The Vassal module for 1985: Under an Iron Sky is ready and available for download!
Download 1985: Under an Iron Sky Vassal Module
Created by John Rainey with the same graphics used in production print, the module contains ready-to-use setups for the four scenarios and two campaign games of the boxed version. It also adds several handy functions:
- SAM coverage overlay
- Air Superiority Areas overlay
- Automatic “Return to Base” for Air Squadrons
- Integrated Sequence of Play
No feeble excuse can now save you from the final showdown between NATO and Warsaw Pact. You had a lot of time for visiting Russia, today it’s too late. Russia is visiting you.
Time -9pm, Moscow time, 13 Sept. 1985
Place- Special restaurant of the KGB officer’s club of Dedicated Socialist, soon-to-be-Hero-of-the-Soviet-Union, soon-to-be-KGB- General-presently-KGB Colonel Fabrizio Vianello
Feet propped up on his table, boots off, head back KGB Colonel Fabrizio Vianello savored the moment. He had allowed himself a rare luxury (well to others it was rare; to him, as a true son of the Communist system, less so) and richly deserved it. Vodka was, of course, well and good and necessary, but a true French wine (Bordeaux, of course) to wash down the chef prepared gourmet meal, complete with the best prepared steak in Moscow, was a special part of the non-existent heaven of decadent capitalist religions. Of course, such things only existed to dull the minds of the exploited workers of the Capitalists pawns, but, if they did exist, surely this would have to be part of it.
As special waitresses, several on whom were known to the Colonel in more intimate, private, areas cleared away the meal, the Colonel was content. Ah, the justifiable rewards given by the masses to dedicated Socialist geniuses such as KGB Colonel Vianello. And for true believers in the Communist system such as KGB Colonel Vianello. To those who were constantly fighting against the Capitalist exploiters and oppressors of the people, nothing was too good, no reward too large, no luxury too extreme! Yes, other, lesser, men than the Colonel would, perhaps, become decadent and jaded, but, with his special KGB training, KGB Colonel Vianello knew he was immune to such sicknesses. No, with him the dachas, the women, the meals, the cars, these did not weaken him, but gave the him the strength and energy to continue his fight for the Glorious Soviet State and its inevitable victory!!
Here it was, three weeks after “Operation Potemkin” had been launched from his personal computer and it could not have gone better. Accolades had been showered on the Colonel from all sides. All acknowledged the Colonel’s genius in solving the “logistical shortages” that had been noted by the braying,whining, jackel generals of the front lines. Tanks! Planes! Ammunition!! These had been “found” and sent forward to the battle in seemingly unending numbers!! With such reinforcements, only an idiot or wrecker could fail to win the battles to come.
And, smiling his secret smile, KGB Colonel Vianello contemplated the “magic” that had made this possible. The reinfocements were coming, of course they were. The “computer printouts” said they were there, so, therefore, they were there. Who would dare question what the computer said in black and white? A computer, much like the 5 year plan and the Communist system as a whole, did not lie. It was a computer; it could not lie. Even those who did not understand much about what a computer was “knew” this. All knew this.
Ah, the Colonel’s foresight! His genius!! Truly, at times the Colonel really did think he was a prophet, able to foresee the future. Most of the time, those who tried to defame him ended up shot. Or at least in the gulag, forgotten. But for “computer genius” KGB Major Marco Josevich Cimmino, for him, he had arranged merely to be sent to the gulag. And, he had not forgotten him. He had even cultivated a friendship (definition- those who could be useful to KGB Colonel Vianello) with the Major.
And such “friendship ” had paid off. Frankly, the Colonel had not completely understood all that the Major had said about “hacking” and “worms” and “extra computer code”, but it had not been necessary. All that was needed was a very special program devised by the Major and impemented by KGB Colonel Vianello , and ‘presto-chango’ war materials appeared! Now that the “program” was in place, anytime he wished the Colonel could “create” new war material and “send” it to the front. All now looked to him as the “Miracle Man”. Nothing was beyond him now. The power, the glory, the fame….
“KGB Colonel Vianello! Sir. Sir! SIR!!!”
Abruptly, the Colonel awoke with a start. He realized both that he had dozed off and that someone was addressing him. And not just someone, but two someones. Two someones in the uniform of the KGB “special services” branch. This was serious! Having employed them himself on occassion, the Colonel knew that no person, no matter their rank, was immune from their power. The power to arrest. To interrogate. To shoot.
“Yes?”
With an overt air of menace, the goons thrust into his hands a special folded envelope:
“For you, sir. And we will wait”
Tentatively, as if it were a dangerous snake, the Colonel opened the envelope. What he read dried up his good feeling with all the power of a spider sucking out the blood from its prey.
TO: KGB Colonel Fabrizio Vianello
FROM: KGB Major Eleonora Olivares, Special Branch Division
Your presence is required at once.
Signed
KGB Major Eleonora Olivares, Special Branch Division
The plot thickens!