North Atlantic '86

North Atlantic '86 is a hex-based naval wargame from the Australian studio Strategic Studies Group that simulates a fictional conflict between NATO and the Warsaw Pact in the North Atlantic in the mid-1980s. The player commands fleets of surface ships, submarines, and aircraft, and has to manage contact recognition, fire control, and the deployment of anti-submarine forces across a vast ocean map divided into hexagonal fields, typical of board wargames converted to computer form without losing their analytical depth or the emphasis on carefully considered force deployment over the vast expanse of the North Atlantic.

The game is built on a turn-based system, where the player gradually moves units, sends out reconnaissance patrols, and decides on engaging in combat based on limited and often uncertain information about enemy positions, which nicely reflects the uncertainty of real naval warfare. Combat plays out more abstractly than in simulators with a three-dimensional view of the deck, but thanks to that the game covers a much broader strategic scope of the fictional superpower conflict, including logistics and the deployment of air support from coastal bases. Overview screens and text reports on the outcomes of engagements gave the game the feel of an expertly run war game rather than an audiovisually lavish simulation.

In the mid-1980s the game was praised by war-game fans as a well-considered and historically grounded speculation on what a clash of superpowers at sea might look like, and it became one of SSG's standout titles for DOS. Today it's interesting mainly as evidence of the era's genre of hex-based war games applied to the theme of the Cold War at sea, rather than as a simulator offering an immediate action experience, and it will be appreciated mainly by patient players interested in military history and the planning depth of classic wargames, who don't mind the slower pace of a turn-based system.

Why play it: For patient fans of military history and turn-based hex wargames who don't mind a slower pace — a well-considered speculation on what a clash of superpowers at sea might have looked like during the Cold War.