Panzer 44 – Tactical Armored Combat in Europe, 1944 to 1945.

Published by Simulation Publications, Inc. (SPI) in 1975, Panzer '44 is a game about tactical armored warfare in Europe between the Western Allies and Germany from the summer of 1944 through the end of the war. The copy I have came in one of the standard SPI flat trays. It includes one large fold out map and 400 counters representing German, British and American forces and the markers needed to play the game.

The scale is 200 meters per hex and 6 minutes per turn, with units representing platoons or sections of vehicles, infantry and artillery. Units are rated for attack (with weapon range and weapon type), defense (and target type, hard or soft) and movement.



Sequence of play

P44 uses a simultaneous-sequential system. At the start of each turn, both players secretly plot the actions of their units for the turn. Actions include Direct Fire, Indirect Fire (and counterbattery), Opportunity Fire, Movement (including loading or unloading passengers), and close assault (something infantry only can do against armored targets). Units which are to make an attack must indicate the exact target hex, while units which are to move need only be noted as making a move. Indirect Fire requires a spotter who can see the target hex.

Before any actions are resolved there is a “Panic Determination” phase. This is how P44 tries to add morale and command control. Each side is rated for a panic level, and this is used during this phase to determine which units will actually be able to act this turn. I’ll get into details later.

Combat is next, and is simultaneous. That means that everybody who is shooting gets to resolve his direct fire and close assault attacks, and the results are applied afterward. Thus, two tanks facing each other might shoot and kill each other. Each unit resolves its attack separately; if several units attack the same target you must resolve them individually. Combat results include “pin”, “delayed panic”, or disruption of one of four levels ranging from “d-1” to “d-4”.

“Pin” results simply prevent a unit from moving.

Disruption prevents a unit from moving or attacking. Disruption levels are cumulative, and if a unit reaches the d-4 state it is destroyed. So if you get a ‘d-3’ result against a unit that already has a ‘d-1’ result you have destroyed it.

Delayed Panic is interesting in that during the owning player’s next turn (not the current turn) that unit panics. Any plot for it will fail except for movement, so unless you really want it to move and don’t care where it goes there is no reason to write a new plot for it that turn. If you do plot movement for it then it will move in a random direction.

Players then get to move their units, but unlike combat this is sequential, with the “first player” getting the chance to move all his units that he plotted to move, and then the second player moving all of his units. Units that were plotted to move MUST move at least one hex, so if the situation changed as a result of the preceding combat and you really don’t want to move out of a position, you’re still going to have to expose your unit briefly to any opportunity fire.

After all the shooing and movement comes the chance to remove the effects of pin and d-1, d2 or d3 disruption results. Removal of disruptions depends upon a die roll, with higher levels of disruption being more difficult to remove.

Finally, Indirect Fire, plotted at the start of the turn, is resolved.

Game Mechanics

Combat is conducted using a matrix giving a process based upon the attacker’s weapon type and the defender’s target type, and, if needed, a range attenuation table. Most units use the range attenuation table, which gives double attack strength for adjacent targets, normal at 2 or 3 hexes, and then reduces the combat strength steadily out to -6 at long range (if the unit can reach that far to begin with); this table is independent of the weapon system and is used by all units except H (high explosive) type weapons. Attack strength to defense strength is compared using the difference of the values, not an odds ratio.

For example, at 1 hex range a US Sherman M4 with the short 75mm gun is attacking a German Panther. The Sherman’s attack strength is ‘7’ and its weapon class is ‘M’ (mixed high explosive and anti-tank, most tanks have this), while the panther has a defense strength of ‘10’. Since the panther is adjacent, the Sherman’s attack strength is doubled, so the difference would be 14 minus 10 = 4, so it would be using the +4 column. If the panther were 2 or 3 hexes away the Sherman’s attack differential would be just -3, and it would be progressively worse at longer ranges. What does that mean? At 1 hex the Sherman has a chance of killing the Panther and should at least disrupt it, but past 1 hex its chances are very slim that it will even affect the Panther. This is fairly realistic – historically the M4/75 could rarely hurt a Panther except at close range. (Actually, a flank shot at the Panther’s much thinner sides gave the M4/75 a good chance for a kill out to several hundred yards, but the game lacks facing so this is not reflected).

If the panther attacks the Sherman the situation is much bleaker for the Sherman. If adjacent, the panther’s attack strength of 10 is doubled to 20. The Sherman’s defense strength is only 7, so the attack is conducted on the maximum +8 column. Even out to 8 hexes the Panther will still have a positive differential and thus assured of doing something to the Sherman (pin, delayed panic or disruption).

Attacks by anti-tank gun armed units against armored targets are done rather well, as described above, but their attacks against other target types are not handled as well. That same Sherman can plaster an infantry platoon as its attack strength is not modified by target type. The typical infantry platoon has a defense strength of ‘5’ and the process for resolving the attack is the same despite the fact that it is a different target type, so that M4/75 has a positive attack differential even against infantry targets several hexes away.

On the other hand, infantry small arms and artillery high explosive fire is handled very well. Most infantry platoons are lethal against soft targets and dangerous out to 2 or 3 hexes, though they are useless against armored targets unless using Close Assault, as was the case historically. Also, high explosive fire from even a lowly mortar can disrupt an infantry platoon, which is what mortars were used for. In fact, ‘H’ class weapons have some interesting features.

(Personally, I consider the ‘doubling’ effect to not work well, as it doesn’t scale well as the attack and defense strengths increase. A simple additive value, such as “+4”, works better for me.)

When ‘H’ class weapons such as mortars or howitzers make an attack they can do so in one of two ways. They can either attack using a ‘tight pattern’ or a ‘loose pattern.’ A tight pattern attack affects all targets in the target hex. Unarmored targets such as infantry are attacked using a differential equal to the attacking unit’s attack strength – range attenuation does not apply and neither does the target’s defense strength. The same is almost true against armored targets in the target hex, except they have a fixed defensive value of ‘4’, regardless of their printed value. A Loose pattern attack, on the other hand, affects all soft targets, friend or enemy, in the target hex AND all six adjacent hexes. However, in this case when resolving each attack you do subtract the target’s defense strength if the target. Armored targets are not affected by loose pattern attacks at all and are ignored. A loose pattern attack is good for attacking soft target units hidden in wood or town hexes because you can target the hex that you can see adjacent to the wood or town hex that you can’t see into.

I’ve never been convinced of this “loose pattern” mechanic. The effects just seem to wide spread for me and I’ve never read any sources that show that a single battery can have such a wide impact. I suspect this is an attempt by the designer to overcome the problem caused by the severe stacking restriction of one unit per hex, requiring this unusual mechanic to show how artillery typically effects more than one unit at a time. But imaging that a single battery can have a strong impact over an area 600 meters across is asking to much for me.

Many H class weapons can use either direct fire or indirect fire. Indirect fire is resolved almost just like direct fire, except that the attacking unit does not need to see the target as long as another unit can spot for it, and it is resolved at the end of the turn. However, it is also probably not going to hit the hex you want it to because 5 out of 6 times it will ‘scatter’ to a random adjacent hex. So, unless you have a large number of such units, or the target area is packed with targets, tight pattern indirect fire rarely does any good so most indirect fire is loose pattern.

In P44, overruns are not very effective. You don’t need any special plot to make an overrun, but you can only overrun non-vehicle units. The movement allowances of the units in this game are fairly low so you can’t get to far using it and there are no special bonuses for making the overrun (range attenuation is ignored). Also, regardless of the results of your overrun if the target was an infantry unit it gets to shoot back at you regardless of weapon and target type and regardless of overrun result, so there is a good chance you’ll get hit.

Opportunity Fire is very difficult. In P44, a unit must have a plotted line of fire and may fire at any unit which crosses this “trip-wire.” What this means is that it must give up any direct fire attack in the hopes that some moving unit moves across the plotted life of fire. It must ignore units that do not cross this trip wire, even if it is a fat wagon load of infantry waddling by but not crossing that line.

The effects of terrain on combat are to block line of sight and provide die roll modifiers of -2 or -3 in value. Hexes with wood or towns, hilltop hexes, and some hexsides such as crests and reverse slopes provide this bonus. Units on hilltops do not have any advantage allowing them to see over terrain, so determining line of sight is simple, if not very interesting. Most of the map is open and flat, giving one the impression of a billiard table with an occasional bumper rather than anything real. There are a few shallow streams that slow but do not impede movement, with the exception of a small lake and a canal (in the southeast corner) which prevent movement.

Units in wood or town hexes can’t be seen by attackers more than 3 hexes away unless it makes an attack itself. So, while woods and towns provide cover, you don’t have to get adjacent to see enemy units in them either. (players might want to make use of concealed rule and dummies from MechWar ’77 to add some spice to this aspect of the game). However, since artillery loose pattern indirect fire covers a 7 hex area it is still possible to attack units you have not spotted.

The map supposedly depicts an actual portion of the French countryside. Though large with lots of room to wander, it is not geomorphic as with some other tactical level games such as Panzer Leader. Normally this is completely irrelevant for a game, but the design intent here was to produce a game covering many engagements throughout France and Germany.

Ultimately, the single map is just not up to covering terrain from the Normandy hedgerows to the open French country-side to the Ardennes forest. Color is even lacking, as most things are shades of muted gray, green or brown rather than attractive green for woods and brown for hills such as in Panzer Leader. All in all, the map is just not very attractive and does not support the game scenarios very well. (Players with a copy of MechWar ’77, which uses exactly the same rules, could use the map from that game to supplement the map in Panzer ’44. It represent considerably more difficult and varied terrain, though units on ‘hilltops’ still lack any sort of line of sight advantage.)



The most significant problem with the game is the Panic rule. In an effort to simulate command control and morale, P44 uses what it calls Panic. In each scenario each side is given a panic level, which can also change during the scenario based on certain conditions. If a unit panics, it can’t shoot and it will automatically move in a random direction if it was plotted to move. It’s a really nice idea, but the execution is terrible. The rule is implemented by the following method. Ten chits marked 0-9 are provided (this was before 10 sided die were widely available). To determine his panic for that turn a player draws a number of chits equal to his panic level blindly from something like a cup. The numbers drawn correspond to the hex rows in which units are affected by cross reference the numbers on the chits with the last number of the hexes on the map (all hexes are numbered). All units in those hex rows panic. Note that you record your plots for the turn before determining your panic for the turn.

What this does is it forces you to worry about the hex row you are putting your units in, since all units in a given hex row are affected, so instead of choosing the positions of your units based upon the tactical situation of terrain and opponent forces, you try not to place to many of your units in rows with the same last number!

In my mind, this almost destroys the game.

(Not long after acquiring this game I acquired October War, also by SPI, which used also used panic but implemented it by rolling a die for each unit individually as it attempted to shoot or move. This increases the number of die rolls in the game substantially but works FAR better from a simulation standpoint so I borrowed this idea and used it from then on in all my games of P44).

One last problem is stacking, which is very restrictive. Normally, there is none. You can’t even have a tank platoon in the same 200 x 200 meter patch of ground with an infantry unit. The only exception is if you have an “improved position” in a hex (representing anything from fox holes to bunkers) you may put one infantry and one towed anti-tank gun unit in the same hex. At this scale that is absurd, and I’ve never been able to figure out why, particularly as this game was designed long after Panzerblitz with its much more liberal stacking at the same scale.

Finally, you don’t get a lot of the bells and whistles that you get with other contemporary games on the same topic such as Panzer Leader. Engineers are just weak infantry; there are no planes, engineering vehicles, or other goodies. I get the feeling that not a lot of effort went into P44, despite some good ideas.

How Does it Play?

Game Play is substantially different to someone familiar with fast moving games such as Panzerblitz and Panzer Leader. This is not because of the need to take time to write down unit orders for the turn – this does take a little time but generally there are only a few units in play, typically 10 to 20 per side. The difference is caused by the way the sequence of play drives player actions. The challenge for each player is that he must allocate units to attacks and at the same time determine which units will move, and while combat is resolved simultaneously movement is not. So, he must try to judge how his attacks will fair before deciding which units to commit to taking ground (or retreating). The First Player, who may not always represent the attacker, in particular is at a serious disadvantage because the second player then knows which units can’t perform opportunity fire and can move accordingly. Since most units are not very effective attacking beyond 3 hexes units can easily move about until they get close (though beware of H class weapons that might be waiting to use Opportunity Fire since they do not suffer from range attenuation), which is probably just as well given the open nature of the map. But once you get close players tend to hesitate because of the huge bonus in attacks against adjacent targets.

Attacks at close range by most units are lethal, and artillery can be damaging at any range. So once player’s forces are adjacent they tend to shoot rather than move because you simply don’t want to give your opponent a free shot at your unit. Thus, fire fights, when they occur, tend to resolve themselves quickly. The typical pattern is to attempt to swamp a defended objective and overwhelm it next turn while setting up fire lanes by supporting units to keep the defender from either reinforcing or attempting to run away.

If you have artillery you can use it to soften up a position covered by woods or towns before attacking it. Usually you will use loose pattern fire because of the near certainty that it will scatter, but occasionally if you have a lot of artillery or you’re still likely to hit something even if you scatter you might use tight pattern, which is the only way to hurt armored targets anyway.

The effects of panic (however you implement it) produce some of the more interesting events during the game. Depending your luck (and the results of combat), one or two units will panic each turn. Such units refuse to shoot. Or, if you told them to move so you could occupy a key spot they instead wander off in some odd direction. This is great, because in real life battle group commanders often had difficulty controlling their units because of garbled orders, lack of radios, poor training, or simply the reluctance of the men on the ground to put themselves in harms way. If one must destroy an enemy unit you need to allocate several units to attack it. If one must occupy a key spot you make sure you have several units that could move into it. The game does NOT take control out of the players hands, but it does attempt (if poorly) to convey some of the real difficulty controlling battles was for commanders.

Conducting a fighting withdraw is very difficult as it was in real life. You usually can’t base your actions upon your opponent’s actions, but must instead make a timing judgment as to when it would be best to attempt to disengage. Succeed, and you get away; fail, and your forces get plastered without accomplishing anything.

The 14 scenarios included cover a range of situations involving US, British, Canadian, French and German forces.
US Paratroopers behind Utah beach (June 6, 1944) try to block reinforcements from crossing the map (to attack the beach).
A French armored battlegroup surprises a German armored battlegroup at dawn near Dompaire (September 13, 1944)
US forces attempt to expand a bridgehead across the Our river (September 15, 1944).
US and German recon forces clash near Luneville (September 15, 1944)
US and German armored units clash near Arracourt (September 19, 1944)
US paratroopers attempt to keep German forces from cutting the road to Arnhem (September 22, 1944)
US infantry forces attack Fort Driant outside of Metz (October 3, 1944)
US infantry forces attack a portion of the Siegried Line (October 7, 1944)
US and German armored units clash near the Saar river (November 24, 1944)
British fireflys face German tigers at Villers Bocage (June 13, 1944)
British forces attempt to take Hill 112 south of the Orne river in Operation Epsom (June 27, 1944)
Canadian forces hold off a counter-attack by German infantry and armor near Antwerp (October 13, 1944)
British and German armor clash during Operation Grenade (March 6, 1945)
British comets encounter scratch German forces near Ibbenburen (March 31, 1945)

Conclusion

Overall, the basic game system is good and, the Panic Rule aside, a good game to play. For the most part the rules are better written and the mechanics are more realistic in their effects than contemporary games such as Panzer Leader. The game is finished. However, it is a disappointment because it lacks a lot of polish and chrome. A few items, particularly the panic rule, are distracting (but easy to fix if you are willing to use a couple of house rules). The single map also fails to represent the types of terrain that were fought over in Western Europe. Ultimately, however, the game is just not as fun to play as other games on this topic at this scale for most people because of the plotting for unit actions. Not only does this put a crimp on play style for most gamers, but it also restricts the range of scenarios that can be played to ones with a small number of units on each side.