Back in 1971, while combat operations still raged in Vietnam, Strategy & tactics magazine published a groundbreaking design called Grunt. This game included a number of firsts. It was the first commercial squad-level wargame. It was S&T's first game with die-cut counters. It was one of the very first simulation games published about a conflict during that conflict.
Interestingly enough, there seems to be little interest in designing such a game dealing with today's conflicts. I can understand a certain reluctance to try designing a game dealing with the strategy or politics of the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq -- everybody seems to be having a hard time wrapping their minds around what forces are really at work.
But at the tactical level it's not so complicated. One would think there's be some interest in depicting a G.I.-level view of the fighting, but there's little there and nothing yet in any of the wargame magazines, so far as I know. Why not? Is it the controversial subject? Hard to see that it cold be, after all, Vietnam was surely even more controversial when Grunt was published.
