The mention of 2300 sets off all sorts of alarms in my head, so I have to join the thread!!
You are correct, GDW ran what they called the Game (or Great Game) from the starting point of the mess they'd left the earth in at the end of WWIII (which they had also gamed) with various devs, and staff members taking the role of surviving countries, they gamed it through the next 300 years to develop the "history" for Traveller 2300 (later 2300ad).
Man I loved Star Cruiser (the ship combat rules) that game was pretty much all about sensors and sensor masking, hide and seek with Bazooka's! the game that created my love of missile armed ships (since lasers were relatively meh)
And I was a big fan of TW2k as well, though lost interest a lot after the adventure stream left Europe, Pirates of the Vistula absolutely rocked, Damn those evil Soviet 10th Guards Tank Div guys!!
Matt (off to strongarm someone into playing Star Cruiser now!)