The Russian Campaign
The Russian Campaign is a strategic board wargame published by Jedko Games in 1974 that simulates combat on the Eastern Front during World War II.
The unit scale is German Corps and Soviet Armies and roughly covers the Berlin to Gorki region (west to east) and Archangelsk to Grozny (north to south).
The game map represents the portions of the western Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries where the military campaign took place.
"The Russian Campaign" came in a color-printed cardboard box, with a fold-out, cardboard-backed game board (22" × 28"); Order of Battle cards giving the unit deployments for the German and Soviet players; a sheet of 225 chits a set of rules, and a six-sided die.
The terrain types on the map include mountains, woods, swamp, rivers, and the Black and Baltic seacoasts.
There are also markers for Soviet partisans and worker units, and for German Luftwaffe (air force) troops.
Between these extremes there are a range of intermediate results, including retreat by the attacker or defender, an exchange of losses, a combination of unit losses and a retreat, or "contact", meaning an unresolved outcome, and that the units simply remain adjacent to one another, with further combat being thus inevitable in the next turn or impulse.
The first and second winters in Russia are particularly difficult for the German side, as supply is severely hindered during that period for units that are not close to a city.
German air supremacy early in the war - initially overwhelming but diminishing over time - is depicted by the use of "Stuka" units.
Each Stuka must trace its air range to one of the three (North, Centre and South) German Army Group Headquarter counters.
Like STAVKA and the three German Army Group Headquarters, Hitler and Stalin are each assumed to have a combat strength of one.
Italian units are removed in September 1943 at the point when the Western Allies are deemed to have landed in Italy.
In the L2 version the German player wins by capturing Moscow and eliminating Stalin, or else by maintaining control of Berlin at the end of the game.
the German offensive into the Caucasus in 1942, in the hope of winning an outright victory but risking catastrophic defeat in the event of failure.
Under these rules, the game - if it followed the exact course of history - would end early in 1943 as the Soviet player would control both Stalingrad and the oil well at Maikop.
In 1980 Avalon Hill also published "Fortress Europa", covering the Western Front from June 1944 to the end of the war.
In a 1976 poll conducted by Simulations Publications Inc. to determine the most popular board wargames in North America, The Russian Campaign placed 128th out of 202 games.
[1] In his 1977 book The Comprehensive Guide to Board Wargaming, Nicholas Palmer called this game "notable for lots of units, and a bloodthirsty [Combat Result Table]."
He noted that Hitler and Stalin have their own counters "and the general effect is a lively 'fun' game rather than a deadly serious study of the war.
Freeman gave this game an Overall Evaluation of "Very Good", concluding, "If you desire a simulation from which to study the unfolding of the invasion of Russia, The Russian Campaign is not it.
