PRESRT STD US POSTAGE DISPATCHES PAID BAKERSFIELD CA PERMIT NO 66 FROM DECISION GAMES #28 SPRING 2015 (661) 587-9633 | (661) 587-5031 fax | P.O. Box 21598 | Bakersfield CA 93390 | DECISIONGAMES.COM SAMPLE FROM STRATEGY & TACTICS #292 Waterloo by Christopher Perello aterloo is the most written about battle in human history, and for good reason. It had every conceivable dramatic W element: the fate of Europe in the balance, a duel between two of the greatest commanders of their time, indeed of all time, sweeping cavalry charges, a last-minute rescue, the final attack of one of the most storied corps in history, and a near victory turned into total rout. Such was the scope of that outcome the name has become synonymous with absolute, crushing, irretrievable defeat. It also cemented the Napoleonic paradigm—that of a decisive, war-ending battle—into the minds of military men around the world for generations to come. Situation Napoleon Bonaparte’s eleven month exile on Elba ended in March 1815 with his return to France. The French people welcomed him, but cautiously. They wanted no more wars, and Napoleon duly (and probably duplicitously) pledged peace to the French and all of Europe. His former opponents, then bickering in Vienna over the future of Europe, would have none of it. They formed the Seventh Coalition and put their Félix Philippoteaux’s classic painting of a French cavalry charge at Waterloo gives a good feel for the dense formations and the proximity of opposing soldiers. It is inaccurate on armies on a war footing; by early spring 800,000 men were under arms. two important points: the ridge occupied by the Allied army was not nearly so hilly, and the French attacks were not delivered at the run because of crowding and mud. Dispatch #28 | DECISION GAMES 1 2015-2016 ARTICLE LINE-UP ❖ Operation Vulture | Battle of Kolwezi | Grozny 1999 | Ukrainian Insurgent Army | Prompt Global Strike | Chinese Group Armies | Century Series Fighters | DARPA Sniper Weapons US Army in the Early Cold War | M29 Davy Crockett | Operation Kansas | Operation Barras | Chinese Space Program | Naval Aviation Operation Anaconda | Krushchev at UN RUSSIA VS. VISEGRAD 4 | Sigma 64 Vietnam Wargames | Ridgway in Korea | AirSea Battle | France’s 13th Demi-Brigade | Focus On: The Iraqi Army | Russian Attack Helicopters #17 MAY - JUN 2015 #15 JAN - FEB 2015 #16 MAR - APR 2015 BATTLE OF DIEN BIEN PHU RED TIDE WEST ISSUE MONTH FEATURE ARTICLES The Cold War & World War III in Europe PUTIN AS WARLORD 292 MAY 2015 North Cape: The aero-naval campaign fought off the coast of Norway from 1941 to the end of the war. • First Punic War • Congo Merc • Battle of Waterloo 293 JUL 2015 1066: an in-depth look at three battles fought in that fateful year that ended the Anglo-Saxon line of English kings and precluded the rise of a Danish line. • Napoleon’s Last Campaign • Battle of Mount Street Bridge, Dublin 1916 • Satan’s Chariot 294 SEP 2015 WWI: An analysis of the strategic and grand-strategic strategies driving the course of the war that brought the world of European dynasties to an end. • Desert Storm Intel • Fortifications of the Third System • Muslim Conquest of Syria 295 NOV 2015 Gates of Vienna: An analysis of the last great Ottoman invasion of Europe in 1683, culminating outside the Habsburg capital at Vienna. ISSUE MONTH FEATURE ARTICLES • Germantown, 1777 • Duel at St Vith • The Catalan Grand Company • Ambush of 17 MAY 2015 Dien Bien Phu, 1954: The French army makes its stand in a remote outpost against the Viet Minh. Blackhorse Convoy • Operation Vulture • Kolwezi 1979 296 JAN 2016 Pusan Perimeter: An analysis of the last-ditch UN stand around Pusan and the subsequent • Ukrainian Insurgency • Prompt Global Strike counteroffensive north to the Yalu River. • DARPA Snipers • Slave Trade Wars, 1502 - 1850 • Roman Army of the 18 JUL 2015 Green Beret: Special Forces in Vietnam take the war to the enemy. • Kiev Operation WWI Late Republic • Iraq 2014 • East African Insurgency 297 MAR 2016 1863: the decisive phase of the Civil War came in the spring and summer of 1863, when Union • Suez 1956 • Captain Donlon victories broke the victory spell of Robert E. Lee in the east, and broke the back of the Confederacy at Vicksburg. 19 SEP 2015 Red Dragon Falling: An analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the Chinese military system. • Area Denial • An Lushan's Rebellion • Tank Battle at the Chinese Farm • Russian Airborne Armor • Operation C3 • Operation Dingo • Iranian Revolutionary Air Force • Preemptive Strike Jordan 1958 WARPATH : Indian Territory’s Civil War | Rudolf Witzig’s War | Age of Dragons: Six Dynasties Period | Modernizing China’s Navy ANGOLA: Cold War Struggle | Manzikert: Alp Arslan & the Seljuk Victory | Sarikamish | Hessians in the American Revolution NORTH CAPE : Battles in the Arctic, 1941-1945 | Mercenary Warfare in the Congo | Waterloo | First Punic War: Rome’s Rise to Imperium Drive on Baghdad: Joint warfare and the march up country to Baghdad, 2003. 20 NOV 2015 #291 MAR − APR 2015 #290 JAN − FEB 2015 #292 MAY − JUN 2015 • Operation Tomahawk • T-54/55 Tank WAR PAT H INDIAN TERRITORY IN THE ANGOLA AMERICAN CIVIL WAR • Contras at War • DF-21 Missile NORTH CAPE Cold War Struggle in Africa BATTLES IN THE ARCTIC, 1941-1945 • India-Pakistan Air Wars 21 JAN 2016 Kandahar: Counter-Insurgency in Afghanistan. • SADF • ANZACS Vietnam • Eastern Europe Uprisings • Indian Carrier • Omani Insurgency • Vertical Envelopment 22 MAR 2016 Modern Battles: Kalingrad - Nato vs. Russia in the Baltic & Mosul - the coalition against the Islamic in Iraq. ✪ ISSUE MONTH FEATURE ARTICLES 42 JUN 2015 Battle of Shanghai, 1937: The huge urban battle that began the 2nd Sino-Japanese War. • Von Rundstedt in Normandy • Hunger as a Weapon • Army Group South Anti-Partisan RAMPAGE: Building & Breaking the West Wall | Stalingrad Cauldron: Operations Uranus & Ring | Armor on New Guinea | Women at War FRANCE FIGHTS ON: 1940, What If? | Gulag & Punishment Battalions | Kamikazes Over Okinawa | Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair Headquarters MARE NOSTRUM: War in the Mediterranean | The Gestapo | Battle of Tengxian, China | Barbarossa in the Air Campaigns 43 AUG 2015 Patton’s Third Army: Analysis of Patton’s 1944 lightning advance from Normandy to the German border. #40 FEB−MAR 2015 The Strategy & Tactics of World War II #39 DEC 2014−JAN 2015 The Strategy & Tactics of World War II #41 APR−MAY 2015 The Strategy & Tactics of World War II Mare NostruM: rampage: France The Allied Drive Across France, • Battle of Manila, 1945 • Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers War in the Mediterranean August-September 1944 Fights On • Battle of Kiev, 1941 44 OCT 2015 Ghost Column: the story of the Germans’ “Trojan Horse” armored column that almost gave them victory during their 1943 Kursk offensive. • I Remember: Luzon ‘45 • A Tale of Two Corps: • Battle of Buq Buq, 1940 US II Corps & II SS Panzer Corps 45 DEC 2015 Panzers East: analysis of German Army Group Center in the 1941 Barbarossa Campaign. • US Pershing Tank • US Escort Carriers • The Black Sheep Squadron 46 FEB 2016 Yamato Unleashed: an analysis of the decisive 1944 aero-naval Battle of Leyte Gulf from the Japanese Visit Our Websites for more info @ perspective. • Biological Warfare at Stalingrad • Campaign for StrategyandTacticsMagazine.com • The Alpine Redoubt 1945 North Africa 47 APR 2016 Crete 1941: Analysis of the Germans’ largest airborne operation of the war. WorldatWarMagazine.com • Hitler’s Greatest Mistake • The Rzhev Salient 1942 ModernWarMagazine.com • US Defense of Bataan 1942 PLACE ORDER ON PAGE 20 or online at shop.strategyandtacticspress.com 2 Dispatch #28 | DECISION GAMES Dear Fellow Wargamers: Enjoy these book titles from Welcome to Dispatch #28. This issue we are featuring the first three games coming out of our new, re-booted pledge program. First we have Wellington’s Victory with a beautiful, updated map, a fantastic set of counters that were selected through customer choice and feedback over several months on CSW, and an updated game system. Second, we have the classic Napoleon’s Last Battles. This game has also had a TheQuest for Annihilation thorough update of the map and counter graphics (please take a look at the samples The Role & Mechanics of Battle in the American Civil War on the pledge page). The original game system has been loved for nearly four decades by Christopher Perello so we didn’t change anything in the game system, but we did add several new options, most notably the ability to add additional counters or exchange the original counters for Civil War came to the US when the first shot was fired at Fort Sumter on variants that have been proposed such as the addition of Hal force as well as several 12 April 1861. Most, including the leaders of both sides, thought it would leaders, and the substitution of the overly strong Prussian artillery for a more accurate be won or lost quickly, with a great battlefield collision. Instead, it ground on for four years. Battles were frequent, but each one rarely decided OOB (and several other substitution possibilities for the French and Prussian forces). more than the control of a single town or a few blood soaked fields. Finally, we are releasing the long-awaited third volume in John’ Butterfield’s D-Day The book is loaded with detail, and is illustrated with more than 320 maps, series, D-Day at Peleliu. This game covers not only the landings but the long inland diagrams, photographs, orders of battle and data tables (320 pages). battle (a planned four-day battle turned into a two and a half month brutal campaign). $ So, we get the same great solitaire system and played and loved at Omaha Beach RETAIL PRICE: 35 (+ Shipping) and Tarawa and now, new terrain and obstacles to overcome.