To purchase Carriers at War II, visit your local retailer or call SSG Inc on 904-469-8880 (fax 904-469-8885) in North America or call SSG P /L (Aus­ tralia) on 02-819-7199 (fax 02-819-7737) if you live anywhere else. Run 5 Issue 22 Editor's Chance Notes, Work in Progress ... 2 Book of the Quarter Liddell Hart's Strategy: 3 The Indirect Approach The Q Store Have a Look at our Special Offers ... 4 Letters More Than You Can Poke a Stick At 4 Kremenchug Closing the Kiev Pocket 5 Monocacy Saving the Capital 25 Invasion Hawaii An Exercise in Possibilities 41 Editor Disk Stephen Hand Subscriptions Editor Emeritus EDITOR'S Disk subscriptions are now available Ian Trout for IBM and Macintosh users. The cost is the same for all formats. CHANCE Contributing Editors IBM users must tell us whether they Roger Keating prefer 3.5" or 5.25" format.If you don't specify a format, you will receive the If all goes well this issue will first see Gary Makin 3.5" diskette. If you wish to switch the light of day at this year's Origins in Gregor Whiley disk subscriptions from one machine San Jose. Once again we will have a format to another, just let us know. strong presence at Origins and hope­ Steve Fawkner When we find the time, we intend to fully by the time you read this we will Brett Harrison upgrade all the scenario disks from have seen many of you at the SSG stand. back issues into the new formats and Last issue saw our first exploratory U.S. Operations allow new users to acquire them or steps into full color. We had a few John Gleason current users to upgrade to them. teething problems, notably erratic We'll keep the cost as low as possible; photo quality. Hopefully that has all it will depend on how much time it Illustrator been fixed for this issue. We have even takes and how many scenarios we can Nick Stathopoulos fit onto a disk. more color pages this time, hope you Mentor enjoy it. Ken Trout We have had a few problems recently with subscribers changing their address Colour Artwork and failing to inform us of the fact. John Mockridge Unless you inform us of a change of Graphus Pty Limited address we'll keep on sending your Upgrading to subscription to the same old one. De­ Printing spite what some of our more ebullient Pirie Printers New Machines correspondents might claim we do not We have received a large number of possess godlike powers (well I don't Run 5 is published 4 times per year requests from our users to upgrade a anyway). by Strategic Studies Group Pty particular title from one machine to Some people have suggested that the Limited. All Rights Reserved. © another. In response to this demand, Carriers at War Construction Kit is too SSG 1993. we have decided upon the following complex. Hah! its so simple that a policy. Australian Office twelve year old can use it; and has. I • P.O. Box 261, Drummoyne, NSW. Any title from our range may be up­ was most impressed to receive a Carri­ graded from one machine to another 2047. Tel (02) 819-7199. Fax (02) ers at War scenario the other day from for a cost of half the retail price of the 819-7737. twelve year old Chris Wieczorek. Well new version. You must send us the done Chris, you're putting all us larger original program disk and the front American Office children to shame. P.O. Box 30085, Pensacola, FL. page of the manual from that game. 32503-1085.Tel(904)469-8880.Fax We will send you a complete copy of the new version of the game. (904) 469-8885. IN THIS ISSUE For example, if you wish to upgrade a C-64 version of Halls of Montezuma to The closure of the Kiev pocket, in my ISSN 0816-7125 the IBM/Tandy version, you should opinion, lost Germany the war in Rus­ Online Addresses send us the original C -64 disk, the sia. The southern pincer of this envel­ front page of the manual and the ap­ opment, at Kremenchug is the subject Compuserve: Strategic Studies propriate cheque, money order or of a Battlefront scenario by Steve Ford. Group-72040,34 MC/Visa number. It has also provoked enormous argu­ Applelink: Strategic Studies North American users must send their ment here at SSG on the subject of Group-AUST0161 components and funds to our US Of­ whether the Germans could ever have GEnie: SSG fice. Everybody else must use our defeated the Russians in WWII. I be­ Australian Office. lieve that the Germans could have won but certain of my colleagues violently disagree. In practice I guess an army 2 Book of the Quarter led by Hitler was bound to fail. Even if been receiving numerous interesting In the first column under this title I Hitler had made tne correct military letters, as usual in two sentences most reviewed a book written by a German decision regarding Kiev he would have writers can map out a prospective five Colonel General. I then went on to look been assured of making a fatal blunder year plan for SSG, don't worry though, at a book by a Field Marshal. This issue somewhere along the line, after all, the keep them coming. I am lowering my sights, firstly by man was insane. I guess it's just tough for us wargamers that the best quality examining a book written by a Captain army of WWII belonged to the bad NEXT ISSUE and secondly by taking seriously the guys. On the one hand you have to After the media had all but ignored a writings of a member of the British admire them for their professionalism whole series of WWII 50th anniversa­ officer class. I will go on to examine two but on the other hand they were led by ries it was a bit of a shock to see the narrative histories of the Civil War. a pack of totalitarian scumbags, crooks coverage that D-Day is receiving. All and psychopaths. But I digress. this is serving to reinforce the insular The first book in question is Basil Kremenchug is a touch and go situa­ western view that we won the war Liddell-Hart's classic; Strategy: The In­ tion where von Rundstedt's Army against Germany and the Russians were direct Approach. Originally written in Group South has to force a crossing of just a bit part player. 1920 under the title The Decisive Wars of History this book was revised in the the Dniepr in the face of stout Russian As experienced wargamers we know light of further conflicts until it reached opposition. There are plenty of excit­ the truth, don't we? In the three months its final form in 1967. ing decisions for both players. Make of June, July and August 1944 the Warfare, claims Liddell-Hart can be the wrong decision as the Germans Wehrmacht lost 293, 802 men on the waged by the use of either direct or and you will end the game languishing western front and 916,860 men on the indirect approaches. Put simply a di­ on the south bank of the Dniepr with a eastern front. Therefore we are stub­ rect approach is anything that is ex-" shattered army. Make the right deci­ bornly resisting fashion and sticking to pected and therefore prepared for by sion and you will be racing to see the decisive, Russian theatre. the enemy and an indirect approach is whether you can destroy that last Rus­ If Army Group South had been com­ sian unit by game's end. the opposite. If one were to distil the manded by a lesser man than FM von essence of Liddell-Hart's thesis it is The Decisive Battles scenario is Manstein in January 1943 the Russians that a general must always attempt to Monocacy, another river line to be would almost certainly have broken do what the enemy least expects. forced, although this time with mus­ through the Army Group front and In order to illustrate this principle the ketry and cold steel. A quick victory for created a giant pocket against the black majority of the book is spent in examin­ the Confederates could see Early's Val­ sea. The Soviet attempt to do so is the ing the great wars of history in order to ley Army in Washington. Alternatively subject of another Steve Ford Battle­ determine whether the successful strat­ asolid delaying defence by the Union front scenario, Pavlograd. egies have been direct or indirect. It is forces will guarantee that Federal rein­ The Decisive Battles scenario is the long of course no surprise to discover that forcements reach the capital before the awaited title bout between the Army of throughout history the best generals Rebs. the Potomac in one corner and the Prus­ have, according to Liddell-Hart, uti­ WhatwouldhavehappenediftheJapa­ s ian Army of the Elbe in the other. The lised variants of the indirect approach. nese had won the battle of Midway? battlefield is known to all, Gettysburg, From the oblique approach of Well in our version of reality they would scene of the Union's greatest triumph. Epaminondas to the German have launched an invasion of Hawaii. Don't ask me why they're fighting or Schwerpunkt, the indirect approaches In a new scenario for Carriers at War we how the Prussians got there, just sit of different generals and different ages explore the possibilities open to the back and watch as Grant and von are discussed as well as the failures of Japanese in such an invasion.