NATO v.s. USSR

If you want to avoid the confusion of Nuke rules you can have the scenario represent Operation Unthinkable, a plan by Churchill to invade the soviet union in 1945. Could be USSR, Japan, Com China Vs America, Britain, Nat china, maybe France. I always did want to see a good cold war version of AA, good luck with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable

Depending on the time frame in which you set your game, the answers to your four points might vary.  For instance:

• NATO was founded in April 1949.  The People’s Republic of China was established in October 1949.  So the two requirements of “NATO v.s. USSR” and “Communist Party of China will be a playable side and if successful in conquering China” would restrict your time frame to a fairly narrow window if you want both at the same time.  A large-scale Nationalist-versus-Communist conflict in China would probably have to be mainly set in 1946-to-1948, which is pre-NATO, because by 1949 Mao’s Communists were probably getting the upper hand of Chiang’s Nationalists.

• One way of putting a limiting factor on nukes is by choosing the time period that will give you the degree of limitation that you want.  Initially, the US had a total monopoly on atomic bombs, and had a very limited number of them in stock.  Then the Soviets and the British and the French and the Chinese got into the act (I can’t recall in which order).  And the hydrogen bomb eventually came along too, and raised nuclear capabilities to a whole new level.  Delivery systems also evolved: first bombers, followed later by various missile types, with nuclear artillery also being experimented upon.  In other words, nuclear warfare capabilities become very different over time as you move forward from 1945, so you have several models from which to choose.

• Similarly, the period in which you set your game might let you choose the type of guerrilla activity (or the specific insurgency war) you prefer.  The insurgencies of the post-1945 period blended (to various degrees) elements of proxy warfare between the Western and Eastern power blocks with elements of anti-colonial national-liberation and/or national unification movements – Korea and Vietnam being two examples.  It might depend on whether you want these conflicts to be supplementary elements on the fringes of (let’s say) a full-scale NATO/Warsaw Pact war in central Europe, or whether you want them to be the focus of the game, or whether you want them to serve as the initial trigger of a wider conflict.

@molinar13:

You bring up very good points CWO Marc, I am now considering a name change for the variant. Would Allies v.s. USSR make more sense? As for the time frame, I am now leaning towards a 1946 scenario. I would prefer this because the units being used in the game are that of AAG and now that I think about it a 1949 would make some of those units obsolete…Okay another question I have is should Germany, Italy, Japan have any part in this? or should their original territories be occupied by allied markers? One other obstacle I am facing is what to do with nuetrals and other territories the allies did not officially occupy militarily ex. Norway, Dutch East Indies, and a couple other I can not name off the back. I appreciate your post CWO Marc, I see now this variant will require much more reasearch than I anticipated. If anyone has a link to post World War II army strengths, and where they were stationed I would appreciate it.

The immediate post-war period would indeed be an interesting time in which to set a wargame.  As you say, it would allow the use of A&A sculpts, perhaps with a sprinkling of a few more advanced units supplemented by other games.  And as I mentioned, it would put pretty tight limits on the nukes.  (You might want to do some background reading on Operation Crossroads, the first post-war atomic bomb tests – you may find the information useful.)

Politically, 1946 was an interesting time.  Russia and the Western powers we still technically allies, but Cold War strains were already appearing.  The points you raise about whether Japan and Germany should be used, and if so how, fits right into this issue.  The U.S. position, from August 1945 onward, was that Japan was in the U.S. sphere of interest and that Russia should stay clear of it.  As for Germany (which is conveniently divided into eastern and western portions on the Global 1940 map), its postwar division into Soviet, American, British and French occupation zones made it (and particularly Berlin) into an obvious possible flashpoint in East/West relations – the Berlin Blockage crisis of 1948-1949 being an early eample.  There was also a lot of instability in places like Greece, which looked for a while as if it might tip into the Communist camp.  One element potentially affecting Italy is that the situation in Trieste took a while to sort out; Churchill even mentioned it in the famous 1946 speech in which he said that “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an “iron curtain” has descended across the Continent.”

One place where you could get some good inspiration for your scenario would be the book “What If? : The World’s Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been”, edited by Robert Cowley.  It includes, as I recall, speculation on how the Chinese Civil War might have turned out very differently, and on how the Cold War might have turned hot in Berlin.

Aha! My favorite game: EAST & WEST

www.impgames.com