Round 3 (Part IV)
Finally, I have the opportunity to bring this round to a close. Come Round 4, there will be 8 games remaining. The competition will be intense and bracket writeups are certain to be long. I have a lot to say about the titles stepping up to do battle next. Most of it is positive but there is an exception or two. I mentioned earlier that I’m holding both my praises, and my fire for then. 😊 So, as was the case with earlier parts of Round 3 I intend to keep the write ups short in this part. The tourney will pick up again next week. In the meantime I’ll be jumping back to the World War III 1987 realm for a couple of posts, but there might be an independent wargaming entry published tomorrow night.
Corps/Division Level Games
1 NATO Division Commander
5 North German Plain
NATO Division (Commander) is deservedly the #1 seed in this region. In a number of ways it opened the door for NATO-WP recreational wargames focused just under the operational level. Emphasis is on the fight in a specific area of the Central Front. For NATO Division this is the US V Corps area of CENTAG. The title has aged quite well and even most contemporary corps/division level games find it hard to overcome the bar this game set upon its publication back in 1980. North German Plain is a very good game and one of my favorites and covers the NORTHAG region quite well. But the title has some drawbacks with the most troublesome one (In my opinion) being the Combat Results Table. The impacts of terrain on units going into the attack or defending aren’t very realistic. The lack of a 3:2 column mainly affects NATO’s chances of launching a successful attack against larger WP units. Big negative there. As I said, I love the game, but in this round NGP (North German Plain) comes up short.
Winner: NATO Division Commander
3 Fulda Gap: The First Battle of the Next War
2 Less Than 60 Miles
Three of the four Corps/Division Level games here cover a Soviet/WP attack into the US V Corps sector of CENTAG. As we all know, this is one of the most popular hypotheticals found in WWIII wargaming. It speaks volumes that new games based on V Corps defense of the Fulda Gap and eventually Frankfurt continue to be published. Fulda Gap is another pioneer wargame similar to NATO Division Commander. I’ve talked about the game’s history and numerous strong points in previous posts. Despite my love for the title, however, I’ve decided to go with the more contemporary Less Than 60 Miles as the winner. Close matchup but I want to see how well the newer game will match up against the elder #1 seed in the next round. Also, I want to talk about my issues with Less Than. That will take place in the next round, but for now I’ll simply say that at the present time European wargame designers seem intent to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. Less Than is a prime example. I’ve always felt that if nothing is broke there’s no need to break out the tool box and start tinkering. I will get deeper into this next week when Round 4 kicks off.
Winner: Less Than 60 Miles
Third World War 1987 
I seem to recall a Division-level game covering all of West Germany published by SPI in the 1970s concurrent with Red Star/White Star. Interesting in it allowed for air assault and parachute drops. Supply counters for both sides. Lots more for Warsaw Pact forces, but they were consumed when used to support attacks and defense. As you noted, without a 3:2 on the CRT, NATO forces were mostly defending. If NATO pressed attacks broadly, however, they could consume WP supply units. I cannot remember the name of the game. Of course, it came out before the United States established prepositioned arsenals wherein airlifted troops from the US would marry up with their equipment. Those locations would be of critical interest in any Soviet offensive.
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Off hand I can’t think of what game you’re talking about. But I will look it up and get back to you 🙂
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Was that SPI’s ‘NATO: Contemporary Operational Combat in Europe’? The Pact had Supply Units that it would consume in attacks if those attacks were made at normal or enhanced strength (a feature also found in their game Seelowe, where the Germans had to be careful about consuming Supply Units once they were ashore in the UK). I can’t remember anything about para drops but there were a couple of weird units on the NATO side, specifically American divisions, which were called TriCap (triple capability) divisions and made up of two or three component units, one or two of which had some ‘special powers’.
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I think you’re referring to NATO Division Commander in the pic. Contemporary Operational Combat was a different game
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Mike
I was replying to Kenneth’s comment / question above …. sorry, I should have done a proper reply to his comment rather than a general comment.
Cheers
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oh, no worries. I should’ve looked closer 🙂
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