It is my signal honor today to award Operation Whirlwind author Roger Damon the Distinguished Wargamers Cross, complete with oak leaf clusters for Extraordinary Design Services to frustrated armchair legionnaires everywhere. I am certain I will not be alone in so honoring him. For where many of his designer comrades' games have saddled us with tons of meaningless and annoying detail, dozens of disparate units to co-ordinate, and movement/fire-command systems that are as unwieldy as their boardgame ancestors, Damon's Operation Whirlwind plays like a dream: lean, mean, just complex enough to keep you fascinated, and so fast and nasty that you may find it next to impossible to keep a cool head during some of the wilder firefights.

If there are any secrets to Whirlwind's perfection, they probably lie in the type of highly-mobile combat and tactical-level scale Damon chose to model: World War II Blitzkrieg-style mechanized ground warfare, as conducted by a single infantry battalion reinforced with heavy artillery, high-speed tanks, combat engineers and long-range reconnaissance units. As Battalion Commander, your job is to take and hold a small town at one end of the scrolling terrain map (about six screens worth). Between you and your objective are 15 kilometers of enemy-held woods, fields, roads, small buildings and villages, two almost impassable rivers with bombed-out bridges and an unknown number of highly determined defenders, backed up by a constant artillery barrage coming from miles away. Since your command is only one of many spearheading an attack on a broad front, you've also got a timetable to meet -fail, and you'll be at the mercy of overwhelming forces that have broken through elsewhere.

Within this small scale (you command a grand total of 31 units) and with joystick-based command mechanics that are almost as easy to manipulate as Defender, Whirlwind manages to put you in the middle of a realistic depiction of every single tactical situation -short of managing a field kitchen- I've ever heard about or seen in any other game. Every terrain feature affects your cover/movement/fire/assault capabilities in some way-right down to the rivers, which can be crossed easily without a bridge by infantry and recon, but not by tanks, and provide good cover for all three. All the computer-controlled enemy units (which vary widely in endurance and aggressiveness) start out hidden; the only way to find them is to send the hapless recon boys out to draw their fire. Badly mauled units can dig in for extra cover or to regroup-but while they can still fire while dug in, they can't move or assault and they never regain their original strength. The list goes on, and almost every detail has a real bearing on your overall strategy. Your light tanks, for instance, are the fastest and toughest units on the map-but let them outrun your infantry and you'll leave the grunts to die, and probably find the tanks themselves being cut to pieces during the withering house-to-house fighting in the town.

There'll be no original strategy tip for you here. Damon and Broderbund have capped a great game with an even better manual containing eight solid pages of well-written and useful strategy tips. Whirlwind, like the conflict it models, isn't unique or wildly original. But as a synthesis of the best of what wargames have to offer, it has no peer.