Reviewed by Michael Peck
The Military Book Review

The games have tanks. The games are free. The games are fun. Does life get better than this?

Steel Panthers: Main Battle Tank (SPMBT) and Steel Panthers: World at War (SPWAW) are fairly similar. Both are based on an out-of-print 1990s game called Steel Panthers, from the prolific but now extinct Strategic Simulations Inc. Both can be downloaded from the Internet, and neither requires a high-end computer with a fast graphics card.

SPMBT and SPWAW show 2-D, top-down views of individual tanks and artillery, with squads and teams of infantry, engineers, commandos, etc. The infantry look like an outbreak of measles, but the armor graphics are an expression of model-making love, down to authentic camouflage on the tanks.

Unlike the first-person shooters or real-time clickfests that comprise today's tactical strategy games, Steel Panthers uses a hexagon-map, turn-based design in which players take turns moving and shooting. Tanks are the prime weapon, but the real trick is combined arms warfare that coordinates armor, infantry, artillery, combat engineers and close air support (the aircraft are as gorgeous as the tanks). Woe to the Patton wannabe who charges his unsupported tanks into a nest of infantry anti-tank teams!

The heart of the game system is morale. Fire inflicts losses and suppression, which reduces a unit's capacity to move and fight. Every unit has a morale rating, and higher-morale units will shrug off suppression. Playing an Arab-Israeli scenario quickly shows why the Israeli army was able to fight outnumbered and win.

The games are a blast to play, which is why they have attracted dedicated fans who churn out new scenarios. Partisans of each game will claim that theirs is the best, but the average gamer won't notice that much difference. Perhaps the biggest distinction is that SPWAW focuses on World War II, while SPMBT strictly focuses on post-World War II combat (though there is a separate World War II version).

Both games have basic versions that can be downloaded for free. CDs with more campaigns can be purchased online. SPMBT can be found at http://linetap.com/www/drg/SPCamo-4.htm. SPWAW can be downloaded at http://www.matrixgames.com/default.asp?URL=http%3A//www.matrixgames.com/support/downloads-sp.asp