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I am working on a Cold War/WWIII scenario and I am trying to decide which setting would be more interesting (planning a huge air/land/sea campaign).

I am thinking about either a 1953 setting were after Stalin dies his replacements determine that the UN response in Korea has been lack luster and their inability to overcome the poorly supplied Chinese and reluctance to use atomic weapons indicates to them that a Communist offensive into Europe would not be stopped. Knowing the USSR cannot match the West's nuclear arsenal the Soviets declare a refusal to use atomic weapons and call on all nations to follow suit, in hopes of diplomatically neutralizing an atomic attack. But it also declares that a full retaliation will be used against any nation that uses atomic weapons on Soviet forces. The Korean war is strung along and The Warsaw Pact is formed earlier then it was historically (end of 1953 in anticipation of an offensive) and spring of 1954 the Warsaw Pact invades western Europe.

This game will consist of primary front in Western Germany with a secondary front in Korea and Naval battles of the Soviets interdicting US supplies to both fronts.

Or a 1962 scenario were the US invades Cuba to remove the Soviet nuclear weapons. Soviets respond by invading West Berlin, but Khrushchev balks at firing missiles in Cuba and tells Soviet forces to stand down. In desperation the Cubans attempt to take control of the Soviet missiles. Panicked, Khrushchev orders the missiles destroyed by their crews. Infuriated with Khrushchev's perceived weakness Soviet leadership ousts him from power. The USSR provides the UN with evidence gathered through espionage of US missiles in Italy and Turkey. Chiding the US over its hypocrisy in the Cuban invasion and providing evidence that the Soviets prevented a nuclear attack by the Cubans by destroying their own weapons, the Soviet Union declares atomic weapons to be of fascist and capitalist origins and inherently immoral and call for complete international atomic disarmament. Debates rage in the UN and by spring of 1963 Soviet Union declares the diplomatic efforts have been a failure and declares that Soviet forces will enter Italy (via Yugoslavia with Tito's allowance) and Turkey to forcible remove US nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union declares a prohibition on the use of atomic weapons but reserves the right to use them in self-defense.

This game will consist of primary front in Northern Italy and East Turkey with a guerrilla campaign in Cuba. France declares support for the Soviets diplomatic goals but decries its military action, and remains neutral. Greece supports the Soviet Union against Turkey and leaves NATO and much of the non aligned world supports the USSR.

Both are a bit of a stretch but considering that WWIII did not happen I suspect some suspension of disbelief is needed. Which sounds more interesting?

Hey its alternate history! the world can change pretty drastically in a pretty short amount of time. Sounds pretty well thought out and super cool to me.

I like the 1962 version the best.

How about Red Alert, the novel that inspired Dr. Strangelove? A US general goes rogue and pre-emptively nukes the Russians, or tries to.

My father, who was with SAC, said the presmise was not that unreal in the 50s and 60s, and the steps in it are not that far fetched.

US general goes rogue, launches his attack wing. The US attempts to recall the wing and is mostly successful. The Russians are alerted and manage to shoot a few bombers down. One makes it to a secondary target and nukes it. The Premere declines all out war do to the US's assistance in recalling/destroying the bombers. This causes problems in Soviet high command as the US government starts witch hunts through the armed forces for other potential rogues. The Russian command stages a coup believing the US is now weak enough to beat. Nuke boats hit the East Coast and war errupts in Europe as the rooskies cross the Bearing Strait for an attack on the West Coast.

How about 1983?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident

and then, a month later:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83

Able Archer was a month later, but the planning and buildup must have taken a lot longer than that; you could perhaps say that the false alarm triggered a Soviet missile launch and that the forces in Europe in anticipation of the exercise got involved in a real war.

Both sound fun, however I think fighting in Italy and Turkey is a nice change of pace from Germany!

I agree with Easy E. As a child of the Cold War era I have played many a West German invasion game (Fulda Gap, etc) and would find a different kind of scenario much more interesting. It has the advantage that NATO forces were not primarily configured for defending Italy or especially Turkey, so the defence might be rather weak, possibly leading to a NATO counter attack into East Germany.

WOW!

We played this again-and-again-and-again in the 1980s at Ft. Hood for the Armor School (the 1953 scenario - or one almost identical).

But it almost always ended with some Soviet Commander in the field with a Tactical Nuke using it after getting his ass handed to him by the Bundeswehr and NATO.

But they remained really fun games.

Damn we had a huge amount of armor in these things.

That is a really fun theatre and period, because the weapons were still roughly WWII, with slightly better Radar, and the individual units depended so much upon Battalion Signals units.

MB