Some background
Historically wargames have been developed and played to train officers and to test war plans. The testing of war plans by wargames was used extensively by the Germans in the first half of the 20th century. After World War II, the technique of employing wargames as an analytic tool was further developed. With the advent of computers, wargamers acquired a tool that permitted more comprehensive and complex games to be played.
Panzer Combat II is a computer-assisted miniature wargame of World War II ground combat.
It is freely available for download at sourceforge.
What do you need to play? Miniature tanks of course! And a gaming terrain.
The game is suitable for different scales as distances are expressed in distance units. A distance unit corresponds to the length of a medium tank like the Sherman tank, or 5 meters in real world.
Which scale shall I use?
I often play in the 1:48 scale, available from manufactures like Tamiyatm and Gaso.linetm. In this scale a distance unit roughly corresponds to 10 cm. A wooded and hilly gaming terrain of at least 2 meters is required at this scale. The gaming terrain can be as simple as a piece of carpet with some books under it and stones on it to simulate hills and rocks. Add miniature houses, trees and painted rivers in order to improve gaming experience. If you play in 1:72 scale, you can download paper buildings freely from papertigerarmaments. Why not play outside? Panzer Combat II is available on both Windows and Mac OS X. I recommend the Acer Iconia Windows 7 tablet for playing outside.
Who is the game master?
In contrast with a computer wargame, Panzer Combat II does not recreate the battlefield inside the computer.
It uses the computer as a game master by storing the unit characteristics and applying the game rules.
It tracks unit status and distances and animates the game with sounds and voice.
The game is webcam enabled meaning that shooting is resolved with computer vision.
The external webcam is placed behind the unit selected for action (third-person shooter)
and aims at the target unit.
Object detection algorithms allow to estimate the distance to the target and to resolve fire damage.
Prepare for battle
Both players choose an alliance (Allied 
or Axis 
), select their miniatures and
the corresponding units on the Panzer Combat II main screen.
The miniatures are placed at strategic positions on the gaming terrain.
The start button is pressed switching Panzer Combat II from configuration mode to play mode.
Playing the game
Each turn a unit is randomly selected for action by the battlefield controller.
The owner of the unit should decide between the following actions :
Move : in any direction not further than the move range as specified by
the computer voice of Panzer Combat II :
"Sherman moves over 2 distance units".
Fire : on an enemy unit in line of sight.
You need to first select a target before the fire button is activated.
Move and fire : move not further than the move range as specified by
Panzer Combat II. You need to first select a target before the move and fire button is activated.
There is a penalty to the fire range when firing while moving
and the maximum a distance is reduced compared to the full move range.
Defend : this increases the defend value of the unit with one until the unit moves
(up to 3 additional defend points can be cumulated).
Use a tape graduated in distance units to measure move and fire ranges.
The terrain type limits the movement of particular troups.
For example, infantry and amphibian vehicles don't require a bridge to cross a river, but other vehicles do.
When firing, a laser beam can be used to determine if the target unit is in the line of sight of the attacking unit.
However when using a webcam for firing, this step is not required.
The USB camera is placed behind the unit selected for action (third-person shooter) and aims at the target unit.
Object detection algorithms allow to estimate the distance to the target and to resolve fire damage.
When a target is destroyed you can mark it with a piece of cotton simulating the smoke plume of the burning unit
Victory is obtained when all enemy units are destroyed.
Playing distributed
If you like, you can play PanzerCombat II with 2 tablets or portables.
At start-up Panzer Combat II checks for other computers running Panzer Combat II on the same network.
The first computer to start the game transfers the selected units of both camps to the other computer.
From that moment game actions can be performed indifferently on both computers : both will remain in sync.
Watch on YouTube.
Card-played version
Panzer Combat II was first developed as game rules to be played with combat cards.
The rules of the card-played version of Panzer Combat II and thre combat card creator tool
are available here.