The German player must use his initial advantage to open a corridor to 6th Army. The Soviet player will react quickly, but must first withstand a powerful enemy attack before he can bring powerful reinforcements to bear.

The game scale is two miles per hex. Each turn represents 12 hours. Units vary in size from Companies to Army (headquarters only). Designer Mark Stille performed intensive research during the design. The German OOB is drawn from the actual War Diary of the 4th Panzerarmee and from the incomparable "Stalingrad" by Manfred Kehrig, a detailed German-language book on the subject. The USSR OOB is drawn from a superb 1943 Soviet General Staff study, and the Kehrig work.