This my eighteenth in a series of posts on the Six-Day War. See the previous post from the series, the new master post, or go all the way back to the original master post.
The reason I find myself immersed in Six-Day War games is that I got it in my head to buy Middle East 67. After much preamble, I finally broke out my new purchase to play it.
![](https://ettubluto.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/golan1.jpg?w=1024)
Recall that I had played this game before, just with the tablet version. The last time I looked at it, I did so through a comparison between TOAW and Middle East 67 when playing with the same battle (Israel’s attack into the Sinai). The two games are very similar models and, for the scenario in question, nearly the same scale. I remain convinced that ME67 is best seen as an alternative to TOAW, when one is in sort of that mood but not quite. ME67 has the advantage of more dedicated development and scenario design, entirely focused on a specific time period(s?) and locality.
Most of what I had to say back then applies to this scenario as well. One detail over which I will disagree with my 2020 self is that I am back to liking those night turns.
It probably goes without saying but the big difference this time around is that I’m now running the PC version of the game. Beyond that, it is also an enhanced version of the title through WDS’s acquisition of the Tiller intellectual property. The combination* of the two vastly improves the experience that I had a few years back on my tablet. For example, one item I’d not used before is the color-coding for organization that I’ve turned on in the below screenshot. I do like it.
![](https://ettubluto.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/golan2.jpg?w=1024)
Of course, not all graphical doo-dads are useful. The screen a couple of paragraphs down shows the use of graphical “counters” which can be substituted for the NATO markings (the latter are used by default). Although there is no loss of information, I find that the little drawings take away from my playing experience. No point in complaining about having options, though, even if I choose not to use them.
One option that has long baffled me in this series is the retention of the 3D view, which seems only partially supported. When John Tiller and his team parted ways with Talonsoft, they also dropped the feature of the Battleground series of games where attractive** perspective-models of the units could be displayed on an isometric hex grid. The post-Talonsoft games retain the 3D view but replace the graphics with a (presumably) easier to render, but less aesthetic version. For (as an example) Horse and Musket era games, the “3D” models are intended to look like tabletop miniatures. For this series, they are, instead, “3D” versions of cardboard counters.
Whatever advantages come from the ability to see a terrain features represented in the vertical I am willing to forgo so I don’t have to look at those 3D units.
![](https://ettubluto.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/golan3.jpg?w=1024)
As a whole, I come away from this Gaining the Golan scenario with a positive experience. ME67, this time around, seems to present a good balance between simplicity of presentation and detail in modeling. As I wrote before, units are simplified. A tank battalion, in ME67, consists entirely of tanks. This may be an oversimplification but it also means that it is that much easier to intuitively grasp the battle results. I know that if I started with 45 tanks and I lost two, I’ve now got 43 tanks. No need to count up jeeps, command cars, and small arms.
Gaining the Golan is also a scenario that meshes well with my understanding of the historical situation, being at the right scale to match with what I’ve read. The goals for the Israeli player, as represented by the victory locations, require breaking through the front lines and grabbing the territory of the Golan Heights before the armistice calls it all to a halt. I’ll contrast it to last time, when I complained that I did not get the feel of the historical battle. It probably helps with this impression that TOAW doesn’t have its own Golan Heights scenario. It is ME67 or bust!
![](https://ettubluto.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/golan4.jpg?w=698)
While I was at it, I popped open the Steel Panthers take on the Golan Heights, Tel Faher. This scenario covers the opening attack on June 9th at the very northern end of the front (roughly in front of the 50 VP location at the top of that very first screen). It was, from the Steel Panthers perspective, an enjoyable experience. In part, enjoyment flowed from playing the two games back to back.
Having control down to the individual vehicle sheds some light on ME67‘s abstract commands like “on foot” and “travel mode.” The strengths and weaknesses of armor, halftracks, and soldiers-on-foot relative to the defenses that they are trying to breach can be educational when observed at the detailed level.
As always, I note the divergence between the massive bloodletting that results from my game play and the more moderate historical KIAs, which tallied in the dozens on both sides. The assault on Tel Faher was, by many measures, a bloody fight. Israel, in particular, had losses in both men and material approaching 1/3 (depending on how you measure) of engaged forces. My game produced much higher losses. By the end of it all, I only had two fully-functional tanks, with which I did take the Syrian position.
As always (again), I think one big factor is that the Syrian defenders did not fight as hard as their “data” says they could have. According to a Syrian Army report (Wikipedia cites Six Days of War by Michael B. Oren), a failure in leadership led to the Syrians retreating from the position, something that the little Steel Panthers men won’t generally do. That is, it seems likely that the digital Syrian defenders are more tenacious than their historical counterparts.
In any case, this is an example of a Steel Panthers scenario that gives a fair proxy of the fight that it is modeling. The fighting in question took approximately three hours on June 9th which, given the various caveats about turn length versus scenario length, suggests the scenario models the historical fighting one-to-one. And while I suffered greater than historical losses, part of that came from the trial-and-error it took me to get a sense of how to properly use the Israeli assets to their best effect. I am sure more diligent planning and more careful play could allow me to approximate Israel’s rapid, if costly, success.
Last, I’ll comment on an ME67 scenario that I’m not going to play – at least not now. The game has a “full war” scenario for the Six-Day War. I’m not going to swear by it, but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t one of the options in the tablet version. Given ME67‘s combination of detail and abstraction, I think this would be a very interesting application of the engine and I have higher hopes for this games’ treatment than I do for the TOAW full-war scenario, which I also have not yet played.
Maybe someday.
*I’ve not attempted to distinguish between what went in when. There are scenarios and features that might have been on my tablet, but I overlooked them at the time. Other additions were clearly part of the more-expensive PC edition all along. Certain improvements, graphical facelifts for example, look like a recent addition to me. I’m just going to lump them all together for the sake of this write-up.
**So beauty may be in the eye of the beholder. Despite not showing it in my most recent screenshots from Campaign Series: Middle East, I still heavily use the 3D graphics during play and really do like moving the little tanks around.