Learn Operation Market Garden Through Highway to the Reich Board Game
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The document provides an overview of the board wargame Highway to the Reich, which simulates Operation Market Garden. It describes the game's phases and key mechanics, such as airborne drops, movement, firing, supply, and close combat. Examples are given of gameplay mechanics like direct and indirect firing. The goal is to help players understand and start playing scenarios that recreate battles from the operation.
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Learn Operation Market Garden Through Highway to the Reich Board Game
- 1. Learning History by Playing : Highway to the Reich (SPI 1977) Operation Market-Garden 17-26 September 1944
- 2. Highway to the Reich The mind map about the Board Wargame and its features. Highway to the Reich is a good tool to deepen our knowledge about the Operation Market Garden
- 3. Highway to the Reich: Introduction • Highway to the Reich is a tactical level simulation of Operation Market-Garden that involved the capture of 70 km stretch of highway by Allied Airborne forces. The Allies had to seize the crossings of all major water obstacles up to Arnhem. Three airborne divisions were dropped: the US 82nd and 101st and the British 1st.
- 4. Operation Market Garden 17-26 September
- 5. Highway to the Reich: the sequence of play • The main aim of this work is to help the wargamers to handle better the system , not to describe pros and cons of the old game by SPI. Moreover Highway to the Reich represents a way to learn and study Military History . It is detailed and the order of battle is precise. It’s not only a simple game. It’s something that can help everyone to understand better the past. I think that the game is not so complex. It’s likely that rules are a little verbose and bad organized. The best way to learn HttR is surely to set up a scenario and play it. We have chosen the scn #26 in which we find the battalions of the 101st division attempting to seize two main crossings: Veghel and Driehoek. The map C will be used. Each scenario starts with the phase 13, the Allied Conditional movement, exactly when the division drops and moves towards the bridges. We are introducing and explaining the 15 phases composing a whole turn. We discourage an immediate reading of the rules. So let’s start with the German setup 1. Allied Command 2. German Organization 3. Allied Conditional Fire 4. Allied conditional movement 5. German conditional Fire 6. German conditional movement 7. Allied Free Fire 8. German Command 9. Allied Organization 10. German conditional Fire 11. German conditional movement 12. Allied conditional Fire 13. Allied conditional movement 14. German Fire 15. Game turn record phase
- 6. Highway to the Reich: German Setup scn #26 The players need to use the group “n” from the German Formation Display that is about the initial deployment of the German forces. There are several independent units and the “missing” 59th division of Wermacht.
- 7. Highway to the Reich: Allied Setup scn #26 • The Allied Formation Display section “p” gives us the first 10 serials that are available to drop.
- 8. Highway to the Reich: Air Landing Operations (14.0) • The scenario begins with phase #13 (Allied conditional movement) of the turn 1201 on Sep 17. During this phase it’s possible to execute airborne operations by using two tables: the weather conditions table and the air landing one
- 9. Highway to the Reich: Weather Table • The air landing operations can follow two possible routes: The North and the South one. The 101st division has to approach the map C along the route South. The players have to roll the dice to determine the modifier for the air landing table. You have to roll for each group
- 10. Highway to the Reich:drop zone and approach routes • The scenario #26 follows the southern route. • Drop zone • Pathfinder
- 11. Highway to the Reich: 506th drop zone • The initial deployment after the dropping of the 506th battalion, map C.
- 12. Highway to the Reich: Air Landing Table • After getting the modifier from the weather table, the players need to roll again the dice. The serials can scatter (S1, S2), abort (A) or land in designated hex.
- 13. Highway to the Reich: Allied Conditional Movement phase • During this phase the units can also move. Each unit has 4 movement points that are expended according to the mode. The units can be dispersed, concentrated or in travel. The Terrain chart sums up the effects coming from the different modes.
- 14. Highway to the Reich: Terrain Key • An image to help the players to find more quickly the terrain given in the TEC. Unfortunately HttR would need a better Terrain Effect Chart. We have to work on it.
- 15. Highway to the Reich: Supply • If a unit fires in its Fire Phases, the Owning Player must determine if the unit is in supply range of its Commanding Headquarters. There are also many independent units so they need to trace only to a supply source. In the picture the independent German unit is supplied because it can trace to a road leading to an edge of the map. The path to the road doesn’t have to be more than 10 hexes.
- 16. Highway to the Reich: German Fire Phase • The phase #14 concerns the German free fire phase. The player can execute fire attacks with all eligible units. Actually there are two kinds of fire: the direct and the indirect one. At first we are dealing with the direct fire since in this scenario the artillery is not present. Flak is considered a direct fire unit. Aside the two charts about the direct fire. Let’s explain how the direct fire works
- 17. Highway to the Reich: German direct fire (1) • In the picture you can see the German Flak in 0715 firing against an adjacent unit (2/506). The first digit points out the strength of the firing unit, the second one is about the Effectiveness rating. Let’s fire and check what is going to happen
- 18. Highway to the Reich: German direct fire (2) • The German flak has a strength of 2. Crossing that value with its effectiveness (8) we get 5 (the 2/506 is unentrenched and non armor).
- 19. Highway to the Reich: German direct fire (3) • Let’s roll the dice. The German player rolls 5. The final result is “1”. The 2/506 loses one step and turns into dispersed mode. Originally it was a target considered undispersed in any terrain
- 20. Highway to the Reich: German direct fire (4) • Here you are the final situation. The US unit is dispersed and has lost one strength point.
- 21. Highway to the Reich: Game turn record phase The phase #15 ends the turn1201.
- 22. Highway to the Reich: Allied Command Phase (phase 1) • During the first phase of each turn, the Allied player has to check the supply status of all the Headquarters units under his command (rule 11). One of the most important things that characterize HttR is just the importance of maintaining cohesion among the companies composing a battalion. During this phase a player determines the supply status of his chain of command. Moreover a player can try to remove a disruption marker.
- 23. Highway to the Reich: Allied Command Phase (2) The picture shows two headquarters belonging to the 101s: 506 and 502. They are in supply since they can trace a supply path to the source of divisional supply (orange arrows). The path is limited in length. Players need to make an imaginary move of an infantry company in travel mode.
- 24. Highway to the Reich: German Organization (phase 2) • The phase #2 of each turn allows the German player to alter the modes of his units. Such activity may trigger Allied Opportunity fire. In the picture some examples of the different modes that the units can assume (8.0). Travel, Dispersed, Disrupted, Concentrated.
- 25. Highway to the Reich: Allied Conditional Fire (phase 3) • In this phase the Allied player may execute Fire attacks with all eligible units. The firing units will not be able to move in the following movement phase. We have already explained the direct fire, in the following slides we are introducing the indirect fire. observer target arty
- 26. Highway to the Reich: Allied Conditional Fire • The artillery unit must be stacked with or adjacent to a hq unit. The artillery unit has to sight the target. To fire an artillery must observe the target by tracing a line of sight (LoS). If the LoS is blocked, an observing unit in communication range (10 hexes) can sight for Indirect fire.
- 27. Highway to the Reich: Indirect fire • The indirect fire adopts a different Fire value matrix but the same fire results table. So the players need to refer to the table 5.62. • Cross reference the current strength of the firing unit versus its effectiveness rating, with reference to whether the target is armored or non-armored • This locates a Fire Value. • Refer to table 5.63 • Plug in the Fire Value into one of the top lines of the table making reference to the target unit’s mode and the terrain in the target hex. • Roll two dice. Cross reference the number rolled with the Fire Value. This locates a result which is immediately applied to the target unit.
- 28. Highway to the Reich: Indirect fire (2) • In the picture the 101 arty is firing against the ind. German company. The arty is adjacent to its divisional hq and the 2/506 is the observing unit (the arty itself doesn’t see directly the enemy unit due to the woods). All the conditions requested for the indirect fire are satisfied. No direct los
- 29. Highway to the Reich: Indirect fire (3) The 101 arty fires vs the German 3-2 units. Attacking value units 6. Its effectiveness rating is 7. The final fire value gives 8 (Unentrenched non armor target). Let’s roll the dice and we get 7. The target is undispersed in any terrain. The final result is D. The German unit is Dispersed
- 30. Highway to the Reich: Allied conditional movement (phase 4) • In the phase 4 the units that did not fire can move. It’s possible to bring scheduled reinforcements onto the map. The German player can have an opportunity fire when the enemy units move out of a ZoC. During the movement, a player can conduct the close combat (Close action).
- 31. Highway to the Reich: Allied conditional movement – Close Action(phase 4) • Subtract the Defender’s modified Effectiveness Rating (the two white triangles on the bottom of the unit) from the Attacker’s rating (4) to determine the Effectiveness Differential of the Close Action. The US 6-3 in the example has got a differential of 2 (4 minus 2). Cross-reference the Effectiveness Differential with the Morale Differential to obtain the Close Action Value. In our example it’s 5.
- 32. Highway to the Reich: Allied conditional movement – Close Action(phase 4) • Total the strengths of all the Attacking units, and then all the Defending units. Compare them as a ratio of Attacker to Defender, rounding off any fraction in favor of the Defender. Locate this odds ratio on the left hand side of Table 8.72. Roll one die. Cross- reference the number rolled (under the appropriate odds column) with the Close Action Value. This will locate the results of the Close Action which are applied immediately. In our example the ratio is 4 to 1. the US player rolls 3 and the defender suffers 1 step loss
- 33. Highway to the Reich: German conditional fire and movement (phase 5 and 6) • These two phases are identical to the Allied ones. So the German player can fire in the phase 5 and move in the following phase the units that did not fire.
- 34. Highway to the Reich: Allied free fire (7) • The Allied Player may execute Fire Attacks with all eligible Allied units.
- 35. Highway to the Reich: phases 8-14 • Phases 8 -14 basically repeat Phases 1 -7; • however, the Players' roles are now reversed, the German Player now executes the activities undertaken by the Allied Player during the earlier Phases and vice-versa • 8. German Command Phase • 9. Allied Organization Phase • 10. German Conditional Fire Phase • 11. German Conditional Movement Phase • 12. Allied Conditional Fire Phase • 13. Allied Conditional Movement Phase • 14. German Fire Phase • 15. Game Turn Record Phase: The Game Turn Marker should be advanced one space
- 36. Highway to the Reich • We have tried to explain the main rules of Highway to the Reich. Obviously it has not been possible to illustrate every single detail, but the players who want to start playing HttR can use these few slides to start immediately a scenario. I can suggest to play some other scenario but to appreciate completely the game players should try the whole campaign.