I've actually changed my opinion on the system a little bit after downloading the latest rules, which have helped to clarify a few issues and I think now make the game more playable. I also got an opportunity to play about with 'Canadian Crucible' from the same series, again using the latest rules, and that also is an interesting game.
They came up with a clever and crisp infography for their charts and tables, which summarises pretty well the essentials to get going. I feel like I can play from the charts and not rely much on the rules. Something else I appreciate very much, even if playing it solo, is that there is very little downtime thanks to the alternate activation system. I also like the rules that force you to move into and out of "road column" formation. I can think some people may find that ridiculously overcomplicated, but it does give the game flair and kind of feels right.
But this was a TCS thread after all
I think it is a great system, but it is a *lot* of work to get going. The kind of effort that needs ample space for an extended period of time - I played it on a wargaming club, btw.
The book you cite is quite interesting too, as it essentially takes on interviews with crusty old blue shirts which I am afraid painted in rosy tones the role played by the Blue division in the Leningrad front. I read the preface (available via Amazon) and the authors sound like they took for granted what the "custodians" of the memory of the Blue division wanted to be remembered. For instance, when I read that they were most grateful to Ramon Serrano Sunyer rings alarm bells. Serrano Sunyer was a very important figure, and Franco's brother-in-law, in the early stages of the Francoist regime who was summarily ditched when it was apparent that Spain would have to deal with the Allies in the future rather than with Nazi Germany. He is also notorious for his sometimes hilarious self-aggrandizement (and the Blue Division was one of his pet projects).
A 2004 book which is considered to be the "state-of-the-art" is this one
https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Division-Spanish-1941-1945-Academic/dp/1845197682This book, translated from the original Spanish, is the primary academic and historical study of the Blue Division -- a Falangist initiative involving the dispatch of some forty-thousand Spanish combatants (over a half of whom paid with their lives, health, or liberty) to the Russian Front during the Second World War.
Xavier Moreno Julia does not limit himself to relating their deeds under arms, but also analyses -- for the first time -- the political background in detail: the complex relations between the Spanish government and Hitler's Germany; the internal conflicts between the Falangists and the Army; the rise and fall of Franco's brother-in-law, Minister Ramon Serrano Suner, who inspired the Blue Division and became the second most powerful person in Spain; and the attitude of General Agustin Munoz Grandes, commander of the Blue Division, who was encouraged by Berlin to seriously consider the possibility of taking over the reins of Spanish power.
In the end, there were 45,500 reasons that led to joining the Blue Division -- one for each young man who decided to enlist. To understand all of the complex reasons behind their military service under German command is impossible at this juncture. It is an irrecoverable past that lies in Spanish cemeteries and on the Russian steppes.
This book, based on massive documentation in German, British and Spanish archives, is an essential source of information to understand Spain in the 1940s -- an epoch when the Caudillo's power and the regime's good fortune were less secure than is often believed.
A good documentary - in Spanish only I am afraid - that covered the experience of those young volunteers (as well as the Italian blackshirts and International Brigadists that fought in the Spanish Civil War) is this one
https://vimeo.com/23249793Spanish military history can be described very shortly as "trying to do too much with too little". The operational history of the Blue division, at least until they weeded out the slackers, reflects this often at the tactical level. Early on, the unit history was rife with the same kind of fiascos involving the Spanish arms during the 19th and early 20th century. To wit, over-promoted, egotistical commanders in chief leading troops to disaster (look up "Annual Disaster 1921") or mismanaging completely the strategic and operational situation (look up too the, the complete mess that were the campaigns in Cuba and the Philippines in 1898 for historical context), which are in part the very same reasons for the frankly pathetic performance against the Napoleonic invasion in 1808-09. The constant in all these episodes is that despite all odds, Spanish soldiers (and some commissioned officers, which actually cared about their jobs) proved to have a lot of fight in them in spite of shocking lack of materiel (like the stand by Gen. Vara de Rey force at El Caney in 1898).
