Nazi Germany vs. Russia: I Fought a Massive Tank Battle In a Simulator

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In fact, it was one of the biggest tank battles ever.

The World War II Battle of Kursk is crack for war-gamers. What lover of historical simulations can resist the largest clash of armor in history? A battle that featured tanks with predatory names like Tiger and Panther? Two massive armies from two ruthless totalitarian regimes locked in a struggle to the death?

Panzer Battles: Kursk Southern Flank covers the southern half of the German offensive at the Soviet city of Kursk in July 1943. It is the first of a new series of games from war-gaming granddaddy John Tiller, a PhD in mathematics whose design team has been churning out dozens of historical games since the mid-1990s.

“The thought of it turns my stomach,” Hitler said before the Battle of Kursk. His nausea was not induced by guilt or squeamishness, but nervousness at how the fate of Nazi Germany rested on the outcome.

Six months after 300,000 German and Axis soldiers had been killed or captured at Stalingrad, the Third Reich needed to reverse the momentum on the Eastern Front or risk drowning under a red tide of Soviet offensives. Hitler and his generals devised a pincer offensive to encircle and crush the Soviet bulge jutting into German lines near Kursk, about 300 miles southwest of Moscow.

The offensive, codenamed Operation Citadel, was supposed to kick off in May. But Hitler kept postponing it in order to build up German forces with new heavy Panther and Tiger tanks. The two-month delay actually benefited the Soviets, who used the time to dig layer after layer of fortifications, including 3,000 miles of trenches and one million mines.

The German artillery barrage at dawn on July 5, 1943 signaled the start of an 11-day maelstrom that sucked in two million men, 8,000 tanks, 35,000 artillery pieces and mortars and 5,000 aircraft. A tactical simulation of the entire battle would be overwhelming, so it makes sense that Panzer Battles: Kursk covers just the southern half of the German pincer.