In the winter of 1942 the German 6th Army, was surrounded and cut-off by Soviet armored formations while trying to take Stalingrad. Hitler denied 6th army’s request to retreat, instead instructing the Wehrmacht to break through into the pocket. In the meantime, the Luftwaffe were tasked with supplying them by air. This wasn’t as crazy (in the dead of the Soviet winter) as first appears. The Luftwaffe had successfully supplied German pockets before, although not on this scale. This time some 280,000 men needed supplies. They were not to get them. A major obstacle was the rejuvenation of the Soviet fighter forces (VVS) which was to complicate matters enormously. History famously records the failure of this mission and the capture of 6th Army.

As big fans of air combat games, we set about creating a10-day segment of this operation. German Ju-52 transports together with German medium bombers had a daily target to deliver supplies to the besieged airfield at Pitomnik.

We wanted to include:

1. Weather
2. Aircraft Serviceability
3. Escort fighters
4. Intercepting fighters
5. Anti-Aircraft fire

We also had an invite to attend the Replay 2026 wargames show at the Royal Engineers museum in Gillingham and wanted to demonstrate a game that we played regularly at our club.

We found that we could play the entire 10-day campaign over 3 sessions at our club using the demonstration game to show one day of flying. We used ‘Check Your Six!’ air combat rules