by RockyMountainNavy, 29 September 2024
The gamer sat down and opened the pages of Banzai Magazine Vol. 22. This was always an enjoyable moment; opening the latest issue of this Japanese wargaming magazine published by Bonsai Games meant another interesting game was within promising hours of entertainment. Though they didn’t read or speak Japanese, technology was helpful in figuring out the gist of most articles and, more importantly, the rules for the wargames inside. Volume 22 was unique in that the flagship game inside, NORAD 3: Strategic Air Warfare in the 60’s, included a complete rule book written in English. That would make play so much easier…and surely lots more fun!
The Day
I remember The Day. Everyone at Dad’s base had been on edge since President Kennedy spoke on the TV about the Soviets putting missiles in some place called “Cuba.” Dad left later that night after a tearful farewell with Mom. I will never forget his words to me; “You’re the man of the house now. Take care of Mom.” I thought to myself, “But Dad, I’m only 12 years old.”
The gamer set up NORAD 3 according to the rule book. The large map was actually for two games both of which, “simulated a fictional war between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) in 1962. One player plays as the US Commander (defender) and the other as the Soviet Commander (attacker)” (1.0 INTRODUCTION). The gamer decided to play the USSR attack on the US. The other game, PVO Strany, was the mirror version with the US attacking the USSR.
The eight-page rule book for NORAD 3 had been easy to digest as it really was only five pages of rules (six if one counted the Expansion rules). The gamer thankfully noted the solitaire rules (8.0 SOLITAIRE RULE) and then decided to use expansion rule 9.6 OPTIONAL RULE FOR FIGHTER COMBAT which, though noted but the designer as “an unnecessary addition,” added die rolls for air combat and variable combat ranges for fighters unlike the Basic Game where all fighters used a uniform range factor and combat saw both attacking bombers and defending fighters automatically removed from the game.
The Duty Officer looked at the screens and paused a moment. Few Americans understood the importance of the squat, square building in Kingston, New York where he worked. This was the SAGE Direction Center at Stewart Air Force Base. It was here that future historians would sure write that:
“In SAGE, information flowed into control centers at an unprecedented rate. Commanders and weapons directors had to assimilate information and make quick decisions to vector interceptor pilots accurately to their targets” (Schaffel, K. Capt, USAF (1991) Emerging Shield: The Air Force and the Evolution of Continental Air Defense, 1945-1960. Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, p. 209)
The Duty Officer reflected for a moment on what SAGE showed:
“SAGE was designed to control and fight the air defense battle. To do so effectively required prompt and accurate information of enemy movements, not only flowing from sectors to combat operations centers but also needed as soon as possible after the enemy left his bases. To obtain such information, the United Stated and Canada constructed three early-warning lines—the Pinetree Line, the Mid-Canada (McGill) Line, and the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line—built to consecutively extend the warning network as far north as possible” (Schaffel, pp. 209-210).
Setting up NORAD 3 had been quite easy for the gamer. The US side had only 23 counters; 18 fighters (12 real and six decoy) and five surface-to-air missiles (SAM). The USSR player started with 32 counters which were a mix of real (24) and decoy (8) bombers. Per the solitaire rules, the counters were randomly mixed face down so the US player did not know where the real (or decoy) bombers or fighters were located.
Inside, the General seethed. As the commander of the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) he breathed only a bit easier than he had the day before now that the Canadians had finally elevated their alert status. It had taken a few days to do so following the President’s address to the nation because Ottawa was smarting that they had not been “consulted” regarding the elevation of the NORAD alert status. As s result, the Canadians dragged their feet and had stayed at a normal alert status like it was business-as-usual. Thankfully, they finally agreed that the situation was serious and were now ready. Looking at the tote board where the operators were adding more and more Soviet bombers coming over the Pole, the General knew the Canadians had joined not a moment too soon.
[The above incident is based on the real history of the Cuban Missile Crisis. As told by U.S. Air Force Captain Kenneth Schaffel in The Emerging Shield: The Air Force and the Evolution of Continental Air Defense, 1945-1960.“On October 22 [1962], as world tensions heightened, the United States demanded the removal of Soviet intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Cuba. American components in NORAD were put on a high level of alert. Canadians, meanwhile, disagreed over the seriousness of the situation. The Canadian government, annoyed at not being consulted in advance (the United States had determined as early as October 16 that missile sites were being constructed in Cuba, but it informed only Britain among its allies), resolved that it would not be dictated to by the United States. Accordingly, Canada kept its forces temporarily on normal status…Full Canadian diplomatic support did not come until October 25, when Canadian forces in NORAD joined those of the United States at the highest readiness level” (Schaffel, pp. 253-254).]
The gamer looked over the initial set up of NORAD 3 and thought, “Is that it?” At the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis the USSR was thought to possess as many as 600 bombers though the actual number was really about 200 (Schaffel, p. 267). That meant the 24 “real” counters” each represented a regiment of about nine aircraft. The U.S. fighter count was harder to rectify: the 12 “real” fighter counters supposedly represented a bit under 800 jet all-weather interceptors in service with the Defense Command in 1962 (Schaffel, p. 231). That was over 60 aircraft in every counter! Even if one added the six “decoy” counters each still represented just over 40 airframes. Seeking to understand the designers intent behind NORAD 3, the gamer consulted 10.0 DESIGNER’S NOTE (written by Dana F. Lombardy, the designer of the original NORAD wargame) and read:
“To make the game interesting, the initial version (without variants) was designed with emphasis placed on balance of forces and objectives. The precise orders-of-battle and combat performances of the units involved in the game have been generalized for several reasons. It is possible to add new exact orders-of-battle and intricate combat resolution tables to the game format, but this would not insure playability of the game, or a realistic representation of modern air warfare.”
Reading on, the gamer took note of the designer’s comment that, “NORAD takes about 15 minutes to play a complete game. The additional variants which follow double that time per game.” Let’s see….
We hadn’t seen or heard from Dad in a few days as the base was totally locked down, but on The Day we all just knew something was different. The Navy was ready to turn back Soviet ships heading to Cuba and the Cubans had just shot down a US spy plane. Some of our neighbors had left town, saying they were going to visit families far away. Store shelves were bare as everybody stocked food and water. Mom had aged years in the past week and I couldn’t get her to eat much of anything. “You need to eat,” she told me, with those ever-present tears at the edges of her eyes. I started digging a hole in the backyard telling Mom it was going to be our bomb shelter. She just nodded and stared off in the direction of the base.
For the past few days when planes took off it was usually just two or four at a time. On The Day they all launched. I ran out of the house and watched as plane after plane streaked overhead, hoping to somehow catch a glimpse of Dad who had to be there. It was impossible, however, to see him as the planes seemed to be going faster than ever before. Behind me, Mom collapsed on the porch.
“Well,” the gamer mused, “the designer was right.” NORAD 3 played very fast. Even the use of rule 9.6 OPTIONAL RULE FOR FIGHTER COMBAT did not add that much time to the game—in fact play was over in about a half hour. There were a few surprising instances like when a U.S. F-102 fighter blew the intercept of a “real” USSR bomber over Winnipeg. Generally speaking, however, the rules were easy to learn and use in play.
Given the US use of nuclear rockets it seemed unrealistic—even farcical—that the fighters could miss until one digs into the history and realizes that humans often have a hard time accepting new technology. As a RAND report of the day noted:
“…the first thing that can be said about the SAGE system going newly into the field, and into operational use, is that the experienced Air Defense crews attempted very quickly to circumvent the central computer. This was not done in malice; rather, it was the response of Manual Air Defense System operators to an extremely confusing, very different way of operating. They had habits, ways of working, and ways of thinking about Air Defense that not longer fit in the SAGE environment. Therefore, they almost unconsciously attempted to make the SAGE environment as much as possible like the Manual Air Defense system with which they were somewhat experienced. . . . Men who are confronted with a new system will almost always distrust it—complain about the hardware—try to use the old ways” (Schaffel, p. 219).
Thoughts on “realism” in a wargame brought the gamer back to the Designer’s Notes for NORAD 3 and their comments on game design:
“This is the crux of game design. Are you trying to write a history book, or design a game? A game is a very useful tool. You can illustrate principles, ideas, and facts more geographically in a game which employs pictures, playing pieces, and a lapboard, than you can explain these things in hundreds of pages of a textbook. To add pages of detailed rules in to revert back to the textbook and destroy the primary value of a game. This does not mean that complex games are bad or not useful tools. If you have a classroom full of people, each person can handle details which only concern him in the game. You maintain the basic game format, and add complexity as you add more people, or more experienced game players. To design too much complexity into a game for two players is to overwhelm them with needless trivia.” (10.0 DESIGNER’S NOTES).
The gamer considered the “realism” of NORAD 3. Winning the game demanded the Soviet player score 100 points in cities destroyed. The Soviet tally in this first game came up just short. The gamer looked over the board and all the mushroom clouds representing devastated American cities with millions dead and thought, “That’s hardly a win.” The gamer realized the game design of NORAD 3 is dissonant with the harsh reality of the subject—an unwinnable nuclear war.
The gamer then recalled reading this passage in Schaffel’s Emerging Shield and considered how it applied to NORAD 3:
“Although the Air Force envisioned a future Soviet intercontinental attack featuring ICBMs and strategic bombers, it received only limited support to counter this dual threat. After Sputnik [1957], Congress and the public focused on the missile. Most defense officials in the 1960s agreed that, since the nation was vulnerable to ICBMs, vulnerability to bombers had little relevance. Secretary of Defense Robert S.McNamara held that air defense could not be separated from missile defense. Despairing of every seeing a truly effective ICBM defense, he reasoned that Soviet missiles could eliminate air defense systems in a first strike, rendering them useless should subsequent bomber waves appear in North American skies.”
“Although McNamara and his assistants in the Defense Department searched for more appealing strategies, the policy that emerged embraced the most extreme option: massive retaliation, popularly referred to now as mutual assured destruction (MAD). The policy had fateful consequences for air defense. . . . According to one commentator, MAD became so decisive ‘as to make those who support[ed] a capable air defense posture almost shrug their shoulders and give up with the futility of it all’” (Schaffel, pp. 271-272).
The designer in their notes for NORAD 3 states, “It [NORAD] was designed with the specific purpose of providing an entertaining way for the hobbyists or student to learn more about the strategic problems of modern air warfare.” They go on to assure players that, “NORAD is not the most accurate simulation on the market, but I doubt that it will bore anyone or collect dust on a shelf.” The gamer considered; on one level the game was easy to play and “entertaining” as in a thoughtful exercise. But to call it entertaining in the sense of “fun” was harder to comprehend. NORAD 3 is in some ways less a game and more a study. Perhaps, the gamer thought, NORAD 3 is a game useful for wargame practitioners to study the consequences of nuclear decision making. NORAD 3 can be an entertaining, quick-playing hobbyist diversion on a Saturday over beer and pretzels, but the message it teaches will likely be lost.
We never saw Dad again. America as we knew it collapsed. The base was spared, but we later heard that Washington, D.C.; New York City; Omaha; San Diego; Miami; and several other US cities, especially those surrounding military bases, were destroyed, damaged, or rendered uninhabitable by the Soviet atomic attacks.
Mom died a few days later. Over the years the few doctors I meet keep telling me she surely died of radiation poisoning but it doesn’t make sense that she would die and I didn’t. I know deep inside myself that she missed Dad dearly and died of a broken heart.
For me, I am proud of my Dad. He is far better than that coward JFK who was reckless and incompetent in the end. It is his fault we went to war. With DC gone Philadelphia is now the capital of the United States, sort of. On the 10th anniversary of the war I am a brand new reporter traveling out to Fort Leavenworth to interview McGeorge Bundy, the only surviving senior member of the EXCOM. I have been told by the Air Force General that led the aerial defense of America and did more to save our nation than any other, the then-Chief of the Air Force himself, that my Dad died a hero by sacrificing his plane to save Minneapolis. At least I am comforted a bit by that thought, because every day I still miss my mother.
[This final plot is drawn from the 1999 book Resurrection Day by Brendan DuBois. “In the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis, the U.S. has been crippled into a second-rate power dependent upon European allies for survival. In the shadow of this devastating chaos, a reporter stumbles across a man with secrets of the great war’s origins–and lies about Kennedy’s death” (goodreads.com). The book won the Sideways Award for Best Alternative History Novel of the Year in 2000.]
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