Tag Archives: WWII

Book Review – Rommel as Military Commander

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Rommel: as Military Commander  is the possibly-grammatically-incorrect title of a book by Ronald Lewin about General Erwin Rommel as a military commander. It’s less biography and more overall command study. And less overall command study and more a “Rommel in the Desert” book. But I can’t really fault it for that. It is quite good at what it intends to be.

Not a single cover of this book looks good, and I couldn't take a photo of mine because it's a hardback without one

Not a single cover of this book looks good, and I couldn’t take a photo of mine because it’s a hardback without one

The book starts out briefly in the First World War and then the Inter-war period. This and the Battle of France are glossed over in two chapters. The book really begins when Rommel sets foot in Africa, and is given command of the Afrika Corps, which will eventually become the Italian First Army. The book mainly follows the events of 1941-43 and the fighting in the desert (spoiler: Rommel loses {but not entirely due to his own actions}, and so do all the Germans and Italians). Rommel’s return to Europe and his death are again given one chapter each, with a closing chapter to follow.

The ten chapters devoted to the war in Africa are quite detailed and very well researched (the author was in the desert war, so it might be something he would know quite a bit about). Unit movements are all laid out, and the war is painted very much as it was without too much as to why it was that way. This is because the author rightly assumes that he can never know truly why Rommel made the decisions that he made (though this makes the point of the book rather dubious). If the author was simply trying to talk about each of the battles that Rommel fought in the desert in some detail, then the book would be quite good. But it keeps coming back to Rommel’s character, his frustration and sickness during and before the battles, and why he can’t be compared to other commanders that had many more divisions on much larger fronts.  This makes things seem confused, honestly, though I quite enjoyed the bits about Rommel presented, they continued to acknowledge that they were not the book’s focus and took away slightly from the overall book.   That being said, as a reference for “what happened where” in the clashes in the desert , it is excellent and well told.

The units are kept track of to a degree at which it may be confusing at times what is happening if one reads too quickly. Unfortunately, the maps don’t really help. They show the battlefields in great detail, but unlike the writing, provide one with no larger picture of what is going on, making them seem isolated and confused. (Make any war parallels you like with that.)

The book is, overall, a nice look at Rommel’s rise and fall. It would serve as a good introduction to him past his pop-culture persona, as Rommel, and his various attributes are presented quite nicely. And it is a good reference for the Axis in the North African campaign. It’s a good book for those casually or slightly more interested in the Second World War, but those who are very interested have undoubtedly read more detailed works.

Games That Teach – Axis & Allies and Short Term Planning

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When talking about board games, games so old and still so loved as “Axis and Allies” are hard to find. With so many versions, updates, and house rules, defining the core that is “Axis and Allies” can be difficult at times. One of the core elements,though, is most definitely the controlling of factories to get points to build more units with. And while this mechanic (mechanism) might seem like it favors strategy and thinking over the long term, I’d argue that it really encourages planning in the short term, for your next turn and not for future turns.

The one I have isn't the greatest.

The one I have isn’t the greatest.

Let me try to explain before you scream at me for being wrong (or more likely just leave the page). The resources you get at the end of a turn will not be used until the beginning of your next turn or later. A player can save up for long periods of time but there is almost no point when you’re being punched in the face by you opponent’s pieces. The illusion of long-term consequences comes from this ability to save, but really the game is just about how many IPC’s (resources) a player can get at the end of this turn to have the most effective next turn. While a player deploys resources at the end of their turn, it still means that the maximum they are thinking is two turns ahead, and if they think farther than that (i.e. want a battleship or aircraft carrier, which are expensive) they are likely to get taken out by their opponent who didn’t do that and is fighting with superior strength.

This is also coupled with the fact that the ultimate goals of each side are placed only several spaces away, except for the United States, which is impossible to take and has to produce units and move them across an ocean to be effective (which is why they usually have China). Players don’t have the time to think about turns farther in the future because if they do they’ll be beaten by players who thought about the turn directly ahead.

Now I’m not going to say that this makes for a bad game, or an un-educational game. In fact, the game is quite fun and in certain cases even has the player going for historical objectives. I do think, though, that the idea of Axis and Allies being a grand strategy game is silly. It’s a tactical game on a strategic board, which in and of itself is quite a good way to teach people about proper resource uses in the short term. And saving a few IPCs each turn will lead to getting some more powerful units in the future if done right. I quite like the short-term resource management that Axis and Allies has. And I also like the fact that it has the realism of a series of tactical victories leading to a strategic victory. It definitely isn’t like chess where a series of tactical blunders could stumble you into a strategic success. I like games that reward short-term victories with long-term benefits, even if in some, if not most, will make you second-best to the person who thought through the whole game.

Really, though, “Axis and Allies” is just a good game for dice chucking and pretending to be some foreign super-power for a night with some friends. Even if it isn’t as deep as it looks, it still lasts for some time and holds one’s interest the whole way though (if the players like WWII.)