What If? – The Long Tradition of Alternate History in Wargaming and Beyond (Part III)

Across the first two parts of this series, we’ve been circling around a single question: what happens when history refuses to stay put? In Part I, we traced the long tradition of “what if?” storytelling from page to screen and into the hex-and-counter world – how novels, films, and tabletop designs have used roads-not-taken to probe everything from Normandy to nuclear war. Part II brought that discussion firmly into the WDS catalogue, looking at titles like Panzer Campaigns: Sealion ’40, Japan ’45/’46, and Moscow ’42 – Fall Kreml, where carefully researched variants turn unrealised operations into plausible campaigns you can actually play through.

Part III shifts the lens to the late Cold War and asks a more uncomfortable question: if NATO and the Warsaw Pact had ever gone beyond exercises and war plans, what might the opening weeks of World War III have looked like? 

Cold War Gone Hot

The Summer of '85: World War III Unfolds

In the alternate-history universe explored by the Modern Campaigns titles Fulda Gap, North German Plain, Danube Front and Korea '85, the long-dreaded Third World War finally breaks out. The games imagine what NATO planners and Warsaw Pact generals spent decades gaming on maps and in command post exercises: a sudden Warsaw Pact assault across the inner-German border, and a near-simultaneous eruption of war on the Korean Peninsula.

On June 10, 1985, the Cold War turns hot. Without warning, Warsaw Pact forces surge across the inner-German border in a massive offensive codenamed Operation RHINEGATE. At dawn, Soviet and East German divisions roll through the Fulda Gap – the crucial lowland corridor between East Germany and West Germany – aiming straight for Frankfurt and the Rhine. Almost simultaneously, half a world away, the Korean DMZ erupts in flames as North Korean troops launch their own surprise invasion of the South. The long-dreaded Third World War begins on two continents at once.

Soviet T-80 tanks

In central Germany, the initial Pact onslaught achieves tactical surprise. The Soviet high command goes to extraordinary lengths to maintain secrecy, issuing orders by hand only hours before H-Hour. NATO units are caught in peacetime postures, many forward-deployed in garrisons near the border. Soviet Guards tank regiments and motor rifle divisions, supported by East German armor, smash into the thin screening forces of the US V Corps and West German III Corps along the Fulda Gap. The Fulda Gap – historically regarded as the shortest way from the East German border to the Rhine – now lives up to its feared reputation. American border troops of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (the Blackhorse) fight desperate delaying actions as three Pact armies (the Soviet 1st Guards Tank Army, 8th Guards Army, and the East German 3rd Army) armored through the corridor. Warsaw Pact commanders enjoy better than 3:1 superiority in manpower and tanks in this sector, and by sheer weight and momentum, they begin to force a wedge toward Frankfurt. Within the first 48 hours, advance elements of Soviet Guards divisions bypass Fulda and probe toward the Main River, while heavy fighting rages around Bad Hersfeld and Kassel on the flanks. NATO’s situation looks dire: if the Pact reaches the Rhine en masse, the loss of West Germany is all but assured.

US Army M-60A2 tanks in Germany near Fulda, 1981. US Army photo.

Further north, the Soviet 3rd Shock Army spearheads an equally ferocious thrust across the North German Plain. Three Pact armies (including Polish units in support) press into NATO’s Northern Army Group (NORTHAG), aiming to overwhelm British, West German, Dutch, and Belgian defenders and seize the Ruhr industrial heartland. Terrain that is flat and open – heathlands and farmland north of the Teutoburger Wald – favors massed armor, and Soviet commanders exploit it ruthlessly. The British Army of the Rhine and West German I Corps, stretched out along a broad front, reel under the assault. Soviet T-72 tanks, supported by Mi-24 Hind attack helicopters, punch through scattered covering forces and race westward. By June 12, leading elements of the 3rd Shock Army reach the Weser River at multiple points, having covered astonishing ground in two days. At Hameln – the Pied Piper’s town on the Weser – East German paratroopers execute a daring heliborne assault to seize an intact bridge, widening the breach. NATO units fall back in disarray, fighting delaying actions at river lines. “By nightfall the line has held, if barely,” one account notes of the first week; a thin line of desperate NATO troops stands between the onrushing attackers and the vital Ruhr region. Still, the Warsaw Pact drive in the north is slowed just enough by blown bridges, traffic jams, and casualties. Pact commanders grow concerned that their timetable is slipping – a critical development, as every day that West European reinforcements arrive increases the risk of losing their early advantage.

Halfway across the globe, the Korean Peninsula explodes in tandem. Sensing an unprecedented opportunity with the US fully distracted in Europe, North Korea’s dictator, Kim Il Sung, sets in motion Operation CHUCHE, his long-awaited plan to reunify Korea by force. North Korean intelligence catches wind of the Soviet war preparations just in time: Kim is informed that Moscow’s offensive against NATO is imminent, and within moments, he decides to strike south in coordination (albeit without explicit Soviet approval). On June 10 (evening local time), 1.2 million North Korean troops storm across the DMZ behind a deafening artillery barrage. The plan, brutally simple, is to achieve tactical surprise and move rapidly and with extreme violence, shattering the South Korean defenses before American might can be brought to bear. Kim’s chief planner, Colonel Rhee, promises that in less than two weeks, Seoul will fall and the “puppet regime” in the South will be crushed.

North Korean propaganda poster stating "The defense of the motherland is the highest form of patriotism."

North Korea’s opening moves are audacious. Even as KPA infantry and T-62 tanks crash through the minefields and fortifications of the DMZ, specially trained NK special forces units emerge from secret invasion tunnels behind the lines. Decades of digging create tunnels that allow entire battalions to pop up in the ROK rear areas, sowing chaos and targeting command posts. Airborne and amphibious assaults soon follow: five North Korean light infantry brigades parachute onto key road junctions and high ground west of Seoul, while an amphibious landing at Incheon (codenamed “Rude Awakening”) puts commando forces in the port city’s outskirts. This bold gambit seeks to replicate the old Manchurian strategy of “deep battle” – disrupting allied mobilization and blocking routes to the front. If it succeeds, it bottles up reinforcements and leaves the front-line South Korean divisions isolated. The initial shock is tremendous. At Panmunjom and along the Imjin River, forward elements of the US 2nd Infantry Division – the only American division in Korea – are hit by massed North Korean infantry nearly twice their size, supported by a storm of rocket artillery. The 2nd ID’s valiant stand inflicts heavy losses, but by D+1, it reels; Pyongyang makes destroying this division a top priority, knowing it is the main bulwark of American power in Korea and its collapse demoralizes the South. South of the DMZ, ROK Army formations fight fiercely but are forced into a fighting withdrawal toward prepared lines north of Seoul. True to their plan, the KPA armored spearheads try to encircle Seoul rather than grind through its streets. By day three of the war, Seoul is partially invested and in flames, but not yet fully occupied – the North Koreans leave one flank of the city open intentionally, hoping ROK/U.S. forces flee rather than dig in for urban combat.

West German Leopard 2A4 MBT

For two tense weeks, the outcome hangs in the balance on both fronts. In Europe, NATO’s worst nightmares seem to be coming true. By mid-June, the Warsaw Pact overruns large swathes of West Germany. Cities like Hanover and Braunschweig are encircled or in ruins, their defense buying time for NATO’s regrouping further west. In the South, Soviet thrusts through Bavaria (the “Danube Front”) force US VII Corps and German II Corps to abandon forward positions and fall back toward the Rhine–Danube intersection to protect Munich and Stuttgart. Yet, crucially, NATO does not collapse. In the CENTAG (Central Army Group) sector around the Fulda Gap, the Soviets fail to achieve a clean breakthrough toward Frankfurt. The US V Corps, reinforced by West German panzer divisions and criss-crossing reserves, trades space for time and keeps coherent defensive lines on the east bank of the Rhine-Main basin. In the NORTHAG sector, the British and West Germans manage to establish a thin red line along the Weser–Leine rivers by June 13, with last-ditch support from Dutch and Belgian brigades arriving from the north. NATO air power, though initially mauled by Soviet air strikes, recovers and begins interdicting Pact supply columns ruthlessly. Every mile the Pact armies advance brings them deeper into the NATO depth, where fresh defending brigades, mobilized territorial units, and pre-positioned US reinforcements (like the lead elements of the US III Corps flown into Europe) stiffen resistance. Soviet logistical lines, meanwhile, stretch perilously thin – ammunition and fuel shortages slow their operations as they outrun supply dumps in East Germany. In the north, repeated counterattacks by NATO local reserves nibble at the flanks of the Pact salient. And ominously for Moscow, France, which is outside NATO’s integrated command, begins moving its First Army toward the front. By June 20, the Warsaw Pact offensive loses momentum.

French AMX-30 tank

The climax comes in late June. Seizing the initiative, NATO launches a coordinated counteroffensive once the Soviet thrusts stall. On June 22, 1985, a massive counter-attack led by the US III Corps (fresh divisions from CONUS) and rallied NATO mechanized forces strikes back at the base of the Soviet penetrations. In the North German Plain, British I Corps and West German Panzer-Lehr brigades cross the Weser behind a rolling air and artillery barrage, catching the exhausted 3rd Shock Army off balance. Simultaneously in central Germany, the US 3rd Armored Division – the “Spearhead” division – spearheads a V Corps counter-thrust south of Kassel, while German and French armored units attack from the flanks. After two weeks of continuous operations, many Pact divisions are at barely half strength; they have virtually no reserves left to plug new gaps. NATO’s counter-stroke proves devastating. Within 48 hours, Soviet formations begin to crack under the pressure – one by one, divisions break contact and flee eastward, abandoning tons of vehicles and equipment in their haste to escape. By early July, the front in Europe largely pushes back to the pre-war frontier. What remains of the Warsaw Pact invasion force retreats into East Germany, harried by NATO air strikes as they go. The invasion of West Germany fails to achieve its objectives, and a shocked Kremlin now faces the prospect of a prolonged war it has not planned for.

In Korea, too, the tide turns by late June. Despite spectacular initial gains – North Korean tank columns penetrate as far south as the Kum River line in western Korea by June 28 – the KPA cannot deliver a knockout blow. The further South they drive, the more their offensive bogs down. Logistics becomes the North’s Achilles’ heel, just as it has in 1950: miles of devastated roads and constant Allied air attacks on supply convoys make it impossible to sustain the tempo of advance. The North Korean spearheads outrun their air defense cover, allowing U.S. F-16s and F-4s from Japan to savage them from above. Crucially, American reinforcements begin to arrive. The US Seventh Fleet rushes two carrier battle groups to Korea’s coast by late June, adding naval air power that pounds Pyongyang’s lines of communication. The elite U.S. Marines of the 3rd Division conduct an amphibious counter-landing near the port of Gunsan (just south of the Kum River) on June 28, threatening the flank of the KPA’s main thrust. At the same time, additional US Army and Marine units divert from Japan and even from the United States start bolstering the defense of southern Korea. The battered ROK Army, though pushed back nearly 100 miles, remains intact and determined. By early July, the combined weight of ROK–US forces counterattacking and the KPA’s supply collapse bring the northern offensive to a halt. A counteroffensive from the Pusan perimeter begins to push the invaders back. Pyongyang’s great gamble fails.

The short, intense World War III of 1985 thus ends in a stalemate – or arguably, a NATO/ROK victory, since the aggressors are repelled on both fronts. In reality, the fighting lasts only about three weeks before a ceasefire is arranged, as all sides are terrified of further escalation (and indeed, the specter of nuclear weapons looms as the next step if conventional force has not sufficed). The war’s final days see frantic diplomatic activity. With Soviet armies in full retreat and North Korea’s forces decimated, the United States and its allies stand down further offensive operations, wary of provoking a desperate Soviet nuclear response. An armistice freezes the European front roughly along the pre-war inter-German border, with parts of northern West Germany left devastated by the brief occupation. In Korea, the lines stabilize not far from the old DMZ – the war there briefly pushes the front deep into South Korean territory, but by the ceasefire, the North’s troops are forced to withdraw close to the 38th parallel to avoid encirclement. The world counts the costs of a cataclysmic “might-have-been” conflict: millions of lives lost in weeks, cities from Hamburg to Seoul in ruins, and the Cold War irrevocably transformed.

Designing the Unthinkable: Bringing "Fulda Gap'85" and "Korea '85" to Life

Designing a wargame around a hypothetical 1985 World War III required a meticulous blend of historical research and imaginative scenario crafting. The Modern Campaigns series tackled this challenge with titles such as Fulda Gap, North German Plain, Danube Front and Korea. Each game in the series translates the what-if battles into detailed maps, orders of battle, and scenarios that simulate the conflict's twists and turns. The developers' goal was to ground the gameplay in plausible military reality – to "force historically plausible decisions" on the players. To achieve that, the team drew deeply on Cold War archives, NATO and Warsaw Pact force data, and the known war plans of the era.

One of the first design decisions was choosing the exact timeframe. The team selected 1985 as the representative year for several reasons. By 1985, both NATO and the Warsaw Pact were fielding a new generation of weapons that would have defined any late–Cold War showdown. The United States had just replaced the bulk of its M60A3 Patton tanks in Germany with the new M1 Abrams, and the West German Bundeswehr was similarly deploying the Leopard 2 main battle tank in increasing numbers. On the Warsaw Pact side, the Soviet T-80 had entered front-line service in the early 1980s; still, only a small portion of units had T-80s, but they were beginning to supplement the older T-72 and T-64 tanks in key divisions. Advanced infantry fighting vehicles were also proliferating: the US introduced the M2 Bradley, West Germany the Marder 1A2, and the USSR the BMP-2, all by the early '80s. Designers argued that 1985 represented the apex of NATO and Pact technological development in the Cold War. It was a sweet spot where both sides had cutting-edge equipment, but before drastic changes (like later-model Abrams and the Soviet collapse) came into play.

US M1A1 MBT

Thus, Fulda Gap '85 and its sister games assume each army wields the peak hardware of the late Cold War – for example, the Fulda scenarios use the early M1 Abrams variant with the 105 mm gun, which in game terms means the M1 has slightly lower anti-armor punch compared to the Leopard 2's 120 mm smoothbore gun. This fidelity to equipment details even produces subtle asymmetries: the first-generation M1's smaller gun actually gives it unfavourable attack values compared to the Leopard II, reflecting reality. Doctrinal differences are also baked in – NATO standardization efforts meant that the American M1A1 and German Leopard 2 eventually shared the same Rheinmetall 120 mm cannon and could use common ammunition. These nuances find their way into the game's data, highlighting how interoperability and logistics would have been an edge for NATO.

Another cornerstone was the map design and terrain. The Fulda Gap '85 map covers central Germany on a scale of 1 mile per hex, with each turn representing 3 hours. This allows a granular portrayal of the "Frankfurt–Fulda–Leipzig" axis that defined the likely invasion corridor. Real-world geography heavily informed the map: the team used declassified military maps and topographical data to accurately place rivers, ridges, forests, and urban areas. The Fulda Gap scenario's map shows Central Germany with the Fulda Gap as the main focus – the shortest route from the East German border to the Rhine. Such accuracy was vital because the terrain would have channeled the battle in specific ways. For example, the Fulda Gap is flanked by the Rhön and Vogelsberg mountains, so the game's hex map presents a funnel that naturally forces the Pact offensive along certain roads – just as NATO war plans anticipated. The designers even included the Inner German Border fortifications as a terrain feature: the map clearly marks the strip of mines, barbed-wire fences, watchtowers, and automatic-firing devices that made the Iron Curtain deadly to cross. They note this border was in the 1980s one of the most heavily guarded in the world, surpassed only by the Korean border – a nice touch linking the two theaters of the game.

Crucially, the game maps often extended beyond the immediate battle zone, posing design dilemmas. In Fulda Gap '85, once the map was drafted, the team realized the northeastern section of the map actually lay outside the true Fulda sector – it reached up toward Hanover, which was historically the deployment area of the Soviet 3rd Shock Army for an attack on NORTHAG further north. They hadn't intended to include the Hanover plain in a Fulda scenario, but now it was there on the map. The solution was creative: they made that northeast area "impassable" terrain in the main scenarios (so you couldn't drive tanks through an area that wasn't meant to be active), but kept the 3rd Shock Army in the order of battle for potential "what-if" scenarios. In other words, they future-proofed the game by allowing scenario variants where perhaps the action could extend north, or the 3rd Shock Army might be redirected into the Fulda sector. This kind of flexibility is a hallmark of the Modern Campaigns series – while the historical maps are fixed and faithful, the scenarios can tweak assumptions (surprise attack or not, additional forces or not) to explore alternate possibilities within the alternate history.

West German and East German Panzergrenadier Divisions clashing east of Celle.

The orders of battle (OOBs) and unit ratings were another major endeavor. On the NATO side, detailed OOB information for the mid-1980s was readily available from open sources and military documents. The developers could accurately map out which divisions were in V Corps, which brigades the British had in NORTHAG, down to battalion or even company levels. Reconstructing the Warsaw Pact OOB was trickier – as they wryly note, readily available information on Pact forces was not exactly abundant. The team was fortunate to have a subject-matter expert, Major Greg "Sturm" Smith, who had extensive knowledge of the Warsaw Pact armed forces in the '80s. Using both Western intel estimates and post–Cold War sources, they assembled the likely composition of a Pact attack: Soviet Guard armies, grouped tank and motor rifle divisions, augmented by East German, Polish, and Czechoslovak units appropriate to each sector.

In Fulda Gap '85, for example, the final OOB features the US V and VII Corps and West German III and II Corps on NATO's side, versus the Soviet 1st Guards Tank Army, 8th Guards Army, and East German 3rd Army on the Pact side. The force ratios were eye-opening: NATO had five divisions plus some independent brigades (about 18,000 men and 4,400 vehicles in the Fulda sector defense), whereas the Pact amassed twelve divisions plus an airborne division (around 66,500 men and 5,000 vehicles) for the attack. This roughly 3:1 advantage in manpower and armor for the Pact is precisely what NATO strategists of the time believed they would face. Yet, interestingly, the designers found that NATO's tank disadvantage wasn't as lopsided as many assumed. Research revealed that by the mid-80s, NATO had largely erased the tank deficit of the '60s and '70s by restructuring from infantry-centric units to heavily mechanized forces. In raw numbers, NATO's late-Cold War armies actually fielded comparable numbers of tanks and armored vehicles to the Pact (though the Pact still led). This insight is reflected in the game – the NATO side isn't shortchanged on armored unit counters; West German panzer divisions are full of Leopard tanks, and American corps have their full complement of M1s and M60A3s. The Pact, of course, still fields huge masses of armor – for example, the Soviet 1st Guards Tank Army brings thousands of T-72s, the backbone tank of the Pact. But players will find that NATO packs a surprising punch too, especially with qualitatively superior gear and defensive posture.

To model qualitative differences, the games assign unit proficiency and morale ratings. While not always spelled out explicitly, it's clear that a British armored brigade or US airborne battalion in 1985 is rated higher than a second-line Soviet reserve division or a conscripted Czech motor rifle regiment. The game designers balanced these factors so that Warsaw Pact units have numbers on their side, but NATO units often react faster and hit harder per unit. One concrete design choice was to give NATO more granular control by using smaller unit counters. Originally, the plan was to have both NATO and Warsaw Pact forces at the battalion level. However, after discussion, the designers decided to break NATO units down to company level in Fulda Gap '85, while leaving the Warsaw Pact mostly at battalion level. This gave NATO players more flexibility – mirroring NATO's doctrine of flexible defense – to plug gaps and maneuver small units, whereas the Pact's larger formations are a bit more cumbersome, reflecting their more rigid operational doctrine. It's a fascinating design mechanism: by altering the unit scale asymmetrically, the game implicitly simulates NATO's decentralized command and initiative versus the Warsaw Pact's massed, hierarchical approach.

British Army of the Rhine opposite the Soviet 3rd Shock Army

Other design elements were informed by real-world military planning. Airborne and helicopter forces play a big role in these hypothetical battles, just as they did in both NATO and Warsaw Pact war plans. The scenario designers included operations like the East German air-assault on Hameln and the Polish 6th Airborne drop on Nienburg in the North German Plain scenario – none of which ever happened in reality, but all of which are plausible given Warsaw Pact doctrine, which emphasized deep strikes and Spetsnaz/special forces operations behind NATO lines. NATO, in turn, has elite airmobile units (for example, US 101st Airborne or UK Parachute Regiment units in some scenarios) that can be used for rapid reaction. The game engine was extended to handle these, allowing helicopter insertion, airdrops, and so on, which earlier titles in the series (focused on past wars) didn't emphasize. One can imagine the design team playtesting dramatic moves like a Soviet heliborne capture of a bridge, and tweaking the rules to keep it challenging yet feasible.

Because these games depict a hypothetical war, the developers also allowed themselves some flexibility in scenario design for gameplay balance. They created multiple scenario variants to explore different "what ifs" and to ensure both sides could be fun to play. For example, North German Plain '85 includes scenarios with titles like "Come As You Are (No Fixed Units)", "Early French Entry", "Easier Warsaw Pact", "Easier NATO", and even a winter scenario. The "no fixed units" scenario presumably postulates no prior alert status (or conversely, no units locked in place by peacetime garrison constraints), whereas "prepared" variants might assume some strategic warning for NATO. Since there was no actual historical battle limiting them, the designers could alter the number of units and their strength levels in some scenarios for balance. They remarked that, unlike strictly historical titles, here they were not bound by history and had the luxury of adjusting force strengths for PBEM balance in certain scenarios. That said, the main campaign scenarios do stick close to plausible OOBs and force ratios – you won't see any ahistorical super-weapons or divisions that never existed. Rather, the variations revolve around timing and contingency: for example, what if the French Army (which in reality might have stayed in reserve or defended only French territory) entered the fray on Day 1? One scenario includes an "early French entry" which gives NATO a boost, reflecting that possibility. Another scenario imagines a winter 1985 conflict, showcasing how terrain and weather (snow, mud) could alter the offensive's dynamic. These variations provide a sandbox to test different strategies and also nod to the uncertainty inherent in any war plan.

The development team didn't work in a vacuum – they consulted historical research and even veterans. In researching Fulda Gap '85, the designers drew on declassified NATO documents and a German book on potential Warsaw Pact tactics. They were surprised (and a bit unnerved) to find that the open-source book's depiction of Pact operational methods was remarkably accurate, according to former army officers – a scary thought when you consider the book was made for the public and what classified information the Warsaw Pact would have had. This anecdote underscores how well-informed both sides were about each other's general plans. It also shows the designers' commitment to authenticity: they cross-checked scenario content with real military experts from the "Fulda Gap team," likely NATO veterans who had served in that area. The result is that the games' scenarios feel like credible operations that the NATO and Soviet generals could have executed.

Even details such as logistics rules were calibrated to reflect reality. In the game, supply for NATO comes from the west map edge and degrades as units push east, modelling lengthening supply lines into Germany, while the Pact has supply sources in key cities they've captured, simulating forward supply dumps and the idea that Soviet doctrine expected to use captured NATO depots. The designers tweaked parameters so that German autobahns, rivers, and rail lines affect movement and supply just as they likely would have – fast operational movement on highways, bottlenecks at blown bridges, and so on. All these design decisions – from unit scale, to map scope, to OOB, to supply and reinforcement timing – were about balancing realism, playability, and the inherent unknowns of an unprecedented conflict.

ROK II Corps is defending the East Coast against the Chinese 23rd Army.

Finally, each game shipped with extensive scenario notes and even fictionalized "history" write-ups that read like alternate history narratives. For example, North German Plain '85 includes an essay titled "Northern Exposure: Operation RHINEGATE: North of the Fulda Gap" by Robert Mayer, which provides a pseudo-historical chronicle of the battles in that sector. Korea '85 similarly has a piece ("Enter the Dragon: The Korean War of 1985") that lays out the backstory and campaign narrative, from Kim Il Sung's decision to the final outcome. These notes not only add flavor but also clarify the designers' assumptions: for instance, the Korean War storyline in the game explicitly states that the Soviet offensive in Europe was not directly coordinated with Pyongyang – North Korea acted opportunistically once the war in Europe began. It also mentions fictional Soviet operations "LUXOR" (Middle East) and "BAUXITE" (Yugoslavia) preceding the war, suggesting the Soviets executed covert moves to secure their flanks or divert NATO's attention. While such details are imaginative, they are grounded in the logic of the era: Yugoslavia was a wildcard in the 1980s, and the Middle East a constant theater of superpower competition. By clearly distinguishing game fiction from historical fact, the designers let the players know where they took creative license. Yet they did so in a way that feels authentic – many players have remarked how these campaigns in Modern Campaigns attempt to answer the what-ifs of a 1985 war in a manner as realistic as possible. In summary, the design and development of the 1985 World War III scenarios was an exercise in rigorous historical modeling combined with thoughtful hypotheticals. From unit quality and technological asymmetry, to terrain and politics, the games strive to simulate not just any run-of-the-mill RTS battle, but the genuine article of NATO vs Warsaw Pact as it was feared and planned for in the mid-80s. It's a testament to the designers' work that playing these scenarios can almost feel like conducting a command post exercise on a Cold War weekend – one where the flashpoints are Fulda and the North German Plain, and where victory hangs on decisions made under the gravest pressure.

Cold War Reality Check: Could It Have Happened?

How plausible is this 1985 World War III scenario? In retrospect, we know that the Cold War ended without a direct superpower clash – but throughout the post-1945 era, planners on both sides seriously considered the possibility of exactly such a war. The Modern Campaigns 1985 universe asks "What if the Cold War had turned hot?" and gives one possible answer. To assess its realism, we must consider both the likelihood of war breaking out and the likely nature of the war if it did.

On the question of war initiation, history offers a few chilling near-misses. While there wasn't an "Able Archer, but purely conventional" incident that led to war, there were crises where a conventional NATO–Warsaw Pact clash came worryingly close. One oft-cited example is the Berlin Crisis of 1961, particularly the tank standoff at Checkpoint Charlie in October that year. Soviet and American tanks faced each other at point-blank range in divided Berlin – guns loaded, soldiers tense – under conflicting orders and with very limited direct communication. Each side misread the other's resolve over what started as a dispute on Allied access rights. Had a commander on either side fired a shot, it's entirely plausible that a firefight in the streets of Berlin could have spiralled into a larger conventional war along the Iron Curtain. Thankfully, restraint prevailed at the last minute. Similarly, the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, though ultimately resolved diplomatically, involved serious preparations for military action that could have led to clashes in Europe if things had gone awry.

Another category of near-miss was when Warsaw Pact interventions in its own sphere raised alarms in the West. The Prague Spring invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 is a case in point. In August 1968, the Soviet Union massed troops ostensibly to crush the liberalization in Prague, but NATO was initially unsure if this was an "internal" operation or the prelude to a drive into West Germany. NATO intelligence was caught off guard by the scale and timing of the invasion, leading to a brief scare that this might be the start of World War III. In reality, the Soviets confined their action to Czechoslovakia, and NATO correctly read it as such, standing down. But one can easily imagine a slight twist: if NATO had misinterpreted the troop movements as an attack on the FRG and started mobilizing aggressively, the Soviets might have panicked, thinking NATO was intervening to support Prague, and expanded their offensive westward. This "inadvertent war" scenario – where each side's worst-case assumptions trigger a self-fulfilling prophecy – is very much in line with how the 1985 war in the game universe could have started. Indeed, the actual Able Archer '83 (see my "On this Day" post for 7 November) exercise showed how dangerously close misunderstanding could bring the superpowers. Soviet leaders in 1983 truly feared NATO might launch a first strike under the cover of a command post exercise. Had someone on either side acted on those fears, even a conventional clash could have erupted as a precursor to nuclear use.

People throw Molotov cocktails and stones at Soviet Army tanks in front of the Czechoslovak Radio station building in central Prague during the first day of Soviet-led invasion to then Czechoslovakia on August 21, 1968

There's also the Polish Crisis of 1980–81. During the Solidarity uprising, Moscow very nearly sent in the Red Army to Poland (they even amassed troops on the border), and Western capitals were extremely anxious that such an invasion could spark a wider conflict. US and NATO officials quietly debated how to respond if the Soviets marched into Poland – some plans involved reinforcing NATO's forward defenses or taking counter-moves that the Soviets might misinterpret. If the Soviets had invaded Poland and NATO had conducted a big mobilization in response (perhaps fearing that the move on Poland was just the first step toward an attack on West Germany or Denmark), it's not far-fetched that shots could have been exchanged as both sides "braced" for a war neither originally intended to start.

A rally on May Day, 1983 in Gdansk, Poland, by supporters of the Solidarność union. Photograph: Associated Press

All these historical episodes share a common feature: they underscore how a war in Central Europe could accidentally start due to misperception and hair-trigger alertness, even if neither side actually wanted all-out war. In the alternate history of 1985, one could posit a similar trigger – perhaps a NATO exercise or Soviet war game that got misinterpreted, or a crisis in a divided Germany that escalated. Cold War analyses often emphasise the chronic fear that an exercise could be a cover for a real attack. The Warsaw Pact, for instance, regularly practiced massive offensives into West Germany (the famous "Seven Days to the River Rhine" scenario) and NATO knew these exercises could, in theory, turn real with little warning. Conversely, NATO's REFORGER exercises, which practiced reinforcements, always worried Soviet planners as potential smokescreens for NATO aggression. In our scenario, it's entirely plausible that a war could erupt from one side's preemptive move during such a tense moment. In fact, one could imagine the Soviets launching Operation RHINEGATE in 1985 precisely because they falsely believed NATO was on the verge of doing something similar – a "use it or lose it" mentality triggered by a perceived imminent threat.

However, the biggest reality check on the 1985 war scenario is the nuclear question. Every serious analysis of a NATO–Warsaw Pact war acknowledges that it’s hard to separate the conventional and nuclear dimensions. NATO’s official doctrine from the late 1950s onward was “flexible response,” which included the understanding that if NATO couldn’t halt a Soviet invasion conventionally, it would escalate to tactical or theater nuclear weapons rather than lose Europe. The Warsaw Pact similarly assumed a short conventional phase followed by early nuclear use (in their case, they planned to use nukes to blast holes in NATO’s defenses). In game terms, Modern Campaigns largely keeps the battlefield conventional — but it does nod to the Cold War’s “shadow of escalation” via an optional rule. If players select the Nuclear Scenario Termination optional rule (which is - for good reason - not a default rule), the scenario may end prematurely once at least half the turns have been played, and one side has achieved a Major Victory, with the implication being that global nuclear war has begun beyond the scope of the scenario. This rule is explicitly for illustration purposes and has no other in-game effect, and it must be selected again for each scenario. Historically, whether a large-scale European war in 1985 could have remained non-nuclear is highly debatable. Many historians and former officials have suggested that once NATO airbases or command centers were being overrun, NATO would have faced immense pressure to use tactical nuclear weapons, to which the Soviets would retaliate, rapidly leading to Armageddon. So, the most questionable assumption in any purely conventional 1985 campaign isn’t the tank battles — it’s the idea that leaders on both sides could keep escalation contained for long.

Nuclear-capable US Pershing IIA MRBMs

Even so, the scenario offers a valuable window into the conventional balance and operational art of a late–Cold War conflict. It invites the question: if nuclear escalation did not end the war outright (or at least did not outrun the scenario’s scope, as abstracted by the optional termination rule), could NATO actually have stopped the Red Army on the ground? The game's narrative answers "Yes, barely" – and interestingly, some real-world analyses by the mid-1980s were coming to similar conclusions. NATO had quietly improved its conventional strength by the 1980s (more tanks, better anti-tank weapons, AirLand Battle doctrine, and so on), narrowing the gap with the Pact. War games conducted at NATO colleges often showed that while Warsaw Pact forces might make deep initial gains (as they do in the Fulda and North German Plain scenarios), NATO could perhaps avoid total collapse, especially if reinforcement flows were timely. The failure of the Pact offensive in the Modern Campaigns storyline – culminating in a NATO counterattack – reflects an understanding that the Pact's blitz might have culminated due to extended supply lines and losses. This is plausible; historical estimates of Pact logistics indicate they could sustain about a 10–14-day offensive before needing an operational pause. The game's timeline has NATO holding out roughly that long and then counterpunching, which is consistent with some Western Cold War expectations (albeit optimistic ones).

Interestingly, the outcome in the alternate 1985 scenario carries echoes of later real events. One might compare the fictional Soviet invasion of West Germany to Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine on a smaller scale. In both cases, an attacking force gambled on a rapid armor thrust to achieve a fait accompli, and in both, logistical shortcomings and fierce resistance led to the offensive stalling short of its goal. The Russians in Ukraine, like the Soviets in the 1985 scenario, underestimated the defender's resolve and overestimated their own capacity for a quick victory. The result in 2022 was a protracted, attritional war rather than a lightning win – not unlike how in Fulda Gap '85 the Warsaw Pact finds itself in trouble after the initial push. Of course, the stakes in the Cold War would have been immensely higher, since NATO was a direct combatant (whereas in Ukraine, NATO is not fighting Russia and is not a belligerent; it has supported Ukraine without entering the war directly, to reduce the risk of escalation).

Note: As this a historical essay and not a news portal, I refrain of posting images from ongoing wars like the Russian invasion in Ukraine or the Gaza War.

Other present-day parallels are more speculative but thought-provoking. Consider the tension around Taiwan today: the US and China warily eye each other much like NATO and the Warsaw Pact did, and there's an open question whether the US would directly fight China over Taiwan. Some analysts draw analogies to Cold War Berlin – a flashpoint surrounded by a rival power. A Chinese invasion of Taiwan could, like the North Korean invasion in 1985's scenario, tempt opportunistic actions elsewhere or trigger alliance commitments unexpectedly. And like the Cold War, the threat of rapid escalation (including nuclear) acts as a deterrent that keeps such scenarios in the realm of war games and planning rather than reality.

Even smaller conflicts, such as the recent war in Gaza, highlight how quickly violence can spiral and draw in great powers indirectly. In the Gaza conflict, while not a NATO-vs-superpower scenario, we see regional alliance dynamics at play – Iran backing one side, the US firmly backing the other, and global tensions rising accordingly. It underscores that even in a unipolar or bipolar world, local wars can have outsized risks if alliance commitments and rival interests intersect. During the Cold War, a local clash in divided Germany or Korea always bore the risk of sucking in both superpower blocs, much like today, a conflict over Ukraine or Taiwan could involve NATO or U.S.-China forces. The difference is in scale and immediacy: the Cold War's central front in Germany was a hair-trigger away from full superpower commitment, whereas today's conflicts, while dangerous, have a bit more buffer – proxy warfare or economic warfare tends to come before any direct clash.

Crisis areas in 2025 (Note: this map was created before the US deployment of naval assets to the Caribbean as well as the still-active Cambodia‒Thailand border war)

So, could a World War III in 1985 have plausibly happened? Sadly, yes – there were multiple junctures at which a conventional war could have ignited, whether by miscalculation or by deliberate action of hardliners (imagine, for instance, if the Soviet leadership had taken a more desperate turn in the face of decline, opting for a "now or never" strike before NATO grew stronger). The scenario depicted in the games, with a surprise Warsaw Pact invasion and concurrent North Korean attack, is not entirely far-fetched. It compresses many worst-case assumptions – a Soviet general offensive and North Korea acting simultaneously –, but the two conflicts are strategically linked (each had been a proxy front in earlier decades). Indeed, one lesson of the Cold War is that planning for global war did include multiple theaters: NATO in Europe always worried that war in Europe could be accompanied by war in Asia (Korea) or the Middle East, and vice versa. The 1985 scenario artfully demonstrates this by showing how a European war might open the door for aggression elsewhere.

That said, the outcome – a conventional-only war that ends after a few weeks with NATO victorious – might be considered an optimistic case, at least from a Western perspective. It assumes, essentially, that the Cold War stays "cold" at the nuclear level even when it goes "hot" at the conventional level. Realistically, once events unfolded, all bets would be off. One can easily imagine a darker alternate history chapter where, for example, faced with defeat, the Soviets escalate to chemical or nuclear weapons on Day 3, or NATO, seeing its defenses collapsing, launches a pre-emptive tactical nuclear strike. Those scenarios veer into territory no one wants to imagine – which is exactly why the Cold War ended the way it did (peacefully), because leaders on both sides ultimately understood the unthinkable costs of the "thinkable" war we've been discussing.

In conclusion, the 1985 Modern Campaigns is a fascinating mix of reality and conjecture. The games clearly differentiate between what they depict and what real history was. Real history thankfully did not see these battles, but it was shaped by the possibility of them – the policies, postures, and arsenals of the time were built with a 1985 World War III in mind. By studying this alternate history, we gain insight into the fears and strategies that gripped both NATO and the Warsaw Pact. And reflecting on it alongside current events, we are reminded that the world is not free from the risk of great-power conflict – the context has changed, but the fundamental dynamics of deterrence, alliance, miscalculation, and escalation remain as relevant as ever. The ultimate lesson might be that the best war is the one avoided. In the realm of war games and alt-history blogs, we can explore "The War That Never Was" with intrigue and relief – relief that in our timeline, cooler heads prevailed in 1985, and intrigue at how close our world came to a very different history.

Next to the scenarios that were part of the original release of the games, there are other, fan-made scenarios. The excellent Certain Strike '87 is now part of the respective Danube Front '85 release. Certain Strike was updated recently. Information about it can be found here.

Taken together, Fulda Gap ’85, North German Plain ’85, Danube Front ’85, Korea ’85 and projects like Certain Strike ’87 turn the long-imagined World War III into a laboratory you can actually play in. They let you stress-test old assumptions about NATO and the Warsaw Pact, experiment with timing and force mixes, and explore how fragile the line was between “routine exercise” and catastrophe – all from the safe distance of your desk.

 

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In the final part of this series, we’ll step away from the late 20th century and look at how WDS’s pre-modern titles use their campaign engines as alternate-history machines in their own right. From marching through the branching operations of Gettysburg, to steering Sweden and Russia through the Great Northern War, to reshaping the War of the Fifth Coalition, we’ll see how Napoleonic Battles, Musket & Pike, Civil War Battles and others let you follow your own roads-not-taken through history – one campaign decision at a time.