Red Storm - The Air War Over Central Germany, 1987

The second sequel to the Charles S. Roberts Award-winning game Downtown, Red Storm is a standalone game that utilizes the Downtown game system to depict a hypothetical air war in May/June 1987 over the central portion of the NATO-Warsaw Pact front in central Germany. Like Downtown and Elusive Victory before it, Red Storm is an “operational” level air warfare game where players manage large strike packages and numerous combat air patrols in an effort to strike enemy targets, protect their own ground troops, and secure control of the air above the land battle raging below. Both sides field highly advanced all-weather aircraft, long-range air-to-air missiles, precision bombs, sophisticated electronic warfare assets, and networks of surface-to-air missiles and radar-guided AAA. Like the other games in the series, Red Storm requires both players to plan both their air and ground forces prior to a scenario. Raid forces must be generated, targets and routes mapped, and aircraft loadouts determined. SAM, AAA, and radar units must be placed. Both sides have to figure out how to handle the rough terrain and frequently poor weather of central Germany. During a scenario, players progress through a sequence of phases each turn where they conduct electronic warfare, detect and track enemy flights, and move and fight with their own flights while potentially being attacked from the ground. The heart of game is the movement phase where players use a chit-draw system that allows players to alternate moving one to five flights at a time.