NORAD Review

Review by David Lent

I was looking through some old game magazines at my FLGS and noticed there was Conflict Magazine #4 from 1973. This immediately caught my eye, because 1973 is the year I was born. I took a look inside and saw that it had a 1-2 player game called NORAD which simulates a Soviet bomber and SLBM attack on the United States. What intrigued me is the fact that all the basic rules fit right on the map and this game uses no dice whatsoever. Thus, I assumed this would be a really easy game to learn and decided to buy it.

The components included with this game are pretty decent for a magazine game from the early 1970’s. There are counters and a big map. In addition, the variant rules are printed in the magazine itself instead of on the map.

I was surprised at how thick the cardboard on the counters was. Most of the games from this era used thin cardboard counters. The Soviet counters represent bombers, SLBM’s and decoys. Both the decoys and bombers have a bomber on the front, but the decoy does not have a mushroom cloud on the back. The U.S. and Canadian counters are fighter aircraft, decoys and SAM sites. The only information printed on any of the aircraft is a number representing movement rate per turn.

The map looks surprisingly good for 1973. It lays out North America in a grid pattern and has the regular and variant entry spaces for the Soviet bombers clearly printed on it. In addition, U.S. and Canadian cities have a number printed on them which I assume is the victory point value. The rules do not have any victory conditions, which is reasonable for a game simulating the end of the human race.

Setup for this game is very easy. The United States player places all his SAM sites and decoys upside-down on his cities. Next, he places his fighter aircraft face-up on any cities he wishes. This ensure that the Soviet player does not know how well protected the cities are.







The basic game begins with the Soviet player entering the Northern part of the map with as many aircraft or decoys as he wishes and moving them up to 4 spaces. Next, the United States may move any fighters he wishes up to 6 inches to engage any Soviet bombers. Any bomber or decoy that is engaged is automatically shot down, but the fighter is out of the game at the end of any turn it activates. The Soviet player will do his best to move his decoys within range of the jet fighters in the hope of getting them to attack.

Subsequent turns involve the other Soviet bombers or decoys entering on any turn they wish. If any bombers or decoys make it to a city space, the hidden U.S. chit is revealed. If it is a SAM site, it shoots down the bomber or decoy and the SAM is removed from the game. However, if the U.S. chit is a decoy nothing happens and the bomber flips to its reverse side showing that the city was successfully nuked. The game continues until all Soviet bombers and decoys have either been shot down or have successfully bombed a target.

The basic game is really this simple. However, there are a few variant rules that can spice things up.

The first variant is “The Dew Line” variant. In this variant, if the Soviet player destroys both Anchorage and Godthab the Dew Line radar coverage is gone and the Soviet player may start any additional bombers he brings onto the board at the U.S. Canadian border.

Two of the other variants have optional Soviet bomber placement. 5 bombers can start near Cuba of which 2 must be decoys and in the other variant some Soviet bombers can start from the NW start zone near Siberia.

SLBMs (Sub-Launched Ballistic Missiles) are used in one variant. They start right off the coast one turn and the next turn may move one space and attack a city. All of these have a mushroom cloud on the back and I found this to be unrealistic. SLBM’s are not 100% reliable and at least some of them should say “Dud” or something like that on the back.

The last variant allows the Canadian fighters and SAM sites to be used. I felt this should have been part of the basic game. The Canadians are not going to sit back and do nothing while large numbers or nuclear bombers are flying over their territory.

If you wish to play this game solitaire, you only need to not look to see which bombers or SAM sites are decoys and run both sides.

This game is essentially a bluffing game. Both players are trying to fool each other with their decoys. The U.S. wants to make their highest value cities look more heavily defended than they are so the Soviets attack less valuable cities. The Soviets are trying to use their decoys to get the United States to waste their fighter and SAM sites, so their cities will be defenseless. At the end of the game, you can tally the destroyed city points to see how “effective” the nuclear attack was…. However, as far as I’m concerned victory points are irrelevant since whichever cities are not destroyed by the bombers or SLBMs, will be destroyed by Soviet ICBMs. It’s the end of the world and this game is just a study of how that would occur.

What do I think of this game? It’s a very simple, but fun to play game. The simplicity doesn’t give the game much re-playability, but it does make this game suitable for wargamers of any level. This is a wargame I would be comfortable using to introduce a new wargamer to the hobby.

Buy a copy of this game on eBay.