Lost Battles: Operational Combat in Russia

Lost Battles: Operational Combat in Russia is a board wargame published in 1971 by Simulations Publications Inc., commonly known as SPI, one of the most prolific wargame publishers of the period. The game simulates hypothetical operational combat situations set in the Soviet Union during the Second World War, letting two players direct opposing forces across a stylized representation of the Eastern Front rather than reconstructing one single historical battle. One player commands Soviet forces while the opponent commands German forces, following the two sided structure typical of SPI's operational level wargame designs from this era. The game was designed by Jim Dunnigan, a central figure in the early development of commercial conflict simulation games, with graphic design credited to Redmond A. Simonsen, whose work helped define SPI's visual house style across its wargame catalog. As a 1971 release, Lost Battles sits early in SPI's long run of Eastern Front and World War II operational titles, reflecting the company's sustained interest in using board wargames to model the scale and unpredictability of Soviet-German combat during the war.