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Warplans and Wargames: A Mini-survey

Discussion Board on this Wargame Articles

This is a small survey of the publicly available US warplans and wargames that cover aspects of each one. The list of games is not meant to be exhaustive, but merely a listing of popular and generally available games and those in the author’s possession.

Unlike earlier plans that were based on target countries, these are based on the combatant commands and are generally allocated numbers for identification. Again, these listings are from public sources and are not intended to be exhaustive. However, the discerning reader/wargamer could make reasonable assumptions about potential targets and plans and develop gaming scenarios to model them.

The map below shows the major combatant commands and their areas of responsibility:

• NORTHCOM, Peterson AFB, CO
• SOUTHCOM, Miami, FL
• PACCOM, Honolulu, HI
• CENTCOM, Mac Dill AFB, FL
• EUCOM, Stuttgart-Vahningan, Germany

Unified Command Missions

Not shown below are four other commands:

• JOINT FORCES COMMAND, Norfolk, VA. Responsible for training forces located within the Continental United States and providing them to the combatant commands.
• STRATEGIC COMMAND, Offutt AFB, NB. Controls nuclear and space forces.
• SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND, Mac Dill AFB, FL. Controls all Special Forces units and allocates them to other combatant commands.
• TRANSCOM, Scott AFB, IL. Responsible for the sea and air transport of forces and material to combatant commands.

No forces area permanently assigned to the combatant commands, so warplans likely make use of the same units, making it difficult for the US to responds to more than 1 or 2 threats at a time, as can be seen by current events in Central Command which is managing two fights in Afghanistan and Iraq which are essentially sucking the Army dry, making responding militarily to a crisis in Korea or Iran would be extremely difficult.

Warplans and Wargames

CENTRAL COMMAND

• OPLAN 1002: Defense of the Arabian Peninsula
• OPLAN 1003: Major Theater War – East
• OPLAN 1019: Arabian Gauntlet
• Comment: Various plans for the defense of the Arabian Peninsula by Iraq and or the Soviet Union. Current events have superceded much of this, but these plans were the basis for Operation Iraqi Freedom, and could be modified to protect Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula against operations from Iran, Syria, Jordan, or other states in the area.
• Board War Games
• 5^th Fleet, Victory Games
• 7^th Fleet, Victory Games
• Arabian Nightmare, 3W
• Back to Iraq, Command/XTR/SPI
• Central Command, SPI
• Desert Strom, Command
• Gulf Strike, Victory Games
• Harpoon Series, GDW, Clash of Arms
• Oil War, SPI
• Phase Line Smash, GDW
• RDF, SPI
• Third World War Series: Persian Gulf, GDW
• Computer War Games
• Harpoon Series, 360 Pacific/Advanced Gaming Systems, Inc.
• Patriot, 360 Pacific (Much maligned, but one of the ground breaking games of the entertainment industry.)
• The Operational Art of War II, Talonsoft

SOUTHERN COMMAND

• OPLAN 2370/2380: Operation Uphold Democracy
• Comment: US invasion of Haiti to restore President Aristide to office. Subsequently became a UN peacekeeping mission that, like so many others in Haiti and around the world, appears to have failed.
• Board War Games
• 3rd Fleet, Victory Games
• Central America, Victory Games
• Computer War Games - None Noted

EUROPEAN COMMAND

• OPLAN 4102/31001: Conventional Invasion of Western Europe by the Soviet Union.
• Comment: This served as the plan for the defense of Western Europe for most of the Cold War. Compromised several times, it was never tested except in wargames and in the deployment of US Troops to Germany during annual REFORGER exercises, in which thousands of soldiers and vehicles roamed the roads and fields of the Federal Republic of Germany. Probably the most gamed hypothetical conflict of all time.
• Board War Games
• 2nd Fleet, Victory Games
• 3rd Fleet, Victory Games
• 6th Fleet, Victory Games
• Aegean Strike, Victory Games
• Central Front, SPI
• NATO Division Commander, SPI
• NATO: The Next War in Europe, Victory Games
• TacAir, Avalon Hill
• The Next War, SPI
• Third World War Series: Central Front, Northern Front, Southern Front, GDW
• Computer War Games
• Fulda Gap 85, HPS Simulations
• North German Plain 85, HPS Simulations
• The Operational Art of War II, Talonsoft
• OPLAN 10413/10414/10415: Joint Guardian, et al.
• Comment: Operations in Albania and Kosovo
• Board War Games
• 6^th Fleet, Victory Games
• Aegean Strike, Victory Games
• Third World War Series: Southern Front, GDW
• Computer War Games
• The Operational Art of War II, Talonsoft

PACIFIC COMMAND

• OPLAN 5026: Air Strikes against North Korea
• OPLAN 5027: Combined US Forces Korea/Republic of Korea Warplan
• OPLAN 5029: Collapse of North Korea
• OPLAN 5030: Operations against North Korea
• Comment: War Plans ranging from limited strikes against North Korea to take out their nuclear industry, to general war between North and South, to operations to promote stability in the event of a collapse of North Korea.
• Board War Games
• Crisis Korea, GMT
• Seventh Fleet, Victory Games
• Computer War Games
• Korea 85, HPS Simulations
• Raging Tiger, Shrapnel Games

Current computer wargames germane to any theatre

• TacOp
• Brigade Combat Team
• Armored Task Force
• 
  
Decisive Action
• The Operational Art of War
• Harpoon 3,
• Harpoon Classic
• Point of Attack 2