Simulating War - Old Style

Our reactions to unfolding events can take strange forms.  The grim news from Israel and Gaza, for instance, prompted me to dust off my copy of the old Avalon Hill board wargame 'Arab-Israeli Wars'.

This was the third and last of a series of tactical wargames, all based around the same game system and rules, published by Avalon Hill in the late sixties and early seventies.  (This was the way we simulated combat back in the days before computer graphics and first person shooters). The earlier titles - 'Panzer Blitz' and 'Panzer Leader - simulated armoured warfare on the Eastern and Western fronts ,respectively, of World War Two in Europe.  All three games provide a series of scenarios, of increasing scale and complexity, based on actual battles from their respective eras and locations.  Unusually for the time, the games used a series of anamorphic boards which could be arranged in a variety of ways to represent the different battlegrounds.  Obviously, this meant that the terrain was somewhat generic, but did allow for some ability to represent actual locations.  Here are a couple of the 'Arab-Israeli Wars' boards, (including the Suez canal board), with some of the game counters set up, (the grey ones represent Israeli forces, the light brown, Arab forces):

Interestingly, I also have a copy of the SPI equivalent, 'October War' which, like the Avalon Hill game, was one of three tactical games based around the same game system, the others being 'Panzer 44' and 'Mech War 77'.  Unlike the Avalon Hill game, my copy of 'October War' is the original magazine version, published in 'Strategy and Tactics'.  (It was later published as a stand alone in a variety of different packaging).  

Unlike 'Arab-Israeli Wars', the SPI game confines itself to a narrower historical period, simulating only battles from the Yom Kippur war in 1973.  Another significant difference is that none of the SPI tactical games used anamorphic playing boards, instead opting for larger, more generic, single piece map boards, which obviously compromised their ability to accurately represent actual battlefields far more than the Avalon Hill boards.  Again, here's the 'October War' board with some counters set up, (the colour schemes are more or less the same as those used by Avalon Hill):

For quite a while now I've been mulling over dusting off some of my old board wargames and replaying some of them.  I certainly have the time to do so these days.  So far, though, I've been daunted by the prospect of wading through all of those rule books again - some of the game mechanic can be pretty dense.  While it might seem a bit tasteless that the current tragedy in Israel and Gaza has prompted me to get out these particular games, but they do have some of the most straightforward rules systems, making them easier to get back into.  Indeed, the Avalon Hill 'Panzer Blitz' system is the one I'm most familiar with and 'Arab-Israeli Wars' the member of the series I've played the least, so it has a certain logic to it, I suppose.