From: Doug Murphy Subject: Indo-Pakistani Wars: S&T 174: Review S&T 174 continues a welcome return to a quality magazine worthy of its distinguished heritage and $16.95 cover price. Mind you, IMHO, it still doesn't come close to Command. This issue features an op-level game n the Indo-Pakistani wars of 1965, 1971 and the mid-1990s as well as articles on the same as well as an update of Russia in the '90s, a short profile of Giulio Douhet, a review of the later battles of the American Revolution (covered in DG's vol. 2 game), a look at the Prussian army at Auerstadt and lastly the regular FYI section, some errata (incomplete in my opinion for #171 & 172, works in progress, etc. Next game for 175 is announced as Germania: Roman campaigns across the Rhine, continuing the Gallia, etc series. Upcoming games at DG include: Byzantium (apparently the 30 years war system applied to the empire from the 7th century 'til 1204); White Mountain (part of a reissue of SPI's 30 Years War Quad); Storm of Steel: WI w/ 3 maps, corps & "modular" rules; Reinforce the Right! (an S&T ame covering the Schlieffen plan which seems very similar to Command's 1914.) On the good side, the game: Indo-Pakistani Wars is pretty interesting. I can't think of any other sim on these conflicts, can you? (Apart from the occasional tac scenario that is.) The rules are spread over 15 pages but those include charts and extensive scenario notes and instruction. They read swiftly: IMHO, if you've ever played a wargame before, you could be playing this in after a half-hour's read. The rules are divided into: Land game (which allows play after 7 pages); the Air Game; the Intervention Game (US & Russia). The game would've benefited by some additional examples of play. Scales: each turn: 2 days; each hex is 30 km, each unit: regt/bde/div and each air unit: 3 squadrons. 240 counters. The map is most interesting and very well done IMHO: showing Pakistan and Bangladesh as two maps separated by holding areas representing central India, Russia, Indian Ocean (US bases) and US 5th fleet. There are loads of charts on the map (although not all you need to play) and nice play reminders and a little insert which lays the grid utop a regional map as well to aid in orientation. Lots of odd terrain: clear, desert, rough, mountain, glacier, forest, salt marsh, minor/major river, city, town, road, railrd, tracks, airfield, oil field, nuke site, all sea and coastal (and a plethora of borders) Land units have 3 #: combat strength, survivability and movement allow. Asterisk indicate stand-off capability. You get armor, armored cav, mech, mech airborne, infantry, marine, airborne inf, mountain inf, spec ops, guerillas, paramil, attack helos, airmobile inf, air defense, SSM, various types of supply/depots. Air units have strike, air superiority, countermeasures, combat radius numbers and indicators for Advanced and type: fighters, adv. tech fighters, naval a/c, stealth a/c, strategic a/c. Game is played in a series of impulses in which one can move/fight depending on a nation's doctrine or C-3-I rating. In other words, a game turn goes: first player: gets reinforcement: impulse 1: move, (second player may react). air combat; land combat; impulse 2; impulse 3; logistics (remove some markers, check supply), then second goes. The C3I rating lets units participate in one, two or three impulses. A unit can react according to the national C3I: can react in only 1, 2 or 3 impulses. 4 units can stack. ZOCs are semi-locking. Extra MP to move in and out and from one to another. Certain units (mostly US) have a 2-hex ZOC range. Combat is not required. There's an extra CRT for US Airland Battle doctrine and the other is Combined Arms. Light units are pretty powerful (2xattack) in certain lousy terrain. Results are elim, retreat, disrupted (flipped). OOS are disrupted. OOS can recover. Helos are powerful but fragile. Roll to recover from OOS or combat disruption against a unit's surviabilty #: less than or equal: success. Disrupted units are eliminated if disrupted again. One can stay disrupted all game. Air units fly from bases w/in radius (in attack or reaction according to C3I) and can fly air superiority (fight all opposing air units in hex) and bombing (2 flavors: CAS, Strike) in same impulse. CAS aids ground combat: Strike hits on own: can stand-off strike with certain units. One can use nukes (so called special weapons) US air is very powerful. Nav ops are abstract: US/India can naval bombard coast, land amphibs, US can fire stand-off weapons, and nav air. Scenarios: 1965: desultory fighting in the Kashmir. 1971: Indian blitz in Bangladesh (E. Pak) and against W. Pak. 1990s (1): Pak invades Kashmir; (2) India preemp strike; (3) Russ/US invade Pak to take out its nukes. There are variant counters for some breakdown of Divs into Bdes; creation of airborne and mountain troops and the Bangladesh army. Be careful when punching out units (cut em out if you can w/ a clipper) because the die cut on my copy was lousy (not all the way through and a tiny bit off center). We've played 1/2 of three scenarios thus far: 1965 is tough going for both sides because the Kashmir is such lousy terrain. The Indians can blitz big in the central Pak desert in 1971 and defending Bangladesh is a thankless task for the Pak. In 1990, India is very powerful vs. Pak, but the US units rule. Doug (dmurphy@wppost.depaul.edu) From: Doug Murphy Subject: rule quibble: Indo-Pak War Joe Miranda introduces a novel concept with the C3I index: a national ranking which allows units of a certain country to react to phasing player movement in either one, two, or three of the move/combat impulses that make up a game turn. Rule 4.2 defines C3I ratings of 1, 2 and 3 as only being able to react in the First, First & Second, or all three impulses. Rule 5.6 says a unit could react in ANY one, two, or all three impulses. The rest of the rules and examples seem to support the latter. Also, the rules seemingly limit ZOCs to only attack-capable units; leaving defend-only units without a ZOC. I'd say this is true as defend-only units are the logistic ones: the supply dumps. Doug Murphy (dmurphy@wppost.depaul.edu)