Panzer Battles

1990, a Hercules monitor flickering, and I'm spending a Saturday afternoon shuffling square icons across a hexagon-divided map. Panzer Battles from Australian SSG — a name experienced wargamers know mainly from the Warlords and War in Russia series — was exactly the type of game that needed no intro or music to pull you in.

SSG was among the elite of computer war strategy in the eighties and early nineties. Panzer Battles carries on the tradition of hex wargames focused on armored clashes in World War II. Turn-based strategy, paper and pencil in virtual form — you command units at the operational or tactical level, move across hexagonal maps, and try to push back, encircle, or simply crush your opponent. No grand story framing, no cutscenes. Map, units, orders.

Control is typically DOS: keyboard, occasionally mouse, menus layered on menus. Today it looks like archaeology, back then it was standard. What matters more is that the mechanics are solid — terrain matters, supply is calculated, unit morale isn't just window dressing. SSG knew how to design systems with weight. On the other hand, the game won't explain itself to you without the manual at hand or willingness to experiment. The tutorial is practically non-existent, which even by those standards wasn't a given.

What aged poorly on Panzer Battles is the presentation. Graphics were modest even in 1990 — EGA palette, functional unit icons, no visual extravagance. Sound is for the thick-skinned. But that wasn't essential to the genre back then anyway. What endured is the addictiveness of a well-designed turn system, something that never fully disappears in wargames. You take a turn, you think, you take another.

Today Panzer Battles lands with a specific type of player: those who love wargames without unnecessary polish, who enjoy thinking in hexes, and don't mind spending the first hour with a manual instead of a tutorial. Historical accuracy or simulation depth may not compete with later titles like the Panzer General series, but as a period-appropriate representative of SSG's craft, it has its place. Play it in your browser if you want to see what turn-based war strategy looked like before generals got faces and movie intros.