THIRD BATTLE OF KHARKOV by Joni Nuutinen
LINKS:
⊕ Play Store
⊕ Amazon
⊕ free
⊕ local apk
After destroying the German 6th Army in Stalingrad, the Soviet high command hoped to end the WWII with one strike through the Axis lines towards Dnetropetvosk via Kharkov to cut off 1 million Germans. Panicking German Generals tried to find something to throw in front of the offensive. However, in a masterclass of strategy known as Backhand Blow, Erich von Manstein removed all Panzer units from the battle and wished the T34s 'bon voyage'. While Stalin kept calling the Soviet commanders inquiring about the looming success, Manstein was gathering Panzer groups on both flanks of the Soviet push.
⊕ Taking place from: 1944-02
⊕ Map size: 2200 = 44x50
⊕ Starts with a crushing Soviet offensive, one of the harder scenarios.
⊕ Released: 2017-02
WELCOME:
Third Battle of Kharkov takes place on WWII Eastern Front in 1943. A massive Red Army offensive threatens to collapse the entire German front, can you turn the dangerous situation around?
After destroying the German 6th Army in Stalingrad, the Soviet high command hopes to end the entire World War II in one decisive strike. Soviet plan, called Operation Star, aims to break through the thinly manned Axis lines towards Dnipropetrovsk via Kharkov to cut off well over 1 million German soldiers located on the southern part of the Eastern Front.
Panicking German Generals across Germany desperately try to find men to throw in front of the Soviet offensive to stop it.
However, in a masterclass of strategy forever known in military history as Backhand Blow, Erich von Manstein, who is in charge of Army Group South, shockingly removes all Panzer and WSS divisions from the crumpling battleground and wishes the attacking Red Army 'bon voyage'.
While hopeful Stalin keeps phoning the Soviet commanders daily about the success of the attack, the looming encirclement of epic proportions, and the imminent end of the war, Manstein is gathering huge Panzer groups on both flanks of the Red Army offensive. When those Panzers Corps are finally unleashed, they annihilate the overstretched attacking Soviet armies, swiftly retake Kharkov, and turn the whole situation upside down, forcing Soviet commanders to throw every unit available in front of the advancing German Army to prevent collapse.
Do you have what it takes to switch the situation from the looming collapse to stunning victory?
VICTORY CONDITIONS:
The object of the game is to gather two Panzer groups on the northern and southern side of the Red Army offensive, cut them off, and retake lost cities and turn the tide on the Eastern Front. Failing that, your score will be the number of turns you managed to hold on before collapsing to zero VPs.
QUICK TIPS: Settings: You can change hexagon size, city icons, unit icons, and many other aspects from settings, or via the four round buttons in the upper-left corner of the gaming view.\n\nUnit markings: Lower left corner shows HPs (Hit Points), upper left corner shows the number of MPs (move points), right side has several type of markings: warnings on red, attached resources on white, ground information (what's under unit icon) is marked on green. Zooms buttons (Z) are located on upper-left corner.\n\nTMP-system: By controlling Key Tactical Locations (green diamonds) you will gain TMPs (Tactical Move Points), which can be used to move between two hexagons sharing Tactical Route (yellow-green arrow between the hexagons) without losing regular MPs.\n\nCombat core concepts: adjacent units critically support each other in battle; encircling is often more efficient than using brute-force direct attacks.
CAMPAIGN NOTES:
Victory Conditions: Control all Victory Points (VPs), which are gained from the cities.
General can exchange remaining MPs to Railway Move Points (RMPs). The more MPs the better the MP per RMP ratio. The generals can also summon at max 8 security (5HP auxiliary) divisions, but only one unit per few turns. With luck the requested unit will arrive near the active general, with bad luck the unit emerges more towards the rear area.
Each unit type consumes different amount of RMPs when it is moving on the railway network. Some examples: General 1 RMP cost, Infantry 3 RMP cost, Panzer unit 8 RMP cost. For more information select INFO button while unit is selected.
Railway network roughly follows the high capacity main lines of the time period. Due to the limited number of Railway Move Points (RMPs) make sure to transport the unit most needing railway movement first. Also note that to prevent the unrealistic piling up of the RMPs, some of the unused RMps will be lost between turns.
Main idea is to group early Panzer Divisions near Stalino (a crucial railway nexus) and Panzer Divisions north of Dnipropetrovsk (or west of Kharkov).
The German Corps structure was a total mess at this moment in history, as the front line was collapsing, and a lot of ad hoc battle groups were formed. On top of this, some units of certain corps ended up in different 'corners' of the map when the Red Army pushed through. Even the period sources are regularly in conflict, as some divisions were assigned to different corps by different levels of the command hierarchy.
German Air force and Artillery units enter the play in later turns to model the collapse and withdrawal of German front line and resulting lack of supply and depots.
Some German units will start with 2 HPs etc. to model the losses during the first stages of the Soviet offensive.
Some of the actions available to Generals change depending whether the Engineers are in the play or not.
Since the Soviet T34 units are mostly brigades (while the rest of the units are divisions), they get a permanent combat penalty both in attack and defense.
Chaos: Some units might lose MPs and are more likely to withdraw during the first couple of turns to model the early chaos, but the chance of this happening decreases to zero after a handful of two turns.
Minefields and dugouts placed really really far away from the front line (like over 10 hexagons) might be removed from the play to keep rear area structures filling up the memory.
Time scale: Each turn presents a day.
This is a very unforgiving campaign. The initial positions are pretty much impossible to hold without losing HP and being completely tied up, so pull back a bit to keep units from being shredded by the soviet onslaught. Try to form a strong enough (armor) group of units both in the northern and southern sector (and immediately start to build defenses back there) to have local superiority . Let the Red Army push through in the middle like they historically did and launch your counterattacks to cut them off (no point fighting such a huge mass of units). No shame pulling back more than a bit if needed. But if you don't tie your units down to trying to stop the main offensive, then you can group 3-6 armor/ss units together both in the north and south, and that usually crushes anything on its path. It's so dangerously easy to get bogged down in some minor defense/rescue task which grows and grows and ties up more and more units and HP. Trying to stop, or even slow down, the main Soviet offensive on the center sector will quickly tie up most of your units, so don't get (too) involved if you want to launch that successful counterattack eventually.
Some slightly incorrect military-history terms (like Fort for minor dugouts) are used simply because they are short (map won't be flooded with long text tags) and these terms are known to even non-native English speakers.
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Scenario Specific documentation that includes links to more generic documentation on how the game series and the underlying game engine works.
To get a feel play the free turn-limited demo version (sideload or Amazon App Store), while screenshots are available on the app stores.
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