"What is the most interesting year for Cold War gaming?" Topic

… and why? Which year provides the most interesting match up of weaponry, technology, politics, ideology, resources and strategic strength?

I'm thinking 1967.

Vietnam, Middle East, Latin America, Biafra, even Europe if you are a 'what if' cold war fan.

WW2 era kit meets first generation and even second generation technology.

Lots of ideological and political shenanigans…Arab Nationalism, post-colonialism, revolutionary socialism…you name it.

IIRC I thought the mid to late '70s was the best chance the Soviets had in winning a conventional war in Europe, barring the really early days.

Damon.

60's to 70's seem the ideal to me.

The balance of forces is the most interesting, most of the ww2 is in storage and you don't have the super-tanks on the table yet.

On the flipside, late 40's "ww2+1" can be a fun change of pace as GIs with M1s battle Soviets with PPSH's in the rubble of Berlin.

The Chinese civil war in the late 1940s presents opportunities to mix up a wide variety of Japanese, American, British, and Russian vehicles and weapons.

China also just about has it all as far as terrain -- urban, forest, jungle, desert, mountain, and different types of farmland (from rice paddies to wheat fields) but no tundra or icecap.

1980s Afghanistan. Soviets v Muhajadine.

New v old v new. Vietnam in a different suit.

Any time before the introduction of the current range of super tanks like the Leopard 2, M1A1 and Challenger 2. So I'd draw the line around the late 70s to very early 80s.

1984… just because.. reasonably well balanced, and it was so close to kicking off, besides there are excellent alt-histories available for those dates.

1984 or 85.

It's clear now that by then the Soviet miltary thought that the conventional advantage it had maintained was slipping away from them due to greater Western political determination and increased defence spending, a growing military technological imbalance, and the inability of the Soviet/WarPac economies to keep up with the West long term.

Gorbachev was also able to persuade/browbeat the military by 1986-7 that overhauling the basic economy must take priority over immediate military superiority and that meant sharp cuts in new equipment programmes, training and maintenance regimes, and logistic support- even if headline military numbers remained enormous. For eg- things like weapons factory quality assurance (never a strong point anyway) was reduced to near zero to cut costs even if the plant was still churning out unreliable weapons to keep the workers busy for the moment. Institutional inertia in the military prevented successful opposition to this new approach.

Gorbachev's effort to revive the Soviet economy was doomed anyway, but a very significant by-product of his attempt (combined with developments in Western- especially US- capability) was to provoke a rapid decline in Soviet war fighting capability, and in particular seriously reduce the Soviet military's chance of mounting a successful conventional attack on Western Europe by about 1986-88.

BUT- what if if someone other than Gorbachev had become general secretary- either a weaker character or a more warlike one; and/or if the military had stirred from its political torpor?

It's possible that a combination of the above factors could have a made a different Soviet leadership conclude in 1984-5 that it was now or never.

1970s, probably, for me, while the Soviets and WARPAC are nearing the height of their strength, and before the US and allies really get rolling with all their top of the line, next-gen weaponry.

Early 1970s could be particularly dicey, with much of the US Army stuck in Vietnam, war weary, and a lot of kit worn out.

I like 1985. It's Team Yankee/World War III time so you have narratives and a background for your toys. Also 1985 is the middle ground between the fading out of the Vietnam era gear and the arrival of the Bradley/Abrams/Apache force. So you get bits and pieces of both. Also, the Soviets were still at the top of their game, so the issue is in doubt.

Plus there's the nostalgia factor for me. 1985 was when I really started getting into wargaming WWIII. I had just joined the band at my high-school and had to audition with my band director. While I was in his office I saw a copy of West End Game's Fireteam…

After I finished my audition I asked him about the game and he happily walked me through it. We even played the introductory scenario! I was totally hooked then and have been ever since.

It really depends on what you are fighting-

Air War?
Each decade after 1950 provides interesting challenges and aircraft. I think 1967 is probably the sweet spot, but Korea and the 1980s are good,too.

Naval?
I'd say it gets really interesting in the 1980s, from the Falklands through 1988 or so. I you force me to pick, I'd go 1985.

Ground?
I personally prefer 1985 for teh Team Yankee era, but 1973 is fascinating as well.

I try to avoid the presence of supertanks (M1, Chally) as they can just lead to Tactical silliness (rather like a late war German army consisting entirely of Tiger II) but something modern enough not to be prepped with an all out nuclear barrage as per Soviet doctrine in the 1970s.

So my particular WW3 is set in 1981, which nicely coincides with the peculiar and short lived Task Force organisation of of BOAR, to makes things super obscure:)

Interesting answers! I agree that every decade has its own unique feel, but personally I think I'm with Martin—early 1980's lets you play with most of the previous decades' toys and was right before weapon technology started to go through the roof (which began in 1984 and increased exponentially through the Late 80's). Early 80's still felt like an iterative improvement on previous decades and you could map a linear progression of arms and capabilities. Mid and especially late 80's is almost sui generis—a different beast entirely, and much more closey related genetically to the 21st centiry warfare we see today.

Early 80's is probably the last peak of the Cold War… 1983 was Andropov and Ronnie "Evil Empire" Reagan. If anyone was going to push the button, it was those two!

1950s. M47 / M48 Patton , M41 Walker Bulldog vs. T54 / T55, PT76, T10, Su100 even leftover WW2 Isu152 / Js2 – Js3. Tactics will prevail.

The early 1980s also has the huge advantage of being exactly when all my old SPI WW3 games are set (Fulda Gap, The Thin Red Line etc), so I've already got Al the relevant MAPS, OBs and formation deployments. Coupled with our pile of 1:50000 scale maps of the operations area as far back as the Weser , we are sorted.

I tend to do this stuff at battlegroup, regiment and Brigade level.

1977/78 when the quality balance was about even. Lots of 50s and 60s kit still around to make the tabletop interesting.

Having struggled with painting DPM in 15mm, I will go for any year before introduction of DPM

In the cold war gone hot, I like the Twilight 2000 time frame – a few what if weapon systems, and all the high tech gear in front line service.

Cold war as it happened, the 1945 – 1960 period. Lots of left over WW2 gear and some new, no real domination by one side.

1985 seems popular…

It's the mid-late '80s (approx. 1985-87) for me. I frequent associate "Cold War Gone Hot in Europe" wargaming with 1980s weaponry and equipment--M1, Challenger, and T-80 tanks; U.S. soldiers outfitted in woodland BDUs; and MiG-29s and F-16s making their appearances. Other Cold War-setting media that I've enjoyed (Ralph Peters' "Red Army", the video game "World in Conflict", computer Harpoon) were also explicitly set in the late 1980s.

While Gorbachev started introducing a more defensive military doctrine, this was a time when the Soviet Army was still under the influence of Nikolai Ogarkov's conventional force reforms which began during the late 1970s--I'd argue that Soviet military's conventional offensive potential was at its peak in the late '80s rather than the '70s. They hadn't implemented their means for conducting a "theater-strategic offensive" (setting up theater commands, operational maneuver groups, et al) before the 1980s.

From my readings, NATO certainly had plans for addresing the military balance through schemes like FOFA, but such efforts required weapons (e.g. guided antitank submunitions) and recon/target acquisition means (e.g. JSTARS) that were not yet in service. In spite of equipment upgrades, NATO's weaknesses in conventional maldeployment, lack of operational depth, and a general lack of understanding in Soviet operational art serve to make the mid-late 1980s highly gameable for me.

I'd also suggest 1984/5 as a great window for "what ifs".

same 1967/8 or 1979 for different reasons.

I've always liked the '1946' idea for cold war scenarios.

Well … I'm partial to '79-'90 … Those were the years I played 1 to 1 scale wargames …

Since I was in the military then, the 1970s and 1980s.

I like the 60's; plenty of scope and possibilities. Something was going on in most of the world at that time: Vietnam, the Middle East, Latin American, Africa and India/Pakistan. Even more if you wanted to create a fictional world of that time. Most Third World forces used a lot of WW2 stuff. I prefer 1/72 scale. WW2 stuff readily available in that scale; There seems to be more Soviet equipment than western. T34/ T54/55, JS-3 and the BTR series, but no M47, M41, Centurion except in resin form. Considering the number M47's and Centurions used at the time, it's a strange omission by the major kit manufacturers.