Operation Whirlwind

Operation Whirlwind

Designer: Brian Train
Publisher: Microgame Design Group
Type: Wargame
Status: Free
BGG entry: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/11289
Available at: http://wsmf.org/countermoves/Wip/mdc2002/OperationWhirlwind/
Also available in a 11.2MB zip file with all of the Microgame Design Contest 2002 games:
http://wsmf.org/countermoves/Wip/mdc2002/mdc2002.zip

The Hungarian Revolution of October 1956 took nearly everyone involved in it by surprise. In a few hours, a Stalinist-style secret police state installed by the Soviet Union fell and was replaced by a revolutionary government, nominally Communist but committed to political reform. The hope of Imre Nagy, the new Hungarian President, was to win a bloodless victory, through securing some kind of 'separate but equal' status inside the Warsaw Pact for his country - something similar to that enjoyed by Yugoslavia. His attempts to reduce or eliminate the domination of Hungary by the Soviet Union by diplomatic means and appealing to its own people and the international community for legitimacy showed this was not an impossible goal. The initial Soviet intervention in late October had actually failed and the troops were withdrawn, but scant days later negotiations failed and the military forces of the Soviet Union intervened massively once again to extinguish the renegade government. The operation was codenamed Operation Whirlwind.

Operation Whirlwind is a historical game on street battles between Hungarian rebels and Soviet invaders in November 1956. The game scale uses 8 hours per turn and units are roughly platoon to regiment scale.