A type of wargame that puts realism above everything else. The term can apply to anything from first person shooters such as Arma III, flight simulators such as DCS World (Digital Combat Simulator) or tactical and strategic operational command such as Command: Modern Operations. What they have in common is that they avoid arbritrary game mechanics such as research, development or production and make no political or social statements or interpretation apart from the geopolitical background the scenarios are set in. It should be clear that inevitably a wargame is warmongering, there can not be peace in a wargame or else there would be no game at all.
- Command: Modern Operations
- DCS World
- Arma 3
- Armored Brigade
- Regiments
- Gary Grigsby’s War in the East
- Gary Grigsby’s War in the East 2
- Tank Warfare: Tunisia 1943
- Flashpoint Campains Southern Storm
- Combat Mission Shock Force 2
Command: Modern Operations
Based on the radar operator software of aircraft carriers it delivers outstanding realism in naval and air operational command. The developers were invited to the White House to present their software in 2017 and there are professional versions available for military and academy.
COMMAND is a pause-able, real-time joint operations wargame that that spans from shortly after World War II to the near future (1940s-2020s). In it, you control integrated weapons systems. The most common of these are ships, submarines, aircraft, and the bases they stage from. Yet COMMAND also allows you to lead other less visible and glamorous but no less important pieces of the puzzle. Satellites, unconventional special or guerilla forces, and cyberattacks are all at your disposal. The goal is to integrate all of those parts into one whole.
You fight on a life-sized globe with meticulously detailed terrain both above and below sea level. Everything from hills to thermoclines is placed on the map and taken into account, and it’s possible to stage from one continent, strike another, and return. The instructions given to your forces can be as broad or detailed as necessary. COMMAND offers the ability to shift from hands-off broadly defined missions to hands-on personal control and back at any time.
COMMAND includes a wide range of scenarios that span from brushfire counterterrorism to short but sharp duels of fast attack craft to theater-wide engagements where aircraft and ships across an entire ocean must be coordinated and synchronized.
Its internal scenario editor allows for an even greater range.
Scenarios on both extremes of the conflict scales have been made, from nonviolent coast guard duties on one end to full-bore nuclear exchanges on the other.
COMMAND is aimed to both entertain and educate. It shows the evolution of warfare from the 1940s to the present and illustrates the complexity that such combat has always entailed.
It is a tool to show what has changed throughout the decades and what has not, study the lessons of history, speculate the future, and have fun.
From the Manual:
Find it here: Steam || Matrix Games (Developer) || Slitherine (Publisher)
DCS World
The Digital Combat Simulator is the best civil combat flight simulation to date with unparalleled authenticity, functional aircraft systems and a large selection of available aircraft, including helicopters and aircraft carriers.
It can be played for free with the Russian Su-25T and American TF-51D being included and currently 134 expansion modules available for purchase.
Examples from the Su-33 Manual:
Links: Steam || Eagle Dynamics (Developer)
Arma 3
Authentic infantry combat requiring a lot of team communication and cooperation on very large maps of up to 270 square kilometers.
Links: Steam || Bohemia Interactive
Armored Brigade
In Armored Brigade the Cold War has turned hot, and Europe is once again torn apart by conflict. An “Iron Curtain” divides the Western Powers gathered together under the NATO banner from the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact Allies.
Take command of the deadliest mechanized formations available during an arc of time spanning from the Kennedy-Chrušcev confrontation to the final years, and fight your opponents in large and detailed maps all across Europe.
Links: Steam || Slitherine
Regiments
It’s 1989 and the flames of a New War are flaring up. Thousands of square miles of German landscape will become a stage for sweeping battles between the best NATO and Warsaw Pact has to offer.
Lead your Regiment through the inferno of a wide-scale Cold War conflict in this new Real-Time Tactics game. Break through the lines, call in artillery and air support, maneuver, feign retreats, and stage mobile defenses. Do not relent.
The Platoon Command system lets you orchestrate battles with unprecedented precision and ease. No need to micromanage every infantryman – you’re a Commanding Officer, not a sergeant.
Links: Steam || MicroProse
Gary Grigsby’s War in the East
Gary Grigsby’s War in the East: The German-Soviet War 1941-1945 is the spiritual heir to the great Eastern Front board and computer wargames of the past; a turn-based World War II strategy game down to the division and brigade level, stretching across the entire Eastern Front at a 10 mile per hex scale. Gamers can engage in massive, dramatic campaigns, including intense battles involving thousands of units with realistic and historical terrain, weather, orders of battle, logistics and combat results. As with all the award-winning titles made by the 2by3 Games team, factors such as supply, fatigue, experience, morale and the skill of your divisional, corps and army leaders all play an important part in determining the results at the front line. Gary Grigsby’s War in the East comes with 4 massive campaigns as well as many smaller scenarios all with different strategic and operational challenges.
Links: Steam || Slitherine
Gary Grigsby’s War in the East 2
The Eastern Front, the most decisive theatre of World War II and the largest land battlefield. A fight to the end, Total War between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, each commanding millions. The legendary wargame team at 2by3 Games has spent years revisiting this titanic conflict to once again establish a new state of the art.
Gary Grigsby’s War in the East 2 is a complete overhaul and improvement of the original War in the East, with no stone left unturned to provide a more realistic, more historically rich, and more challenging strategy experience. War in the East 2 comes with a wide array of scenarios ranging from the short tutorial on the Battle for Velikie Luki, to the four month Destruction of Southwest Front, up to the immense full 1941 – 1945 Grand Campaign of the entire Eastern front from Operation Barbarossa to the fall of Berlin. A total of seven Operational Scenarios and three Full Map Campaigns await you with hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of historical gameplay.
Links: Steam || Slitherine
Tank Warfare: Tunisia 1943
Tank Warfare: Tunisia 1943 – tactical battalion level combat simulation. Continuation of Graviteam Tactics series on the Western Front.
Large-scale operations for the US Army and Wehrmacht with realistic organizational structure. The campaign features more than 50 detailed vehicles produced in Germany, USA and UK. Over 400 sq. km of realistic landscapes were reconstructed from topographical maps and photo and video materials.
Flashpoint Campaigns: Southern Storm
Flashpoint Campaigns: Southern Storm is a grand tactical wargame set at the height of the Cold War, with the action centered on the year 1989. As the force Commander, you will plan and then issue orders and Standard Operating Procedures to your battalion, brigade, or regimental forces shaping the fight by maneuver and your intent.
The game engine is based on asynchronous WEGO turns. This means you will issue orders then watch a variable amount of time unfold on the battlefield. Then issue or adjust orders to react to what has happened as you execute your battle plan.
Flashpoint Campaigns: Southern Storm is a deep simulation of combat operations where your forces are arranged in maneuver units of companies, platoons, and sections of tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, infantry squads and teams, recon forces, engineers, air-defense and anti-tank systems, helicopters and more. As the Commander, you will need to use available off-map assets like long-range artillery, rockets, or airstrikes. You may be faced with the specter of using chemical or nuclear weapons to support your forces on the map and win the day.
Links: Steam || Slitherine
Combat Mission Shock Force 2
The latest title in the famous Combat Mission franchise of wargames, now on Steam. Shock Force 2 brings you to a hypothetical conflict in Syria between the forces of NATO and the Syrian Army.
Take command of US Stryker Brigade Combat Teams (SBCT) and Heavy Brigade Combat Teams (HBCT) to fight against Syrian Army Infantry, Mechanized and Armored units in an arid setting. Experience the full range of modern threats to conventional military forces, including irregular combat forces, terrorists, spies, suicide bombers, IED’s and other deadly tools employed in the asymmetric warfare of the modern day. Play the Task Force Thunder campaign, more than a dozen carefully crafted battles, or unlimited Quick Battles.
Players are assigned detailed missions to accomplish based on a richly diverse set of Objectives. Missions can be played in either Real Time or our WeGo hybrid turn based mode introduced with the first Combat Mission game 20 years ago. WeGo allows each player to plan out 60 seconds of combat and then watch as both sides’ commands are carried out simultaneously. The WeGo system also allows for re-watching turn action and playing against another player by email (PBEM) or “hotseat” on a single computer. RealTime and WeGo head to head play can also use TCP/IP on a LAN or over the Internet. Massive replayability comes from a unique Quick Battle system which allows players to purchase their own custom force and fight over the battlefield of their choice from a wide array of different maps. A powerful map and scenario Editor allows you to create battles or campaigns for yourself and others.
Links: Steam || Slitherine
See also: Combat Mission Black Sea || Combat Mission Cold War || Combat Mission Battle For Normandy || Combat Mission Red Thunder || Combat Mission Fortress Italy || Combat Mission Final Blitzkrieg
WarPlan
WarPlan is a World War II simulation engine. It is a balance of realism and playability incorporating the best from 50 years of World War II board wargaming. Play a recreated World War II in every detail, thanks to the engine flexibility and database.
The game’s scale is massive, covering 70 different potential countries, in a map large 30 miles / 50km per hex using a Peters map scaling (which better represents real distances). The land scale is 15k – 60k men, air scale is 300-400 aircraft and naval scale is 2 capital ships + support ships.
Links: Steam || Slitherine
