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From: jsbassior@aol.com (Jordan S. Bassior)
Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if
Date: 13 Feb 2001 07:31:20 GMT
Organization: AOL http://www.aol.com
Subject: AH Wargames
Message-ID: <20010213023120.24723.00000652@ng-mb1.aol.com>
Xref: sn-us soc.history.what-if:311458

I thought I'd expand on a point I made in another post to describe several
wargames which are either explicit or are now AH. I'm going to exclude _most_
of the "WI WW3 happened" genre (because it was very over-represented in the
late 70's / 80's), but include a _few_ of the ones which had a particularly
interesting take on the situation. I invite comment on the plausibility and
quality of the scenarios, on the games, or whatever.

SPI

France 1940 (originally in an early S&T, later republished by Avalon Hill):
This game had a number of "variant" OOB cards, which dealt with various AH
questions such as "What if the French had not built the Maginot Line but
instead raised (various alternative) forces?" or "What if the Germans had
fielded a more traditionally composed force?" This may have been the first pure
AH game ever done, since it first appeared in the early 70's.

_The East Is Red_ was about a "near future" (i.e. late 70's) Soviet invasion of
Northeastern China. It was particularly interesting because the Russians were
in a historically atypical role -- they were the small, elite, highly mobile
force invading a large territory defended by numerous lower-tech and militia
foes. It also had some WMD rules. Too bad that it didn't have a scenario for
the 1970 war which nearly happened in real life!

_Operation Olympic_ was rather disappointing because it focused soley on the
Kyushu campaign (late 1945, forstalled in OTL by the A-Bombing of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki) and had very little "chrome". Ty Bomba was however inspired by seeing
this to make a much better game on the Invasion of Japan a decade and a half
later.

_Dixie_ was the original game on "WI: The CSA Won the Civil War". It presented
some interesting historical speculation, with _three_ seperate Second Civil
Wars (in the 1930's) resulting from this POD. It also had an innovative (for
the 70's) command point based movement system. Unfortunately, limits in the
countermix and poorly developed rules made this a very flawed game. Again, Ty
Bomba would design a better game from this inspiration, in the 1990's.

_Revolt in the East_ was based about Warsaw Pact revolts against the Soviet
Union. The game had two straight AH scenarios (Hungary 1956 and Czechoslovakia
1968 turning into full scale hot wars) and one "future" (late 1970's) scenario
(which very nearly _did_ happen with Poland, btw). It was a simple game, but
worked well because the points abstracted were not truly crucial ones _in the
given situation_, and the chrome was where it counted (airmobile and political
rules). The table given very strongly assumed NATO participation, though, which
I think was a questionable assumption to say the least.

_World War 3_ was a global, grand-strategic game of a hypothetical "future"
(mid 70's) global war. It's of interest because it was the first game to ever
show the whole Earth on a single map; it's also maybe the only game ever to do
World War 3 on this scale. Big weakness -- _seriously_ oversimplified nuclear
warfare rules (tactical use can lead to Armageddon, ending the game, based on
die rolls). Big strength -- it was strongly focused on resources and grand
strategy, and _seriously_ considered the question "what happens after the first
campaigns" (a game could last for _years_ game-time). It also had a "1984"
(George Orwell world) scenario, and someone did a 1962 secenario (though it's
not in the game proper).

Task Force Games:

_Warsaw Pact_ was especially interesting, compared to the run of the mill
"World War III in Europe" games, because it had scenarios for wars at various
periods of time, including the 1950's, 1960's, and 1970's IIRC. It also had a
lot of variants covering different situations -- various types of US
Administrations, start war conditions, weapons procurement choices, etc. Too
bad the system was kind of _bleh_.

Victory Games:

_Central America_ dealt with a war that never happened -- the US invasion of
Nicaragua -- thus, almost _all_ the scenarios were AH (though there were a few
straight historical ones involving the Football War, the Nicaraguan Revolution,
etc.). There was a nice "war generation" system which enabled you to pick or
roll up some assumptions about the situation, and play with them using various
random tables influencable by in-game events. The system was very realistic,
but also very complicated.

The _Fleet_ series games all dealt with hypothetical near-future (1980's and
1990's) naval wars. What was really cool about these games is that they gave
you the air and naval units needed to try all sorts of hypotheticals. I wish
someone would do this for the c. 2001 naval situation, but it's unlikely.

XTR Games:

_Tomorrow the World!_ is a pure-AH game about a Third World War between a
victorious Third Reich and Imperial Japan over global dominion. The game
includes a timeline of the AH leading up to this war, and the map shows the
whole Earth. Units include jet fighters and bombers, missiles, chemical and
nuclear weapons. This AH is shared between this game and several others in a
series which includes at least two full games

_Mississipi Banzai_ (Germans and Japanese clash in the US Midwest) and

_Black Gold_ (Germans and Japanese clash in the Mideast)

and two variants on other games

_Tiger of Ethiopia_ (a Lion of Ethiopa variant covering a Japanese invasion of
an Germano-Italian held Ethiopia) and

_Triumph of the Will_ (A Samurai Sunset variant covering a German amphibious
raid on the Japanese homeland).

On similar but slightly different themes are:

_Seven Seas to Victory_ (a formerly isolationist USA, with the remnants of the
Allied navies, must defend the Panama Canal against attack by the Axis combined
naval power in 1946) and

_NATO, Nukes, and Nazis_ (in an AH 1990's, NATO, which has been formed to
defend against a Germany which successfully conquered Russia but was forced out
of France by the Western Allies, must defend against an Axis invasion).

A bit more plausible are:

_Samurai Sunset_ (Covers Operation Coronet, the whole campaign in 1945-46 to
conquer the Japanese Home Islands).

_Mason-Dixon_ (three possible Second American Civil Wars after the CSA won the
first one. One takes place in the 1910's, the second in the 1930's, and the
third in the 1990's. MUCH better game system and counter mix than _Dixie_!)

_Perfidious Albion_ (Napoleonic invasion of Britain).

(There's also a Sealion one whose name I can't remember).

Any thoughts?


--
Sincerely Yours,
Jordan
--
"To urge the preparation of defence is not to assert the imminence of war. On
the contrary, if war were imminent, preparations for defense would be too
late." (Churchill, 1934)
--