Part of History of 1990s Computer Games.

Steel Panthers Wargame

Developed by SSI in 1995-97, Steel Panthers is a tactics-level turn-based wargame for MS-DOS. The Steel Panthers franchise is notable for its historical realism and complex combined arms tactics. In its campaign and scenarios, Steel Panthers treats the Western Front of the Second World War as well as other large-scale battlefields in Europe and the Pacific.

• Steel Panthers (1995)
• Steel Panthers II: Modern Battles (1996)
• Steel Panthers III: Brigade Command (1997)
• Steel Panthers: World at War (Windows 95, 2000) [1]

Steel Panthers displays in 256-color square-pixel SVGA 640x480. Running on MS-DOS 5.0, Steel Panthers requires an Intel 80486 DX2-66 MHz with 8 megs of RAM and 512 kbytes vRAM.

Since Panzer General 1994 has already outlined the basics of mid-90s wargames on MS-DOS (turn-based combined-arms tactics played out on hexgrids), I will only commentate on Steel Panthers in so far as it differs from Panzer.

The main difference between the two lies in Game Options and Rules Detail. Whereas Panzer General is more of an entry-level wargame, Steel Panthers primarily targets grognards.

As in Panzer, Panthers features both Campaign and Scenario modes of play. However, Panthers features two Campaign modes (European and Pacific), more scenarios (60 vs. 38) and a Battle Mode as well.

Campaign (Europe):

Scenarios (Europe & Pacific): Scenarios can be advances, assaults or meeting engagements.

In Long Campaigns players can choose to control the forces of any major WWII participant via nationality selection, not just Axis forces (as in Panzer). Players may choose:

U.S. Army, U.S. Marines, British, German, Soviet, Japanese.

Depending on participant chosen, unit availability and scenarios vary.

Following participant selection, players are given a pool of points that are used to purchase Core units. Categorized as Armor, Artillery, Infantry and Misc., a max of 24 units of any combo can be purchased.

Each unit category offers a selection of several units each of which offer variations as well. For example, there are 14 types of British tank and even three British Commando setups on offer. An infantry type, Commandos can be on-foot, motorized (trucks) or mechanized (APC).

As well, a separate point-pool is given for up to 24 Support units (called Auxiliary units in Panzer). As in Panzer, Core units are those that take part in each scenario in succession, gaining experience points along the way. Gaining XP is all about leveling a unit from Green to Veteran status: Veteran units fire more accurately and at a higher rate than Greens. However, XP progression is slow in that (for example) a unit yielding a killcount of five gains only one experience point (and units need 80 XP to reach Veteran status).

It is important to note that one is purchasing formations, not individual units. For example, one purchase of a British Armored Car is a purchase of three Daimler or Humber units. And when formation mode is switched on during combat, those three cars will move in formation (that is, together as one).

During Support unit purchasing, the nationality of the enemy is known and the exact location of battle and mission-type is given (e.g, an Advance or a Defense). Take the British in Long Campaign mode, for example. In the first North African scenario (the exact location of which varies), they may need to defend against a German armor advance. But in another game, they may need to assault a dug-in Italian force consisting of infantry and artillery.

In deployment mode, each unit is placed on any hex up to the battlefield halfway mark. The terrain may be surveyed, waypoints can be set, units can be entrenched (sandbags and foxholes) and minefields and dragon's teeth can be built (which can only be removed by engineer infantry).

Panthers features sprawling maps that far exceed Panzer's in hex-dimensions. Forest or desert, each landscape becomes cratered by bombardments, concealed by smoke and littered with flattened buildings and smoldering tank wreckages.

Also featured are terrain destruction via bombing (craters) and building destruction (tanks can roll right over buildings). In addition, units have locational defense and damage (e.g., the four hulls of tanks, their tracks and the four sides of their turrets).

As regards time scale, one turn represents "a few minutes" (in Panzer, one turn represents one day). That is because Panthers is a tactics-level wargame whereas Panzer is an operations-level one. In real-time play, the battles in Panthers take a lot longer to conclude (about an hour if one is gunning for decisive victories and low casualty rates).

Left-clicking units selects them and shows their movement potential in highlighted hexes (a hex being a tile that represents 50x50m of terrain). In addition are given unit status, no. of shots (ammo), movement points, range, suppression and enemy awareness of unit location. If suppression is equal to or greater than 2, units can be rallied.

Units can be pinned down, immobilized and routed; they may also surrender. However, Japanese infantry and U.S. Marines never surrender.

Unit range of fire (which includes opportunity fire) can be tailored in no. of hexes, and unit combat-effectiveness is modifed by morale that is determined by the proximity of section and battalion leaders to the units. And leaders are constituted by four command stats: Rally and Infantry, Artillery and Armor command.

Left-clicking on a hex around a unit rotates the unit on its hex of occupation, showing its LoS in highlighted hexes. LoS is restricted by obstructions and terrain undulation (a tank positioned on a hill can see many more hexes than one on the flats).

Right-clicking units calls up their stats and mousing-over units or hexes displays coordinates, terrain-type, terrain-height and undulation (flat, sloping, rough etc.)

Attack mode is indicated by red cross-hairs that appear when rival units are moused-over. If message level is set to "high", chance to hit (to-hit chance aka hit probability) is shown. To hit-chance is modified by the map-wide visibility stat (weather).

Post-battle a score is given, leaders are replaced or promoted, and units gain experience points and can be repaired or changed. A campaign summary is also given before moving on to the next scenario.

This shows some unit stats from a Desert Storm-like scenario in Steel Panthers 2:

Steel Panthers Criticism

• Game settings are not saved in savegame files (even Civ1 of 1991 does that)
• You shouldn't be able to change difficulty settings on-the-fly (-100 grognard points)
• The graphics are not great by 1995-97 standards (almost construction set-like in their generic appearance -- and I'm talking early 90s construction sets)
• The UI and presentation of the game are bereft of style and graphics pedigree -- the opposite to Panzer. I never liked the look and feel of Panthers at all; there is something "off" about it.
• UI modes waste a lot of screenspace
• There is no reviewable combat feedback window (-100 grognard points)
• Campaign mode Turn Limits are rerolled when savegames are reloaded (fixed in [1])

If you can get past Panthers' terrible presentation and average UI controls, there is an unmatched combined-arms tactical depth to be discovered.

To put it another way, Panthers' professional rules pedigree is presented in a Shareware-like manner.

It doesn't ruin the game, though.

[1]

Steel Panthers Versions

Direct sequels to the original Steel Panthers, Steel Panthers 2 and 3 offer new campaigns and scenarios on more or less the same game engine.

Steel Panthers 2 (1950-1999) adds hidden fire and indirect fire; also increasing firepower, lethality and range of units to match its more modern scenarios (e.g., Apache helicopters).

Steel Panthers 3 increases the scale from individuals units to platoons. It also adds configurable AI.

Steel Panthers 1-3 are MS-DOS games that run in 640x480 VGA 256 colors:

Steel Panthers: World at War

Coded for Windows 95, the feature-rich Steel Panthers: World at War runs in 800x600 as opposed to 640x480 resolution. Thanks to the fidelity increase UI modes are more informative, and the graphics are more detailed across the board (but both could still be a lot better).

World at War employs the Steel Panthers 3 engine and offers new scenarios as well, but it employs the original Steel Panthers campaign within the SP3 engine.

Mechanics-wise, most notable is the employment of an Armor Penetration System that replaces the abstracted armor ratings system employed by previous SP games. APS takes into account the projectile's angle of impact and the thickness of the target armor in millimetres.

In SPWaW, one hex represents 50 yards and 1 turn represents a few minutes.

Back to: Turn-based Strategy Games.