1941: What If? An Alternative History Wargame of a Second Winter War is a low-to-intermediate complexity two-player alternative history wargame that’s also easily adaptable to solitaire play. It allows you to investigate the parameters inherent in the situation in Central Eastern Europe, at the end of 1940, had the Bulgarians decided to ally with the Soviets instead of the Germans, which historically they considered doing. Long story short (see the support article elsewhere in this issue), the result would’ve been the Second War’s eastern front erupting half a year prior to its historic start date under both natural and manmade conditions vastly different than pertained at that later date.

Each hexagon on the map represents 45 miles (73 km) from side to opposite side. Each turn represents a half a month of ‘real time.’ Each unit of maneuver represents an army or corps or ad hoc equivalent of those sizes of units.

The Soviet (a.k.a. “Soviet/Allied” or “Allied”) player commands all the Soviet units in the game along with those of Bulgaria, Greece and Britain. The German (a.k.a. “German/Axis” or “Axis”) player commands all the German units in the game, along with those of Turkey, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Italy. Yugoslavia starts the game neutral and out of play. Its government is leaning pro-Allied, however, and it will likely join the war on that side during the course of the game. When/if that occurs, the two Yugoslav-Croatian (4th and 7th) armies will either disintegrate, their soldiers dispersing to their homes, or join the Axis while the rest of the Yugoslav armed forces fight in the Allied side.

The orders of battle contain pretty all the units present in these armies at this time within this theater of operations. The Germans are only missing the non-mechanized corps they had garrisoning their western conquests. The Turks are minus the three corps they kept in their Caucasus and Syrian border areas. Similarly, the Soviets have everything they had available historically in the regions of the USSR lying west of the Urals, north of the Caucasus and south of the Arctic. Their reinforcements are based on what they put together during the first three months of the historic war in the east. Their Independent Coastal Army wasn’t organized historically until soon after the start of Operation Barbarossa; however – given the geo-strategic circumstances of this might-have-been war and the fact the resources needed to organize it already existed at this time – it was only reasonable to include the ICA as a starting Soviet unit.

1941: What If? An Alternative History Wargame of a Second Winter War

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