Kharkov 1942 Map for Deep Battle with 20km hexes

I’ve drawn a new map for the Second Battle of Kharkov with one hex per 20 km. As you probably know, I’m focussing on the Second Battle of Kharkov as I develop my thinking on Operational Wargaming and my own Deep Battle rule set. A map is an essential part of this.

The ground scale of Deep Battle is likely to be the same as for Tabletop Operational Wargame Inspired by Hell’s Gate. With the 4″ hexes that is a ground scale of 1:200,000 once on table and smaller on the map itself.

Once again my starting point for this exercise was the map for the Kharkov Board Game. Each hex on the board game map is 6.9km across. So I just made my hexes about 3 times bigger than those of the original. The result takes up about 4′ x 4′ of my 6’x4′ hex mat.

Kharkov 1942 Map for Deep Battle with 20km Hexes
Kharkov 1942 Map for Deep Battle with 20km Hexes

I’m happy with the result. I like it even more than the previous version I drew at 10 km per hex.

As I’ve mentioned on Operational Terrain 3: Experimenting on a 4 Inch Hex Grid I’ve gone for straight roads and railway lines. On my Kharkov 1942 Map for PanzerGruppe with 10km Hexes the roads and railway lines are naturally curved. This looks good on a map but once transposed to a table the same roads and railway lines end up dead straight and, more or less, from the centre of a hex to a centre of a hex. I’m okay with that. So rather than pretend the roads and railway lines would be curved on table I draw a map I’ll make the roads and railway lines straight on the map.

5 thoughts on “Kharkov 1942 Map for Deep Battle with 20km hexes”

  1. This looks very interesting. So I know you’ve posted various ruleset links before – but are you going to develop your own?
    I’m particularly interested in doing something at this scale for the Ardennes offensive – so will watch with interest.

    Reply
    • Duc, I am indeed working on my own. I’ll post a few things over the coming weeks – designer notes kind of thing – and then an early draft of the rules. My focus is the Eastern Front but I’m sure it will be transferable.

      Reply
    • For ideas on Bastogne, I suggest you look at the Command Decision rules and their Bastogne scenario book, and also perhaps something like Steve Jackson Games boardg ame “One Page Bulge”.

      Reply
    • The aim of Deep Battle is big historical campaigns fought on table in an evening. So yes, a single game.

      Reply

Leave a Reply