Great Battles of WWII: Stalingrad
Stalingrad is a standalone real-time tactical game for the PC developed by the Russian company DTF Games. The game contains two campaigns based on the events in Southern Russia between summer 1942 and early 1943. The game has two playable modes: the first, by default, is the RKKA (Red Workers' and Peasants' Army) campaign, in which you follow the Red Army's progress in liberating Stalingrad and destroying the 6th Army. The second mode is the Wehrmacht campaign, in which the player commands the 6th Army in the approach to the city and in the battles for the city itself. The game maps themselves were created from historical tactical maps and actual aerial photographs from the period of the campaign.
Story
This game is based on real historical events. Year 1942. Stalingrad, Soviet Union. We are in one of the great battles on the Eastern Front of World War II, with Nazi Germany and its allies fighting the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in southern Russia on the eastern border of Europe. Marked by fierce hand-to-hand fighting and direct attacks on civilians through air raids, it is often considered one of the largest (nearly 2.2 million men) and bloodiest (1.7-2 million wounded, killed, or captured) battles in the history of warfare. The high casualties suffered by the German Wehrmacht make it arguably the most strategically decisive battle of the entire war. It was a turning point in the European theater of war; German forces were never able to regain the initiative in the east and withdrew a large force from the west to replace their losses. The German offensive to take Stalingrad began in August 1942 with the German 6th Army and parts of the 4th Army. The attack was supported by intense Luftwaffe bombing that reduced much of the city to rubble. The fighting degenerated into house-to-house battles, and both sides brought reinforcements into the city. By mid-November 1942, the Germans had pushed the Soviet defenders back into narrow zones along the western bank of the Volga River, suffering heavy losses. On November 19, 1942, the Red Army launched Operation Uranus, a two-pronged attack on the weaker Romanian and Hungarian armies holding the flanks of the German 6th Army. The Axis forces on the flanks were overrun and the 6th Army was cut off and encircled in the Stalingrad area. Adolf Hitler ordered the army to remain in Stalingrad and not attempt an escape. Instead, attempts were made to supply the army from the air and to break the encirclement from the outside. Heavy fighting continued for another two months. By early February 1943, the Axis forces in Stalingrad were out of ammunition and food. The remaining units of the 6th Army surrendered. The battle lasted five months, one week and three days.