Could Panzer Battles Do Entire Market Garden?

[Elxaime]

I haven't tried Panzer Battles yet, but I like the level of detail at the smaller scale.

I am just curious whether the scale could handle doing a monster scenario of the Battle of Market Garden?  A reduced version, e.g. on a map with just the main axis of advance for XXX Corps and without the flanking Allied Corps (although this would still be huge).  But I imagine playing something like this, possibly as part of a team game, would be fantastic.  

I recall years back someone did an entire Market Garden for the Campaign series and it was amazing.

[Ricky B]

I don't know about memory requirements, but I think it would work based on how the map is built, etc. In the Serbia campaigns, it takes my new laptop a bit of time to start up each new turn for the 4th invasion campaign, which has a massive map with bad terrain, due to determining supply levels. But that doesn't apply to PzB at this point and so not a concern about a possibly even bigger map.

With the way Panzer Battles handles unlimited defensive fire, I don't think I would want to play it, but it would make for an amazing study of the battle.

[ComradeP]

A Panzer Battles version of the Market Garden scenario for Scheldt '44 would require a map of 160.000 hexes or so if some of the less relevant areas are removed. Impassable hexes would reduce the size further. That's considerably less than, say, the Compass map in Battles of North Africa '41 which has 210.045 hexes.

Units can't gain replacements in Panzer Battles and there are a lot of day turns for a handful of night turns so there's not a lot of time to recover from Fatigue. A campaign in multiple day-sized scenarios similar to Kursk Southern Flank might be able to counter those issues.

I don't think there are technical limitations, as always the limitations will mostly be the amount of time the developers can spend on designing new games.

[All_American]

On top of what others have pointed out, Market Garden was covered in two PzC titles and several ES scenarios as well. I don't see the point of having yet another title about it.

[ComradeP]

It's likely and perhaps even nearly inevitable that Panzer Battles titles will continue to cover battles that were already covered in PzC, that was the case for all of the Panzer Battles titles thus far. The new Moscow Panzer Battles title will also cover a battle that has been covered by two Moscow PzC titles.

[All_American]

Fair point, although I believe PB titles have generally focused on actions (mostly smaller) that aren't covered in corresponding PzC titles. PB Normandy covers a lot of post D-Day fighting, while PzC Normandy focuses mostly on D-Day itself. On the other hand Market Garden '44 covers quite a lot of smaller actions as it is.

We may of course see it happen though. Not like I'd complain!

[Strela]

Well as one of the developers all I can say is the following:

• Market-Garden is the perfect scale for Panzer Battles
  
• We have the brand new OOB from Mike Prucha's PzC Scheldt version
  
• We have many of the units broken out in PzB format in PzB Normandy. There was some equipment changes but the unit organisation did not change markedly.
  
• We have source maps at the right scale.
  
• We have the source code for Panzer Campaigns and that may lead to the inclusion of items like replacements etc. I am seeing a need for these in Moscow and could have used them in Normandy in a scenario like Operation Bluecoat. That said, there were not replacements per se, but rather recovery of stragglers etc.
  

So do we have the information, yes. Do we have the interest, yes. Do we have the time, debatable currently!

One final point, it would have to be the whole battle covered. There is actually not a whole lot of troops on either side ( a corps or two each), so this would be more compact than some of the work done previously...

David

[Strela]

It's likely and perhaps even nearly inevitable that Panzer Battles titles will continue to cover battles that were already covered in PzC, that was the case for all of the Panzer Battles titles thus far. The new Moscow Panzer Battles title will also cover a battle that has been covered by two Moscow PzC titles.

This is another interesting comment. We have based a number of scenarios directly off some from Moscow '42.

One of our play-testers played one for the first time recently and I am seeing if he can write it up for us to share on the WDS blog. 

He said it was probably the best single player scenario he had played for a long time and a completely different feel to the equivalent Panzer Campaigns scenario.

So, same, same but different...!

David

[Elxaime]

Well as one of the developers all I can say is the following:

• Market-Garden is the perfect scale for Panzer Battles
  
• We have the brand new OOB from Mike Prucha's PzC Scheldt version
  
• We have many of the units broken out in PzB format in PzB Normandy. There was some equipment changes but the unit organisation did not change markedly.
  
• We have source maps at the right scale.
  
• We have the source code for Panzer Campaigns and that may lead to the inclusion of items like replacements etc. I am seeing a need for these in Moscow and could have used them in Normandy in a scenario like Operation Bluecoat. That said, there were not replacements per se, but rather recovery of stragglers etc.
  

So do we have the information, yes. Do we have the interest, yes. Do we have the time, debatable currently!

One final point, it would have to be the whole battle covered. There is actually not a whole lot of troops on either side ( a corps or two each), so this would be more compact than some of the work done previously...

David

Thanks, this sounds hopeful.  The reason I brought this up is because Market Garden offers such a variety of operations, elite forces, and both sides get to attack and defend.  A Panzer Battles at the scale of the entire operation would probably need a lot of tender loving care, since you have a lot of important little details about mined bridges, ferries, cross-river amphibious attacks, resistance groups, the West Wall fortifications, rail movement, weather and terrain effects, as well as potential strategies for follow up airdrops and reinforcements.  The scale of Panzer Campaigns works, but a battle like this really would be amazing at a smaller scale, as you could really tweak the details and it would be a work of art as well as really fun to play.  I am in a PBEM of the Scheldt 44' Market Garden and it has been a blast, with lots of twists and turns in initiative and room for player decision making. A new Panzer Battles Market Garden of course would also have a ton of smaller scenarios, but the main event would be the centerpiece.

[skc007]

In the 80's I used to play the R.T. Smith, Arnhem on the old Spectrum 48k. PzC Market Garden was the first JTS I bought and have recently played it PBEM. It is a favourite of mine. All along I felt it would really be great to see it in PzB. Looking forward to this eventuality.