here is our analysis.

Checkmate on the Vistula: The Lublin-Brest Operation, 1944 The Soviets’ Lublin-Brest Offensive was a subsidiary effort within Operation Bagration, which destroyed 28 German divisions and cleared their forces from central and eastern Poland between 18 July and 2 August 1944. First Belorussian Front reached the Vistula River, only to then be outmaneuvered by Army Group Center, leading to a controversial two-month stalemate there at the gates of Warsaw.

Operation Isabella, Spain 1942: What If? It is well known that, soon after the start of the war in September 1939, Spain’s dictator Francisco Franco officially decreed his country’s neutrality. Few know the late-summer 1942 sequel to that episode, in which Spain came close to being invaded by the Germans under the codename “Operation Isabella.” Fewer still understand what a blunder Hitler made in cancelling that plan.