STRATEGY & TACTICS # 347: Operation Holland

1-930347

Operation Holland is a two-player alternative history wargame intended to investigate the operational parameters that would have been in place during the first eight days of fighting across northern Belgium and southeast Netherlands had Hitler decided to launch his massive counteroffensive toward Antwerp from there instead of the Ardennes. Such a German effort, if maximally successful, would likely have caused a three-to-four-month delay in the historic timeline of the Anglo-American advance into Germany.

In turn, that would have allowed Hitler to concentrate greater forces in Poland to seriously slow or defeat the Soviet offensive there in January, causing a similar delay in the Red Army's seizure of Berlin.

Each game turn represents 12 hours. Each hexagon on the map is three km (1.86 miles) from side to opposite side. The maneuver units for both sides are primarily divisions, but also include some separate brigades, regiments, battalions, and companies. Allied air supremacy is (just as it was historically) hampered by the winter weather prevalent across the fighting front for most of the period covered by the game, and it is therefore represented only abstractly regarding those effects. This game is the second volume of a series of four games, the Alternative Battles of the Bulge Series. Each game uses a situationally adapted version of the same overall system to collectively cover all the various plans Hitler considered historically for his winter counteroffensive.

Components: 22 x 34-inch game map, 176 5/8-inch counters, and magazine