Best WWII Eastern Front PC Games - Sims, Tactics, Strategy

[Sir Slash]

"Lost Victories" by E von Manstein with a strong second to "Panzer Battles" by Hans von Mellinthin.

[GDS_Starfury]

those are excellent for the "bigger picture".
but Hans Von Luck is the James Bond of the panzer corps.
imagine being a German panzer commander thats so cool the French resistance tell you to split before shit goes off?
or taking a LSD fueled road trip across Russia, during winter, in a convertible Mercedes to take a mandated vacation.

[bob48]

I would also add to the list;

'Barbarossa' by Alan Clark, and 'The Russo-German War' by Col. Albert Seaton. And Guderian's 'Panzer Leader' is worth a read.

[Gusington]

My mind is spinning. So many titles to choose from  :D

[JasonPratt]

@Gus :)

You could try John Tiller's Campaign series published by Matrix

Crap, I totally forgot about East Front 2 (which is the relevant title there). We even had a good campaign AAR on that a year or two ago, or was it from the Wargamer site? (Must've been there, can't find it here.)

[Gusington]

When was that released?

[Nefaro]

When was that released?

Which version?

The original East Front 2 was around 1998.  But the Matrix re-release of the whole series (West Front, East Fronts, and Pacific) was somewhere in the mid '00s.

Still been hoping to see the modern one reworked off the old buggy Divided Ground for some Arab-Israeli and Cold War stuff.  Not sure if still alive and progressing..  :-\

[Gusington]

Jeez that long ago? It doesn't feel like it was that long ago...

[Asid]

The original East Front 2 was around 1998.  But the Matrix re-release of the whole series (West Front, East Fronts, and Pacific) was somewhere in the mid '00s.

And charge you lots of $$$$$$  :o

With little to no support at times  >:(

[jomni]

When was that released?

Which version?

The original East Front 2 was around 1998.  But the Matrix re-release of the whole series (West Front, East Fronts, and Pacific) was somewhere in the mid '00s.

Still been hoping to see the modern one reworked off the old buggy Divided Ground for some Arab-Israeli and Cold War stuff.  Not sure if still alive and progressing..  :-\

Yeah waiting for that one as well.  From what I hear it is Arab-Israeli War and Vietnam.

[Mad Russian]

Caiden's book about Kursk is very good, not long on details, but very good.

With the current crop of books about Kursk you will find that Caiden's book is about 95% fictional. At the time it was written it was all there was. Now, you can get books that are written with archival support, both from the Soviet and German side and can get a much clearer picture of how the battle was conducted.

Glantz's books have a lot of details, but his almost adoration for the Soviets shows through all of them.

Germany's war aims and it's armed forces actions were utterly detestable, but to me the Soviets were just as bad. The German army for more than half the war was a first rate fighting force.

Glantz comes across as the Germans were inept fools and the Soviets were war masters.

When you read a book by an author, any author, you should remember they have a bias. Some are better at keeping that out of the book than others but they all have one.

I just saw posted somewhere ( SimHQ? ) some numbers that were interesting. The Germans had a AFV kill rate of 2.95 to 1.If there had been no western front and all of Germany's AFVs were available for Russia, their kill ratio would only need to 2.45 to 1 to destroy all of the Soviet AFVs.

I was brought up learning that the western powers had won the war and then with all my reading swung toward the Soviets could have defeated Germany on their own.

I now believe Germany could not have been defeated without the western powers. In fact if Kursk was allowed to continue without the loss of German troops to Italy it may well have succeeded.

The Soviet Union was well on it's way by the time the Western Powers showed up on the continent to winning the war without us. The Germans were never going to win at Kursk. The northern thrust was stopped and thrown back almost before it started. The southern thrust could have gone further but the Soviets were capable of replacing their losses. At best the Germans could have won a tactical victory at Kursk. The Soviets won and were always going to win a strategic victory there. Look at how fast the 5th Guards Tank Army was sent back into action after being almost completely destroyed in the battle at Prokhorovka.

Good Hunting.

MR

[JasonPratt]

Meanwhile speaking of the early 00s, Matrix, and the Eastern Front:

Korsun Pocket or its semi-remake Kharkov: Disaster on the Donets, each with an Across the Dneiper add-on.

[MengJiao]

The Soviet Union was well on it's way by the time the Western Powers showed up on the continent to winning the war without us. The Germans were never going to win at Kursk. The northern thrust was stopped and thrown back almost before it started. The southern thrust could have gone further but the Soviets were capable of replacing their losses. At best the Germans could have won a tactical victory at Kursk. The Soviets won and were always going to win a strategic victory there. Look at how fast the 5th Guards Tank Army was sent back into action after being almost completely destroyed in the battle at Prokhorovka.

Good Hunting.

MR

  Yep, the idea that the Germans were close to wiping out the Kursk salient at any time seems to be very misleading.  Not only was the northern attack stopped pretty quickly, but there were big soviet offensives just waiting to get underway both north (taking Orel) and south (not quite as effective, but could have been used in defending the Kursk salient).  Strategically, the battles around Kursk played out as the Soviets expected them to, judging by the subsequent Soviet offensives.

[sandman2575]

Have to agree. Like "Wacht am Rhein," the Kursk offensive seemed an act of desperation more than anything else. It's hard to believe it had ever had a chance of succeeding. The Russians were well prepared for it -- there was no element of surprise (unlike the Bulge, interestingly). The fact that the Germans went through with it smacks of a military leadership that had run out of ideas and was hoping luck would pull them through. Guderian and Model (?) argued for calling the whole thing off.

[mirth]

The Soviet Union was well on it's way by the time the Western Powers showed up on the continent to winning the war without us.

Winning without our troops, not so sure they would have won without Lend-Lease and the material aid we provided. Certainly it would have taken considerably longer to reach Berlin.

Complete agreement about the outcome at Kursk.