First Post

Okay - this is the first post on my new blog - let's see if I can actually keep this one going beyond a couple of days! I'm hoping I can make it last a while - at least to help me with my new project.

What's "Cold War Hot Hot Hot" all about? Well basically I'm interested in amassing a resource site for all things related to the scenario of the Cold war turning into a Hot war in the 1980s. Obviously and thankfully, this didn't happen. But I've been interested for years in the fictional what if - what if there had been a conventional war between the East and West during those years. Nuclear war doesn't even bear thinking about!

My interest in all this started in the mid 80's with the relase of GDW's Twilight:2000. I collected every add-on game, supplement and "Challenge" magazine that came out for this game. I was a fan-boy before I even knew such a thing existed! Eventually I got all the GDW "Third World War" series of boxed games and then most of the "Assault" series. I still kick myself that I never picked up "Bundeswehr" that day I saw it for 8 quid in Manchester!

Bookwise, I started with General Sir John Hackett's seminal "Third World War" and then "The Untold Story", before I stumbled across Tom Clancy's "Hunt for Red October" at the O'Hare Airport in Chicago. I then read Clancy's best book IMHO "Red Storm Rising". This was quickly followed by "Team Yankee" and I guess I was kind of hooked.

I also collected an old English magazine called "Armed Forces" and another called "Miltech" for a while back in the 80's. Good fodder for "Cold War Hot".

Many years have gone by, and I have since gotten into miniature wargaming - first through GW and then into World War 2, particularly through Battlefront's "Flames of War". Whilst I still play FoW a lot, it also got into looking at other rulesets and periods - leading me to Ambush Alley, Force-on-Force and Cold War Commander.

So what's this blog going to be about then? Basically minature wargaming, with a focus on the Cold War Hot in the 1980's. I'll use this as a Work-In-Progress record of my wargaming plastic and resin model kit production line, painting figures and anything else wargaming related for the period. I'll try and write up a few After Action Reports (with photos) of some games I'll hopefully get to play. I"ll also try (mainly to help me - but also for anyone else who is interested) to make this a resource of book reviews, useful web-links, cool youtube links etc. In fact anything I can think of as a resource to all things "Cold War Hot".

Hope you can come along for the ride.

Richard