Cold War Gone Hot: World War III 1986 (Force on Force)

For the history fan, this book has interesting information that has been declassified and made available to the West since the fall of the USSR. Perhaps the most important one is that Warsaw Pact forces weren't nearly the juggernaut they were presented as.For the gamer (i.e. the target audience) there are three chapters of scenarios. "Cold War Fears" deals with what NATO was afraid WWIII might be like. "Cold War Realities" has scenarios based on the newly-available information. "Cold War Fantasies" draws inspiration from movies made during the Cold War. I identified Red Dawn, Escape From New York, and A Few Good Men (which was after the Cold War, but whatever).The material is clear and concise, as you would expect from an Osprey book, and you can jump into dicing out your firefights with little preparation.

As a child of the late 70’s and early 80’s there was always that fear that the commies Russian where going to drop, invades, and blow up the world. But that never happen ( thank god) . This book by osprey publishers brings to light on What was, What could and What can happen. With it easy to read rules ,unit breakdown, force size .If you like the WHAT IF then this book is for you

Great resource for those "What if?" scenarios of the 80's.

Living in Germany durning the time in this game and being part of the military that would of faced off against the East Germans and Russians, I found this very helpful in setting war games based on this time in history .

awesome book, delivered fast. My son and I are constantly playing with it and want to get more books from this series

This was a book that worried me, as there is so much to cover and so many traps that you can fall into with it (i.e. "Hey, let's do tank rush #13,123,459!). Instead, this book really turned out to be the best of the Ambush Games bunch, with a great diversity in scenarios, focus, and overall production.There are a few new rules meant to capture the flavor of the Warsaw Pact's restrictive command structure, as well as suggestions for using rules like the NBC rules in the main rulebook. Along with this are pretty extensive Tables of Organization and Equipment (TO&E) in the back of the book, along with a listings of different support weapons, particularly stats of different AT weapons and ATGMs. The stats in the back of the book do include familiar vehicles, however they have been modified to show what is obsolete now was like when it was brand-new. So even with familiar vehicles, you are getting all-new stats.The scenarios themselves are wonderfully varied, broken down into three rough categories, the first of which is Cold War Fears. This category shows what NATO analysts feared, a strong Russian attack. Thus, a great many of the scenarios have the Russians on the offensive, whether it be a Special Forces operation or a full-on tank assault. The second is Cold War Realities, which shows the weakness of Soviet Forces and takes in the idea of NATO mobilizing while waiting for the Russians and their own possible counterattacks. These scenarios have NATO on the offensive, with airborne operations into Poland and a few tasty missions which could have really happened, by accident or on purpose. Finally there are the Cold War Fantasies, which encompasses all the various ridiculous movie plots from missions into Russia, Russians in America, and more. This chapter probably has the most globetrotting, from the Arctic Circle to small-town Wisconsin (Which is similar to the Arctic Circle, only with more people), and the authors definitely were having fun with these.Overall, this book is probably the best supplement Ambush Games has put out. It has the right balance of elements and scenarios, and the different outlooks on the Cold War definitely makes the book feel larger than it is. A great buy, and hopefully the next lineup of books will be just like this one.

The book gives you many different settings to choose from: GDR vs West Germany in Berlin, Fulda Gap, Special Ops, lots of armor or little. Very inspiring to design your own scenarios.Many of the settings and armies used are however only used once in the entire book. Unless you have both Dutch, West German, BAOR and US troops, you are probably going to do some substitution. Many of the special weapons used, like the special GDR incendiary RPG are not available as miniatures and need to be custom build or substituted.This is quite easy, but I would have hoped for some more universal scenarios.Force on Force to me is a platoon sized infantry skirmish game in buildup area. Most scenarios here however require quite a few tanks. Tank rules however are not quite as elaborate in the the Force on Force rules.The book contains some 20 scenarios, so if you are looking for some infantry action with tank support you will find around 8-10 suitable scenarios and they are really worthwhile. The devision into Fear/Reality/Fantasy was were clever and works very well.So I gladly recommend this book to anyone who is willing to change a few things here and there and make some substitutions.

Nice rule set. Great service.

Ideal para batallas en la Guerra Fría y "What if" entre los dos grandes bloques mundiales tras el Muro de Acero.