Forgotten Battles: The West Wall – September 1944 to February 1945

This latest volume of Anschluss Publishing History and Wargames  scenarios covers the World War Two attempts by the Americans and British forces to break through the German ‘West Wall’, known by the Allies as ‘The Siegfried Line’ from September 1944 to February 1945, which included the hell of the Hurtgen Forest battles.

This book is aimed at providing WW2 gamers with a series of scenarios which cover a range of types of engagements, unit size and variety of opposing forces, and including new rules for demolitions, assaults on armoured targets and panzerfausts as infantry artillery weapons, as well as new troop types and armoured vehicles.  There are 20 scenarios as well as detailed historical accounts with the scenarios designed to be used with any rules set, down to company and even platoon level. This book is of interest to anyone interested in World War 2, not just wargamers.

The scenarios have been extensively researched and where inevitable gaps were encountered, experience and pragmatism based on real military experience were employed to make the scenarios as realistic and playable as possible. As always with Anschluss books, the scenarios have been extensively play-tested to verify that they are workable and accurate as the constraints of a tabletop game with the benefit of historical tactical hindsight and all-seeing vision can be.

For some of the players, the role which they have undertaken, and the associated restrictions or limitations may make their task seem ‘unwinnable,’ however, wherever possible the victory conditions are designed to make the scenarios as close to the real actions as practicable. Remember, often in warfare it is not about winning, but how well you lose.