So I figured: How true was my stereotype of “conventional” WW3s? I decided to take a look and see. For this exercise, “yes” means a full nuclear exchange, “partial” something like say, Hackett’s infamous plotnuke, and “no” means the war stays completely conventional. This is an incomplete, unscientific list, but still.

• Hackett-PARTIAL
• Red Storm Rising-NO
• Team Yankee-PARTIAL
• Red Army-NO
• Chieftains-YES
• Black’s “Effect”-PARTIAL
• Kirov-YES
• Arc Light-YES
• Red Hammer 94-YES
• Bear’s Claws-PARTIAL
• Cauldron-PARTIAL
• War That Never Was-NO
• Ronsone/Watson’s Red Storm-PARTIAL
• Zone-PARTIAL
• Weekend Warriors-NO
• The Red Line-PARTIAL
• Andy Farman’s Armageddon’s Song-PARTIAL
• Wingman-YES

Besides the possibility of me remembering wrong, the line between “Partial” and “Yes” is sometimes blurry-for instance, I had a hard time deciding whether or not to include Arc Light as “Partial” or “Yes.” And in Team Yankee, which follow’s Hackett’s plot, the nukes are offscreen. Still, it was a little surprising how few outright “no’s” there were and how many “Partials”. It’s just the biggest “no” was Red Storm Rising.