by Peter Robbins, 10 March 2025
Steam Summary
The year is 1965 and the Cold War has entered its most fraught and perilous moment. A Soviet Yak-27 has just crash landed on the remote Svalbard islands after a daring covert overflight of NATO bases in Greenland. Tensions have skyrocketed as NATO demands answers from the Soviet Union, but the Kremlin remains ominously silent. As the standoff intensifies, NATO has mobilized a formidable force to counter any emerging threats from the Soviets. Intelligence suggests that Warsaw Pact forces are scrambling to recover the aircraft wreckage, escalating the high-stakes race against time. As NATO and Soviet task forces converge on Svalbard the spectre of war raises its nuclear scythe.
This first impression is truly just that, a quick dive into what is provided and generally how the first scenario plays out. Four hours of gameplay was put in before I started writing this first impression. Just trying to be transparent that this is a cursory evaluation of the product, but a reasonably well informed one as I have a good amount of experience with C:MO as a whole.
In Fail Safe you have the chance to command both Soviet and NATO naval and air battle groups in a 12 mission campaign that will see nuclear fire rain down upon the earth and sea. Advanced weapons like SAM missiles and supersonic jet fighters serve alongside older platforms. F-86 Sabers and F-104 Starfighters will take on Mig-15’s and 21’s. Old ships like the HMS Victorious, a carrier veteran of World War II, will take on the newest ships of the 1960’s like the Soviet November-class submarines and Sverdlov-class cruisers.
- The anti-ship missile has arrived, but will it eclipse the naval gun? Fight in the early age of missile warfare
- Fight on the sea and in the sky. Play 12 missions that run the gamut from full-scale fleet actions to sub hunting, motor-torpedo boat attacks, and convoy escorts
- The supersonic jet and anti-air missile has changed aerial warfare: Can the bombers get past modern fighters like the F-100 Super Sabre or Mig-19 Farmer?
- Will you press the big red button? You may be the commander that chooses to drop the atom bomb.
Fail Safe is the pinnacle of 1960’s Cold War air and sea wargaming. The closest you can get to seeing what would have happened if Western and Soviet naval and airpower had fought the war that truly would have ended all wars.
Good luck Commander, and remember to duck and cover.
click most images to enlarge
What’s In The Box?!
We previously were provided the Northern Inferno (1975) and Red Tide (1985) DLC scenario packs, and now we hop back in time to the tumultuous mid-60s, smack dab in 1965, at the early height of nuclear terror in the USA. Relive those pivotal Cold War years in Fail Safe.
While I have enjoyed the most recent line-up of C:MO Showcase scenarios, which are usually cheaper and smaller in content as DLCs, it’s great to see the dev team roll back over to a full size scenario pack in the form of Fail Safe.
New cruise missile age ships battle along aging relics from the big ole’ ww2. Newer SSN class submarines emerge, and newer nuclear carriers are present in this cold war classic of a Command DLC. This is the DLC I’ve been waiting for. We’ve not had a substantial “official” early Cold War DLC until now, and I’m happy that the Command Development Team have had an opportunity to provide us with a trip down post WW2 memory lane.
12 Missions are provided, of good variety. About half designed to be played as NATO and the other roughly half designed to be played as the Soviet Union. In a SPOILER gallery below, I’ll give you a shot of the general starting make-up for each of the provided scenarios. You can avoid looking through that to avoid spoiling yourself too much on what is provided. Suffice it to say, for less than a meal out for yourself now-a-days, you’ll get enough content to last you a month or more of solid action. Especially for its initial sale price, this is well worth the price of admission. I will walk through the first scenario in full below to show off the types of platforms you will run into throughout the DLC.
Mechanics & Gameplay
The basics of how Command: Modern Operations operates have not changed significantly with this DLC release. Fail Safe is wholly in the realm of extra scenarios for the wargame’s existing functionality.
I will also point out that it does not stretch into the major updates of late in features, unlike other recent Showcase scenarios which were able to shine a light more directly on those new features purposefully. With that said, we’ve been provided guidance around those new features in other offerings, so we can forgive the devs for not diving into what is not nearly as necessary given the time period involved, and the level of technical elements included on these ships and airframes. It was a simpler time but not necessarily a simpler conflict.
I’ll give a very quick overview of the general mechanics of C:MO in case there are any remaining souls on the planet that do not own it. The learning curve overall for C:MO I’d classify as steep but not insurmountable. With a good 10+ hours in any of the core scenarios and you’ll have the basics down pat.
Some of the more esoteric rules of engagement, mission envelope parameters, or detailed time on target coordination; well, you’ll need to seek out advanced tutorials on YouTube for those. Plenty exist. Hundreds in fact. Look for tutorials by user PGatacomb in particular. He has a lot of experience with the game, and has become one of its de facto training gurus online. Also, the C:MO tutorials provided with the wargame are reasonably well done and cover most basic topics in detail. Doesn’t mean you’ll always win scenarios, but you’ll at least know how to get things moving around and doing their general jobs.
In-Game Tutorials
Don’t forget that C:MO does include its own Tutorial scenarios, all nice and categorized for you as seen in the pic above.
A Typical “Turn”
First and foremost, C:MO is run in real-time. It uses a real-time wego format at all times in its default single player mode for its commercial version. You can PAUSE, update your missions and which elements are assigned to them, or directly plot courses and either manually or automatically computed attacks with all of your elements, boom, that’s how Command works. That’s the game in a nutshell.
Alternatively, there is a particular style of multiplayer amongst C:MO commercial game players known as Command IKE PBEM, a friend of which Musurca is the author of, which is an outstanding scripted play through which incorporates a fun IGO/ UGO/ WEGO offering. Check it out over here
As you start a scenario, one of the best things you can check out is the Order Of Battle. It’s one of the easier ways to quickly review what platforms are present, and which have aircraft available on/with them. Every “base” unit can have child “air units” associated with them, is the basic way to think of it. Including for example Ships that otherwise would not be considered air capable, can launch aircraft. For example I only recently adjusted a Falklands/Malvinas conflict scenario to include the Atlantic Conveyor but with more available aircraft in a what-if offering for Naval/Air Kriegsspiel use.
Example OOB
By Base/Group
By Mission/Task
By Type
Basic Tasks
- Check The Order Of Battle
- Check Which Missions Are Assigned
- Adjust Existing Missions (Reference Points, Rules Of Engagement, and/or Mission Parameters/Envelope Settings).
- Create New Missions As Needed (Assign To Platforms)
- Avoid Detached Units Waypointing About (Always Assign Missions When Possible)
Note: I tend to check all of the above at specific intervals of game time. Generally, I recheck every 15 minutes of game time.
Planning Questions To Consider
- What do I think the enemy is going to do?
- What’s my plan to accomplish my goal with that in mind?(relevant to the game engine)
- How do I logistically support that plan?
- What are the key decisions I need to make, at what times, during the battle / campaign?
- What info do I need to know to make those decisions?
- How do I get that info in time to make those decisions?
Note: I tend to re-consider the above questions in four hour segments of game-time. This is a great approach to just about any wargame you play, either face to face or on a computer.
The Five D’s of Naval Wargaming
Determent | Detection | Deception | Disruption | Destruction
(Here is additional guidance around these terms for use in naval wargaming)
Mission Walk Thru
What better way to show you a typical turn than to walk thru a bit of what I would do in the first portions of the first scenario, the description of which is shown in the pic below.
ORDERS AND CONDUCT OF OPERATIONS
CINCLANT has urgently dispatched the elite Centaur Task Group and the 20th Frigate Squadron to spearhead the recovery of the downed Soviet Yak-27 in the Svalbard Islands. The alarming surge of Soviet aircraft at Green Bell signals their own desperate recovery mission. NATO’s determined presence, led by the Centaur CVBG and the 23rd Frigate Squadron, is a bold response to the Kremlin’s silence, poised to support the recovery team and thwart any Soviet maneuvers.
The HNoMS Stavanger has deployed a highly-trained platoon of Marines to comb the crash site, with orders to rescue any surviving crew and secure critical intelligence equipment. Meanwhile, the USCGC Taney, carrying a detachment of US Marines, is on high alert to launch helicopters for rapid support once within range.
In the shadows, the Soviet Red Banner Fleet, including Osa-class missile craft, lurks ominously. Expect AGIs to be monitoring your every move, while Soviet MRR and strike aircraft are ready to pounce, providing cover for their surface and sub-surface forces. The tension is palpable; the stakes, nothing short of monumental.
- Defend Svalbard from any Soviet Incursions.
- Engage any Soviet Naval Forces that enter the Exclusion Zone around Svalbard.
- Once within CAP Range of Svalbard establish active Combat Air Patrol around Islands in TTW any Soviet aircraft closing are to be engaged.
- Centaur CVBG and the 23rd Frigate Sqn to provide support to recover wreckage and any other support as required due to any changing situation that is encountered.
- Soviet Red Banner Fleet units are also known to be in the area including Poti Patrol craft. have also deployed into the area. expect AGI’s in your Area of Operations also.
- Soviet MRR and Strike Aircraft can also be expected to cover surface and sub-surface forces have also deployed in support of the operation.
ORDER OF BATTLE
HMS Centaur Carrier Group
- HMS Centaur [CV]
- HMS Kent [DDG]
- HMS Decoy [DD]
- HMS Dido [FF]
- HMS Berwick [FF]
- RFA Wave Chief [AO]
20th Frigate Squadron
- HMS Penelope [FF]
- HMS Yarmouth [FF]
- HMS Russell [FF]
Detached Units
- HMS Dreadnought [SSN]
- HNoMS Kobben [SSK]
- HMoNS Stavanger [DD]
- USCGC Taney [WPG]
- USS Barry [DD]
Banak Airbase
- 331 Sqn – F-104G Starfighter [14]
- 333 Sqn – SHU-16B Albatross [6]
COMMAND & CONTROL
CINCLANT
EMCON
Limited transmission on all sensors
Before starting the scenario, I’m going to set the map settings to only show sensor rings for the selected unit, as seen in this pic below. This cleans up your view immensely during play through, and lets you concentrate on the ranges of the unit you have clicked on.
The overall situation is shown in the above screenshot at the start of the scenario. You can see a carrier group, a surface group, a few ships on their own, a couple subs on their own (detached from any groups), and there is an active airbase in the far north of Norway. That airfield contains the Albatross maritime patrol aircraft (6 of them) as well as the F-105 Thunderchief strike aircraft (14 of them) that are available for strike tasking as needed, as shown in the listing below.
The carrier group is set to navigate a set of waypoints as shown above. No mission is currently assigned. That is fine for a carrier group if the intention is to navigate a very particular path at a very particular speed. The escorts for the carrier will automatically defend it while it traverses the area shown in the waypoints above.
The carrier group is also setting up CAP ahead of itself using Sea Vixen aircraft, as shown in the shot below.
Additional Scimitar aircraft are available on the carrier HMS Centaur for further tasking as the situation unfolds over the two day scenario; as shown in the Carrier Group’s Air Operations pop up below.
An airborne early warning patrol is set up as a linear formatted mission area as shown in the below pic. These aircraft are set to go to the line and circle to and fro until they are bingo fuel and then RTB, return to base.
The above screen shot shows the immediate area of the downed Soviet plane, and the destroyer that has disembarked a crack Marine unit to secure the immediate area of the crash site.
Now, before we ask ourselves the planning questions I posed further above, we kind of need to let our sensors do their thing outright, and have AEW units in particular to move a bit into the patrol zones already defined. So let’s let the scenario play through for 10 game minutes, to see what’s what as a result.
After 10 minutes of play through, the only update I’ve seen in the message log is that the wreck site is now flagged as hostile, as seen in the pic below.
So let’s allow for our patrols to try and pick up additional intel before adjusting any missions. We’ll let it run through 0830 game time, the 30 minute mark.
So the Gannet AEW aircraft have picked up unknown aircraft approaching the exclusion zone near the 30 minute game time mark, as shown above.
We’ll possibly nudge the Sea Vixens towards that corner of its patrol zone, just to speed up potential intercepts, but otherwise, in most mission cases, you don’t meddle with things too much. Let the sailors and airfolk do the jobs they know how to do.
We’ll take this up to additional sea surface detections before we stop spoiling the reader too much on the content of the scenario.
At approximately 0905 game time, the Gannet flight again (they are the stars of the early warning show so far) has picked up a surface contact at the edge of its radar limit. Seen at the top right of the yellow circle in the image above.
So now we are at a decision point. We need to determine when to send up additional recce air units towards the surface unit, perhaps just ahead of a strike package or two just for extra measure. One question at this point is whether or not the scenario designer baked in announcing when the Rules Of Engagement can be adjusted to consider the surface targets in particular as adversaries and weapons free. So let’s play forward a bit just to see what if any warnings we get in the message log by scenario design.
The Albatross maritime aircraft are now making their way to their patrol zones and contributing to spotting new surface skunks (unknowns) in the area. We’ll stop here for now. Two surface groups are forming and moving into the area. Several air units of unknown hostility level have appeared and converged on the exclusion zone. At least according to the original briefing, I’m not able to fire until they go within that zone, so we’ll see how this pans out.
For now, that’s it as far as a run through, as I wanted to give you just a taste of what is in store in a typical mission in the DLC.
Screenshot gallery of the mission unfolding (spoilers!)
Conclusions / First Impressions?
This is exactly what I’ve been looking for in a DLC scenario pack: an early (1965) Cold War oriented scenario pack with varied surface groups, some new SSN involved, and newer cruise missile capable platforms included. All of that, and more are included in Fail Safe. This is a solid DLC, and is well worth owning as an avid or even a newbie Command: Modern Operations commercial version user. This particular scenario pack includes very manage-able amounts of platforms. Also the tech involved is pretty new, CS Gen 1 at best in most cases, so it’s generally a “simpler” set of scenarios to play through as a new user. So don’t be afraid to get this DLC if you are absolutely brand new to the wargame. Enjoy this great new content from Slitherine and the Command Dev Team!
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Ice Station Zebra……
I too am happy to see some early cold war Command DLC.