Sixth Fleet (wargame)

Sixth Fleet, subtitled US/Soviet Naval Warfare in the Mediterranean in the 1970s, is a two-player board wargame designed by Jim Dunnigan and published by Simulations Publications Inc. (SPI) in 1975. It simulates a hypothetical Cold War naval clash in which Soviet forces launch an attack against NATO's Sixth Fleet and allied shipping in the Mediterranean Sea. The game first appeared as a pull-out insert in Strategy & Tactics magazine issue 48 before also being sold as a standalone boxed set, a distribution method SPI used often to reach its magazine subscriber base directly. Mechanically it drew attention for sequencing combat before movement on each turn, the reverse of the order used in most wargames of its era, an unusual structural choice that shaped how players had to plan naval engagements. Despite this distinctive mechanic, contemporary reviewers judged that its combat model felt closer to Napoleonic-era land battles than to genuine 1970s naval warfare, and it finished only 80th of 202 games in SPI's 1976 player popularity poll.