Stalingrad, is it realy important?

[Kung Karl]

The city of stalingrad is always considered an inportant tow to conquer in any WW2 game. But in reality it was not even mentioned by Hitler or the generals in the planning of the 1942 summer offensive. It was not important for the outcome of the war or the offensive in question. It was only Hiters obssesion that demanded the fall of the city.

So, in games the city should not be as important as it is considered imo. Sure it could have some impact on morale but in games it is ioften requierd to conquer the city to win. That is not true and realistisc I think.

SO, any thoughts on the subject? Should Stalingrad have such an huge impact in WW2 games as it has or should it be hadnled historical and only be a city on the map.

[riverbravo]

The city of tslingrad is always considered an inportant tow to conquer in any WW2 game. But in reality it was not even mentioned by Hitler or the generals in the planning of the 1942 summer offensive. It was not important for the outcome of the war or the offensive in question. It was only Hiters obssesion that demanded the fall of the city.

So, in games the city should not be as important as it is considered imo. Sure it could have some impact on morale but in games it is ioften requierd to conquer the city to win. That is not true and realistisc I think.

SO, any thoughts on the subject? Should Stalingrad have such an huge impact in WW2 games as it has or should it be hadnled historical and only be a city on the map.

It should be covered in wargames as an important battle.

It was an epic battle in a huge city that lasted months.

I think it should be a bit more than a city on a map.

[Kung Karl]

Yeah, it was a big battle and it was a very important one but that was because Hitler was an maniac with the obsession of the name Stalingrad. If we refight the war we are always forced into the City because it has high victory points or somthing. Why should we be forced into a battle that the germans never shhould have fought. You are never forced into any other battle in a WW2 game. It is only the Battle of Stalingrad that the "scripts" onto you since you can't defeat russia without conquering Stalingrad. I'm sure The Germans could have won if they just had crossed Volga and continued instead of throwing in divisions in Stalingrad.

[Fredflak]

I agree that Stalingrad wasnt an objective at first but rather become one once they were close of reaching it.

My own view on this, is that all of the delays, time lost and manpower lost in the offensive, made them realise that there was no way they could overrun the whole country and win that way. The original plans were scraped when they realised and accepted that they had lost. But of course they wouldnt give up and sue for peace, rather Hitler decided that if they cant get a full military victory over the russians, they could try for a symbolic victory, and hope that it could lead to the collapse of the soviet union. That's why he went after Stalingrad, and why he diverted so many forces to attack it. He knew he couldnt win anymore, and so was hoping that the loss of Stalingrad would shatter the spirits and cause the union to collapse.

[Belisarius]

Oh my god yes, Stalingrad is important.

Not so much for the epic battle and the importance of the city itself - but for what it did to the German Army. 6th Army wasn't just "any" army in the Wehrmacht OOB - it was considered tip of the spear, that's why it was sent into Stalingrad. To have it destroyed was a disaster that couldn't be mended by replacing men and equipment.

The moral repercussions on the entire German Army after its fall can hardly be underestimated, IMO. Moscow was bad, but this really showed that the outcome was inevitable. From here on, there could not possibly be a victory in the east, and I think most of the men and officers in the field knew it.

[benpark]

Think of the Volga River as Russia's largest superhighway/railway. Pretty important beyond just the prestige of the name.

[riverbravo]

This is going off-topic as far as should it be so important to war game victory locations.

YES.How many war games do you play that are not accurate with history.

I myself like history.Ive probably learned more from wargames,or having them sparked my interest in a certain theatre to study it more.

If you wanna erase history or down-size the signifigance of Stalingrad would be a mistake for the people creating the game.

I can see were you are coming from.Maybe Stalingrad doesnt fall within some gamers plan of attack for mother Russia.

I would have to try to take it.Cut a major supply line and lay waste to a major production center.It would have surely put dent in the reds ability wage war.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

Stalingrad shares the same fate so many other no where places share.

Fate made it history.

The River Plate was a nowhere location in the South Atlantic until you mention the Graf Spee.

Midway Island became quite famous, although it was just an island in some respects.

Malta was just an island, but look at what it did to the whole Mediteranean war perhaps even the entire war.

There were innumerable places that but for a bit of fate and random chance became key locations of critical importance, where a slight change of policy or planning might have made them invisible to history.

Yep Stalingrad might have been just yet another industrial town. But history made it famous.

Wargames either attempt to recreate history and see if you could do better, or in some cases, they only try to simulate the conditions.

[Kung Karl]

Yeah, I know that the battle ni real life was a decisive one for the war. But if you would try to do better than the germans did in the campaign wouldn't it be better to try to cross volga and head on? Games doesn't realy give you that choice since you must capture Stalingrad. But worse, you cant win by an offensive in the north since Stalingrad often is requierd for victory. The battle of Stalingrad was one of the german armys biggest mistake and you are not allowd to not fight it.

I love to capture Stalingrad in any wargame. It is so symbolic and a proof that you did better than the germans did in réal life.

I'm don't know were I stand in the question. I am for historical wargames but I want to be able to make diffrent choices.

[Boar]

Yeah, I know that the battle ni real life was a decisive one for the war. But if you would try to do better than the germans did in the campaign wouldn't it be better to try to cross volga and head on?

Stalingrad was the gateway to the Caucasus oil fields as well. It was an
important supply center. In gaming terms, though, it always presents a problem because it requires you to stretch your forces thinly and commit your armor there or elsewhere. Sort of like real life.

[Les_the_Sarge_9_1]

The only way to totally edit out "history" from a wargame, is to do just that, totally remove history from the simulation though.

A game like Civilization 3 being a good example. All of the choices become yours, and all of the mistakes as well hehe.

Another good example is the board game Victory the Blocks of War from Columbia Games. It is styled after WW2 but it has no connection to the actual real world. A game of Red side vs Blue side. If you make the wrong choices, you lose.

To fight a wargame over real world terrain, allows us many choices. But often there has to be a line between refight history, and ignore history all together.

I would rather a WW2 grand strategy game begin in say the Occupation of the Rhineland and the Annexing of Czech Sudetenland or the absorbing of Austria in some respects.
But clearly, that would just end up with the Third Reich never even surviving till 39 in some cases. Not much fun in that as a wargme really.

The decision to take Stalingrad or not take Stalingrad though is always an option in most cases. But while it might not generate a win just by taking it the turn it is taken, I don't think it was that meaningless a city. I don't think it's name was what made it vital though. It had a very important arms industry. It was definitely worth something.

[Fredflak]

I have to agree in part with Les about Stalingrad, the name wasnt important and the main objective was to destroy its industries and move past it to reach the oil fields. But that was at first.

Like I posted in my other comment, i'm still pretty convinced that the reason the name became important is that Hitler was hoping to collapse the soviet union by winning at Stalingrad, using the propaganda it would cause. All this because they knew they couldnt win by overruning the country anymore.

As for history in wargames, I like being able to try alternative to what was done in history, see how I could have done. And in most grand strategy games you can bypass Stalingrad, its one objective among any. And you can just bypass it, cut it from supply and eventually take it because of that. Or you can ignore it and try to get other objectives for victory. All depends on the game, lots of differant ones out there.

[Subchaser]

I love to capture Stalingrad in any wargame. It is so symbolic and a proof that you did better than the germans did in réal life.

It doesn’t proof anything really, cause you have to make assumption that Germans (on your side) did no mistakes while Russians did all those mistakes they did in reality. If there were no Mechlis and Timoshenko in command early in summer ’42 there could be no Stalingrad at all.

[trauth116]

To me this is a much deeper question than what it appears - as it actually calls into question design philosophy -- yeh it was a town on the Volga- and the Volga was a major transportation route in the relative interior of the USSR - -- but it could have been interdicted elsewhere -if that was the goal.

What the designers -or a lot of designers do in order to sorta abstract into games some sort of rationale for actually having a battle there --- it is probably on par with the 'idiot riles' that require the Allied armies in 1940 (BEF and French armies) - to execute the Dyle plan.

I suppose another way of making it ('it' being a battle at Stalingrad happen) might be to adopt some sort of Hitler rules -iirc CoA did this in Edelweiss - - - although I never actually played it - I am familiar with some of the rules.

Sort of like a random evets sort of gaming mechanism -- the complication is -- where do you draw the line between playability -and an overly cumbersome game mechanism? (Rhettorical question, mind you )

I guess the bottom line is that ort of mechanism appears to be a method of abstracting that not all wars are fought using military logic - and a lot are waged using 'political logic' (which can be an oxymoron )