What was the first

[jivemi]

Sid Meier's Civil War Collection plus John Tiller's Normandy and Kharkov in 2001. The Civil War battles (Gettysburg and Antietam) were fascinating at the time, a major drawback being the inability to hit more than one regiment in a mass so if you missed that particular target you didn't hit anything. Tiller was OK if you like operational level, although the AI there had a problem with using reinforcements. Also it took too long to wipe out a unit with less than about 100 guys left.