Panzer Grenadier:
Grossdeutschland, 1946
Developer's Commentary
By Doug McNair
May 2009

Having (seemingly) finished exploring all the alternative history possibilities for Austria, Mike turned to Germany as his next subject for an alternative-history scenario supplement. After briefly considering a Harry Turtledove-ish subject that would have been better suited to April Fool’s Day, he settled on an extension for our Secret Weapons book supplement that brings more German wonder weapons onto the battlefield. The scenarios in Grossdeutschland 1946 push the envelope on firepower; with hordes of Panther II and Tiger III tanks plus late-model armored personnel carriers supporting the already up-gunned German infantry. It will therefore be a rare thing for the German player to resolve his direct fire on anything less than the 30 column. That plus the overwhelming anti-tank firepower of the aforementioned German tanks make most scenarios very bloody affairs, and thus difficult to balance for victory purposes. I did my best with them, and let the Allies fall where they may.

Scenario One
Fire Brigade
July 1946

Grossdeutschland troopers came to refer to their division as the Army's "fire brigade," called on to stamp out "fires" that threatened the front lines (i.e., Red Army penetrations of German defenses). Had the Germans managed to hang on long enough to deploy their wonder weapons, there's no reason to think they wouldn't have remained on the defensive, and still in need of a fire brigade.

Note: This scenario uses boards from Eastern Front, pieces from Iron Curtain, and a board and pieces from Road to Berlin.

Conclusion

While Adolf Hitler and later Nazi fantastists dreamed of massive offensives with the new planned weapons, they would have been used in the same manner as their predecessors: sealing off penetrations of German lines by the numerically and tactically superior Red Army. With new weapons rolling out of Soviet factories, Germany would need to produce fresh designs of its own to have any chance of battlefield success.

Developer’s Commentary

As a lower-morale attacker, the Red Army will have a hard time dislodging the regular Wehrmacht units from the town and hill hexes where they setup before Grossdeutschland enters the board. This is a problem, because if the Soviets haven’t got most of their units in cover by the time Grossdeutschland enters they’ll get slaughtered. So I gave the Soviets a lot more units, cut the game to 24 turns and let the German player start rolling for Grossdeutschland to enter about halfway through the game. It will also be tough for the Soviets to maintain control of roads after taking them due to the huge counterpunch packed by Grossdeutschland. I therefore nixed the roads as objectives and went with the more easily defensible towns and hills.

Scenario Two
Dawn Strike
June 1946

Skoda Works failed to win new tank contracts after production ceased on the pre-war LT38 (PzKpfw 38t), but did produce large numbers of tank destroyers on the same chassis. When the German Army asked for designs for a full-tracked armored personnel carrier to replace its halftracks, Skoda offered the Kätzchen, also based on the LT38 frame. Only prototypes had been completed when the war ended, but it would have first appeared in elite formations like Grossdeutschland had it actually been issued to the troops. 

Conclusion

By 1945 the mechanized battlefield had become extremely lethal for soft-skinned vehicles, and this danger only grew as the Cold War took hold. Fully-tracked armored personnel carriers appeared in the war's last years, converted from damaged or obsolete tanks (like the Canadian Kangaroo). Within a few years purpose-built carriers would become the norm in the world's armies.

Developer’s Commentary

Originally this scenario was entitled “Meeting Engagement” and had the Germans and Soviets entering from opposite edges of the board. But the Germans vastly outgun and outclass the Soviets, so there’s no way the Soviets can win a meeting engagement. Instead I changed it to a German counteroffensive against dug-in Soviets. I changed the name to Dawn Strike and started it before sunrise so the German APCs can cover a lot of ground without getting shredded by long-range Soviet AT fire. I then rearranged the map and structured victory conditions to give the Soviets more cover and force the Germans to go on the offensive. Otherwise, the German tanks will shred any Soviet tanks that break cover.

Scenario Three
Tank Battle
July 1946

Most armies of the Second World War did not believe that tanks should fight other tanks except when necessary. Instead, tanks should be stopped by anti-tank guns and purpose-built tank destroyers. That doctrine could work, and work well, in smaller-scale engagements. But when large armored formations broke through a defensive line, usually the only thing that could stop them (other than logistical failures) was another large armored formation.

Conclusion

German tank designs of the late-war period placed an emphasis on "visible" factors like firepower rather than "invisible" ones like speed or especially mechanical reliability. Bureaucratic infighting, and the desire to preserve young engineers from the insatiable needs of the draft, led design bureaus to concentrate their resources on impressive paper projects — since the war would likely end before the tanks entered combat, it didn't really matter so much whether they worked or not.

Developer’s Commentary

I make it a point not to require players to mix leaders of the same nationality and service branch from different games, because they’re hard to segregate afterward. So even though the Soviets have a lot of troops, I cut the number of Soviet leaders to only those in the Road to Berlin mix. Frankly, the amount of German firepower here is ridiculous: their total Direct Fire strength is significantly over 1,000, and roughly double what the Soviets have. The RKKA can’t stand up to that for any length of time, so I made victory conditions really tough on the Germans.

Scenario Four
Delay
July 1946

Mobile formations became "fire brigades" on the Eastern Front because of their ability to move quickly to the site of an enemy breakthrough. A unit that could move even more quickly than an armored division, and was not bound to the road network, would have been even more useful in holding defensive lines.

Conclusion

The helicopter would become an important battlefield weapon in the decades that followed World War II, thanks to its incredible mobility. But it remains today very vulnerable to ground fire and even home-made devices. NATO planners certainly hoped they could stop Soviet tank divisions with elite light infantry formations armed with anti-tank missiles and moving by helicopter; the earliest rotary aircraft would undoubtedly have been pressed into the same role.

Developer’s Commentary

Here Grossdeutschland’s technological advantage is in mobility rather than firepower. Their mission is to stop as many Soviet units as possible from crossing a four-board-wide playing area and exiting the west edge. The Soviets have overwhelming numbers but their tanks are highly vulnerable to the X7 AT missile units that the German helicopters can insert anywhere on the board. The X7s have a target-rich environment and can rack-up lots of VPs very fast for the German player, so the Soviet player must keep his tanks moving among his infantry and give them wide-ranging flank security so they don’t get picked off by airmobile German AT units along the way.

Scenario Five
Over the River
April 1946

Tanks got the headlines and later the wargame scenarios, but infantry did most of the real fighting during the Second World War. Even mobile formations found themselves tied to defending fixed positions, and the slow but thickly armored tanks planned by the Germans would have been formidable mobile pillboxes.

Conclusion

The Tiger III, sometimes called the Tiger-Maus or E-100, was a competing design drafted to the same specifications that resulted in the even slower and more thickly armored Maus. On the offensive it would have been nearly useless (though better than its competitor) but on defense it would have given very useful support to other defenses.

Developer’s Commentary

The Soviets have a big numerical advantage, they’re Guards and the Germans have a long riverfront to cover. So I made river crossing numbers a bit harder than average and cut the game length. I also limited Soviet air support to one every other turn because the thin-topped Tiger IIIs will die fast under airstrikes and the 128mm guns probably won’t last long either.

Scenario Six
Down to the Waterline
May 1946

Throughout the Second World War, river lines made formidable barriers — as long as the defenders had enough troops to cover them. The helicopter promised to allow rapid movement across all types of terrain, making the defenders' mission that much harder. When added to an elite formation with powerful weapons, the combination looked to be unstoppable. On paper, at least.

Conclusion

The helicopter held enormous promise, but proved extremely vulnerable to enemy ground fire. For example, of the 11,827 helicopters deployed by the United States during the Vietnam War, 5,086 were destroyed. However, they appear to have logged far more flight hours than fixed-wing aircraft — if fragile, the helicopter was also readily available for transport and support missions. But in 1946, the machines would have been even more delicate than those flying two decades later.

Developer’s Commentary

Mike’s original scenario design had some of the Grossdeutschland units coming in on helicopters and the rest on KTZN armored carriers. I decided to nix the APCs and commit all the Grossdeutschland units to an airmobile assault. That drops German firepower to reasonable levels (each of the numerous KTZNs I nixed has 5-5 direct fire values), and forces the German player to use superior mobility rather than brute force to attain his objectives.

Scenario Seven
Drive on Kirkuk
July 1946

The Soviet Union had an interest in Kurdish affairs, supporting the Kurdish Republic of Mahabad in northwestern Iran. A German thrust against Iraq's oil fields would also have brought a reaction from the Red Army's garrison of northern Iran. Large Soviet forces invaded northern Iran in August 1941, remaining until 1946; Germans operating in Iraq would have more than just the British Tenth Army with which to contend.

Conclusion

Grossdeutschland did not fight in the North African desert during the Second World War. Soviet troops experienced desert combat in Mongolia in 1939 and 1945 against the Japanese. The Kurds, with "no friends but the mountains," turned to the Soviets for assistance in their quest for an independent state. They would be abandoned by their patrons in 1946, only one in a long line of such betrayals.

Developer’s Commentary

Mike’s original entry instructions gave the Germans too much road access relative to the off-roading Soviets, so I changed them to have the Germans enter on the north edge and Soviets on the south. That also lets the Soviets take quick possession of lots of VP-producing 40-meter hill hexes near the south edge, forcing the Germans to cross the board and push them off.

Scenario Eight
Desert Waste
December 1946

Nazi economic policy required direct control of vital resources. Thus, had Germany somehow regained the strategic initiative an invasion of Iraq through Turkey would be highly likely in order to secure the region's oil fields. There they would have met stout opposition; the British Empire was waning by 1946 but this only would make it more vital to defend its interests.

Conclusion

British tank development lagged behind that of other nations for most of the war, but the Centurion would become one of the best tanks ever built, remaining in service for decades after its introduction. The Panther II was superior on paper, but it existed only on paper — the Centurion proved its worth in the field.

Developer’s Commentary

Here the superior Panther II gets a chance to push entrenched Indian and Gurkha troops off a ridge, with British Centurion tanks entering as reinforcements. The Allies may actually have a decent shot at taking on the Germans toe-to-toe here, with defensible terrain, powerful armor and the Gurkhas’ bonus in assault combat all working in their favor.

Scenario Nine
Attack in the Ardennes
November 1946

Had Germany somehow fielded all the wonder weapons planned by her scientists and engineers, they could not have solved the Reich's overwhelming disadvantage: the systemic incompetence of the Nazi regime. Even with better weapons, the Wehrmacht probably could have only delayed the Allied advance on the Rhine. And then seen its reserves squandered by insane demands from the Greatest General of All Time.

Conclusion

The Grossdeutschland Division never fought on the Western Front, though related formations participated in the actual 1944 attack in the Ardennes. As the Army's premier mobile formation, Grossdeutschland would have been on the top of any list of units detailed for a decisive offensive. In the tight terrain of the Ardennes region, the low speed of the giant German tanks would have been less of a detriment, but the long range of the weapons would have meant little and the Tiger III would likely have been no more successful than its smaller sisters proved in 1944.

Developer’s Commentary

Mike’s original scenario design had the two sides entering from opposite edges of the board, but like the Red Army the Americans need to set up on-board and dug in or they’ll be flattened. As usual I made victory conditions tough on the Germans, with the Americans only needing to hang onto more town hexes than the Germans take plus kill more German than American steps to score a Major Victory.

Scenario Ten
Close Quarters
December 1946

The American 2.36-inch anti-tank rocket known as the "bazooka" saw use mostly against enemy bunkers and fortified buildings; against German tanks it was already declining in effectiveness by 1945. "I look at my soldiers," wrote Maj. Gen. Jim Gavin of the 82nd Airborne Division, "and I see them dead, holding this bazooka on their chest and a German track mark across their crushed bodies. Why don't we have a better weapon?"

Conclusion

An armored division was supposed to exploit breakthroughs in enemy lines, and at times to forge such openings itself. As tanks grew larger, they also became much fatter targets for the hand-held anti-tank weapons becoming more common on the battlefield. For every measure, there eventually would be a counter-measure.

Developer’s Commentary

Here the Americans are once again outnumbered and outgunned, but much of the German firepower rides on a horde of thin-skinned KTZN APCs. So while the Americans are light on tanks, their infantry can eliminate a lot of German firepower by using their short-range AT weapons against the carriers in assaults.

That does it for Grossdeutschland ’46. The whole staff spent the weekend putting new games together, so my next Developer’s Commentary will be on Cassino ’44!

Order Grossdeutschland 1946 now!