A is for.....Afghanistan

I'm going to attempt the A to Z blogger challenge. I have fairly low expectations of success, given it's a busy month, but we'll see what we can accomplish.

A is for Afghanistan......an area I hope to get to game in the future. My interest is more in the Russian invasion, rather than the more current fighting that is happening there now. To be honest, it seems like not much has changed in the the many fights that occur in the country.

The exact plans are a little vague at this point, but I have recently acquired some of Eureka's modern soviets....close enough I expect to the kit used in the 80's...especially at 15mm. I expect I'll test force on force as a rules set, but I hope also to try Disposable heroes, there's a soviet afghanistan supplement that I've downloaded off the yahoo group (By the knife).

More importantly, perhaps, I've got a number of books to chew through.

An overview of the afghan country and history. Picked up from a friend when he moved I've yet to get through more than the first chapter. Definitely on the to read list though.


Two great books on the war. The first, the bear went over the mountain, is soviet tactics in Afghanistan. It's quite interesting in that it's a translation from a book written by the Kiev institute, with the translators adding a commentary after each scenario/vignette.

I managed to pick up the follow up book this Easter weekend from Powell's books in Portland (largest independent book chain in north america!). The translator from the first book went to interview Afghan Mujahideen about the war and their point of view of the conflict. Unfortunately I've gotten the re-skinned book, named Afghan Guerrilla warfare, the original is a much more interesting title: The other side of the mountain: mujahideen tactics in the soviet-afghanistan war. From what I can tell, the content is identical.

 This is the typical picture that accompanies a scenario/vignette. I suspect that for gaming it will be invaluable for setting up interesting scenarios to play out.


I'll try and milk this topic for some more A to Z goodness this month!