Overview

Foreword

Almost two ago I wrote an editorial on turn-based games. It detailed the rise and fall of turn-based games and how real-time games steadily evolved and supplanted their turn-based brethren. Almost the moment it was posted, people came out of the woodwork to chastise us for not having mentioned Combat Mission. Though we tried to do a review, prior commitments and a tight schedule prevented us from achieving the goal. Still, I kept the game in mind personally and planned to do a feature on it sooner or later.

Scenarios menu

scenario description

Your briefing

Clearly, the timing has turned out to be ‘later’. Fortunately for everyone involved, it coincides with the release of the sequel, Combat Mission: Barbarossa to Berlin. Whereas the original Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord took place on the western front, CMBB shifts focus to the East. The eastern front was the largest land front of any war in history, in terms of physical size, men involved, equipment involved and ultimately, casualties. More Russian soldiers died there than all the rest of the troops of both sides combined on all other fronts. Only China and perhaps Poland sustained greater civilian losses.

Launched on June 22, 1941, Operation Barbarossa was Nazi Germany’s surprise attack against a totally unprepared Soviet force. Stalin refused to believe Allied reports that Hitler was planning an attack and didn’t mobilize his forces (fearing that he might provoke that attack.) As with previous attacks on Poland, Norway, the Low Countries and France, the initial movements went very well – even better than expected. German panzer divisions broke through Russian lines, encircle Soviet armies, cut off supplies and then forced the surrender of the remaining pockets. The Soviet air force, the largest (if not most modern) at the start of the war was smashed in the first hours before it could even get off the ground. With these smashing early successes echoing the results of the previous year’s campaign against France, no one could predict that this would become the bloodiest conflict of the war. Eventually it turned out that Hitler bit off more than he could chew, but not before the two bloodiest battles of the war (Stalingrad and Leningrad) and the largest tank engagement in history (Kursk) were fought.

Tragedy makes for great history, good plays and as we shall see, excellent video games.

Overview

As grand in scope as the eastern front was, every skirmish, engagement and battle came down to squads of soldiers, platoons of tanks and an artillery spotter or two. CMBB brings things down to this tactical level. Individual squads and tanks may be commanded, though single soldiers within a squad may not.

Deploy your forces

PzIV - the main battle tank of the Wehrmacht

Hail the leader

Into this tactical scope comes every kind of unit from every side involved in the war. Nazi, Soviet, Finnish, Hungarian, Romanian, Italian and Polish (Soviet equipped) soldiers, tanks and guns make an appearance. They fight on the Finnish, northern, central and southern arenas, from Berlin to Moscow, Leningrad to Sebastopol and everything in between.