STROP : Player's Manual for JOSS Version.

A manual of procedures for using the JOSS system to play the two-sided nuclear war game STROP as a player-participant exercise. The manual contains instructions for players, a description of the implementation of the game, input data, and a copy of the computer routine. The game is concerned with both the selection of forces and the choice of attack (or defense) strategies. Given the same fixed budget and starting inventory of weapons and value targets, each team (Red and Blue) makes allocation decisions for R&D and forces procurement and adopts a strategy for offense and one for defense. The computer then evaluates the results of a war fought according to these decisions and provides two itemized lists of losses for each team (Red and Blue attacking, respectively). The game requires the use of three JOSS consoles, one for each player and one for the monitor. It is useful as a relatively simple aggregated war model or as an easily played demonstration of a man-machine war game. Players with little or no previous experience with JOSS or war games can perform a series of STROP exercises on the JOSS consoles. A detailed discussion of the STROP model is given in RM-4817-PR. 74 pp. Ref.