Gaming the War that never was

By David Garvin

A few days ago, I received a game in the mail. It was a copy of , a magazine game from Strategy and Tactics magazine. This was published in 1983 and was set in the late 1980s. As I was setting the game up, I noted some obsolete terms, such as “USSR” and “Leningrad”.

I simply smiled and then out of curiosity I went to my games cupboard to have a look at my collection. The majority of my games are based on the Second World War; however, a sizable number of my games simulate combat between two factions, one of which no longer exists! Although some of my games date from the Cold War itself, such as those in the series, I have some that were made well after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989! This got me thinking: what is the appeal of simulating combat from a war that never happened? In this article, I will look at the history of these games and then wax philosophical as to why they keep such great appeal.

Considering games that speculated a Cold-War-Turned-Hot, there are two basic types. The first is the type that was developed during the Cold War itself. One of the first such games I could find in my research was . This was released in 1972 and it seems to be one of the earliest examples of a board wargame projecting a fight in the near future.

The designer, Jim Dunnigan, is no stranger to many board wargamers. He was the designer of Panzerblitz, arguably one of the most important tactical games ever developed. Though most of his over 100 games were simulations of battles fought, he did design games based on other hypothetical battles, such as 1980’s . Other games of this group include NATO: Operational Combat in Europe in the 1970s,  , Harpoon, and .

The latter title ended up with three more games in the series; players could link them into one massive game or could play each individually. The follow on games were: Arctic Front: Battle for Norway, , and Southern Front: Race for the Turkish Straits. Suffice it to say, there were a number of games that were continually being developed from the early 1970s until the very end of the Cold War in 1989.

Soviets ready to invade Norway. Circa late 1980s.
From Nordkapp, 1983.

As a teen and early 20-something during the 1980s, I played many of these hypothetical wargames. Looking back, I think I was somewhat of a sociopath for rushing through the nuclear barrier to blast my way into West Germany (sic). Though war could have launched at almost any time during the 1980s, and at some points, almost did, it never really dawned on me that even with such prophetic titles as , that the events played out on my mother’s dining room table would ever come to be.

As for the games themselves, they ranged from the Operational, moving divisions and brigades around to the tactical, where line of sight and individual platoons are maneuvered about. Also, not just a hypothetical ground war in Europe was possible to be gamed. The aforementioned Harpoon is still popular today and allowed the gamer to easily simulate naval combat. It was such a hit that it was used to help craft The Hunt for Red October, the 1984 novel by Tom Clancy. It of course spawned the of the same title.

Just after I joined the Regular Army in 1989 (“Active Duty” in US parlance), the . With that would be the end of an era: no more “Cold War Gone Hot” games. I still had my collection and there was no way I was going to let it go to waste! That said, I still had my games that simulated various wars that actually happened, so there was that. But it was the change in the era that led to the second of two classifications, those made after the Cold War.

Admittedly there was a lull in such games in the early 1990s; designers were working on some games that reflected recent conflicts, such as the Gulf War, the war in the Falklands, and others. But that gap ended in the late 2010s. Perhaps it was a sense of nostalgia, but there have been a number of games released to great fanfare since then. Notables are the number of upgrades of existing games. But one of the greatest sought-after is 1985: Under an Iron Sky.

Yes, this is my copy of Under an Iron Sky

This monster game takes advantage of hindsight; that is, its Order of Battle is set as it exactly was in July 1985. As an example, the Canadian Air Group in Europe was at that time phasing out its CF 104 Starfighters for its new . This game reflects that only two-thirds of the jets had been replaced and the NATO player gets to use CF 104s in the strike/reconnaissance role.

The game also gets to fix some of the misconceptions about the Soviet Order of Battle from that time. Earlier games could only rely upon open-source reporting to speculate the orders of battle and indeed the capabilities of Soviet and Warsaw Pact equipment. Now thirty years after the fall of the Soviet Union, gamers have insight into the forces that faced off against one another for decades.

Other games have been released, of course.  has a number of games set in the hypothetical Cold War Gone Hot, with more in development. Multiman Publishing has joined in this latter-day phenomenon with its release of . This game is unique in that the player can simulate three “what-ifs”. First, examines a third world war hot on the heels of the surrender of Germany in 1945.

Next is a look at 1983, assuming the previously mentioned Able Archer exercise had not been stopped. Finally, an alternate look at 1989 with the Soviets trying to resolve its crisis through war. A unique aspect of this renaissance of Cold War Gone Hot games sees many games being remade.

One series that is in production is the Third World War series that was originally released by the Game Designers’ Workshop. The Third World War is due to be released in 2022. It is joined by another reboot, . This is a remake of the previously mentioned NATO: The Next War in Europe. The designer, Bruce Maxwell, decided to remake his wildly successful game of 1983. In his notes for the new game, he notes that he made NATO in a noticeably brief time and did so in order to fulfill an obligation. He didn’t expect much of it, but then it went on to sell over seventy-five thousand copies.

The most interesting feature of the new game is that its map uses the exact same grid numbering system as the original. So, hex 5223 in both games is set in Southern Germany on the border with France! That said, both games were designed to be easy to learn and easy to play. The Original game certainly met that description, but the jury is out on the latter.

So back to the original question: what is the appeal? Gamers certainly like to recreate historical battles, so why do this? It made sense in the Cold War to see what could happen tomorrow, such as it was. But now we have to go back in time over 30 years to set ourselves up, so what gives? And it’s not just the board wargamers; has proven to be quite a popular game since it was released about five years ago!

Well, if I am any sort of indicator, the same thing that draws us to re-fight the battles of Waterloo, Austerlitz and Stalingrad draw us to fight the unfought battles of the Fulda Gap. After all, we like to put ourselves into a story, as it were, on one side or the other. Typically, we try to do better than our historical counterparts. In Cold War Gone Hot games, there is no real battle to use as a standard against which to judge victory.

Instead, these tend to look back and wonder “What if?” and using the game, try to re-write history. As a closing note, the Next War series of games by GMT Games is a throw-back of sorts to the Cold War Gone Hot games of the previous decades. I guess it just goes to show that war sells, even if that war has yet to come.

David Garvin is an avid board wargamer who has on no less than ten occasions started a nuclear war in Germany. Thankfully, all simulated!