Gulf Strike (board game)

Gulf Strike, subtitled Land, Air and Sea Combat in the Persian Gulf, is a two-player operational-level board wargame designed by Mark Herman and published by Victory Games in 1983, with cover art by Ted Koller on the first edition. The first two editions were hypothetical scenarios imagining an American military response to Iranian aggression in the Persian Gulf, built years before any such conflict actually occurred. A third edition, published in 1990, updated the game to reflect the real deployment then underway as Operation Desert Shield, turning what had been a speculative exercise into a simulation of an unfolding actual crisis. The game covers land, air and naval combat across the Gulf region using 1980s-era military forces and equipment, and a first-edition copy is preserved in the collection of the Strong National Museum of Play. Avalon Hill also released a video game adaptation of Gulf Strike in 1984 across multiple home computer platforms.