Assault units fought until they were burned out, to be replaced by fresh divisions. Soviet doctrine called for mass, relentless attack by armored columns ruthlessly penetrating deep into enemy rear areas. With an army this large, the Pact was able to invade at multiple points, from the Baltic coast down to southern Germany. While this force included sizeable East German, Polish and Hungarian contingents, the majority were Soviet formations, whose ranks would swell as Moscow mobilized even more troops.

In our wargame, the Warsaw Pact sent more than 60 divisions across the West German border.

Russia has sent around 100 battalion-sized units into Ukraine. The most striking difference between our fictional war and the Ukraine conflict is the number of Russian troops deployed. My job as NATO commander was to stop him. As Warsaw Pact commander, his goal was to drive west, seizing as much territory as possible in just eight game turns (equivalent to eight weeks of real time). What better opportunity to compare today’s Russian war machine with its Soviet ancestor?įor six Sunday afternoons, bent over a large table in my opponent’s basement, we tackled the game’s Battle for Germany scenario. To play The Third World War game is to get hands-on with the Soviet military as NATO – and perhaps the Soviets themselves - envisioned it.

This choice of plotline was not coincidental: the novel was a plea by the Western defense establishment frightened by new Soviet weapons and a perceived decline in Western military power in the 1970s. But NATO only wins because – in this alternate timeline – the alliance had vigorously rearmed. Written by a retired British general and a team of ghostwriting defense experts, the book dramatically recounts how fear of Soviet decline spurs the Kremlin into launching a preemptive war against NATO.ĭespite initial success, the invasion eventually falters and the Soviet Union collapses. “ The Third World War,” – the book, that is - was a highly influential 1978 tale of a massive Warsaw Pact invasion of Europe in 1985. In many ways, The Third World War seems a gamification of a famous Cold War novel. Republished in 2022 by Compass Games, the game is a huge division-level simulation – stretching from Norway to the Persian Gulf - of the Cold War turned hot.

The Third World War was first published in 1984 by Game Designers Workshop, as a tabletop battlefield for armchair generals.

Star wars force commander units