Voice of the Arabs:
Design Notes
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
June 2023

I’ve designed or published a great many hex-and-counter wargames, and over that time, I’ve come to believe that they can be a fine venue for telling stories. That’s what lies at the heart of any game, after all: the story.

Our Panzer Grenadier (Modern): 1967 Sword of Israel is a big, fairly hard-core game of tactical combat in the June 1967 Six-Day War. The Israelis, with numbers, firepower, training, leadership, air power and morale on their side, rolled over the Arab armies of Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. Their conquest of Sinai, the West Bank and the Golan Heights would set the political map of the Middle East, and by extension the rest of the world, for the next half-century and more.

That’s the story the world learned in June 1967, and that you’ll find in any history of the war, the Middle East, or the modern world. It’s not, however, what the Egyptian people heard in June 1967. According to the Voice of the Arabs radio station, a powerful Arab-language news channel beaming out its signal across the Middle East, Northern Africa and Southern Europe, it was the Egyptian National Army that was rolling, along with their Jordanian sidekicks.

Ahmed al-Said, manager and lead announcer of Voice of the Arabs, did not exactly invent hate radio. But he did elevate it to new heights as an instrument of state policy. The Egyptian General Staff provided updates for Said based on their actual battle plans, including actual locations and identities of Egyptian units. Once the Israelis figured this out, they used that data to smash them. All the while, Said kept unknowingly giving them targeting updates not only for the Egyptians but the Jordanians and Iraqis – rushing to the aid of their Arab brothers – as well.

Ahmed al-Said and the Voice of the Arabs – the Rush Limbaugh of the Nile – did not single-handedly win the war for Israel. But they certainly helped. It wasn’t all Said’s fault; the Egyptian general staff was feeding the same Big Lie to their Jordanian allies, who took it at face value.

When I re-developed 1967: Sword of Israel for its new Playbook edition, I also had to double-check its historical research. That’s where I ran across Said’s story (some of the Jordanian leadership left memoirs, and they didn’t think it was a funny story). And I realized that I could write another version of the game, one that took Said’s lunatic ravings at face value.

That’s the essence of 1967: Voice of the Arabs, a Campaign Study (what we call our small scenario books) for 1967: Sword of Israel. There’s the story of the radio broadcasts, and then 11 new scenarios for the game.

In these scenarios, the Israelis are still really good: this is the IDF at its peak, a master of armored warfare and not too shabby in other areas, too. But there are some differences, chiefly, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) does not have control of the skies. In the real war, the IAF destroyed the Egyptian Air Force in the war’s first hour, but in Said’s version it was the other way around. In the game’s standard scenarios, it’s the Israelis who almost exclusively receive air support, but in the Said version, the Egyptians and Jordanians are the only ones who get to bomb their enemies.

Voice of the Arabs, the radio station, described the Egyptians and Jordanians as highly competent, and so does Voice of the Arabs, the scenario book. They get the same benefits of what the game system calls “efficiency” as the Israelis, plus better leadership (more leaders on the map) and improved initiative and morale (these “soft” factors aren’t shown on the game pieces, but are described in the scenario setup, so they’re pretty easy to alter in game play).

They already have, for the most part, better weapons and equipment than the Israelis. The Israelis have better infantry firepower but the Egyptians wield the Soviet-designed and Czech-made T55 medium tank, which also arms the Warsaw Pact’s front-line armored divisions at this time. The Jordanians have American-made M48 Patton tanks. The Israelis have some Pattons and some British-made Centurion tanks, but half of their tank force is made up of World War II-era Sherman tanks that have been re-armed and refurbished for a new generation. In short, they’ve been quite literally looting Europe’s junkyards in search of tanks.

The Syrians aren’t included in Voice of the Arabs, because Said’s rants didn’t include them, either. Neither Cairo nor Amman trusted Damascus, seen as a rogue regime dedicated to chaos rather than the cause of secular Arab nationalism. And they were probably right: the regime used a Soviet-conducted survey of the Army’s young officers to identity the best and brightest, and then had them executed before they could use those skills to overthrow the regime. Instead, they promoted the stupidest and laziest, who would be no threat to lead a revolution.

Panzer Grenadier (Modern) is a sister to our long-running Panzer Grenadier series of World War II tactical combat games. Units are platoons for the most part (30-40 men or five tanks); the maps are divided into hexagons (“hexes”) that show a piece of ground 200 meters across. Leaders drive the action: the side with more and better leaders has distinct advantages, as their guys will be able to do more things, more often. The game rewards patience and planning; you’ll need all three combat arms (infantry, artillery and armor) working in concert to reach your objectives.

Play is highly interactive; the side with initiative (representing their organization and higher leadership) gets to do more things, but both players get to react to one another. It’s not a difficult game to play, as hex-and-counter wargames go, but it’s not Risk, either.

But once you’ve mastered it, the whole Panzer Grenadier library is open to you. Dozens of games and expansions that you already know how to play let you storm the beaches of Normandy, fight on the steppes of Ukraine, contest Pacific island jungles or North African deserts. Panzer Grenadier has visited every continent except North America and Antarctica, and we are far from done.

And there’s always room for a visit to the warped world of the Voice of the Arabs.

You can order Voice of the Arabs right here.

Arab-Israeli Package
      1967: Sword of Israel (Playbook)
      IDF: Israel Defense Forces
      Voice of the Arabs
Retail Price: $147.97
Package Price: $120
Gold Club Price: $96
You can experience the Arab-Israeli Package right here.

Sign up for our newsletter right here. Your info will never be sold or transferred; we'll just use it to update you on new games and new offers.

Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published an unknowable number of books, games and articles on historical subjects. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children and his new puppy. He will never forget his dog, Leopold.

Want to keep Daily Content free of third-party ads? You can send us some love (and cash) through this link right here.

.