War Games: rehearsal for Battle

London: Arms&Armour, 1988. Hardcover. Good/good. One of the more memorable facets of the Cold War were the regular large-scale field training excercises, or war games, conducted by NATO in Europe. In 1987 the authors were given unprecedented access to exercise Certain Strike, the largest event of its kind since WWII, involving some 78,300 NATO soldiers. Their account and photographs give a real sense of why and how such excercises are planned and conducted - Who sets the parameters? Who devises the scenario? How do the troops and their equipment find their way to the battlefield? How are advanced weapons proved and deployed without using live ammunition? How is a kill registered? Who decides who has won? This book aims to answer these questions and to show how international agreements allow Eastern Bloc observers to attend the excercises, how modern technology is changing the face of war games, and how other countries conduct these tests themselves. A fascinating read for all military enthusiasts. Size, 28 x 22cm, 144 pages, illustrated throughout with colour and b&w photos. Ex-library, front endpaper removed, some library markings, green cloth boards in good pictorial dust jacket. Internally, Good+: clean and unmarked in sound bindings.