Panzer Grenadier: Hopeless But Not Serious
Developer’s Commentary
By Doug McNair
April 2009

Just when I thought there was no way Mike could possibly find more Austrian subjects to turn into games, out he comes with Hopeless But Not Serious. A downloadable Panzer Grenadier supplement with scenarios and counters, it covers the actual operations of the Austrian Federal Army against Socialist and Nazi militias in 1934, followed by (mostly) hypothetical scenarios covering what could have happened if Austria had resisted the Nazi Anschluss in 1938.

As one of the most detailed treatments of any nation’s forces we’ve ever issued, Hopeless includes counters representing the Austrian Federal Army, the Heimwehr and Schutzbund militias and the Nazi SA. The early scenarios pit the latter three against the former, and the remaining scenarios pit the Austrian Federal Army against the German Wehrmacht, Waffen SS and Mountain troops. With so many different forces involved there’s something for everyone (not just Austro-philes).

Below is a summary of all 16 scenarios with commentary by me. We hope you enjoy them!

Scenario One
Steyr Works
12 February 1934
With the "Red Rising" under way in Vienna, Schutzbund groups attempted to seize key locations in the provinces as well. The industrial works at Steyr included most of Austria's domestic arms industry, a key point if ever there was one. Regular army troops garrisoned the town. Red militia headed out from Linz to take it from them, while "Black" (right-wing Heimwehr) militia set out from Vienna to reinforce the army soldiers.

Note: This scenario uses boards from Elsenborn Ridge and Eastern Front.

Conclusion: After savage fighting, the Reds had almost taken the works and town when a column of trucks from Vienna pulled up bearing Heimwehr troopers led by their chief, Prince Ernst Rüdiger von Starhemberg himself. With their strength renewed, the government forces and their allies ejected the Socialists. Linz itself would come back under government control a few hours later.

Comments: Here badly outnumbered Austrian Army units try to hold off Red militia while hoping that the reinforcing Heimwehr units will do them some good. The Socialists have a big advantage in numbers and the Army has lots of town hexes to cover with few units, so I kept VP scoring flat to keep the Socialists from running away with it.

Scenario Two
Styrian Comrades
12-13 February 1934
The small city of Bruck an der Mur in Styria had a large concentration of industrial workers and became a hotbed of Schutzbund activity during the 1920's. Schutzbund leader Alexander Eifler's plan of action called for the socialist militia to concentrate in urban areas where he believed the Federal Army would be reluctant to use its artillery. But when Bruck's Mayor Koloman Wallisch called out the local Schutzbund, he assembled them outside of town on nearby high ground. It was a tactically sound choice of ground — but also provided a free-fire zone for the Army's heavy weapons.

Note: This scenario uses a board from Elsenborn Ridge.

Conclusion: The Schutzbund had trained its fighters for urban street fighting, and the Bruck contingent was completely out of its element once it left the workers' district of the small city. The Federal Army was reluctant to fire on its own citizens, but when the Schutzbund took away the prospect of civilian casualties the heights were swept with mortar and light cannon fire. Schutzbund leaders later described the fighting on the heights as the fiercest of the Austrian Civil War, but by dawn the men and women of the socialist militia gave way. Wallisch was captured four days later and hanged in Leoben, with his men allowed to return home under amnesty.

Comments: This one’s a close-in night fight with the Schutzbund trying to hold a hill against slightly more numerous Austrian forces whose main advantage is artillery support. I cut the length of the game to keep the Austrians acting aggressively rather than just sitting back and bombarding.

Scenario Three
Pyhrn Pass
25 July 1934
With the Nazi revolt begun in Vienna, SA groups in the provinces took up arms and began to seize strategic locations. In Styria, these included the road leading through Pyhrn Pass. Local SA men, bolstered by German volunteers infiltrated into the area as workers in German-owned factories, staked out positions in the pass and swore to fight to the death. The federal Army moved quickly to grant them their wish.

Note: This scenario uses a board from Elsenborn Ridge.

Conclusion: With the help of the local militia, the Federal Army troops outflanked and then routed the Nazis. As they would prove throughout the 12 years of the "Thousand Year Reich," Nazi toughs lost their lust for battle when confronted by determined armed resistance.

Comments: Here again the militia units make up in numbers what they lack in morale or firepower. It’s doubtful that the Army has enough forces to clear more than one board worth of road, so I cut the scenario to one board and cut the game length as well. The Austrians have the Nazis way outgunned and the SA can’t hope to do much besides hold ground and inflict a few casualties, so I modified victory conditions accordingly.

Scenario Four
South of Salzburg
28 July 1934
Nazi sympathy existed in all of Austria, but less in the western provinces than in others. When Nazi rebels seized the village of Lamprechtshausen on the southern border of Salzburg province, the Federal Army responded with force. Locals refused to join the rising and called out their local Heimwehr units to help the Army expel the Nazis.

Note: This scenario uses a board from Battle of the Bulge.

Conclusion: The jäger assault on the town cleared the SA from all the buildings and took most of them prisoner. Two soldiers were killed in action, as were four SA men. Two other SA men also died under unclear circumstances; Nazi propagandists later claimed that all six "martyrs" had been lined up and shot. After the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, all of the 3rd Battalion's officers were arrested and disappeared in the concentration camp system.

Comments: This is a small one-boarder in which the SA will have a very hard time holding out against the elite Austrian ALP units. So I cut the game to 12 turns to force the Austrians to act aggressively rather than sit back and pound the SA into submission.

Scenario Five
Revenge
14 February 1938
German Chancellor Adolf Hitler summoned his Austrian counterpart, Kurt Schuschnigg, to Hitler's mountain retreat at Berchtesgaden. There, Hitler berated the Austrian and demanded that Austria install a Nazi-friendly government. Schuschnigg refused, and Hitler in turn would not let him leave. As no communication came from their leader, Austrian officers of the 8th Infantry Brigade headquartered a few kilometers away in Salzburg became concerned. Maj. Gen. Kurt Zborzil, appointed to the post just two weeks before, called his senior officers together. If no word came soon of Schuschnigg's fate, his brigade would storm the Eagle's Nest, free their chancellor and "kill the little (expletive)."

Note: This scenario uses pieces from Edelweiss, Sinister Forces and Eastern Front, and the map from Cassino ’44.

Conclusion: A coward in his heart, Hitler would undoubtedly have fled the field and left his fanatic bodyguards to die in his place. Losing the Eagle’s Nest to the Austrian Army — and fleeing in the night to avoid them — would have been a political catastrophe. But in reality, Schuschnigg returned before Zborzil led his troops over the border. The chancellor was physically unharmed but spiritually broken. Forty years later, 8th Brigade officers still spoke wistfully of the lost opportunity to destroy Hitler before he unleashed his madness. However, if unsuccessful it would have plunged Austria into an utterly hopeless war.

Comments: This is a revision of a scenario called “Rescue” that originally appeared in our long out-of-print Tank Battles scenario book. Mike’s overwhelming desire to see Hitler killed may have clouded his judgment back then; the fact is Hitler never would have stuck around to be killed by the Austrian Army, and in any event his movement allowance of 4 would allow him to outdistance any Austrian units that tried to pursue him through the mountains. But the Eagle’s Nest can’t go with him, and the monastery of Monte Cassino does a good job of substituting for it, so I made that the objective of the Austrians in an effort to score a political victory against the “Little (expletive)” instead..

Scenario Six
Resistance
11 March 1938
Almost every Austrian unit obeyed its orders to offer no resistance to the incoming German forces. But at Bregenz, at the far western end of Austria, the garrison's offices could not abide Nazi rule. When Germans came marching on the small city expecting the flower-bearing maidens found elsewhere, the 6th Division met them with bullets.

Note: This scenario uses pieces from Eastern Front, and boards from Battle of the Bulge and Elsenborn Ridge.

Conclusion: Only after receiving a direct order from the Defense Ministry did the jägers stand down from their defense of Bregenz. It would be the last official combat action for Austrian forces.

Comments: Here’s the one-and-only scenario depicting actual, historical armed resistance by Austrian forces against the Anschluss. The Germans move down the coast of the Bodensee to try and take the town of Bregenz, but an elite Austrian Alpenjäger battalion stands in their way. As usual the Germans have numbers and artillery support on their side, but unit-for-unit the Austrians are better than the Germans so it will be a tough fight.

Scenario Seven
Hometown Blues
March 1938
Case Otto, the German plan for the invasion of Austria, had the Bavarian 7th Infantry Division assemble in Simbach, right on the Austrian border across from Braunau am Inn, Adolf Hitler's home town. Knowing the Führer's desire to "liberate" his hometown in the first minutes of the operation, Maj. Gen. Anton Kienbauer of the Austrian 4th Division placed a reinforced infantry battalion right on the river's edge. If the pifkes wanted their leader's childhood town, they would have to fight for it.

Note: This scenario uses pieces from Eastern Front and boards from Road to Berlin.

Conclusion: The 17th Infantry Regiment had just been raised over the winter of 1937-38 and was not considered as capable as the 4th Division's other units. Kienbauer probably did not trust it to carry out a withdrawal under German air attack, yet since it had to mobilize right on the border he had little choice in committing it to combat in some fashion.

Comments: Here the German player has plenty of air and artillery support, but he’s hampered by the fact that he does not dare blow up the Führer’s home town. So he can’t hit any town hexes with bombardment fire or air units, making the job of taking them much more difficult.

Scenario Eight
Beer Hall Brethren
March 1938
In the vanguard of the German force scheduled to invade Austria would march the SA Standarte "Feldhernhalle," named for the spot where Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 miserably failed. The Brownshirts of the SA lost their role as the Nazi Party's paramilitary enforcers after the "Night of the Long Knives" in 1934, and this one remaining regiment was drawn from all over Germany. Leading the march into Austria was a signal honor for the organization but it might not have been so desirable a posting had the Austrians chosen to resist. In that case, the stormtroopers soon would have been detailed to hold the roads behind the German advance.

Note: This scenario uses boards from Battle of the Bulge and Road to Berlin.

Conclusion: Hitler's original stormtroopers, the Sturmabteilungen, or SA, were even less prepared for modern warfare than his new favorites, the Schutzstaffel (SS). Had the Bundesheer been ordered to resist, this bumbling band of blowhards would have been a prime target for the elite Fast Division.

Comments: The Brownshirts are horribly outgunned and their low morale will make them whither fast, so rather than put them in the van of the invasion (as the original scenario design had it) I demoted them to holding the roads behind the German invasion to keep supply lines open. I then redid the maps to give them some defensive terrain while still giving Fast Division’s tanks room to maneuver.

Scenario Nine
Sachsenklemmer
March 1938
The Kaiserjäger had been the elite mountain troops of the old Imperial and Royal Army, and added to their war record under German control during the Second World War. A redoubt of monarchist feeling, Tirol never fully accepted Nazi rule and provided a large percentage of the nationalist Austrian officer corps. In 1809 Tirolean insurgents had perfected the "Saxon Vise" as their preferred method of dealing with Bavarian invaders: strike the head and tail of an enemy column to prevent its escape, and then destroy it at leisure. The tactic surely would have seen use 129 years later as well.

Note: This scenario uses pieces from Edelweiss, and boards from Battle of the Bulge and Road to Berlin.

Conclusion: The Kaiserjäger had been the elite mountain troops of the old Imperial and Royal Army, and added to their war record under German control during the Second World War. A redoubt of monarchist feeling, Tirol never fully accepted Nazi rule and provided a large percentage of the nationalist Austrian officer corps. In 1809 Tirolean insurgents had perfected the "Saxon Vise" as their preferred method of dealing with Bavarian invaders: strike the head and tail of an enemy column to prevent its escape, and then destroy it at leisure. The tactic surely would have seen use 129 years later as well.

Comments: Here badly outnumbered Austrian mountain troops try to hold a mountain road against advancing Germans. Their saving grace is the fact that they can set up hidden and use hidden movement. That will let them hit German units by surprise and lure them into traps. All the Austrians need for a Major Victory is to hold one road hex, so for their part the Germans must protect their flanks carefully as they advance down the road to keep lone, hidden Austrian units from infiltrating and taking the road behind them.

Scenario Ten
Citizen Soldiers
March 1938
Austria's front-line forces were solid formations, if short of manpower and artillery, but woefully outnumbered by their potential German enemies. The state subsumed the former party militias into an official reserve of eight brigades, armed with even fewer heavy weapons than the regular forces and led by officers of dubious quality and loyalty. But in the event of a German attack, they would be rushed forward to man the Traun Line all the same.

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

Conclusion: The Austrian regular army had become highly anti-Nazi by the spring of 1938, but some in the Defense Ministry had doubts about the militia's political reliability. Nevertheless, just as in 1914 the reserve brigades would be committed to front-line combat as soon as they could be made ready, or even sooner. Whether they could slow Hitler's newly-remade Wehrmacht was an open question, though the Poles would prove 18 months later that the German Army was far from invincible on the tactical level.

Comments: Here’s a large scenario in which average-quality MIL units must try and hold a river line against a Wehrmacht infantry division backed up by airpower and significant artillery support. There are two different bridges for the Germans to attack across and they’ve got ENG units to help them make river crossings at other points, but the Austrians can rack up large numbers of victory points by keeping roughly half the German units from crossing the river before the game ends.

Scenario Eleven
Traun Line
March 1938
The Traun River arcs from the Traunsee at Gmunden in the Alpine foothills past the garrison town of Wels to join the Danube just east of Linz. As the best defensive barrier between the German border and Vienna, the Austrian high command selected it as their line of defense in the early 1930's. Four infantry divisions, reinforced with reserve brigades, would stand on the river with the Fast Division behind them to counterattack German bridgeheads.

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

Conclusion: The Fast Division contained some well-trained units, but like similar formations in other armies the mixture of mechanized, motorized and horsed units looked better on paper than it would have proven to operate in practice. The Austrians considered it important to hold the Traun Line for as long as possible, as every day of delay would increase the chance of foreign intervention. Unfortunately, as every second grader knows any multiple of zero remains zero.

Comments: Here a large Austrian force of tanks, infantry and cavalry attacks a German bridgehead and tries to push them back across the river. This is the largest and best-balanced force the Austrians field in any scenario, so it’s a good a test as any of whether they would have been able to resist the Germans effectively on the local level.

Scenario Twelve
Serious, But Not Hopeless
March 1938
The German second echelon in Case Otto would include the 97th Landwehr Division, a formation of over-aged reservists intended for occupation duty as the Wehrmacht had not yet expanded to the size it would achieve when the shooting war actually erupted a year and a half later. Austria's Jansa Plan to defend the republic called for a counterattack should a weak formation be identified on the German right flank.

Note: This scenario uses pieces from Eastern Front, and a board from Battle of the Bulge.

Conclusion: Badly outnumbered by the Germans, the Austrians held very few advantages in a potential conflict with their giant neighbor. Their elite mountain units represented one such edge, and the Jansa Plan's call to deploy them against the German flank would foreshadow the "Bundesheer Leicht" strategy of the late 1980's.

Comments: This is a night fight in which an elite Alpenjäger battalion strikes at a weak point in the German lines. The Austrians will have been able to use hidden movement to surround the German position, so they can enter on any or all board edges they wish. I therefore cut the game to 16 turns so the Germans don’t have to hold out against the attack any longer than they’ll be viable.

Scenario Thirteen
Tank Battle
March 1938
Austrian doctrine called for the Fast Division to act as a mobile reserve, counter-attacking German breakthroughs in the Traun Line. Had the division received the Skoda S-II tanks desired by its officers (Kampfwagen35 in Austrian parlance) this might have resulted in the war's first tank battle.

Note: This scenario uses pieces from Eastern Front and White Eagles, boards from Battle of the Bulge and Road to Berlin.

Conclusion: The entire German Army had only 42 PzKw III and less than 30 PzKw IV tanks at the time of the Anschluss. Had Austria found the money to purchase the Skoda vehicles, Alfred Ritter von Hubicki's Fast Division would have held a decided edge over Heinz Guderian's 2nd Panzer Division and the "Panzer Leader" might have only been remembered as a historical footnote.

Comments: Mike’s optimistic conclusion notwithstanding, I had to increase Austrian numbers for this scenario because the efficient PzIII and IV tanks will shred any Austrian KW33 tanks they encounter. I then shortened the scenario and shrank the board to make it a quick slugfest, since the balanced and well-supported German force would be too highly favored to win a longer scenario against the Austrians.

Scenario Fourteen
Defenders of the Republic
April 1938
The Austrian West Army might have been able to hold the Germans on the Traun Line for some time, but eventually a breakthrough would become highly likely. In that case, the Austrian capital would not be abandoned without a fight. In the Wienerwald west of the city, the local militia would be expected to hold as long as possible to extend the hope of foreign intervention for just a few more days.

Note: This scenario uses a board and pieces from Eastern Front, and boards from Battle of the Bulge, Elsenborn Ridge and Road to Berlin.

Conclusion: The Kirov Battalion was the last Schutzbund unit formed, accepting its colors in 1935 in the Vienna Woods. By 1936 Schutzbund activity had ended as some members enrolled in the Army's formal reserve battalions and the more dedicated set out for Spain and the International Brigades. Had Austria resisted the Nazis, however, the formal structure still existed to mobilize trained Socialist fighters to keep Vienna red.

Comments: Here a mixed force of Federal and Red militia must try to work together to hold a road against the Germans. This won’t be easy, because their mutual dislike prevents them from stacking together or taking orders from each other’s officers. They’ll have to hope that their sheer numbers will bog down the Germans before they can make significant progress.

Scenario Fifteen
Panzers of Spring
March 1940
Adolf Hitler gained full employment — and thus the support of the German working class — by overheating his economy. A peaceful settlement with Austria that did not bring the smaller republic into the Reich would have been disastrous: the German economy needed the additional labor, resources and markets or it would crash. But the German military argued that it was not yet ready for war and urged Hitler to wait. Had they gotten their way and Germany somehow avoided a meltdown in the meantime, they would have found a far more capable enemy awaiting them.

Note: This scenario uses pieces from Eastern Front, and maps and pieces from Road to Berlin.

Conclusion: Though their governments maintained merely correct ties, the Austrian Federal Army had a strong relationship with the Czech military-industrial base. The Austrians asked for a tank design built around the 47mm gun, and this may have been the origin of the V-8-H that became the T22, sold to the Hungarians as the Turan and sought by the Romanians as the R3. As the KW40, it would have given the Austrians the qualitative advantage they sought over the Germans.

Comments: Here the Austrians field a very impressive force of tanks, but once again the better-balanced and better-supported German forces will wear them down over time. So I kept this scenario relatively short for one of its size, giving players a quick slugfest where they’ll see what the highest-quality Austrian tank designs can do.

Scenario Sixteen
Skoda Panthers
March 1942
Skoda's final tank design was built to a German requirement for a tank capable of meeting and defeating the fearsome Soviet T-34. The T25 was smaller than the eventual winner of the competition, Daimler-Benz's Panther, but was fast with sloped armor, a vertical engine and a 75mm long-barreled gun with an automatic loader capable of 18 shots per minute. Austria fell long before this tank was even imagined, but had the republic somehow survived this vehicle would have been at the top of the Bundesheer's shopping list.

Note: This scenario uses a board and pieces from Eastern Front, pieces from Sinister Forces and boards and truck pieces from Road to Berlin.

Conclusion: While countries like Hungary made accommodations with the Nazis, Adolf Hitler hated the Austrian Republic and its culture. Austria would not have been allowed to survive into 1942 without the Second World War itself somehow being delayed, and the Skoda Panther would not have existed without German wartime experience fighting the T-34. Stranger things have happened in real life, however.

Comments: Here’s an even later-war hypothetical situation where even more powerful Austrian tank designs try to hold a line against an SS Panzer Grenadier Division. The very powerful Austrian KW42 tanks will be a big problem for the Germans, so I let this one go the full 30-turn length to give the Austrians one last chance to prove what they can do.

That covers it for Hopeless But Not Serious. Tune in later this week for my commentary on our brand-new Kokoda Trail supplement, and more surprises coming soon!

The fun is in the details! Click here to order Panzer Grenadier: Hopeless But Not Serious TODAY!