Raketny Kreyser
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Raketny Kreyser (Russian for "missile cruiser"), subtitled "Tactical Naval Combat, 1975-1999", is a naval board wargame published in 1977 by Simulations Canada (SimCan) that simulates hypothetical naval battles in the latter part of the twentieth century.
Gameplay
Raketny Kreyser is a two-player tactical naval wargame involving naval armaments considered modern in 1977, as well as hypothesized armaments and ship capabilities in the 1980s and 90s. The scenarios are drawn from geo-political troubles of the 1970s such as the Cold War, and oil shipments through the Straits of Hormuz. Ships and aircraft are drawn from the U.S., the U.S.S.R., the U.K., China, Canada, Turkey, Greece, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, West Germany, East Germany, Poland, Finland, Iraq, Iran, North and South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Italy, India, and France.[1]
The game has 255 die-cut counters, but only a few are used in each scenario. The rulebook is only 12 pages long, and the rules have been characterized as "simple."[1]
Publication history
In 1977, Steve Newberg founded Simulations Canada and released three of his games: Dieppe; The Peloponnesian War; and Raketny Kreyser. All three games were packaged in ziplock bags. Newberg characterized Raketny Kreyser as "the simple game of the three." Only 550 copies of the game were printed, and those quickly sold out.[2] Newberg was not surprised, having noted that "It is simple mechanically, on a subject of much current interest, very attractive ... and fast, furious and fun to play."[3]
Newberg later admitted the game was too simple, and he reworked the modern naval combat concept to produce a similarly themed SimCan game titled Battle Stations in 1984.[1]