Drive on Kursk: July 1943

About this board game

Drive on Kursk: July 1943 is a two-player board game about the Kursk battle, presented in a third-edition design by Ty Bomba and released in 2008.

Each player determines the phase sequence their own forces will use during their turn. This central system makes the order of operations a strategic choice rather than a fixed routine.

Players may select from four possible sequences:

• Movement followed by combat
• Combat followed by movement
• Two movement phases
• Two combat phases

Choosing movement first can create opportunities before fighting, while beginning with combat may let a player act before repositioning. Selecting two phases of the same type offers a more concentrated approach, but every option changes how the turn unfolds.

Drive on Kursk: July 1943 is the third edition of the Kursk game originally published by old-SPI in the early 1970s. The first edition used the proto-system devised by James F. Dunnigan for the France 1940 title published early in S&T.

The game was later redesigned as the second edition, retitled Eric Goldberg’s Kursk: History’s Greatest Tank Battle, July 1943. This edition continues the system’s evolution through the Road to Ruin titles Drive on Stalingrad and Drive on Moscow.

For two players interested in a Kursk game with flexible turn sequencing, the choice between moving and fighting—and how often to do either—forms the heart of the design.