Russian Front II - The Kursk Campaign

Russian Front II - The Kursk Campaign is a shareware turn-based wargame for DOS from 1990, and the subject needs no introduction: the summer 1943 clash at Kursk, the largest tank battle ever fought. The author was open about his inspiration — by his own description the game is freely based on PanzerBlitz, the classic Avalon Hill board wargame, and anyone who has pushed cardboard counters across a hex map is promised to feel at home immediately.

It plays exactly the way you would expect a board wargame translated to a computer to play. You look down on the battlefield from above, units behave like counters with combat values, the two sides move in alternating turns, and outcomes are decided by planning, maneuver and terrain rather than reflexes. The scale is tactical: you are not steering an entire front, you are deciding which units attack where, whose fire to concentrate and which positions are better bypassed.

One detail matters a lot: you can play against the computer or against another person at the same machine. The second option is where the game truly belongs. PanzerBlitz was always a duel between two humans, and this digital echo inherits that character — with the bonus that the machine enforces the rules and resolves the combat math, removing the most tedious part of paper wargaming.

Expect a spartan presentation, though. This is the work of a single author distributed as shareware: a map, numbers and your decisions, nothing more. Newcomers get no tutorial and will absorb the appeal slowly; veterans of hex-and-counter gaming will recognize familiar ground within minutes.

If that kind of battlefield archaeology appeals to you, the Kursk salient is waiting on oldgame.cz, playable directly in your browser with no installation.