The section below is one part of the designer notes for Kursk '43 that some people have emailed me requesting I make available.

Kursk '43 as a Panzer Campaign has been perhaps the longest title in development of the series to date, and involved more people at various stages than any other. It began with the map that was largely created by Dave "Blackie" Blackburn and each of the 114,000 hexes of the map was evaluated four times, each for: 1) Drainage, then 2) Topography next 3) the roads, rail towns and finally the 4) Fields, Forest, Labels and other features. We're not really sure how many hours went into it, but I still chuckle at the time, when Blackie told me after one particularly long session of staring at the map, that he could see "hexagons on the cat"! The result is the largest Panzer Campaign Map yet to be released.

The Order of Battle was team effort where Wig Graves spearheaded the German side from his numerous sources that include captured Microfiche information from the National Archive. Jim Dunnam began the framework for the massive Soviet OOB. But later, Mike Avanzini, using the "Order of Battle of the Soviet Army" from microfiche, created a new version of the Soviet OOB from scratch. Given the size of the OOB, Greg "Sturmer" Smith then became involved to assist with resolving the number of smaller units. Our goal was to retain the historical detail that went into the OOB, but to have a game OOB that was playable. We included battalions that could be combined from smaller sized units. This way the game offers the best in playability as well as flexibility for player style.

But, even with the best efforts to keep the size of the OOB manageable, the game was still very large. We have received feedback from players on previous games that told us that while they loved the big campaigns, it took a long time to play them - even a single turn. To address this John Tiller took an idea from Squad Battles, "On Map (combat) Results" and brought it to this series. So now the combat result dialog has been replaced with actual shot results right on the map, without a dialog showing more information than most players want or need. Players who liked the old way better with the dialog and extra information can still access it by un-checking the On Map Results from the setting menu.

One of the main game interface improvements for Kursk is the addition under the A/I menu of a "Faster A/I Processing" setting. This setting turns the sound off while the A/I is moving and also speeds up the tempo of the move. The combined effect of On Map Results the effect is to reduce the play time to a fraction of the amount it used to take. These changes will be imported into the previous games in the series in the next round of Panzer Campaigns updates, and will be the default method of play.

With each new game in the series, we like to add an element or two which helps to capture the flavor of that battle. For this game we added two features, the first of which is a Demolition Unit, as an OOB flag. This feature is used to represent the "Goliath" and SdKfz 301 Demolition vehicles that were used on the Ninth Army sector of the Kursk battle, where these vehicles were used to clear minefields. They can also be used to assault stubborn defensive positions such as bunkers. While largely experimental vehicles whose effect on the overall battle was not really that great, we felt it was worth representing in the game and something unique to this battle.

Another factor that impacted this battle were breakdowns, or more specifically a higher number of breakdowns for the Panther tank, which was new in the German arsenal and didn't quite have the bugs worked out of it yet. Vehicle Breakdown has been a game feature since the fourth title in the series, Tobruk '41, was released. The Breakdown is dependent upon the value in the Parameter Data, and it is possible that a unit will lose strength as it moves. So for Kursk we added the ability to flag Low Reliability in the OOB. Units with Low Reliability increase their chance of breakdown at a higher than normal rate.

Here is an interesting quote from Heinz Guderian, then Inspector General of Armored Troops: "I spent June 15th worrying about our problem child, the Panther; the track suspension and drive were not right and the optics were also not yet satisfactory. On the next day I told Hitler of my reasons for not wishing to see the Panthers sent into action in the East. They were simply not yet ready to go to the front."

The Glantz & House book "The Battle of Kursk (1999) was the primary source of information for this game. For the maps, we used "Atlas of the Battle of Kursk" (1997) that is available directly from Col. Glantz. While much of the map information in the atlas is the same as in the book he co-authored with House, the atlas has 74 maps, presenting great detail including daily situations map. All these are shown on easy to read and uncluttered 11x17 inch page format. In some of the operation areas, the unit positions and defenses are laid out on copies of 1:50,000 scale topographic sheets. As far as we can ascertain, these are the most detailed battle maps available anywhere for Kursk, and were far easier to use than those in the published sources.

I'd be remiss in not mentioning one additional source of info not yet available to the public. A few years previously, I became aware of a book being written entitled "Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka". I contacted the author; Christopher A. Lawrence of The Dupuy Institute, we discussed a number of issues surrounding Kursk via email. Chris is extremely knowledgeable on the battle and recounted information he had learned from touring the battlefield himself as well as from extensive research from German and Soviet military archives. This book, which will be of interest to East Front military history fans, will be published by Westview Press. It should be available in the Fall 2003.

Looking over the list of scenarios we're presenting in the game may cause some people to ask about other battles that occurred in, or around, our game map during different time periods such as, the Orel Counter Offensive, Operation Rumyetsev, or even Manstein's Backhand Blow. These we consider as separate battles, and if players wish to build them with the editing tools that are included with the game, that's great. In fact, designers will find there have been some interesting changes and additions to these tools with the Kursk game. At some later time, we could combine pieces of our Kharkov map with our new huge Kursk map, and then, maybe add on parts like the Mius River to create another game covering these campaigns. This would involve more research, a new OOB, and all depends on the desire of the public to support the effort needed to produce another title in the series, in this interesting area of the Russian Front.

However, for this game we focus on Kursk, the German attack on the bulge in the lines in early July 1943. For this, the fighting was mainly the attacks at the top of the bulge by the Ninth Army, and at the bottom by Army Group South. We've included a very large Full Campaign, for those who want to investigate the bigger picture. And we've included smaller campaigns, covering the North and South battles separately, as well as smaller Day One actions. We have also created scenarios at the high water mark, in each of the critical sectors, and trust with these you will have all you need to explore the Battle of Kursk.