Oil War: American Intervention in the Persian Gulf
board wargame published in 1975
Oil War: American Intervention in the Persian Gulf is a board wargame published by Simulations Publications, Inc. (SPI) in 1975 that simulates a hypothetical invasion of oil-producing countries in the Middle East in response to the oil crisis of 1973.
Background
In October 1973, members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), led by Saudi Arabia, proclaimed an oil embargo targeted at nations that had supported Israel during the Yom Kippur War: Canada, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States (although later extended to Portugal, Rhodesia and South Africa.) As a direct result, the price of a barrel of crude oil rose almost 300% by March 1974. Nick Palmer noted that "there was a good deal of speculation on the feasibility of an American intervention to seize the [oil] wells on the grounds of economic self-protection."
Description
Oil War is a two-player wargame in which one player controls American and allied forces invading oil-producing nations of the Middle East to seize oil wells, and the other player controls defending forces. With a small 17" x 22" hex grid map and only 80 counters, the game has been characterized as "not complex".
Gameplay
The game uses the following phases:
Land all American aircraft
American supply: Allocate air transport points and pay them to keep American units in supply (unsupplied units move at half rate)
American air transport phase
American movement phase
American air combat phase
Land all Arab aircraft
Reinforcement phase
Arab movement phase
Arab air combat phase
Ground combat phase
This completes one turn, which represents two days. The game only lasts 8 turns.
Victory conditions
The American player wins by controlling at least 15 of the 25 oil facilities and one of three ports by the end of the last turn. The Arab player wins by preventing this.
Scenarios
There are three scenarios:
In response to an Iranian incursion into Iraq, the U.S. sends forces to fight alongside the Iraqis.
The public source identifies “Oil War: American Intervention in the Persian Gulf” as board wargame published in 1975. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around American, Intervention and Persian.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Oil War: American Intervention in the Persian Gulf”, the useful work is to connect “board wargame published in 1975” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q115978896. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1975, 1973 and 1974.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Oil War: American Intervention in the Persian Gulf”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Oil War: American Intervention in the Persian Gulf primary sources, Oil War: American Intervention in the Persian Gulf archive and American research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Oil War: American Intervention in the Persian Gulf”?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Oil War: American Intervention in the Persian Gulf” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.