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Europa Games and Military History

Author: chef (Page 2 of 30)

Tentatively Optimistic

January 8, 2026 / / 0 Comments

Good news, everyone! There is a new, official, “Europa” game company, formed by some veteran gamers and game designers, which acquired the trademark rights from Rich Banner. I know little more than whats in the announcement, so I will link to it and wish everyone involved a lot of success, for it would be great to take the old lady out to dance once more.

https://classiceuropa.groups.io/g/main/message/9712

I am delighted to see some news at all, look forward to what the company will release, and at the same time are a bit melancholic since I am not sure I will find partners – and time! to play Europa again soon. But this is good news indeed!

In Memoriam Ike Skelton

January 2, 2026 / / 0 Comments

And another small round of additions, this time based on another visit of the Ike Skelton Library Website, after a couple of google results showed us documents we had overlooked at our first trawl. The following manuals have been added:

FM 19-20 Criminal Investiation (1945)
 FM 44-95 Service of the Piece Multiple Gun Motor Carriages M15 and M15A1 (1944)
 FM 6-100 Tactics and Technique of Division Artillery and Higher Artillery Echelon (1944)
 FM 6-105 Armored Division Artillery (1944)
 FM 6-120 Field Artillery Observation Battalion (1945)
 FM 6-130 Field Artillry Intelligence (1945)
 FM 6-135 Forward Observation (1944)
 FM 6-195 Service of the Piece. 8-inch Gun M1 and 240-mm Howitzer M1 (1946)
 FM 6-77 Service of the Piece, 4.5-inch Gun M1 (1944)
 FM 6-77 Service of the Piece. 4.5-Inch Gun M1 (1941)
 FM 6-95 Field Artillery Field Manual. Service of the Piece. 240-mm Howitzer, M1918 (1940)
 FM 6-120 The Field Artillery Batallion (1952).pdf
 FM 6-122 Artillery Sound Ranging and Flash Ranging (1957).pdf
 FM 6-130 Field Artillry Intelligence (1948).pdf
 FM 6-20-2J Division Artillery, Field Artillery Brigade, and Corps Artillery Headquarters (1984).pdf
 FM 6-30 The Field Missle Battalion Corporal (1959).pdf
 FM 6-38 Field Artillery Missile (Sergant) (1962).pdf
 FM 6-50 Tactics and techniques for the Field Artillery Cannon Battery (C1) (1990).pdf
 FM 6-91 Service of the Piece 8 inch Howitzer, M2 Truck-Drawn  (1948).pdf
FM 101-10 Staff Officers Field Manual. Organization, Technical and Logistical Data (1945)
FM 101-10-2 Staff Officers’ Field Manual. Organizational, Technical and Logistical Data (1965)
FM 21-30 Concentional Signs, Military Symbols, and Abbrievations (1943)
FM 21-45 Protective Measures, Individuals and Small Units (1942)
FM 21-50 Military Courtesy and Discipline (1942)
FM 23-50 Browning Machine Gun, Caliber .30, HB, M1919A4 (1942)
FM 24-75 Telephone Switchboard Operating Procedure (1944)
FM 25-6 Dog Transportation (1944)
FM 30-15 Examination of Enemy Personnel Repatriates Documents (1940)
FM 30-25 Military Intelligence. Counterintelligence (1940)’
FM 31-25 Desert Operations (1942)
FM 31-50 Attack on a Fortified Position and Combat in Towns (1944)
FM 44-59 Service of the Piece–Multiple Gun Motor Carriage M15 and M15A1 (1944)

This brings the World War II manuals up to 403 manuals and 75% of all manuals known to us as existing. Happy New Year everyone! 

P.S.:

The Missing List has been updated, as well as the document summary. However, there are currently still a lot of errors in my master List (shouldn’t try doint this late at night all the time), so the missing list is not really reliable right now. We’re working to get things in order.

Another year at the ODL

December 30, 2025 / / 0 Comments

The free days over the holidays, when not spent with family, provided us opportunity for yet another round of research, reordering, and publishing. By no means done, we at least can present the first results: 

Anyway, enjoy the new material, and have a wonderful 2026!

Cavalry

November 17, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Today thanks are in order: Kevin Rose has kindly agreed to share and scan the trove of Field Manuals in his archive with us, so there are quite a couple of new documents, for example FM 17-95 Cavalry Operations in every iteration from 1977 to 1996. These, by the way, make a nice background reading for BattleOrders new Youtube video on Cavalry, if this recommendation is allowed here.

In any way, the amount of new manuals made it impossible to cram them into the 15 GB limit google offers for free.  So after discarding the post 2004-manuals, we created a second website for the World War II manuals of the US Army, which can be found here. The current time ist to add a couple of more websites with military training documents, and to link them via this website. For now, follow the link if you are looking for older manuals – the cold war FMs are still here, accessible on the menu on the left.

Uploads, Uploads!

November 16, 2025 / / 0 Comments

We just finished uploading a new revision to the collection. In the absence of a proper versioning database, this means deleting the complete drive and re-upping everything, a process which is less work intensive than renaming individual files and searching four doubles, after having done the work already on the loca drive.

Space was running low on this google account, so we decided to limit this collection to FMs created 1930-2004. The latter year is a good cutoff, because the US Army started a major reorganisation that year in the way their field manuals are written (and named), with the goal of reducing the number of field manuals and create at the same time a more diverse range of documents reflecting he increasing complexity of doctrinal layers. We are still in the process of assessing and sorting through newer manuals, and might upload them to another collection. For now, this one covers everything pre 2004.

The collection now comprises 1951 US Army Field Manuals with more than 12 GB of data. At this point, we have most of the field manuals published up to the end of World War II, with most missing files being either versions of manuals already there, or covering topics that continue to be secretive, such as nuclear and chemical weapons, or intelligence.

For the time between 1946 and 2004 we have 77% of all manuals currently known to us, which also constitutes a solid body on which to start any reading into US military doctrine in that timeframe.

Here are the sites:

US Army Field Manuals from World War Two

US Army Field Manuals from the Cold War

US Army Field Manuals since 2000

Europa in new old hands

November 6, 2025 / / 4 Comments

News, actual news, actually news about Europa – who would have thought. John Astell posted on the Europa-Mailing-List: After two decades of HMS sitting on Europa and getting nothing done, something is moving – Arthur Goodwin and Gar Olmsted have handed the rights to Europa back to Paul R. “Rich” Banner, the original creator of the trademark. At this point it is unclear what that means, but in case of Europa, currently any news are good news.

Here is the press release in full:

For Immediate Release

The Europa Series

The Europa Series of division level-military operations in World War II in Europe was, and is, a staggering undertaking. Between 1973 and 1989, the legendary GDW Game Designers’ Workshop produced eleven magnificent die-cut counter and hex grid map wargames covering every major operation in Europe: The East Front, the West Front, operations in Norway, in Poland, the Balkans, and in Africa.

Europa has provided hours of enjoyment for its fans across the decades, and we want it to continue to do that while attracting new fans. HMS Historical Military Services of Denver Colorado has been the steward of the Europa properties over the past two decades, and Gar Olmsted and Arthur Goodwin (and a host of others) have worked their hearts out on Europa and its associated concepts. But health and age have finally brought that stewardship to an end, and Europa has returned to its original series creator (and CS Roberts Hall of Fame designer) Paul R. “Rich” Banner.

Europa fandom is an important part of this game series mystique: over the decades, its players and backers have been both dedicated and supportive. For example, the readers of Campaign Magazine, in 1975, voted the first Europa title: Drang Nach Osten! Quote: “The Best Game of All Time!” We’re trying to live up to that reputation.

In every end is a beginning, and the Europa Series is now preparing to intrigue and entertain a new generation of wargamers. Watch this space.
SF 42 1944 NOV II Axis Turn situation map, north
Situation map of the nothern theater of war on Nov II 1944 Axis turn in the SF42 game

The devastation of France

October 30, 2025 / / 0 Comments

David Smiths game report of an alternative world where the Allied decided to land in Southern France instead of North Africa is slowly nearing its conclusion, with the Allied slowly closing in on the Reich itself, despite the desperate Nazis preventing al kinds of units from transferring to the East, thereby significantly easing the war for the Soviets. The posts up to Dec I 44 are here and will be published over the course of November Tthis not only gives you a reason to come back, but more importantly me the time to check that all the files are complete and in order. Also, most of you will have read them on the mailing list already, anyway. In December we’ll reach the grand finale and tally up the VPs.

Read the game report of “SF42”.

The Historiography of Australia’s Air Force

October 27, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Today’s link recommendation is a blog post by Ross Mahoney tracing the inception of the official histories of the Australian Air Force, from the first volumes written about the Royal Australian Flying Corps in World War I to the present. These research notes are part of a larger bibliography of Australian Air Power which while out of the focus of this website, definitely deserves your attention.

The Historiography of Australian Air Power: Official Histories

Return to Mini Europa

August 21, 2025 / / 0 Comments

More than a decade ago, on the road to Grand Europa, Allan Tibbetts and some others did enough research to connect War in the Desert with Second Front, thereby creating an extended Scenario that would enable us to play the whole of the Western Front from November 1942 and the Allied landings in Africa to the end. David Smith has taken another shot at the issue, updating the Orders of Battle, integrating modern naval rules, and playtesting the whole monster.

David has kindly agreed to us publishing his game report, and so far we’ve put the first couple of turns and initial forces online. Expect more to come in the upcoming weeks.

Read the game report of “SF42”.

 

Downloading…

August 4, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Currently the Europa mailing list is pretty active, and we received a request to maybe host the JET/Jet replacement files. As a small preparation, we’ve uploaded all recent Vassal modules and all Errata sheets we could find onto a new Google drive, and updated most of the game pages with links to those files. The result is depressingly unremarkable, considering that alone took basically a days work. But such is life with WordPress, and besides, we haven’t done maintenance on the site apart from the technical updates for a while, so it was a good thing to start reviewing some pages. And the files are now up, and the system can be easily extended.

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