Less Than 60 Miles (2019)

"The goal is to collapse adversary’s system into confusion and disorder causing him to over and under react to activity that appears simultaneously menacing as well as ambiguous, chaotic, or misleading."

John R. Boyd, “Patterns of Conflict”

At 0400 Zulu Time, July 24 1985, three Warsaw Pact Armies cross the Inner German Border and advance at full speed into the Fulda Gap.

US V Corps, supported by West German 5 Panzer Division, start executing OPLAN 33001 – the CENTAG Defense Plan prepared and refined for decades – to accomplish the apparently impossible task of stopping 4000 Soviet Tanks before they reach the Rhine.

Taking its roots from SPI’s Central Front and NATO: Division Commander, Less Than 60 Miles is the first of an operational simulation series focused on Command, Control and Communication.

All the elements of modern mechanized warfare are covered: Chemical and Nuclear Weapons, Attack Helicopters, Engineers, Electronic Warfare, Counter-battery Fire, Ribbon Bridges, Army Doctrines, Reconnaissance units, Close Air Support coordination and more.

Several typical wargame mechanics have been reinterpreted, and both sides will fight three equally dangerous foes: the enemy, their own plan and time. Even a simple action can quickly turn into a disaster when facing an opponent using more efficiently the real key to victory: the OODA Loop theorized by John Boyd in the early ‘80s and used today as the basis for several military doctrines.

Moreover, this is (hopefully) the first module of the C3 Series, covering the whole NATO – Warsaw Pact conflict in Central Europe. Yes, the idea is to have the whole Central Front playable in a gigantic, unmanageable, mind-blowing campaign.

• 5 km per hex, 3 hours per game turn
• Regiment / Battalion sized ground units
• Detailed Order of Battle set in 1985
• Close Air Support and Attack Helicopters
• Command, Control & Communication related problems
• Electronic and Intelligence Warfare
• Formation Leaders skills (or absence thereof)
• Artillery interdiction and Counter-Battery fire
• Chemical and Nuclear warfare
• Specific events for Warsaw Pact and NATO
• Random events to further increase battlefield chaos
• Two Campaign Games:
  1. "The Day That Never Comes", three Warsaw Pact Armies against US V Corps
  2. "One Minute to Midnight", all-out chemical and nuclear warfare after several weeks of tension and build-up
• Three Smaller Scenarios:
  1. "The Eleventh Hour", the first desperate hours of US 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment
  2. "Steps of Our Fathers", West German 5th Panzer Division finds itself on the main attack axis
  3. "Spearhead", US 3rd Armored Division must stop 8th Guards Army and send reinforcements North