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 the Second World War, in which Nazi Germany and its allies are fighting the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad (now Volgograd) in southern Russia on the eastern border of Europe. Characterized by fierce hand-to-hand fighting and direct attacks on the civilian population through air raids, it is often regarded as 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 heavy losses 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 the Second World War; the 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 capture Stalingrad began in August 1942 with the German 6th Army and parts of the 4th Army. The attack was supported by intensive bombing raids by the Luftwaffe, which reduced much of the city to rubble. The fighting degenerated into house-to-house fighting 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 with 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 to break out. Instead, attempts were made to supply the army from the air and to break through the encirclement from the outside. The heavy fighting continued for another two months. At the beginning of February 1943, the Axis forces in Stalingrad had run out of ammunition and food. The remaining units of the 6th Army surrendered. The battle lasted five months, one week and three days.