Last Battles: East Prussia, 1945

East Prussia has been a battleground for 1,000 years. In January 1945, Soviet forces were poised to bring war home to the Germans. The invasion posed a number of problems for the Soviet high command. The German defenses were organized in depth, and consisted of powerful permanent fortifications, a series of trench lines and anti-tank ditches, artillery emplacements, etc. In addition, the terrain was difficult, laced with lakes, rivers, marshes and canals. The two attacking Soviet fronts mustered between them some 3,800 tanks and assault guns, 25,000 artillery pieces, 3,00 aircraft and 1.2 million assault troops. Opposing them were 780,000 Germans, with 8,200 cannon, 700 to 800 tanks, and about 775 planes. Bolstering the defense were such elite units as the Hermann Goering and Gross Deutschland Divisions. With the Germans fighting on their own soil, and the Soviets determined to deliver the death blow to the Third Reich, the scene was set for what became the most bitter fighting since Stalingrad.(Associated Press)

Originally published in 1983 by People’s Wargames under the title To the Wolf’s Lair (a reference to the Supreme German Headquarters, the Wolfsschanze, located in the forests east of Rastenburg), Last Battles succeeds well in simulating this dramatic campaign. The 3 historical scenarios and 12 “what ifs” (including Rokossovski’s proposed alternative attack from the south) allow players to explore every facet of the operations. Map scale is 5 miles to the hex, and each turn represents one day of real time.

Game Scale:

Turn: 1 day
Hex: 5 miles / 8 Km
Units: Battalion to Corps

Game Inventory:

One 22 x 34" full color map
Two dual-side printed countersheet (300 1/2" counters)
One 20-page rulebook
Six player aid cards
One 10-sided dice

Solitaire Playability: High Complexity Level: Medium-High Players: 2 or more Playing Time: 3-20 hours

(from the back of the box)