A View from the Turret
Volume III

By Paul J. Calvi Jr.

A modified version of this article orignally appeared in Critical Hit: Tactical Level Gaming, 1999 Volume 5, No.3

PVT RYAN Criticized by some for its Hollywood moments, the film Saving Private Ryan is without a doubt one of the most powerful war movies made to date. If you have any doubt movies like this need to be made, let me tell you about a little discussion I had with my uncle. Pvt. Ryan stirred numerous emotions within me. It made me wonder how I would have performed under fire, made we weep for the families of those lost, and left me awestruck at the sacrifices made that day. It underscored the bonds that indeed do form, everlasting, among men together in battle. Even though I have spent most of my life studying military history, I do not think I have ever been so in awe of what our soldiers accomplished on those beaches of Normandy. Now, my uncle is a very intelligent and well educated man; nonetheless, he had but one comment on the film, "Waste of time. I do not need a movie to tell me that war is terrible." You see, he believes war is useless and futile and that even WWII itself was probably unnecessary, "The Germans would have collapsed under the weight of their own regime in 50 years if left alone." To me this was such an absurd response I was simply speechless. To him, in essence, nothing is worth the loss of life; thus, the lives lost on D-Day were tragic because they were ultimately unnecessary. If men like my uncle can believe this what must others believe? Never before in my life have I been made so aware of the importance of learning history and its lessons.

If Saving Private Ryan's Hollywood moments managed to get even a single person into the theatre who would have otherwise not gone, they were well worth it. For if even only a single person was moved or intrigued enough to pick up a book or talk to someone about the events portrayed in the film, then Steven Spielberg has indeed created a movie far more important than a simple piece of entertainment.

BOOKS Pvt Ryan inspired me to take a look at a number of books on the battles of D-Day and beyond. I began by re-reading Stephen E. Ambrose's D-Day June 6 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II. Ambrose well deserves his fame and popularity. He writes in an incredibly readable style and weaves historical detail with a riveting story in such a way that you simply pour through it. This book contains what became the seed for the story of Pvt. Ryan in what is almost a footnote. The soldier was named Fritz but that would not have done at all now would it. Ambrose's Pegasus Bridge is equally as well done and, at less than 200 pages, reads in no time.

I also re-read Audie Murphy's To Hell and Back. For the couple of you who may not know, Audie Murphy was the United States' most highly decorated soldier of WWII. He won every medal we had including the Medal of Honor. Yet his book mentions none of that. It is simply a story about the love he had for is fellow soldiers and how he watched almost every last one of them die in combat from Sicily to France. With all that has been written about WWII, To Hell and Back is still a riveting book.

I finally finished Michael Reynold's Steel Inferno: I SS Panzer Corps in Normandy. An excellent account with superb research but a chore to read. The maps were so bad I had to make copies so I could mark unit positions on them as I read in order to follow the action. Without that, I would have been lost. This was surprising considering his previous book, The Devil's Adjutant, had excellent supporting maps.

I am currently halfway through Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II by Belton Y. Cooper. Cooper was a maintenance officer with the U.S. 3rd Armored division in France. He presents a very unique viewpoint with a number of interesting tales. Unfortunately, he wraps it all in his own history of the drive across France so that one has a hard time deciphering what is true history and what is simply Cooper's opinions about the conduct of the war. If Cooper had stuck to more of his firsthand accounts the book would not only be more enjoyable but more useful as well.

On a different note, Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew is a gripping tale of America's submarine actions since the end of WWII. I breezed through this book in just a couple of days. The writing is crisp and the stories fascinating. I loaned the book to an acquaintance of mine who was a submariner in the 1960's. He returned it with a single comment, "Fantastic book."

SOFT WARS Microsoft and Atomic Games released Close Combat III: The Russian Front. CC3 improves the series in all respects but is not without its flaws. The game seems to have an odd bug with buildings; units contained therein are not given the protection modifiers they should. As a result, you will have your infantry squads far too easily wiped out while inside structures that should be havens for them. The same goes for trenches where they are fine as long as they do not attempt to fire. If they do, they lose all advantages of the trench. Nonetheless, CC3 is a lot of fun and even better against an opponent.

TINY TANKS Easy Eight Enterprises has been busy adding to their great Battleground: WW2 line. They released two new supplements since my last column, Islands of Glory and Crusade for Empire. IoG brings the Battleground series to the Pacific and includes rules for Marines and Japanese soldiers and equipment as well as amphibious landings and other related details. The supplement features 15 scenarios including one of the few tank assaults by the Japanese against U.S. positions. CfE comes back around the World to North Africa. This supplement adds desert rules and includes all the tank charts for British AFVs. Only nine scenarios are included and two are monster ones featuring their new 1/285 scale rules with over 100 AFVs. The playability of these huge scenarios is questionable but perhaps at conventions they could be a lot of fun. The scenarios also feature new "building block" terrain maps that I do not particularly like. These are generic boards that are generated or placed at the start of each scenario to create a unique map each time. I would rather have the board pre-configured to save setup time and minimize quibbles over balance issues caused by random terrain. Still, if you like desert battles, you will get plenty of sand in your teeth with this one.

Frank Chadwick's Command Decision III miniature rules were released not too long ago. This is the third, and final he says, version of Command Decision. The game has been considerably streamlined from its previous versions and is one very polished and well done system. If you like battalion level combat, CDIII is a must.

CARDBOARD COMBAT Even though I have owned, and enjoyed, Moments in History's Aachen for a long time, I never purchased any of their other titles. It has certainly been my loss. I recently picked up their Clash of Titans, went crazy, and quickly grabbed all their other East front titles. These games are meant to be played. Clash of Titans: The Tank Battle for Kursk, 1943 is an operational level game on the battle for Kursk. It features a scale of eight miles per hex and two days per turn. The physical graphics are excellent, the AFVs on the counters are even in full-color camouflage. The game has only 20 pages of rules, one 22" x 34" map, and it plays fast and furious. It seems genuinely balanced as well. The other games, Turning the Tables: The Axis Defeat of the Soviet Sprint '42 Offensive and Triumphant Return: The Soviet Liberation of Kiev, Novemeber 1943, are of roughly similar scales with slightly smaller maps. Play of these games is also excellent. Each one can be easily played in a single gaming session. The wargame industry needs more titles like these.

Eastwall: The Battles for the Dnepr departs from the above titles with a map scale of 15km per hex and one week turns. I have not yet played Eastwall, but it has received considerable criticism from reviewers. The game system does not seem to have handled the change in scale well. One player noted that ignoring the printed defenses on the map makes the game far more balanced and enjoyable.

I was heartened when I heard of Critical Hit's purchase of Moment in History, because, after playing the above games, I wanted to see more. Critical Hit plans to support the MiH line well and already has announced some great new titles. With any luck, some of the earlier Ring of Fire titles will also be reprinted.

IN THE BREACH I will be probably read John C McManus' The Deadly Brotherhood: The American Combat Soldier in World War II or David M. Glantz's Kharkov 1942: Anatomy of a Military Disaster next. Glantz also has a new book just released, Stumbling Colussus. I am trying to get some games of MiH's Tank Commander going during lunch. It is one game playable in an hour.

ON THE WEB Keeping with the Pvt Ryan theme, do not miss Encyclopedia Britannica's Normandy: 1944 (http://normandy.eb.com) Web site. This is a great site devoted to the D-Day landings and the weeks that followed. On the opposite front, the Russian Military Zone (http://military.virtualave.net) is an amazing site just jam packed with data on Russian AFVs and armor actions in WWII.