Close The Atlantic World War Three

This is the Print and Play Version for our Canadian gamers who don't want to pay the US$ exchange rate for the boxed version. (Still available.)

Nominated for 2025 Charles S. Roberts Awards (“CSR Awards”) recognize excellence in tabletop conflict simulations.

This is a game of modern naval combat; the focus is mainly on Convoy operations. Additional scenarios introduce rules for battle in the Baltic Sea and the Mediterranean. Ground battle is abstracted, although air and missile strikes against the front lines are introduced in the third scenario.

The three scenarios can be combined to depict a full WW3 war all across Europe. 

The time-frame of the game is NOW, 21^st Century, beginning in April to September, as decided by a D6 die roll. October brings increased chances of hurricanes which will seriously hamper operations. Turns are weekly, beginning with the first week of the month decided by the die roll.

The game abstracts the technical details for various equipment types. Counters represent 1 unit (like a submarine) or many (up to 100 aircraft) or a group of ships. Numeric counters are provided to slip under counters to indicate the count during engagements. For instance, a count of missiles fired.

 Boxed version is available in Canada from BoardGameBliss, in the US, UK, EU from BluePantherLLC

  Also - Vassal module:   https://vassalengine.org/wiki/Module:Close_The_Atlantic_World_War_Three

Facebook Group:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/1306563247043567

Close The Atlantic – World War Three

Rules Variant – Optional

Hi, and thanks to all who purchased the game. I hope you have years of enjoyable re-plays.

For those among you, and I know there are some, who think my battle results are unreal – too many ships sinking, here is an alternative to consider.

In attacks on naval and convoy forces, missile hits do not equal ships sunk. Instead, divide the final hits of SSM missiles by 2, ignoring any remainder. That is the number of ships sunk.

For cruise missiles, each hit is still a ship sunk.

For both missile types, the largest ships get hit before Frigates, in this order:

Carriers

Cargo ships (convoys)

Troop transports

Tankers

Cruisers

Frigates are last to be hit.

Missiles home in on the largest radar contacts.

Regards,

Michael Raymond

Designer