Stalingrad Matrix Game - three year Zoom anniversary edition

 Three years and three months ago marked the beginning of the first Covid lockdown in the UK. I was sent home from the office on March 20th 2020, and didn't set foot back in work again until went in to pick up my stuff when I took early retirement in late 2021.

On March 28th, 2020, we ran our first remote wargame over Zoom, and three years on, here we are still remote gaming. In honour of the anniversary, Tim put our first game on again back in March (you can see how long I sit on these posts!). 

The first remote game outing was a matrix game, as Tim thought this would be easiest to run on-line, as each player goes in turn in a structured sequence, and Tom Mouat Stalingrad matrix game is a fairly straightforward scenario. 

For the re run the usual gang of reprobates in dodgy hats turned up to play. I've played this game twice before so I was just a 'Technical Advisor' and Nick was a journalist from the Washington Post. Otherwise John B was Hitler, John A was Paulus and Pete was Hube. Russell was Stalin, and Diego and Mark were two Russian Generals whose names escape me.   

Each of the Stalingrad sectors is an A4 piece of paper, with the whole thing being 3x4. View from the northeast.

The various combat units, leaders etc were represented with Tims 54mm toys, so they were easy to see.

Panzers at Yelshanka. Not much use in the city and attempts by Paulus to get them to dismount and fight on foot(!) were unsuccessful.

The action proceeded much as one might expect. The Germans ground forwards into the factories, slowly pushing the Russians back at huge cost to both sides. At this point in the game, the Russians were back on the banks of the Volga.

Both sides kept requesting more reinforcements as units were burned up in the no quarters fighting. The Russians were a bit more successful in this than the Germans. Although they lost the ferries further south, Golodny Island ended up a veritable fortress.

Operation Uranus duly surrounded the city, but much to everyones surprise, Mansteins relief column made it as far as Gumrak Airfield (a Pz 38 is dimly visible in the distance). Having renamed the city 'Hitlerstadt', Hitler was in no mood to let the Germans withdraw, and they had to hang on in the freezing rubble.

At the conclusion everyone had to justify why they thought they'd won. Overall I think the Germans did a bit better than their historical counterparts, although the Russians were still hanging on in parts of the city. Sixth Army was still doomed however, with its flanks collapsed and at the end of a tenuous supply line with the Russian Tank Armies heading for Rostov.

Another great outing for this scenario, and plenty of opportunities for the players to ham it up. Tim ran it with the traditional formation of Action, Result and Three Reasons Why, which rattled long nicely. Some of the less experienced players still got their reasons and results mixed up (Action, Reason and three results!) but everyone got the hang of it after a while.