Strategy & Cactics A JOURNAL OF AMERICAN WARGAMING Volume 1 Nr S&T GAME REVIEW Box 65, Adelphia, N.J., 07710 Apel 1967, EARTH DESTROYED IN NUCLEAR BLAST! AH BLITZKRIEG PART THREE: BOMBING Perhaps the feature that makes BLITZKRIEG so enjoyable is the air power provision; it certainly makes the game much more realistic and complex, Unfortunately, the air power rules are just those open to the most serious problems of interpretation. In many cases, AH has added fuel to the flames by delivering “rulings” that conflict with others they have given on exactly the same situations, TACTICAL BOMBING AND AUTO-VICTORY AH is pretty firm on this particular aspect of play. In answer to the question on the back of the Battle Manual, “May aircraft be used to achieve automatic victory?” they state, “Yes, however if during the battle portion of the turn enemy FTRs reduce the odds below automatic victory conditions, then all of the units that moved adjacent to or over the intended AV victims are eliminated”. This, however, seems fairly unrealistic to us. If a battle field commander miscalculates the enemy's capability to intercept air units he is counting on to aid in @ breakthrough, the enemy may well stop the planned attack, but we doubt that all the forces that were to exploit the breakthrough would be eliminated because of this. The allocated forces would simply be held up when they could have been used else- where. In order to duplicate this in play, we sug- gest that forces which were to be moved through an auto-victory that was stopped because of enemy FTR action simply hold their starting position. ‘STRATEGIC BOMBING OF AIR BASES Just what does occur when a city in which both ground and air units are stationed is attacked by SAC bombers? We have three separate answers from AH on file. Since there are nine distinct ways of handling this situation, let us give you what we consider to be the most realistic, and point out the areas of disagreement along the way. (Cont'd on page 4) by M.G. Smediey, S&T Game Evaluater To some, this headline may be somewhat start- ling; but, ‘as a matter of fact, this was exactly what happened in one-half of the games of Nuclear War played at S&T. The Nuclear War Game, published by Douglas Malewicki of Downey California, is essentially atomic satire reduced to a card game format. The game itself is extremely easy to learn and play; but it is, not a true wargame, at least not in the sense gen- erally accepted. It’ is, however, a very relaxing, “fun” game to play. We can heartily recommend it to anyone who just wants to have a good time. Each player receives a number of randomly dealt cards, representing a given number of people (con- veniently rounded off to the nearest million). The object of the game is to eliminate the other play- ers’ population while retaining at least one million people of your own. This may be done by entic- ing the population of an opposing power to defect (through the playing of propaganda cards) or by “annihilating” them (accomplished by playing, in proper sequence, the appropriate nuclear weapon and delivery system cards). Once nuclear war is declared, propaganda is no longer effective. Woe be to the man who, through the luck of the deal, has only propaganda cards in his hand! Should a player be eliminated during a nuclear war, he may match all the weapons systems and warheads he holds and direct his “final retaliation ” against any or all other players before retiring from the game, Herein lies the sincere destruction. Half ‘of the time, this player's retaliation eliminates at least one other player who, in turn, retaliates and eliminates a third, ete, etc, etc. |‘ Thus there may not be a winner in’ the Nuclear War Game. Just losers!” OF course, there are several other aspects of the game: anti-missile missiles, deterent forces, secret and top secret cards (which ‘may gain or lose popula- tion for the holder), and a spinner which modifies the effect of all nuclear explosions (** Explodes in a nuclear stockpile! Triple the yield. Note: if the 100 megaton bomb expledes a nuclear stockpile a super chain reaction starts which destroys all coun- tries, the earth itself, and the entire solar system.”) (Cont'd on page 12) 25Page 2 STRATEGY AND TACTICS Vol Ne — EDITORIAL — In the last issue, we mentioned that TT) Editor Bodenstedt was defeated as the Germans in a Remagen Bridge game played at West Point. The winning Americans were commanded by Cadet Second- classman Kenneth M. Day, Cadet Secondclassman Joseph P. O'Connor Jr., and Cadet Thirdclassman Harold E. Hock. Cadet Firstclassman Thomas H. Jackson and Cadet Secondclassman Duncan F. Stewart assisted Mr. Bodenstedt and Mr. Thresher in their defeat. Cadet O'Connor, by the way, will be making the arrangements for the AHIKS convention to be held at the U.S. Military Academy this fall. Planned for September, the convention looks to be the most exciting event of the wargaming year. Hayward Thresher, who is an advertising executive in real life, will be handling the publicity end of things, so a large turnout is expected. S&T will have a display for this affair and your editor plans to make the long trip to ‘the Point” to cover the story personally. We might even talk Ken Norris or Hans Brennecke into attending. Look for more details here as plans are firmed up. There have been so many comments on our Bulge variant that we feel it's about time we outlined ‘ur philosophy on the subject (it seems to be mandatory to have a “ philosophy on something anyway). We are not trying to redesign any game in our variant section. We are attempting to bring the game closer to reality without destroying its “playability” and without reaching the point where almost all of the original parts of the game are useless when playing the variant form. As Mark Goldberg put it in a recent letter, we are trying to give you “‘two games in the same box”. ‘The man who devises variants has a big advantage over the man who designs original games. Mr. Berschig starts with games that are already playable to one degree or another, and that have been played enough so that errors in design are readily apparent. All he has to do is correct these errors without completely redesigning the game. Of course, the process is much more complex than that, but we try to avoid getting so involved in realism that it would be better to contract Ford to build a few Panthers, ship themi to France, hire several thousand “‘extras”” and fight the battle over again with live ammunition. Realism should be sought enthusiastically by the game designer. After the game is published, we can only bring it closer to reality. You will note two financial changes below. First, we've had to raise the single copy price to 60¢. This is due to the amount of bookkeeping involved in processing an order for a single copy. Subscription ates remain as before. We have also replaced our flat $5 rate for articles with a scale based on