Anybody have HPS Kursk 43 or El Alamein 42 PC games?

[Mark F]

I am intersted in opinions as to the accuracy of these two games. Does the OoB of these appear to be accurate?

Thanks

Mark

[Michael Avanzini]

Mark,

I can tell you that I did the Soviet OOB for Kursk and I used a combination of the BSSA and The Kursk Data Base info from Dupuy.
Unit wise it is pretty accurate but I now have better info on all of the divisional subunits numbers then I had at the time. (IE. I have much better primary Soviet material now)

The German OOB for Kursk was done by Wig Graves who used the Captured Records archive and also the info in the Kursk data base.

For the Germans though, the original OOB was extremely accurate and in some cases went down to platoon level for different equipment but when the scenario designers started working with it they combined units into at least companies and changed some of the equipment to the prevailing type in order to make it easier to combine into battalions. This was done for playablity as there are quit a lot of units in the counter mix.

El Alamein 42 I did not work on so can not comment on the OOB. I do know that the Tobruk 41 OOB is most likely the most accurate ever done for that battle and the whole game was done by Wig using primary source material.

I have worked on most of the East front games doing the Soviets and in some cases the Germans and I always use primary material including The captured records for the Germans and various primary source Soviet material like the BSSA and unit listings called "Perechins" for the Soviets.

Regards
Michael

[Mark F]

Michael,

Thank you very much for that info! Sounds like you guys really did your homework on those. Looks like I will be investing in a few of their games in the very near future.

I am curious, do you think that HPS might ever come up with 2nd editions of games for which more accurate info has been obtained?

Thanks again for the info!

Mark

[Michael Avanzini]

Where there are out and out errors in the OOB we fix them in the updates. (on a side note, everytime a new game is release with new features we update the entire line back to the first game with the new features) But we have not gone back to completely redoing the OOBs of past games. We are always working on new games (there are about 6 in the works at this time), and that seems to take up all are free time. We all do this as a hobby while working full time and having a family life. Oops I just remembered, I had gone back and redid the OOB for Smolensk 41 to bring it in line with the German breakdown to companies and completely redid the Soviets as they were not corret but that took much time and was released as a free expansion pack.

If you like the SPI Panzergruppe Guadrian game which was there battlion level system then you will love these games as they are based on the system. John Tiller was a hugh fan of SPI as I am myself having grown up in that 70s time period and living in NY where SPI was located.

If you are interested in OOB's then I would recommend Stalingrad 42, Minsk 44, Tobruk 41, Rzhev 42, Normandy 44, Smolensk 41 (with XP2 pack) and Korsun 44 as some of the best OOBs

Michael

[Mark F]

Michael,

SPI.....Oh what memories! Man I could talk to you all day about those great games. I own several, and have played many others years ago. I loved those games!

Yes, from the info you provided it looks like I will be spending a small fortune on some HPS games in the near future.

Thank you very much for all the information. I like having an insight on a game before I spend my money on it.

Best Regards,

Mark