OT: For Armour Fans: Achtung Panzer! | Forums

[Kaleun1961]

For my fellow panzer grogs, [that is, those of you who may not be aware of this site] I present the website, "Achtung Panzer!" Achtung Panzer! While dealing mainly with German armour in WW2 it also has some info and pics of other vehicles of the Wehrmacht. I like the photo on the main page, infantry moving alongside a PZKW III through a Russian [wheat?] field. Incidentally, part of that photo was used to create one of the graphics on the box cover of Avalon Hill's boardgame, "The Russian Campaign."





I began my wargaming "career" at the age of 13, when my eldest brother's friend gave me a copy of Avalon Hill's "Panzerblitz."





I was in heaven, like the first time I laid my hands on a copy of Playboy magazine. I loved manipulating stacks of German armour as I fought off the Bolshevik Horde at Kursk or the Cherkassy Pocket. Here's a shot of some Volksturm unit counters:



Then I got a copy of their Western Front game, Panzer Leader:





The neat thing about those games was how the "geomorphic" map boards fitted together no matter how you reconfigure their alignment; all the roads and rivers met. Four basic boards would reconfigure into numerous different battle maps.

This Christmas I'm hoping Santa will bring me a copy of "L2 Design Group's" boardgame, "Russia Besieged." I'm hankering again for some boardgame play, longing to unleash "Typhoon" in an attempt to capture Moscow before the dreaded Russian "rasputitza" brings my panzers to a halt. Here's a shot of the Moscow area:



L2 Design Group This is a Canadian company, located in Toronto, just down the road for me. They specialize in high quality wargames, with crisp graphics on the unit counters.

L2 Wiki article

[U301]

Jeez those were the days!
Does anybody remember the game RISK!
Very similar to what Kaleun1969 has posted. A fantastic game. Run the world with a few throws of the dice and stratigic placing of counters. A bit like modern world politics!
And Airfix models! I think those toys made me the man I am today.(and of course SHIII)
KUrtz

[Kaleun1961]

I set out only to mention the link to Achtung Panzer! and got completely overtaken in a wave of nostalgia. I think the current revival of interest in board wargaming is due to the influence of those who played these games as kids/teens and are saddened at the neglect the market endured for so many years. I suppose that the average age of those interested in the newer boardgames is 40's and up; old enough to remember wargames before the PC but still young enough to feel the fire.

Over the years we moved on to other stages of life: careers, marriage, kids but never lost our first love for cardboard mayhem. There was some hope, for a time anyway, that PC gaming would allow us to carry on our love affair, but sadly, in my opinion anyway, there is a dearth of strategic thinking man's games, those games that have great depth, take some time to master and are not thumb twitching click fests like so many games aimed at the younger ADD/HDD console set. There are some exceptions to this, of course, such as Steel Panthers, Clash of Steel and SH3, to name a few from my personal collection. I suppose it is all due to market forces and the investment required to market a high quality game. There just don't seem to be enough people demanding such games and the software industry peddles its wares to the lowest common denominator. Take SH3 as an example. It is such a highly demanding yet ultimately rewarding game, but it sold relatively few copies alongside the more pedestrian titles that are so commercially successful. Just like with the movies, how many "The Longest Day" or "Das Boot" caliber films are made? I seldom go to the theater any more, as all they seem to market are low brow comedies that appeal to the adolescent set, replete with CGI scenes and a never ending escalation of more explosive chase scenes, gore and instant gratification, and way too noisy at the same time. You can't take a lousy-to-begin-with movie and make it better by puttig it on a bigger screen and cranking up the noise to deafening levels.

[Maverick_U2007]

Good read....also for U301 there is a pc version of RISK.






Maverick

[Celeon999]

Didnt know that there are such useful tools for that board game

Love that "suction tweezer". Surely makes dealing with those small cards much easier than using fingers.

Seems that this game is a little science by itself


Hey, K61 as you are a Panzer enthusiast this might be interesting for you.

The german parliament approved the money for the new Schützenpanzer Puma.

It will replace the aging Marder of Celeon's fellow Panzergrenadiers....

Schützenpanzer Marder



DRAN ! DRAUF ! DRüBER !

Sorry,....a old reflex

405 of these babies have been ordered for approximately 3 billion euros and they will pack a lot more firepower and technical gizmoes than their predecessors.

For example :

- Unmanned turret
- Anti AT-missile jammer (IR blinder) and flares
- Frag grenade launcher, for close range anti-infantry defence (Try to attach a charge on that baby and you will eat hot metal before coming close to it)

- Air transportable


The main weapon is a 30 mm APFSDS autocannon with variable ammunition (Either Air Burst Anti Infantry or APFSDS Anti-Tank)

Even the rate of fire is adjustable.

The cannon has two feed-belt system which means you can choose the ammunition just by pressing a button and can switch to the other without any delay.

The Eurospike missile launcher is still missing on these pics and will be mounted on the left side of the turret.

Eurospike Video

[Kaleun1961]

It's neat that the modern German army is reusing names from WW2 armour. The Puma during WW2 was an armoured car reconnaisance vehicle, equipped with the famous 75mm cannon, a real tank killer that could take out just about any Allied or Red Army tank.

[Celeon999]

Originally posted by Kaleun1961:
It's neat that the modern German army is reusing names from WW2 armour. The Puma during WW2 was an armoured car reconnaisance vehicle, equipped with the famous 75mm cannon, a real tank killer that could take out just about any Allied or Red Army tank.

The name first suggested was Panther. But this was cancelled... guess why...

Then they came up with Igel (Hedgehog) but luckily they found this one to be unsuitable.

Puma was the third and final choice.


Im so glad that they didnt fell into this wheel-madness like so many other countries seem to have.

These vehicles can only be an addition but its absolutely fatal to think you could replace stronger armoured tracked fighting vehicles with them.

IED's and Afghanistan are good examples for that.


The original Puma of ww2 you mentioned was a wheeled vehicle as you know.





Here are some nice pics i just found

The open door can carry a considerable amount of weight and can therefore be used as a weapons platform

[Kaleun1961]

When I play[ed] Steel Panthers, the Puma is my favourite light recon vehicle. Fast enough to move around, but able to hit with a punch if it ran into trouble in the form of a T-34 or KV-1.

[klcarroll]

Yes, ...yes, ....The new stuff is truly neat: ....But....

Doesn't the PZKW III look like it would have been an absolute giggle to drive around???

...I mean it's so, ..so, ...compact, handy, ...and, ....and, ....well, "German looking"!!!

(YES! ....I'd love to get a restored one for Christmas!)

[Heinrich505]

Kauleun1961,
Oh man, you really pushed the buttons. As for that site, it is really an interesting one. I've frequented it a bit.

As for Panzerblitz and Panzer Leader, that is a real trip down nostalgia lane. Avalon Hill, ah, such memories. I was cutting my teeth on the board of Stalingrad and Guadalcanal, but really begged for something more individual. Then came Panzerblitz, and I couldn't believe that my prayers had been answered. I was totally immersed, hardly coming up for air, all those eastern front encounters I'd read about in detail, now coming to life in front of me, driving those Tigers and Panthers into harms way at Prokorovka. Panzer Leader was just more goodness, and now you could run scenarios for anywhere, eastern front, Normandy, anywhere. There was no end. But, I secretly hoped for something even more tactical, almost to the squad level. But that would be really asking too much, right? Ahhhh, there off in the distance, could it be....must be a mirage...No, Squad Leader. The most amazing wargame yet. Squads, counters of 10 men, led by individual leaders. Tanks, individual tanks, with crews to bail out if they were hit but didn't explode. I was in heaven. How could that get any better? Oh my word, Advanced Squad Leader. As Ralphie says in the movie "A Christmas Story," and I paraphrase, there was no better tactical game, or ever would be a better tactical game than Advanced Squad Leader. There was my Squad Leader counter, leading troops through the hell of Stalingrad, fighting human waves of Soviets, trying desperately to force my tanks through the snowy forests of Belgium. That was the zenith of my board gaming experience. What an amazing rush. You could simulate just about any small unit action in any year of WWII, in just about any part of the globe. Oh yes, I had the military minatures, the plastic 1/72 tanks (still got em) and they fought tremendous armor battles across the living room, but nothing could compare to ASL.

Well, until the computer took over, and now there is such amazing stuff, unbelievably realistic. Captaining a U-Boat across the Atlantic, who would have ever dreamed that possible. The simulation is almost perfect. Sometimes I sit in wonderment of how fast things have changed, from those magical moments with Panzerblitz and ASL to SHIII. There are still some tactical military games, such as Combat Mission, that allow you to use strategy and tactics, without the massive click-fest of the Real Time Strategy genre. Talonsofts World At War series was very close to Panzerblitz and Panzer Leader, but now the computer set things up for you and "rolled the dice" to determine the combat results.

Whoa, sorry, got carried away there. I've still got all those board games, and pull them out from time to time. And yes, RISK was one of those that was good for an afternoon of die rolling to conquer the world. But it is now so easy to fire up the computer, no cardboard counters to get lost or attacked by the cats, no taking up the dining room table and making the family eat in the kitchen, heh heh. Those were good times though. Hard to replicate.

Oh yes, I thought the PUMA was cool too, but nothing was slicker than a StuG III with a Long 75mm tank killer gun. Just ask Georg Bose', a well known StuG ace.

Heinrich505