1973 was possibly the nearest that the world came to World War Three. Just following the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, and during the height of the Watergate scandal, the Americans were both war weary and disillusioned. The stock market crash of that year only made the situation worse, and when the Yom Kippur War erupted in October, the Israelis began to prepare thirteen of their nuclear weapons to halt the invading Arab armies! In response, the Soviet Union threatened to intervene, thereby causing the United States to alert its forces worldwide to prepare for a war against Russia. Such a war would have occurred when the United States was the most vulnerable and divided, but, ironically, the Americans would have had a vast reservoir of combat veterans from the Vietnam War to commit to action.
The Dangerous Year: 1973 uses a standard area movement system but includes a deck of 54 event cards that add a chaotic element to the game, such as "Denmark Withdraws from NATO" which prevents units from entering the Denmark space that turn, or "Hotline" which allows a player to prevent his opponent from conducting tactical nuclear attacks for the current game turn, and so forth. Event cards represent the various occurrences that could happen in the midst of a sudden war, and they ensure that this game gives the feeling of World War III. One moment, a U.S. aircraft carrier may be sunk by a Soviet submarine, but the next moment, a Soviet ballistic missile may explode on the launch pad. The randomness of a shuffled deck each game ensures that no two games are the same, and there is no perfect strategy...only a sudden execrable war of the worst variety.
This game uses a very simple combat system that is designed to resolve combat quickly, and includes the full panoply of combat units, armor, mech, infantry, artillery, SAMs, ships, fighters, bombers, et cetera, and not to mention the inveterate threat of tactical nuclear weapons. One thing is for sure, if the players do not trigger Armageddon, casualties will nevertheless be high for both sides.
