Tronsoft Games

Battle of the Bulge
How to play

The Ardennes offensive, 16-31 December 1944. One player against the computer, or two computer opponents watched. A full campaign runs 45-90 minutes.

The idea

Three German armies attack westward through the Ardennes. The German player is racing a clock: surprise lasts two days, the fuel pool shrinks every turn, and once the weather clears the Allied air forces make movement expensive. The Allied player starts with the front torn open and reinforcements arriving from three directions, and wins by making the German player spend days he does not have.

Starting a game

1. Pick a scenario, choose which side you command - or Neither, to watch two computer opponents - and set the opponent's skill.
2. Press Take the field. If you have saved a game before, Resume saved game puts you back where you left off.

Turn order

Each of the sixteen turns is one day, and runs in this order:

1. Weather. Determined for the whole turn. Fog and snow ground the aircraft; snow also slows every column. The first eight days follow the historical weather; after that it is rolled.
2. German player: reinforcements arrive, supply is traced, then move, then combat, then exploit - a second short move for mechanised formations that are in supply and did not retreat.
3. Allied player: the same three phases, preceded by bridge demolition and the day's air allocation.
4. Turn end. Leftover Allied air points hunt German road hexes overnight.

The button at the bottom of the right-hand rail always says what ending the current phase will do. Enter does the same thing.

Movement

Click one of your formations - on the map, or in the list on the right - and every hex it can reach is shaded. Move the pointer over one and the route it would take is drawn. Click to go.

• Terrain costs movement points: 1 for clear ground, up to 3 for forest. Roads are cheaper, but only 2 formations may use a given road hex at road rate each turn - after that the road is congested.
• Entering a hex next to an enemy formation stops the move at once, and you may not slide directly from one enemy zone of control into another.
• Crossing a minor river costs 1 extra; a major river costs 3 and can only be done at an intact bridge.
• Stacking is 3 formations to a hex.
• A German mechanised formation that spends more than 4 movement points burns a fuel point. When the pool is empty, mechanised movement is halved and there is no exploitation.

Combat

1. In the combat phase, click the enemy hex you mean to attack. It is ringed in red.
2. Click your own adjacent formations, or their rows in the list, to put them in.
3. The fire slip appears on the right: attack total, defence total, the ratio, any column shifts, and the row of the combat table you will be rolling on, with all ten faces of the die printed.
4. As the Allied player, if the weather allows flying you may spend air points for column shifts before rolling.
5. Press Roll the die. The result is marked on the cell it landed in.

Results run from AE, AL and AR - the attack is hurt or thrown back - through EX, where both sides pay, to DR, DL and DE, where the defence gives ground, loses a step doing it, or is destroyed. Attackers who clear a hex advance into it.

A defender in a town or a city does not retreat. A result that would push it back costs it a step instead and the position holds. This is why Bastogne, St. Vith and Elsenborn have to be taken rather than walked into.

Supply

Supply is traced from each side's own rear. A formation that cannot be reached attacks and moves at half effect, and after 4 consecutive turns out of supply it loses a step. A red dot on a counter means it is cut off. Isolated Allied garrisons in towns can be supplied by air when the weather allows.

Terrain

Terrain	Defence	Movement
Open	x1	1
Woods	x1.5	2
Broken ground	x1.5	2
Forested ridges	x2	3
Moor	x1.5	3
Town	x2	1
City	x3	1

The scenarios

Scenario	What it is
The Ardennes Offensive 16 December 1944 - 31 December 1944	The full sixteen days. Three armies go in through the fog and the Allied command has to work out what is happening while it happens.
Breakthrough 16 - 21 December 1944	The first six days only. Can the panzer armies get clear of the Ardennes before the weather lifts? Objectives west of the Ourthe count double.
Race to the Meuse 22 - 31 December 1944	Begins with the salient already driven in and the skies clearing. The spearheads are low on fuel and the Allies are arriving in strength.
The Shoulders 16 - 23 December 1944	Elsenborn in the north and Echternach in the south. The Sixth Panzer and Seventh Armies only - the centre is left to its own devices.
Hold Bastogne 18 - 27 December 1944	The road hub and the ring around it. The Fifth Panzer Army must take Bastogne and keep going; Third Army has to reach it.

Winning

The German player scores victory points for the towns and junctions held at the end of the last turn, 12 points for every formation west of the Meuse, and one point for every 3 Allied steps destroyed - less one for every 3 German steps lost. The Allied player wins by keeping that total down.

German points	Result
111 or more	German decisive victory
89 or more	German victory
69 or more	German marginal victory
48 or more	Draw
30 or more	Allied marginal victory
12 or more	Allied victory
anything less or more	Allied decisive victory

For calibration: the salient as it actually stood on 31 December 1944 scores about 67 points, which is a draw. Beating history is what a German victory means here.

Losing

There is no sudden defeat and no elimination - the campaign always runs its full length and is then scored, so a bad opening can still be retrieved. As the German player you lose by spending formations on ground that is not worth points, running the fuel pool dry before you are clear of the forest, or letting the towns hold you up until the weather clears. As the Allied player you lose by defending everywhere instead of at the junctions, or by counterattacking early at odds that spend the divisions you will need in the second week.

Saving

Press Save on the right-hand rail at any point and the whole position - every counter, the weather, the fuel pool, the score and the running report - is written to browser local storage under the key tronsoft_battle_of_the_bulge_save. The game keeps one saved position, so saving again replaces it. Resume saved game on the title screen puts it back exactly as it stood, down to the die-roll sequence.

If the browser refuses storage - private browsing, a full quota, or the file opened directly from disk in some browsers - the game still plays. The save buttons grey out and say so rather than failing quietly.

Restarting

Quit on the right-hand rail returns to the title screen, where you can set up a fresh game with a different scenario, side or opponent. When a game ends, the result card offers Fight it again, which does the same. Starting a new game does not erase a saved position - only pressing Save replaces it. The game keeps one saved position, under the key tronsoft_battle_of_the_bulge_save.

Controls

Action	How
Pan	Drag the map, or the arrow keys
Zoom	Scroll, pinch, or + and -
Inspect a hex	Tap or click it
Select a formation	Click its hex again to cycle, or click its row
End the phase	The button on the rail, or Enter
Clear a selection	Esc