Iron Curtain: Central Europe, 1945-1989

About this board game

Iron Curtain: Central Europe, 1945-1989 is a two-player Standard Combat Series game about a potential hot war along the intra-German border. Across eight scenarios, players command East or West through flashpoints spanning 1945, 1962, 1975, 1983, and 1989.

Each game begins with forces in their peacetime housing areas, but neither side knows exactly how long it will have to prepare before hostilities begin. As tension rises, units may move toward deployment areas—or remain unready—creating possibilities that range from total surprise to total preparedness.

The game portrays an assumed month of intensive combat, with scenarios lasting no more than ten turns. Most scenarios feature a Warsaw Pact invasion of NATO, while three give NATO the offensive: Churchill’s 1945 Operation UNTHINKABLE, a mistaken 1983 offensive, and a 1989 attempt to exploit the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact nations.

Iron Curtain covers major developments in modern warfare across the era, including nuclear and chemical warfare, near-nuclear aviation effects, airmobile forces, attack helicopters, airborne mechanized forces, amphibious operations, and the unusual Pentomic Division structure.

• Eight scenarios from 1945 to 1989
• Variable prewar preparation and deployment
• Warsaw Pact and NATO offensive situations
• One 22″ × 34″ full-color map and 1,120 counters
• Standard Combat Series rules plus a 52-page game-specific rulebook

With changing forces, evolving weapons, and unpredictable readiness, every game presents a different path to the fate of Europe.