North Atlantic '86

This operational level turn-based strategy wargame represents a fictional conflict between Soviet and NATO air, land, surface-naval and submarine forces for control of the North Atlantic. The NATO forces must be commanded by a human player. The Soviet forces may be commanded by either a human or the computer. Players need to organize their ships into task forces to perform various missions: sea lane interdiction, land bombardment, supply/troop transport, evacuation, etc. Gameplay revolves around the creation and manipulation of these task forces and the effective concentration of air power. Included are campaign games covering September 7 to December 31, 1986 and November 1 to December 31, 1986, mini-games covering the invasion of Iceland in November 1986, and a North Atlantic convoy operation in September 1986.

North Atlantic Theatre is represented on a 40 x 40 square grid map. Each square measures 100 km in width. Squares are land, ocean, bases, Soviet task forces, and NATO task forces. The range between squares is calculated as a distance between their centers. Each game turn represents the passage of 12 hours and consists of: building and adjusting friendly task forces; moving these task forces; launching air missions; launching missile attacks; combat resolution. Upon completion of the combat phase of each turn, the game progress may be saved to restore it later.