Old Gamers Never Die: Waging Virtual Combat in the War that Could Have Been

 

Waging Virtual Combat in the War that Could Have Been

 

© 2017 Killerfish Games

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that I came of age during the last stages of the Cold War between the United States (land of my birth) and the Soviet Union. That “war in peacetime” between the world’s superpowers dominated at least half my life. My mom was pregnant with me during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962, and I grew up under the shadow of a possible showdown between the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact.

In order to cope with “Cold War-gone-hot” anxiety, I tried to reduce my fear of a war with the Soviet Union by learning as much about Soviet military technology and strategic/tactical thought. I also did the same for U.S./NATO military hardware, strategy, and tactical doctrine. I spent countless hours at the public library branch closest to my house, poring over the most recent edition of Jane’s Fighting Ships and other reference works.

I also bought a lot of books along the lines of James F. Dunnigan’s How to Make War, Bill Gunston’s Soviet Military Power and The Encyclopedia of World Military Air Power, and Salamander Books’ Modern Naval Combat. Most of those books drew their information from open-source material and probably wouldn’t have helped me get into Annapolis, Colorado Springs, or West Point. But the more I learned about both sides’ military capabilities and warfighting mentality, the less scared I was about a war between East and West.

And since I came of age around the time that personal computers became affordable for many folks, I also played quite a few Cold War-turned-hot games in my college years and after. Some, like MicroProse’s NATO Commander or Strategic Simulations’ Battalion Commander, were map-based war games; the former dealt with command at the supreme commander level, the latter focused on, well, battalion-level combat.

© 1987 Lucasfilm Games and Electronic Arts

Other games, such as M-1 Tank Platoon, Red Storm Rising, F-117A Nighthawk: Stealth Fighter 2.0, and Strike Fleet, simulated land, naval, and aerial combat in a conventional war between East and West.

The Cold War ended in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Still, many game publishers still create games that simulate elements of the War that Could Have Been.

I own and play four computer games that are variants of the Cold War-turned Hot scenarios which were popular in the 1980s and 1990s.

Curiously enough, one of them is a reissue of MicroProse’s F-117A Nighthawk Stealth Fighter 2.0, which is a 1991 reboot of Sid Meier’s F-19 Stealth Fighter. I used to have the original MicroProse version back in the day, but I played it less than I did F-15 Strike Eagle III, and now that I have the Retroism reissue, I have a hard time playing it because I don’t have the keyboard commands memorized, and I always forget to read the PDF manual.

© 2015 Retroism/MicroProse Software

A game that I play frequently is Killerfish Games’ Cold Waters, a one-player sub simulation that is in many ways a successor – and a worthy one, at that! – to MicroProse’s Red Storm Rising. 

© 2017 Killerfish Games

Released in 2017 by the same studio that created War on the Sea, Cold Waters takes a lot of elements from Red Storm Rising and updates them for 21^st Century gamers. I have written many posts about Cold Waters here and in my other blog, A Certain Point of View, Too, so feel free to check them out to read about the game and my experiences with it so far.

© 2018 Veitikka Studios and Matrix Gams

Armored Brigade is the latest addition to my Cold War-turned hot collection of games. It depicts land combat at the tactical level, and it is a lot of fun to play. Here’s an excerpt from a post I wrote not too long ago on A Certain Point of View, Too:

Armored Brigade is not the kind of game that you need to take college-level courses on Military Science, but it is challenging enough that the AI (no matter which faction it commands) will hand you your head if you play against it on an even footing.

Armored Brigade, among other features, allows you to adjust the training and morale levels of both sides (the one you command, and the AI’s). The higher the settings on either, the stronger the units are and the better they fight. The reverse is, of course, true; the lower the Training and Morale levels are, the worse the units will perform.

Since I’m new to the game, I have a tendency to set the difficulty levels so I don’t get easily beaten by the Ai; even at 50% Training and Morale, the computer player can inflict a lot of damage on my forces. One time, I lost one of the scenario’s Objectives locations because I didn’t send mechanized infantry to support a tank platoon, thus giving the AI an easy – if rather temporary – victory.

I also play, albeit less frequently, a similar game called Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm from On Target Simulations and published by Matrix Games.

I have written about the game on this blog before, so I’ll just share with you the developer’s description from its Matrix Games page:

© 2014 On Target Simulations and Matrix Games

In Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm, World War Three has started, the Cold War has turned hot. Do you have what it takes to achieve victory on the battlefield or will the world end with all out nuclear war? This update to the turn-based tactical game Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm is being rebranded as the “Player’s Edition” as a big thank you to all players that made this game what it is now through feature suggestions, bug reports, and feedback from hours and hours of play.

I play Armored Brigade more often than I play this game, but all in all, Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm is still a cool and fun wargame that depicts land combat in the war that, thankfully, never broke out.

Well, I don’t have a hell of a lot to report besides that, so I’ll close for now. Until next time, Dear Reader, stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll catch you on the sunny side of things.