PanzerBlitz

PanzerBlitz is a tactical-scale board wargame published by Avalon Hill in 1970 that simulates armored combat set on the Eastern Front of World War II. The game, which was the most popular board wargame of the 1970s, is notable for being the first true board-based tactical-level, commercially available conflict simulation wargame. It also pioneered several concepts that would become industry standards.

Description

PanzerBlitz simulates clashes between Soviet and German forces at the level of company-sized infantry for Russian units, and platoon-sized infantry for German units, as well as individual mechanized or motorized vehicles. This scale of simulation was new to wargaming, since previous wargames had focused on larger units such as brigades, regiments, and divisions.

Much of the strategy in PanzerBlitz derives from the rule allowing units to shoot or move, but not both, in a single turn. Additionally, the difficulty of outright destruction of units encourages players to use combined arms rather than a simple concentration of one unit type to defeat the opponent.

The game includes technical information on the weight, speed, gun size, and crew complement of every major tank used on the Russian front. Additionally the battles - which were tactical fights - featured the detailed organizations of fairly small units, all the way from mortar teams to the trucks and wagons needed to give the units strategic flexibility. Much of this information had never been published before, outside of Army field manuals and partially classified intelligence reports.

It also pioneered concepts such as isomorphic mapboards and open-ended design, in which multiple unit counters are provided from which players can fashion their own free-form combat situations rather than simply replaying the published scenarios.