Arab–Israeli Wars (Game)

Arab–Israeli Wars is a tactical conflict-simulation game system built around scenario-based armored and combined-arms engagements.[1] Its physical components include four mapboards identified as A, B, C, and D, a rulebook, separate Arab and Israeli counter sets, a Combat Results Table (CRT), and a charts folder.[3]

Scenarios assign different morale ratings and victory-point objectives to represent variations in the forces and missions being simulated. The system covers direct fire, opportunity fire, indirect fire, overruns, combined-arms tactical attacks, artillery, air strikes, helicopters, smoke, mines, fortifications, and terrain effects.[1]

The Avalon Hill Game Company published Arab–Israeli Wars in 1977.[1] The game remained listed in Avalon Hill's 1982 games-and-parts catalogue, which itemized its boards, rules, counters, CRT, and charts folder.[3]

Avalon Hill's magazine The General subsequently supported the system with both strategic analysis and additional material. Robert Allred's article "Sand in the Wind: Playing the Scenarios of AIW" examined the original scenarios using the 1977 rules, while Michael Anchors's "Lebanon: New Scenarios for Arab-Israeli Wars" supplied five later scenarios and equipment updates.[1]

Allred described his article as an outline of "virtually all" scenarios from B-1, Bir Gifgafa, through A-7, Tasa.[1] Other scenarios discussed include Rafid, Botzer, Abu Agheila, Irbid, Jenin, Ras Sudar, El Al, Kuneitra, Marjayou, Chinese Farm, and Deversoir. His analysis combines tactical advice with scenario background, emphasizing the interaction of armor, infantry, anti-tank weapons, artillery, smoke, air power, and terrain.

The article also records a correction to the 1977 rules: units under smoke cover receive a plus-one modifier, rather than minus one, against direct-fire and opportunity-fire attacks.[1]

In its discussion of Botzer, the magazine reports that the Egyptian commander in the historical engagement lost 86 of 96 tanks, together with nearly all of the formation's armored personnel carriers, infantry, mortar support, and Sagger anti-tank units.[1] Within the game analysis, Allred presents the scenario as heavily favoring the Israeli side and as a useful training exercise for players learning large armored engagements.

Anchors's follow-on article added five scenarios associated with fighting in Lebanon from June through August 1982: L-1 El Bas, L-2 Nabatiye, L-3 Jezzin, L-4 Sultan Yacoub, and L-5 The Shouf.[1] They include Israeli, Palestinian, Syrian, Lebanese Army, and Druze forces, with individual setups, game lengths, and victory conditions.

The expansion updates the system with Syrian T-72 tanks, Israeli Merkavah tanks and Kfir aircraft, and optional nap-of-the-earth operations for Arab helicopters. It also assigns game modifiers for Israeli laser sights and explosive armor. For hypothetical post-1980 scenarios, Egyptian combined-arms tactical attacks against Israeli armored vehicles are doubled rather than tripled.[1]

The historical vignette for El Bas states that an Israeli paratroop battalion took a wrong turn on June 6, 1982, entered a Palestinian refugee camp, and had to extricate itself while Israeli command was reluctant to authorize air strikes in a populated area.[1]

Anchors also revisited the original Marjayou scenario, S-12, which had presented a hypothetical future Israeli armored advance into Lebanon. He regarded the scenario's forces and circumstances as unusually prescient in light of the fighting that later occurred.[1]

The Lebanon scenarios demonstrated how the original game system could be extended to later conflicts and equipment through new counters, revised modifiers, and scenario-specific rules.[1] They retained the core tactical framework while adding technologies such as T-72 and Merkavah tanks, Kfir aircraft, explosive armor, laser sights, and low-altitude helicopter tactics.

The name Arab-Israeli Wars later resurfaced as the original title of Divided Ground, a turn-based strategy game in Talonsoft's Battleground series.[2] A Ynet preview published on May 30, 2001, placed the game among the expected June releases while noting that it might slip into July. The preview described four campaigns and 22 standalone battles depicting wars between Israel and its Arab neighbors from 1948 through 1973.[2]

The reviewer characterized its presentation and play as somewhat abstract. The warning was framed as a matter of audience and taste rather than simply difficulty: the rules could be learned, but the style was not expected to appeal to every casual player.[2]

The historical background accompanying the board-game scenarios comes from strategy articles in The General, not from independent historical studies. The Botzer casualty figures are therefore the magazine author's account, while the description of Marjayou as prescient is Anchors's retrospective assessment rather than independent proof of predictive accuracy.[1]

The available Ynet source establishes that Arab-Israeli Wars was the original name of Divided Ground, but it does not identify the computer game as an adaptation of Avalon Hill's board game. The documented connection is the reuse of the title, not a confirmed design lineage between the two products.[2]