Date/Time: 07 August, 1975 / 21:30:00 Zulu
Location: Norwegian Sea
Playable Sides: NATO
Duration: 3 days


While shadowing a Soviet Echo II in the Gibraltar Straits, the Frigate HMS Ashanti was sunk with heavy loss of life. In London, the Prime Minister laid the blame for the incident squarely on the Soviet shoulders and has asked the Soviet Premier for an apology and appropriate reparations.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Politburo has accused the Royal Navy of dangerous violations of international maritime law, and has labelled the incident as "tragic but unavoidable". Both sides have placed their naval forces on full alert.

Soviet fighter, attack, and bomber reinforcements have arrived in large quantities on the Kola Peninsula, boosting the already formidable force normally based there. The most fearsome new addition is two Backfire regiments of the Soviet Strategic Air Armies, operating a total of sixty bombers. The Backfires will be tasked with supporting the Northern Fleet's push into the Norwegian Sea, adding awesome striking power to the Northern Fleet Naval Aviation's existing three Badger regiments.

In the Norwegian Sea, NATO's STANAVFORLANT (Standing Naval Force Atlantic) has sailed from Faslane and taken a war footing in vicinity of Jan Mayen Island, and assumed an ASW posture.

Shortly after receiving news of the Gibraltar incident, all NATO forces have assumed the Second Degree of Readiness and are now preparing for war.

Is war really unavoidable?


Gameplay Tip:
NATO's underwater surveillance network (SOSUS) will rapidly flood you with a large number of underwater contacts, cluttering your map. Don't panic! Not all of them are enemy submarines. Give the SOSUS operators a little time to start identifying neutrals, biological etc. The colour of these contacts will turn green. You can use this time to start arranging your air patrols, give orders to your forces etc. Once you begin having positive classifications of "greens", filter them out right click on each desired contact and select "Filter out". This will remove almost all visual information about the contact from the map except for its icon and thus allow you to focus on investigating and prosecuting the possible enemy submarines.