Afrika Korps

The Afrika Korps or German Africa Corps (German: Deutsches Afrikakorps, DAK  listen ) was the German expeditionary force in Africa during the North African Campaign of World War II. First sent as a holding force to shore up the Italian defense of their African colonies, the formation fought on in Africa, under various appellations, from March 1941 until its surrender in May 1943. The term "Afrika Korps" is actually pseudo-German (so-called "cod-German"), deriving from an incomplete German title, which was in any case written as a single word. The German term referred solely to the initial formation, the Deutsches Afrikakorps (DAK), which formed part of the Axis command of the German and Italian forces in North Africa. However, the name stuck, with both news media and Allied soldiers, as the name for all subsequent German units in North Africa. The reputation of the Afrika Korps is closely associated with that of its original commander, Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel.

Organization

Afrika Korps (game)

Afrika Korps is a two-player wargame published by the Avalon Hill Game Company in 1963-1964 and re-released in 1965 and 1977. Played on a mapboard depicting the northern coastline of eastern Libya and western Egypt, the game follows Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps and their Italian allies as they fought back-and-forth campaigns against British forces in World War II.

The game uses small cardboard counters and the then newly popular hex-based movement system pioneered by Avalon Hill's D-Day in 1961. The mapboard's hexes represent terrain roughly ten to fifteen kilometers (six to nine miles) across, and the military units, represented by the cardboard counters, vary from regiment up to division size. The game's system emphasizes the importance of supply, particularly the variability of Afrika Korps' supply and reinforcements.

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