It's the middle of the cold war, and both sides have progressively built up an arsenal of men and weapons in Western Europe, and at last the battle has commenced. In many ways Europe is a crossroads of the world and NATO/Warsel pact square off in this. The battles are strictly land based, however you can affect outcomes with air missions, supplies, and Special Forces. This is the basis for Red Lightning, a somewhat historically based combat strategy game.
The USSR has a huge advantage in men and equipment, but not in technology, and this is where the balance of power comes from.
As NATO commander you must trade ground for time and hope to ware out the Russians with your air power and increased survive ability.
The best bet if you are Soviet block player is to try and take over Norway and Iceland, shut off the north Atlantic, and attack NATO's supplies, which are limited.
This is a great game with many options so enjoy and have fun, and remember to choose your terrain wisely as the more defensible the terrain the lower your losses if you’re the NATO player; this is true as well if you change the deployment of your regiments. You have three options: rest, reserve, and forward, with forward giving you the most strength, but your
troops will soon wear down if you don't get them a good rest. You would also do well to remember that a unit that has not moved has dug in and thus will be much stronger. As USSR commander you really need to try and catch NATO units in the process of rotating, and hit them hard.
As Napoleon said reinforce success, and exploit any breach in the lines get in behind and attack the artillery units and soon you will see the havoc rain.
It is a very detailed game and you can see the exact composition of each unit in the game from how many tanks to what kind and how strong they are. It is very hard playing the WP player as even though you have the weight of number on your side the advantage swings in NATOs way as your troops wear down and tire, it also reduces your readiness by moving so as you are trying to advance your men are getting more and more tired, so keep trying different tactics and see what works for you, and good luck and I hope this helps you out as it's a great game.
