Map and Counters

THE ARDENNES OFFENSIVE is an operational simulation — based on the KURSK Game System — of the German attempt to break through a thinly-held section of the American front in December, 1944. The game was designed by James F. Dunnigan, and published in 1973 by Simulations Publications, Incorporated (SPI).

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

American soldiers assume defensive positions in the Ardennes

At 0530 on 16 December 1944, a massive German offensive, code-named “Wacht am Rhein,” jumped off with a violent, hour-long artillery bombardment from 1,900 guns along eighty-five miles of the Allied front line in the Ardennes region of Belgium. As soon as the barrage lifted, the 250,000 men and 1,100 tanks of Field Marshal Model’s Army Group B smashed into the dazed defenders of this sparsely-defended portion of the American line. The German offensive that would come to be known as the “Battle of the Bulge” had begun.

The German plan was a simple one: the Wehrmacht would tear a hole in a weak section of the American line and then rush powerful panzer forces through the newly-formed gap; as soon as the leading panzers had forced a crossing of the Meuse River and gained freedom of maneuver, they would then pivot northwest and drive on the Allied supply port of Antwerp.

German tank, The Battle of the Bulge.

Hitler’s offensive began well, and early German gains in some sectors were dramatic. Near the center of the American front, Hasso von Manteuffel’s 5^th Panzer Army quickly broke through General Troy Middleton’s US VIII^th Corps. After a short, sharp fight von Manteuffel’s panzers shattered the American 28^th Division and began their drive west through the Ardennes. On the night of 18 December, elements of the 2^nd Panzer Division unexpectedly ran into an ad-hoc American unit, Task Force Harper, and a short violent clash erupted. TF Harper could not stop the Germans, and 2^nd Panzer soon pushed its way over and through the outnumbered Americans. At this point in the campaign, 2^nd Panzer could have swept unopposed into Bastogne, but the Germans bypassed the town, and by the next morning, the opportunity had passed. During the night the 501^st Parachute Regiment arrived and immediately took up defensive positions around Bastogne. If the Germans wanted the town now, they would have to fight for it.

Subsequent events would show that von Manteuffel’s men had made a costly mistake. The hasty decision to bypass Bastogne, although the local panzer commanders didn’t realize it at the time, had put the whole German offensive in jeopardy. And it was a lost opportunity that would come back to haunt the Germans as the battle wore on.

American soldiers on an Ardennes forest road.

The rough terrain and forests of the Ardennes, even today, make off-road movement for both wheeled and tracked vehicles difficult and often impossible. In December, 1944, roads — particularly roads running east to west, and their junctions — were crucial to the German offensive timetable, and seven different roads passed through Bastogne. Although the initial wave of panzers had bypassed the town, the Germans knew that they had to capture Bastogne: possession of this Belgian hamlet was crucial to the continued supply of their armored spearhead that was still driving towards the Meuse. The Allies, also recognizing the importance of Bastogne, had rushed the paratroopers of the 101^st Airborne Division forward to occupy the town and dig in. The newly-arrived American defenders had been ordered to hold Bastogne whatever the cost; the attacking Germans were just as committed to its capture: one of the great sieges of World War II was about to unfold.

DESCRIPTION

THE ARDENNES OFFENSIVE is a two-player operational (division/brigade/regiment) level simulation of the decisive period — 16 December, 1944 through 2 January, 1945 — during which the outcome of Hitler’s final desperate gamble — the last great German offensive in the West — was decided.

The playing area of the game map represents the Ardennes, a forested region where the frontiers of Germany, Belgium, France, and Luxembourg all intersect. This was the area in which most of the major action of the historical battle actually took place. The two-color game map is relatively unambiguous, although a few terrain changes are required; these, however, have been noted in the game errata. In addition, for ease of set-up, the historical positions for all of the starting units are printed on the game map.



THE ARDENNES OFFENSIVE is played in game turns which are further divided into a German and an Allied player turn. One player controls the Germans, and the other player commands the American and British forces that fought to thwart Hitler’s offensive plans. The German player is always the first to act. Each player turn proceeds in the following order: the Reinforcement Phase; the Supply Determination Phase; the Initial Movement Phase; the Combat Phase; and the Mechanized Movement Phase. On the first game turn only, the Allied player may not move any of his eligible units during the Initial Movement Phase. Interestingly, neither player may move any otherwise eligible units during the Mechanized Movement Phase if they fought during the immediately preceding Combat Phase. For this reason, unengaged mechanized reserves are critically important for both sides.

Supply, as it did in the historical campaign, plays a critical role in THE ARDENNES OFFENSIVE; for this reason, the rules governing the determination of supply status for both sides are both detailed and comparatively complicated. Supply effects, on the other hand, are fairly straight forward: “supplied” units operate using their face combat and movement values; “unsupplied” units are halved on attack and in movement; “isolated” units are both halved on defense and in movement, and their attack strength is reduced to zero. Zones of Control (ZOCs) are “rigid” and individual units must halt movement upon entering and may not exit an enemy ZOC, unless stacked with one or more other friendly units. In this case, one unit “absorbs” the enemy ZOC, allowing the other units in the hex to exit or even to infiltrate around the enemy unit’s flanks. Stacking of combat units is limited to one “division equivalent” per hex. There are no artillery units included in the counter-mix; however, the influence of artillery on the battle is neatly reproduced through an abstract but restrictive (for the German player, at least) set of "bridge interdiction" rules. Combat is resolved using an “odds differential” Combat Results Table (CRT), but there are two different CRTs: the Initial German CRT and the Standard CRT. As is typical with the KURSK family of games, combat results tend to be of the “bloodless” variety with most battles producing retreat results (in varying numbers of hexes) for one or the other player. Defender Eliminated and Exchange results do not even appear until odds of 4 to 1, or higher. Terrain Effects are relatively uncomplicated. As might be expected, rivers represent a serious barrier to movement and the “West Wall” hexes multiply the defensive value of defending German units. The most important terrain effect is that of towns: units defending in towns are affected only by DE and Exchange results; all retreat results (whether DR or AR) are ignored. Needless-to-say, this rule has a profound effect on the overall flow of the game.

Victory is determined on the basis of victory points; these points can be amassed by the German player through the capture of geographical objectives, and, for both players, through the destruction of enemy combat strength.

THE ARDENNES OFFENSIVE, besides the Historical Game, also offers nine additional scenarios, each of which allows the players to experiment with different set-up and reinforcement options. Conveniently, these alternative game situations have been scored by the designer as to which side they favor, and so can be used to vary lines of play or to adjust play-balance between unequal opponents. There are no “optional rules.”

A PERSONAL OBSERVATION

German soldier in the Ardennes.

Over four decades ago, James F. Dunnigan — while still an unknown college student — wrote a letter to the Avalon Hill Game Company complaining about the many historical inaccuracies in TAHGC’s THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE ’65. For reasons that are still unclear to this day, Tom Shaw, who ran Avalon Hill during this period, was so impressed with Dunnigan’s comments that he offered the neophyte game critic an opportunity to design a game of his own: an offer, unfortunately, that resulted in the publication of probably two of the most widely-detested Avalon Hill games of all time, JUTLAND (1967) and 1914 (1968). Dunnigan’s first attempt at a naval game (JUTLAND), followed by his game of World War I ground combat on the Western Front (1914) were neither of them, as they say, roaring commercial or critical successes. In spite of these disappointing first two outings, Dunnigan persevered. In 1969, he founded Simulations Publication, Inc (SPI) and took over the publication of the then struggling S&T game magazine. It was a fortuitous move. In the space of a few years, Dunnigan — along with the help of graphics whiz, Redmond Simonsen — turned SPI into the most prolific game publisher of its day.

General Hasso von Manteuffel.

Looking back at Dunnigan’s long tenure at SPI, it is clear that his interest in the Battle of the Bulge never really waned. In fact, SPI published a half dozen titles, over the next two decades that covered all or part of this famous battle, beginning with BASTOGNE, a Dunnigan designed S&T magazine game that first saw print in 1969. BASTOGNE ’69, to be generous, was received with less than enthusiastic reviews: it appeared, at first blush, to be more historically accurate than BULGE ’65, but it also proved, in the eyes of many gamers, to be a lot less playable (read: fun) than its Avalon Hill counterpart. THE ARDENNES OFFENSIVE, which appeared four years later, was a return trip to the “Bulge” well for Dunnigan. This second game was the next to the last time (BULGE, published in 1980 and then rechristened as THE BIG RED ONE, would be his last) that the prolific designer tackled the subject personally, and as such, it is an interesting take on how Dunnigan had come to view the battle by this time in his career as a designer. In BASTOGNE ’69, the “orders of battle” and “terrain” were the main focus of the game; in his second design, the Ardennes road net and the initial unit congestion in the German assembly areas are clearly — in Dunnigan’s view, at least — the key factors in the critical early stages of the campaign. This means that for some players, THE ARDENNES OFFENSIVE may seem a little cumbersome; and despite its comparatively simple game system, I should also note that it is not an easy game to play well. Large scale maneuver, even with road movement, is often difficult; and concentrating an assaulting force against a strongly-held enemy position (particularly towns) is usually time-consuming, complicated, and frustrating. This combination of factors tends to produce a regular pattern of play: deep initial armored penetrations by the Germans during the first five to seven game turns, followed — assuming that neither player has made any serious mistakes — by a grinding World War I style Allied counter-offensive during the remaining turns of the game. Thus, an obvious game dynamic seems to be 'baked' into the simulation, and the result is that the Allies almost never seem to have many strategic options. Because the Germans can seal the Northeast and Southeast map edges with incoming assault gun brigades and a few weak infantry regiments, the Allied player usually has no choice but to push the Wehrmacht back with frontal attacks against the leading edge of the German “bulge.” The panzers probably aren’t going to get to Antwerp in the Historical Game, but the Germans may well still be able to stall the Allied advance long enough to eke out a win.

General George S. Patton.

So where does all this leave us? I would argue that despite its several design quirks, THE ARDENNES OFFENSIVE is still an intriguing, if somewhat unorthodox, treatment of the Battle of the Bulge. More than that, however, this title’s modified KURSK game mechanics offer a clue about the future direction of WW II designs at SPI. Like Dunnigan’s EL ALAMEIN — also published in 1973 — it seems to be a precursor of the PANZER GRUPPE GUDERIAN Game System to come. A game system that, in the eyes of many gamers, would finally reach its full potential with SPI’s release, in 1977, of perhaps the most detailed “Bulge” simulation ever published: ‘WACHT AM RHEIN’. Thus, for those gamers for whom the December, 1944 battle in the Ardennes holds a special fascination, and also for those players with an interest in the design evolution of armored warfare game systems, I recommend THE ARDENNES OFFENSIVE highly.

Design Characteristics:

• Time Scale: one day (24 hours) per game turn
• Map Scale: 3.15 kilometers per hex
• Unit Size: division/brigade/regiment
• Unit Types: armor/panzer, armored infantry/panzer grenadier, assault gun, motorized paratroops, infantry, paratroop, engineer, and information counters
• Number of Players: two
• Complexity: average
• Solitaire Suitability: above average
• Average Playing Time: 2-3+ hours

Game Components:

• One 22” x 28” hexagonal grid Map Sheet (with German and Allied Victory Point Tracks incorporat
• 255 ½” cardboard Counters
• One 8¾” x 11½” Rules Booklet (with Terrain Effects Chart, German Initial, and Standard Combat Results Tables incorporated)
• One 7” x 23” Turn Record/Reinforcement Track
• One 8½” x 11” Consolidated Errata & Addenda (as of 31 May 1973)
• One small six-sided Die
• One SPI 12” x 15” x 1” flat 24 compartment cardboard Tombstone-style Game Box (with clear compartment tray cover)

Recommended Reading

See my blog post Book Reviews of most of these titles; all six of which are strongly recommended for those readers interested in further historical background.



THE WEST POINT ATLAS OF AMERICAN WARS (Complete 2-Volume Set); edited by Brigadier General Vincent J. Esposito; Frederick A. Praeger, Inc. (1959); ASIN: B000MTBTEU