Cold War Battles 2: Kabul '79 & Pentomic Wurzburg (2010)

S&T 263, June 2010 – Cold War Battles 2: Kabul ’79 & Pentomic Wurzburg

Cold War Battles 2 (CWB2) presents a low-to-intermediate complexity operational simulation of campaigns that were fought – or that could have been fought – during that long period of military history, 1946-1989. The playing pieces represent the actual units that participated, or could have participated, in those fights. The maps represent the terrain over which those units fought or could have fought. Two games are included: Kabul ’79 (K’79), covering the Soviet seizure of the Afghan capital in that year; and Wurzburg Pentomic (WP), the Soviets versus the US in Germany in the mid-to-late 1950s. There are two players in each game. In K’79 one player controls the Soviets and the other commands the Afghans plus optional ‘what-if’ US reinforcements. In WP one player controls the Soviets, the other runs US and West German forces. Both games use a main body of shared rules, and each also has its own special instructions. Designed by Joseph Miranda.

Maneuver units include: infantry, elite infantry, air assault, airmobile infantry, mechanized Infantry, armor, armored cavalry, recon, special operations, security, military police, engineers, guerillas and headquarters. Ranged artillery types include: field artillery, self-propelled artillery, assault guns, rocket artillery and air defense artillery.
Most units are battalions or regiments, but the entire counter-mix has units within it as large as divisions and as small as companies. Units are one-step, with their reverse sides used to show their “untried” status.

The hex scale in WP is one mile (1.621 km) per hex and 12 hours per game turn. In K’79 the corresponding numbers are 250 meters (273.5 yards) and two days.

Rules cover: random events, reinforcements, bombardment, suppression, air power, air mobility, atomic weapons, paratroops, recon, screening, special forces, guerrillas, fire control and much more.