Nimitz review

Well, not literally. But I still treasure the memory of those gloomy, winter, Sunday afternoons when the BBC showed re-runs of the wonderful 1940s and ‘50s films dealing with the Second World War at sea. They had a profound effect on me. Whilst other kids wanted to be soccer stars, I wanted to be a World War II naval commander, just like Noel Coward in “In Which We Serve”; Anthony Quayle in “Battle of the River Plate”; Michael Hordern or Kenneth Moore in “Sink the Bismarck”; Randolph Scott in “Corvette K-225”; or Jack Hawkins in “The Cruel Sea.”

Since years of cold showers, PT, and rigorous naval training at Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth did not appeal, I took the soft option and turned to wargaming for my vicarious thrills. Andrew, John and I used Fletcher Pratt’s Naval Rules which were included in Donald Featherstone’s “Naval War Games: Wargaming with Model Ships.” These required:

· 1:1200 ships, (scratch built from balsa wood and pins, plastic kits from Eaglewall or Revel, and, joy of joys when birthday or Christmas money ran to it, Superior metal ships.)

· A gimlet eye, to both estimate the range in inches to your target which could be six to ten feet or more away, and to avoid standing on your own destroyers.

· A set of teenager’s knees, as you were always getting down to eye level with the ships on the floor to determine which gun arcs could bear and which targets were masked by smoke or friendly ships; and,

Like all good wargaming experiences Pratt’s rules required a modicum of preparation. You read every historical account available, and a few of the better historical fiction books, such as Nicholas Monserrat’s “Three Corvettes” and “The Cruel Sea” (about the convoy war); C.S. Forester’s “The Ship” (about a light cruiser at the Second Battle of Sirte,) and “The Good Sheppard” (about a North Atlantic convoy, recently filmed as “Greyhound” with Tom Hanks, and the 67 year-old teenager in me aspires to be Tom too); or, best of all, Alistair MacLean’s ”HMS Ulysses (about a light cruiser on an Arctic convoy that goes decidedly pear-shaped.) You then went to the Cardiff Central Library where, in the reference section, (they were not available for loan,) you could peruse the relevant edition of “Jane’s Fighting Ships” to find the tonnage, speed, belt, deck and control tower armour, main and secondary guns, torpedo tubes, and aircraft carried by your chosen ship, and then determine her overall combat effectiveness by applying all of these factors to the following simple equation: (Gc[2] X GN + Gc'[2] X Gn' + 10TT + 10A[2] + 10 A'[2] + 10A" + 25 Ap + M) Sf; + T. We all passed our maths “O” Level, and Andrew went on to Imperial College and became an early computer entrepreneur, thanks, no doubt, to these adolescent mathematical gymnastics.

Clearly if you were willing to put up with all this as a means of occupying and enjoying yourself, there must have been something to the genre. To me Fletcher Pratt was a bit like the Jesuit priests, who could take a boy and give you a Catholic for life, for if you could enjoy Fletcher’s rules you were a naval wargamer for life.

Things change. Five decades later I have a collection of naval reference and history books that would put Cardiff Central Library to shame. Ships in any scale from 1:600 to 1:6000 are readily available. (I use 1:6000 scale ships and 1:700 scale aircraft). My knees and eyes are shot, and anyway we no longer have the floors of huge halls to play on, so any game must be playable on a reasonable sized table. Finally, along with the decades passing-by, gaming time has flown too, and now I want to be able to set up and play to a satisfactory conclusion a large action in a maximum of six, preferably four, hours.

In 1:6000 scale Prinz Eugen and Bismarck, (top right) engage Hood and Prince of Wales at about 12,000 yards.

A lot of naval rules go into lots of detail and often require the juggling of many firing factors, armour penetration and hit locations before you get a result, (or not,) which is then laboriously recorded on a record sheet somewhere. If this is what you want go ahead and be happy, but it is no longer for me. But if you want to be Noel, Anthony, Michael, Ken, Jack, Tom… read on.

When I was working on my own WWII naval rules 15 years ago, I aimed for an historically accurate result from a simple system, that would play fast, relying on reference to a quick play sheet rather than the rules’ text. To do this the following concessions had to be made to detail, but not to historical accuracy:

· A reasonably long turn length of six minutes. So, much can happen in a turn, especially at short ranges; and ships can move a long way.

· The firing effects should only cover the hits that matter - not every shell fired or every hit or near miss.

· I am not interested in distinguishing between every inch of armour on every part of the ships, or in the minute differences in their guns, radar, sub-division and speed. Where ships had a significant advantage in an area that should be reflected in the rules, the trivia shouldn’t.

In short, I want a set of rules that is as entertaining as those films and novels, and as accurate as those historical tomes and reference works.

So, imagine how interested and excited I was, when in March 2023, the voice tube whistle in my cabin blew and I was informed that Sam. A. Mustafa of Honour Publications was coming out with a set of WWII naval rules based on these principles. Print on demand in Las Vegas and delivery to Hong Kong was ridiculously fast, and a set of “Nimitz - A Tabletop Game of Naval Battles in the Second World War by Sam A. Mustafa” was soon making my paws sweat and appetite whet. The usual cat-herding required to set up a game meant that I didn’t sit down with Tony and Alex, (and a bottle of his home-brew mead,) until Trafalgar Day to try the rules out with two historical scenarios: The Battle of the Denmark Strait to test the “big gun” rules, and The Sinking of Force Z to test the air rules. We did the Force Z scenario twice, the second time as a “what if” with the carrier HMS Indomitable, which had originally been earmarked to accompany Force Z, being present to provide air cover. Alex has tried out more sets of naval rules than you can shake a marlinspike at. Tony was a naval neophyte, but he does hang out on the Nimitz blog or Facebook group which I don’t, so when we were discussing the rules he could “play the Devil’s Advocate” and say things like “Sam Mustafa explains that point like this...” We had a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon’s play, and this is what I thought of the rules…

Anyone familiar with Sam Mustafa’s rules, (and I have bought enough of his sets to put his kids through university), should know what to expect. The format is always nicely illustrated, with lots of examples and designer’s notes. He is obviously a proponent of visual learning because, as well as telling you that you need to throw a five or a six to do something, there will be a little picture of two dice showing a five and a six! Chapters focus on one activity and are short. If you take out the examples, designer’s notes and pictures of little dice, they usually amount to only a few pages of text each. So, it is all very easy to read and pick up the contents.

The contents are what you would expect in a set of naval rules, but, and this is a very important but, not everything you expect in a set of naval rules. Nimitz is really three sets of rules packaged together: “Nimitz” which covers tactical surface actions. “Halsey” which covers strategic, air, surface, and submarine operations. (Yes, you can raise your eyebrows and point out that the named admirals’ levels of responsibility in the Pacific was the opposite to that in the rules, but perhaps Sam Mustafa prizes name recognition when it comes to selling rules). And “Mikawa”, which is an abstract system for quickly resolving tactical battles generated by “Halsey” if you don’t want to play them using “Nimitz.” Since how you assess rules is subjective, and that subjectivity depends on how interested in the topic you are, I will lay my personal bias cards on the table for all to see and say Mikawa: not at all interested; Halsey: quite interested, especially in the air and submarine rules; and Nimitz: very interested.

So far so good, but it is on design philosophy that I partially part company with Mr. Mustafa. Right off the bat he indicates that we think alike: “Although I love this period, I find most naval games to be either grueling simulations or fantasy-like abstractions that could be about anything.” (p.1.) My problem with Nimitz is that Mr. Mustafa prizes simplicity and a level playing field above all else and this, in my opinion, brings the rules far closer to the fantasy-like abstraction than is necessary. Don’t get me wrong, simplicity is good, and accessibility is good, but the rules do not have to provide a balanced game. If one side has a technological, doctrinal, environmental, or just numerical advantage then these historical factors should be taken into account, and ignoring these factors for simplicity’s sake is throwing the historical baby out with the bathwater. And if we are not historical then we end up “fantasy-like.” If accessibility is the issue, and, to be fair, a player who knows absolutely nothing about WWII naval warfare could get up to speed with Nimitz after a short “rule reading ceremony” and a few turns, then you could have introductory rules and advanced rules. Nimitz does have “Advanced Rules” in the form of optional rules (p.105.) but these do not expand on the basic movement and combat systems for the tactical game.

Spoiler Alert – I think that Nimitz includes some very clever stuff and some dumb stuff. So, what follows is a breakdown of the Nimitz and Halsey rules that we played through, with special attention to their good and not-so-good points. When harping on the latter I will try to use historical examples to show what the rules are missing. This will be followed by “Quick Fixes,” which I hope will demonstrate that the rules issues can be addressed without resorting to a gruelling simulation.

One of the prime considerations in naval rules is the relationship between time and distance that is essential in naval warfare. In a land game you can park a unit anywhere and leave it there until you want to move it. Then, a turn might be as long as you like because you add to the rules a “get-out” clause to the effect that the time passed includes the inevitable delays caused by the friction of combat. This can’t work in naval games because everything is always moving. Nimitz however refuses to specify a time frame, but rather: “…I prefer to think of one turn as: the length of time required to make multiple shots or torpedo launches that, cumulatively, have a good chance of success; and the length of time required for opponents to change their posture vis-à-vis one another.” (p.117, emphasis in original.)

Thus, as anyone can work out, since the rules give 26,000 yards as extreme gun range, (p.117,) which is 24”, so 1” = 1,083 yards. And since a 30 knot ship travels 12” in a turn, that represents 13,000 yards, or 6.5NM, which is 21.66% of the 30NM the ship would travel in an hour, so a turn is 13 minutes. With these two basic parameters sorted it is easier to put all the other rules into perspective. So, now we have married space and time let us consider the rules in the order that they appear.

First you will need some ships. Given the rules scale anything from 1:2400 to 1:6000 should look OK, with the smaller the better if you want to visually convey the idea of battleships exchanging fire over 12 miles of ocean. For 1:1200 or 1:1800 I would double the ground scale for it to look acceptable, but that would mean that your chances of playing anything larger than a destroyer action on a 6-foot by 4-foot table go out the porthole.

Next you will have to describe your ships. It is possible to have record-less naval rules where you just mark damage on the ship model. I have tried this, and David Manley has written a great set called “Find, Fix and Strike,” which require little bookkeeping, but this idea has two drawbacks: First it lacks granularity, so the idea works well if you have lots of ships and are bent on recreating huge battles like Tsushima or Jutland, but can be a bit crude if you only have a handful of ships as in many WWII actions. Secondly paperless rules require the players to have a good knowledge of their ships. I know that the Rodney’s main battery is 9 x 16” but the novice to naval wargames will have little idea, and even the best models in the world will only tell him that she has nine big guns, and not what calibre they are. So, you generally need some way of describing your ships’ characteristics. How this is done can be the bane of many naval rules, but Nimitz does it better than most.

The Nimitz “Data Cards” work very well. They are clear and easy to use, and six will fit into an A4 size plastic folder so you can mark off damage with whiteboard markers and manage most fleets with a few folders. The cards do not tell you how big Rodney’s guns are, but they do tell you what they can do, and they do not tell you how many inches of armour she has, but they do tell you how well protected she is in comparison to other ships. This is all that you need to know.

But if the format of the data cards is good, their content, which is downloadable from the Honour website, is much more mixed with many errors and over-simplifications. I get the impression that Mr. Mustafa has been ragged about this a lot as he includes two “get-out” sections about inaccuracies, (pp 11 and 115.) Still, I think that it is legitimate to bitch about goofs like British Leander class cruisers armed with 5.25”, not 6”, guns which would come as a surprise to any aspiring Anthony Quayle’s out there who want to command Ajax and Achilles at The Battle of the River Plate, and they would also be upset because the Graf Spee is just as fast as they are; or the KGVs having the same top speed as the Hood or Iowa; or Hood being the same size as Repulse, despite her having 12,000 tons greater displacement, and being the largest warship in the world for most of her service life. On the omissions side the most prolific and powerful American destroyers, the Sumners are nowhere to be seen – and there were only 58 in service! And I know it sounds churlish to complain that the cards do not distinguish between Repulse and Renown, or between Warspite, Queen Elizabeth, and Barham, because they are of the same classes, but if you were to look inside Mr. Mustafa’s Napoleonic rules “Lasalle” to find Napoleon’s Young, Middle and Old Guard all classified with the same characteristics because they are all part of the Imperial Guard, a land wargamer would be askance, and doubt the veracity of the rest of the rules, so you cannot blame a naval wargamer for being a bit jaundiced in the same circumstances. Mr Mustafa enjoins you to feel free in correcting errors – but please don’t bother him with them; he’s had enough! (P.115.) I gave an old-fashioned harrumph at this. Whilst no set of wargames rules will ever be a work of perfection, I see nothing wrong with aspiring to remove as many errors of commission and omission as possible.

The game is intended to be played on a 6-foot by 4-foot table. Since we had an historical scenario, we didn’t use the deployment set up in the rules as written (RAW,) which are ‘Interesting.” Both sides dice-off to determine who holds the “advantage,” and in a rare concession to superior technology instead of an equal-chance game, there is a +1 modifier for radar advantage for Brits and Americans in 1944. The loser of this dice throw deploys first in two adjacent 12” squares on his side of the table, and then the “advantaged” can deploy anywhere on their side not within 12” of the enemy – which is well within gun range of all calibres but just outside short range for heavy guns, and non-Japanese torpedo range. Obviously the “advantaged” does not have to deploy so close, but there is nothing stopping them in the RAW, so if they want a knife-fight they can have it!

How ships get down to 13,000 yards without being spotted and shot at first is not explained as there no visibility rules! Sight is unlimited so on the diagonal of a 6’ x 4’ table you can see 47 miles no matter how high the observer or how small the target. You really have to wonder if Nimitz was play tested by Flat Earthers. There are no weather rules either, so Nimitz battles are fought out on a mill pond with unlimited visibility and no weather effects on spotting and movement. (In fairness the Halsey segment introduces the possibility of storms, but these prevent task forces spotting each other, and so prevent all combat. So, in Nimitz World it is either perfectly clear or complete rain stops play). This system certainly has the benefit of simplicity, but that is the only nice thing I can say for it. Sinking the Scharnhorst at night, in a snowstorm, in a rising gale with rangefinders degraded by spray, takes a bit more imagination.

Whether a battle takes place in day or night depends upon either mutual agreement or a straight, highest chooses, dice-off. There is no dawn or dusk, so forget about historical tactics like manoeuvring to silhouette your enemy against a rising or setting sun whilst you hide in the gloom in the opposite direction. Night visibility is fixed at 13,000 yds, and the state of the moon does not affect this. Ships that fire (or “flash” in the rules), can be seen at any distance, but there is no illumination by starshell, or searchlight, or aircraft dropped flairs, or vessel on fire. Radar has no effect, either for gunnery or tracking, so how Washington opened fire at 18,000 yds in 7,600 yds visibility at 2^nd Guadalcanal, and West Virginia tracked from 42,000 yds and got a first salvo hit at 22,800 yards at Surigao Strait, remain mysteries. As the rules stand both sides would open-up at 13,000 yards with first fire depending on the choice made by the winner of the initiative. The Japanese were very good at night because they had excellent optics, selected lookouts for their visual acuity, and because they trained hard – but they were not that good.

There are no air operations at night either, which will come as a bit of a surprise to the British at Taranto, the famous “Black Cats” in the Pacific, and both sides at Truk where American Avengers could not have caused 13 hits on ships, nor the Japanese Kate have torpedoed the Intrepid, in their night attacks.

Movement is the essence of a naval wargame. Unlike a land game where there are roads to run down, hills to climb, woods to hide in, rivers to cross, and towns to occupy, all of which will affect how the two sides attack and defend, at sea it all depends on how you can move and manoeuvre to maximise your own gunnery advantages and minimise the effects of your enemy’s fire that matters. Can you “cross his T” so that you are firing full broadsides at an enemy who has half his guns masked? Can you dictate the battle range so that your guns can hit and penetrate him, but he can’t penetrate you? Or if you have inferior guns, can you close to a range where you can hurt him without suffering too much damage on the run-in? Can you make your torpedo attacks from off the enemy’s bow where the running time and enemy’s counter options are minimised? Manoeuvring to gain these advantages over your opponent requires skill, judgement, and anticipation, and the decision making puts the challenge and fun into the game. So how much challenge and fun does Nimitz give you?

First you establish who has the initiative each turn. The player with the initiative decides if he wants to move first or shoot first. This is important because of a clever quirk in Nimitz that combat damage is inflicted sequentially, not simultaneously. In most rules damage is simultaneous – well that seems fair enough because all ships are theoretically firing at the same time – so if you had the choice between moving first and firing first there would be no advantage in firing so you would always move second to see what the other chap was doing. But firing sequentially gives the chap who fires first a meaningful advantage. A well-organised squadron fires together so the first fire advantage can extend to several ships. You still alternate fire between formations of ships of both sides, so it’s not a case of all your ships blowing away the enemy before any of them can respond, and the more formations and ships there are in the battle the less advantage there is in having one formation fire first. But in our Denmark Strait game with only two Germans against four British, both commanders had situations where they could benefit both ways so had interesting choices to make when they won the initiative. Thus, it is a nice little rule in my opinion.

Unfortunately, the initiative is decided by a straight dice-off again. There are no modifiers for doctrine, radar, or training, so no one gets their historical advantages or disadvantages. Thus, in night actions the Americans at Savo Island are just as good as the Japanese, (historical score 4-nil to Japan), and the Japanese at Surigao Strait are just as good as the Americans, (historical score 6-nil to America). Mr. Mustafa’s desire to have fair and open game leads him to say that in 1942 and 1943 the naval battles were competitive, (p.39.) This is nonsense. No admiral ever went looking for a fair battle to compete in. They went looking to maximise the unfair advantages in their favour and minimise the other chap’s advantages. It is true that few, if any, battles in history were as one-sided as the Battle of Surigao Strait, but there is nothing wrong with a set of rules reflecting this imbalance. You don’t have to play Savo Island or Surigao Strait as games if you don’t want to, but if you do then you deserve a set of rules that at least give you a good chance of modelling the historical circumstances.

Movement is conducted in three segments, moving the slowest ships first and the fastest last. This sounds clunky, but it works well, and it is certainly less clunky in game terms than the alternative of pre-plotting written moves which are then executed simultaneously. This latter method, common in many naval rules, seems more accurate, but it definitely slows the game down. The Nimitz method is a good compromise, especially when the advantages of initiative are taken into consideration.

Movement is long in Nimitz, because a turn is 13 minutes long. Fast battleships at top speed can close their own long gun range in two turns. In my opinion, this is a problem. Sides close too fast, and the “rate of change’ is too rapid. In our Denmark Strait game the protagonists had closed to short range by the second turn, and they were not even hammering along at top speed, in order not to throw off their own firing. The British cruisers which started 30,000 yards off the action, did come hammering in and closed to point blank range by turn four. I have no problem with these long moves as an accurate representation of the time and space considerations of those 13 minutes, but these giant leaps preclude any jockeying for position and, as it is quite possible for a ship to miss entirely when firing at an enemy, these rapid approaches can possibly be made with little risk. This goes against Mr. Mustafa’s own aim of a turn representing “the length of time required for opponents to change their posture vis-à-vis one another.”

In something more akin to Trafalgar than the Denmark Strait, HMS Norfolk closes from over 30,000 yards to 1,000 yards in four turns to try a torpedo attack. Ironically her chances of success, and the chances of the Germans wrecking her, would have been exactly the same if she was 12” away, not 1”.

This long movement is exacerbated by the turning rules. Naval rules often have complicated turning protocols, including angle profiles or turning circles for different sized ships at different speeds, often with minimum distances between turns. These protocols are difficult to apply, and usually incomprehensible to novices. Nimitz takes the totally opposite approach: all ships, no matter the size or speed, can make only one turn of up to 90⁰at any one point in their entire move. This is a gross oversimplification and Mr. Mustafa recognises this, (p.14.) He states that his design choice is for aesthetic reasons as full historical manoeuvrability would not look good, but I think that some restriction on manoeuvring is necessary to stop players careering all over the place like bumper cars, with the last moving player exploiting all the manoeuvrability to get tactical edges on his opponent that he could not have anticipated at the beginning of the turn. The answer to this to reduce the movement distances so that the manoeuvre options are more reasonable, and to penalise radical manoeuvres by affecting fire control solutions. As already noted, the deductions for firing at high speed already in the rules were enough to deter our players from driving about at 30 knots, and a similar rule would stop them doing doughnuts in the ocean unless they have good reason.

The gunnery rules in Nimitz are very good. Mr. Mustafa has come up with an innovative system that is clever and elegant. Although it takes three steps to resolve these are simple steps and players will have them under their belts very quickly. The system is a classic case of “designing for effect” where you try to model what is done simply, rather than trying to replicate how it is done in all its complexities. There is no detailed scientific analysis here, but it just feels right.

First you throw to hit, which is based on the number of guns firing, with modifications for range, speed, target aspect, guns mounted in casements, and, to a small extent, the ship’s director control. (Although the latter is limited to American fast battleships, later cruisers and 1944 battleship rebuilds being better – probably reflecting radar but they have none of the other benefits of radar - and damaged ships, plus a very few older light cruisers, such as Omaha, Emden and Sendai, being worse – probably reflecting older fire control tables and poor seakeeping, although the similar British C and D class cruisers are not penalised.) Other significant factors, such as radar blind-fire, ranging, (well it is a 13-minute turn so you can say that that is taken into consideration by how good or bad your first turn’s dice throw is), own and target manoeuvring, and weather and light conditions are not considered. A one is always a miss, so, whilst hitting is common, it is not guaranteed.

If you do hit now comes the clever bit – penetration. In most naval rules you must work out the location of the hit, so you can determine the ship’s armour at that point. Then cross-index the penetrative power of the incoming shell at that range to determine if it can penetrate that thickness of armour. Nimitz uses an innovative system that produces the effects of this process without mimicking its mechanisms. A single dice throw gives you one of three possible attack values in each range band, to compare against the target’s defence strength. A low score indicates a that you have hit a particularly thick piece of armour or an unimportant area, a high score indicates that you have punched straight through, or, joy-of-joys, at long range your shot plunging from a great height, has hit his deck armour. This process is quick, clean, and rather fun.

If your attack value exceeds the target’s defence value you inflict the difference in structural damage on the target. Then, in another departure from most naval rules where “special effects” are rare occurrences, every hit in Nimitz tests for “critical damage,” although the really damaging effects are still subject to penetration.

This three-step system may sound a bit clunky, but it plays well and fast and the results are all within a reasonable range of historical outcome. The penetration effects are very neatly handled on every ship’s data card so are easy to access.

In addition to the missing factors mentioned in the “to hit” process above, Mr. Mustafa is also a bit stinting on gun ranges. The 26,000 yards that he cites for the longest hit, and thus his maximum gun range, is HMS Warspite’s strike on the Giulio Cesare in the Battle of Calabria/Punta Stilo, in June 1940, which was achieved without radar correction. But this was not the first salvo of the battle. The Cesare had opened-up at 28,900 yards seven minutes earlier and had been bracketing and firing long over the Warspite until she found the range just before Warspite, which had been firing for six minutes, hit her. Scharnhorst opened-up at Glorious at 28,600 yards and hit with her third salvo at about 26,000 yards. (These were not even the longest open fire recorded. At Cape Spartivento Vittorio Veneto opened-up at Manchester at 32,000 yards and straddled with its second salvo, whilst at the First Battle of Sirte, Littorio opened-up at 35,000 yards, although in nautical twilight this really was wishful thinking). Although Mr. Mustafa is right in claiming that the odds of a hit at extreme range were not great, (p.36), ships built in the 1930s, or rebuilt such as both the Warspite and Cesare, with gun elevations increased, were capable of extreme range fire, and in good weather conditions were willing to try it. Likewise, the 17,000 yards range given for light guns is fine for 5”, but too short for the guns of “modern” light cruisers.

If you planned to lay a smoke screen to protect your own ships from enemy fire, or to screen your own gallant destroyers as they charge into a torpedo attack, you can’t... Smoke screens are an essential part on naval tactics but rather amazingly Nimitz has no rules for smoke! The Devil’s Advocate explained that Mr. Mustafa had explained this because smoke was only used to disengage ships from battle, and this is covered in the Disengagement rule (p.18.) This argument is tosh! To disengage under the rule ships must leave the table at high speed or with no enemy ships near them. Disengaging does not stop enemy shooting at them before they leave the table, so if you are in the middle of the table the enemy can fire at you unimpeded until you reach the table edge. At best the rule can be said to model them making smoke after they have left the table!

Smoke was an important tactical option, often used defensively, to protect ships from enemy fire, or to limit the enemy’s options. Would you send your battleships through that smoke screen when you can’t see what is waiting for you behind it, that’s a good way to stop a torpedo? Or, as Langsdorf did at the River Plate, you can use a screen to protect yourself from the fire of part of the enemy force whilst concentrating your own fire on another part of the enemy. Smoke was also used offensively to cover an attack by protecting the attackers as they closed the range. The Americans, especially, practised offensive use of screens laid by both destroyers and aircraft in their pre-war “fleet problems” exercises, and there is no shortage of historical cases, such as Acasta emerging from smoke to put a torpedo into Scharnhorst in the Glorious battle, the Second Battle of Sirte, and the Battle off Samar, where smoke was used both offensively, (to charge out of), and defensively. In our game HMS Suffolk closed for a torpedo attack, got a hit, but was shattered by German fire, and as she made her escape we simply allowed her to make smoke to hide her from further damage before she withdrew from the table, not after.

Although not allowed in the RAW, the crippled HMS Suffolk makes smoke to cover her escape.

With your target hit damage must be assessed. This works well, the greater the size of your guns, modified by their penetrative effect, the more structural damage inflicted. In addition to generic structural damage, it is possible to knock out main and secondary turrets, AA guns, directors, torpedoes and, magazines, subject to penetration. Our game lasted 10 turns so represented about two hours of firing. German shells did not find Hood’s magazines this time, (the chance is 2.8% per penetrating hit, so although the historical result is unlikely, with multiple hits it is not impossible either), rather she was bludgeoned to death by German fire. Not all the German fire was directed at Hood. Norfolk was also sunk, and Suffolk crippled. In return both Bismarck and Prinz Eugen received substantial, but not crippling, structural damage and had two and one main battery turrets knocked out respectively, and Bismarck had taken a torpedo hit. They had won a moral victory but had suffered enough damage themselves that their sortie into the North Atlantic was over… They turned north to head back to Germany.

Whilst I quite like the way that damage works in Nimitz, it does have its failings. You will note that in the list of critical damage given above there is no provision for engineering or steering casualties, nor for flooding, caused by gunfire. Neither are there temporary events that might endanger a ship in the short term, only to be overcome by good damage control or the heroic efforts of the crew. True, ships that are crippled in Nimitz suffer from speed and director deductions, but this is an attritional effect not a specific critical event. If you are looking for that longest gunfire hit on Cesare causing little structural damage, but causing a minor fire the smoke from which temporarily knocked out an engine room and reduced her speed by one third; or for Lieutenant “Barehand” Bates to climb the icy mast of Duke of York in a gale to fix her radar so that she could go on to sink the Scharnhorst[1]; or for South Dakota to be rendered temporarily blind, deaf and dumb due to electrical failure at 2^nd Guadalcanal[2]; you will look in vain in Nimitz. This is a shame because such historical, if random, events add excitement and uncertainty to a game, and certainly enhance the narrative effect of damage beyond that of a mere slugfest.

Torpedoes

Torpedo rules for wargames are difficult to get right. This is because in the real world it was difficult to get it right. For every historical account of a few well-placed “fish” having a devastating effect, you can come up with an account of dozens, indeed scores, of torpedoes fired to no effect. Sometimes torpedoes were fired not with the primary expectation of achieving a hit, but with the intent of making the enemy avoid that hit by taking evasive action – by turning into or away from the torpedo tracks to “comb” them – so that your own ships could exploit this forced manoeuvre of the enemy, either by breaking off themselves, or by crossing the enemy’s “T”. Indeed, at the battle of the Barents Sea it was enough for British destroyers only to feign torpedo attack for the skittish Hipper to pull away. Having said this there were plenty of occasions when ships continued blithely on, totally unaware that they were under torpedo attack.

Unlike the shells of gunfire, which are either going to hit, near miss, perhaps causing splinter damage, or miss completely just punching holes in the ocean, torpedoes have to travel to the target, and if they miss may travel beyond it. This has consequences both in terms of movement and in terms of someone else getting in the way. My favourite example of this occurred at the Battle of Sunda Strait where four Japanese destroyers and two cruisers had already fired 44 torpedoes at two Allied cruisers to no effect, when Mogami fired six more torpedoes at the Allies. These hit – sinking four Japanese transports and a minesweeper, making it probably the most effective, if unfortunate, torpedo spread in history.

In the real-world torpedo launches were calculated by Dumaresq computing tables to take some of the guesswork out of determining the appropriate speed and deflection to hit a target, but in Nimitz all the guesswork is taken out. Torpedoes are fired at the very end of the turn, after the enemy has had the chance to batter the attacker by gunfire, fair enough. But then, and this is a very big “but then”, the torpedoes hit immediately no matter how far it is to the enemy. I have been a Trekkie about as long as I have been a naval gamer, and if my favourite Chief Engineer was banging off photon torpedoes I wouldn’t mind, but even the mighty Japanese 24” “Long Lance” torpedo is a tad slower than a photon torpedo so hitting a target 26,000 yards away instantaneously is more than a bit silly. (In fact, given the 13-minute turn, the Long Lance would have to have been travelling at 60 knots to make that distance. This is only a 25% distortion from the 48 knots that they were set to run at to reach that range. I might be induced to swallow a mere 25% distortion, except for the fact that it would only be valid if the torpedoes were fired at the beginning of the turn and hit at the end of it). I can only conclude that Mr. Mustafa chose this game mechanic for torpedoes because it does not require any paperwork, and it is fun. I am sure that these can be laudable mitigating factors when you are charged with breaking the laws of physics and ignoring the realities of time, space and speed, but neither I, nor my favourite Chief Engineer, can acquit on those grounds.

Unlike gunfire, which must be correct for both range and azimuth in order to hit, torpedo fire control solutions depend only upon the correct azimuth calculated by working out the intersection of target course and speed, and torpedo speed. In Nimitz target speed is an important variable, but range is not considered at all. Torpedoes are just as accurate at 13,000 yards as they are at 1,000 yards. Again, this is silly. Whilst range is not necessary to work out the firing solution it has a very important effect because any errors input to produce that solution are multiplied by the range. At very close range it does not matter if small errors are made in estimating the target speed or course, because the resulting error in the launching azimuth will be less than the target size and the torpedo should hit anyway. But even small errors multiplied by longer ranges will result in the azimuth missing, literally, by a mile. So, to mitigate any input errors, torpedoes were fired in spreads of several torpedoes, with separation either by azimuth, (the torpedoes would arrive at slightly different points at the same time,) or by time (the torpedoes would arrive at the same point, one after another, so the target’s speed moving across the line of fire would determine how many of the torpedoes had a chance of hitting). All this also pre-supposes that the target does not radically alter course and speed which at longer ranges would throw the solution off completely. As I said above, torpedo fire was difficult to get right.

It is hard to determine an optimum range for torpedo attacks, because circumstances and effects varied so much. At the Battle of the Komandorski Islands, in daylight, three American destroyers closed to 9,500 yards and turned to launch torpedoes, but only one of the three captains actually launched, the other two believing that the odds were not worthwhile at that range. In Vian’s night attack on the Bismarck his destroyers fired 16 torpedoes at ranges between 2,800 to 4,000 yards, and all missed. At night against Scharnhorst, Scorpion and Stord fired eight torpedoes apiece at 2,100 yards and 1,800 yards respectively; then Savage and Saumarez fired twelve more. Of these three, possibly four, hit. Clearly range was a very significant factor, and the closer the better.

When it comes to torpedo damage remember that, like gunnery hits, Nimitz only concerns itself with significant hits, not every torpedo hit, (Scharnhorst eventually took 9-14 21” torpedo hits and the Musashi and Yamato took upwards of 19 and 12 smaller airborne torpedoes - sources vary greatly on the actual number – and all three ships took considerable gunfire or bomb damage). In Nimitz three effective torpedo hits sink every ship, (two if they are destroyers or transports). To be effective the torpedo strike value, (which varies from country to country), is added to a dice throw, and if the total exceeds the target’s protection value a floatation hit is caused. If it exceeds it by six or more the target’s back is broken and it sinks. So, for smaller warships and merchantmen one hit has a good chance of sinking a ship, but if the ship’s protection value exceeds the strike value of the torpedo it would be impossible, as, unlike gunnery, there are no other critical effects of a torpedo hit. Thus, in Nimitz, Pola cannot be stopped dead in the water from one hit, Bismarck cannot have her rudder jammed, U-331 cannot sink HMS Barham with one salvo, and Prince of Wales cannot lose electrical power due to shaft damage.

The other thing that you cannot do with torpedoes is reload them in a tactical battle if you are Japanese. Mr. Mustafa twice goes into detail about why this cannot be done, (p.29 and p.110), despite there being numerous historical instances of Japanese reloading torpedoes in battle. Indeed, the standard Japanese tactic of initiating a battle with a long-range volley of torpedoes fired “into the brown” to discomfort the enemy line, was predicated on this capability. The Japanese could take the risk of starting with long-shots, which had a small chance of success, because they were not drawing their own teeth, and they could withdraw if necessary and reload before the range dropped to a melee. Without reloads other nations did not have this option. Mr. Mustafa states that reloading entailed the rigging of a crane “the size of a large city bus” which in good conditions would take “an hour or two,” (p.29.) This may have been true of the American Porter class destroyers, and for German cruisers and battleships that carried their reloads below deck, but as the 1946 American analysis below shows, Japanese torpedo mounts were reloaded by using compressed-air powered rollers, not big cranes. Reloading a mount of four torpedoes could be completed in three minutes in “ideal conditions,” or usually in 20-30 minutes – only two turns in the Nimitz timeframe. At Kolombangara the Japanese destroyers reloaded in 28 minutes[3]; and at Vella Lavella Shigure reloaded in 24 minutes. Mr. Mustafa is correct in saying that the additional weight of eight 24” torpedoes made Japanese destroyers even more top-heavy, but if he wants to address this point he should have weather effect rules, not an ahistorical restriction on their major advantage in combat.

https://www.fischer-tropsch.org/primary_documents/gvt_reports/USNAVY/USNTMJ%20Reports/USNTMJ-200D-0530-0549%20Report%200-01-3.pdf

Halsey

Halsey is intended to provide a strategic campaign game in a theatre 600 miles by 900 miles, to generate tactical games to be played on the tabletop using Nimitz, or on paper using Mikawa. Like Nimitz it contains some very good ideas and some howlers, although again even the howlers can be easily fixed. Since we had two historical scenarios already generated, we didn’t play through a Halsey campaign, so we may have missed some nuances in the rules, but what follows is pretty self-evident from the rules and the bits that we did play out.

The clever thing about Halsey is that it is designed for only two players without an umpire to handle the normal “double-blind” issues of a campaign. If you have an umpire great, go for it, but if there are just the two of you then I think Halsey will give you as good a game as you are going to get. It does this by distinguishing between task forces that are “concealed” and “revealed,” and when you throw in a few dummy task forces you get a reasonable ‘fog of war” effect. On top of this you still have to “spot” an enemy task force to attack it, and this spotting depends on whether it is concealed or revealed, if you have units in its proximity, and, long-range air reconnaissance, (“flying boats”). Bizarrely though, flying boats cannot spot enemy task forces in their own right, they can only help friendly task forces or air strikes spot them! So, forget about your Catalina spotting the Bismarck in the vast expanse of the Atlantic. Spotting at night is harder, fair enough, but as noted for Nimitz, there are no weather and visibility effects on spotting, other than a complete prohibition in storms, and no benefits for surface search or ASV radar.

Rather strangely Mr. Mustafa expects you to play Halsey on a 6’ by 4’ table, and then have another 6’ by 4’ table next to it to play the Nimitz game on. Even in America, known for its “spacious skies, for amber waves of grain,” and two-car garages, I have to wonder how many wargamers have such space available. Certainly, it is not going to happen in Hong Kong. Nowhere is it mentioned that Halsey could easily be played on an A4 sized plotting map, all you need is four rows of six squares. In the RAW all the ships of a revealed task force are placed on the Halsey table for the opponent to see. Mr. Mustafa justifies this generous knowledge by citing the situation in the Mediterranean in 1941, (p.74). However much of this knowledge was based on ULTRA level decrypts, radio direction finding, and traffic analysis, and this varied greatly throughout the war, with the Allies usually, but not always, having a decisive upper hand. (John Winton’s two books on ULTRA have chapter and verse on this). Rather than use all this space and give perfect knowledge, I think a small plotting system could embrace the fog of war by just telling the opponent what the task force contains, and this could be modified by having an accuracy roll to modify how much detail has to be given about the task force, for example, grading down from complete knowledge to just knowing about some outlying escorts – and you still have to spot the task force to attack it anyway.

Movement is pre-plotted on paper in eight hour turns. This assumes a task force speed of about 20 knots. Merchants move only one turn in three, (always at night, although there is no real reason why this should only be nocturnal,) giving a speed of about seven knots, which is fair enough. Having moved, both sides alternate in operations, “ops”, by surface task forces, air-strikes or submarines. Both sides are guaranteed one op, but beyond that ops continue only on a 2D6 roll of more than the number of ops already made. So, you could have up to six ops each, although this would be very unlikely. Since you do not know how many ops there will be you have to prioritise your ops choices, and the chances of coordinating a Japanese style plan of Byzantine complexity are slim – not that that is going to stop you trying! I like this system.

The Enemy Below

By now it should come as no surprise to you to know that I also always wanted to be Bob Mitchum (who we last met as an uncredited seasick rookie who becomes a steady vet in “Corvette K-225”), and Curt Jürgens playing cat and mouse in a destroyer escort and a U Boat in “The Enemy Below” too. (The original novel is also good, but has a totally different vibe, the destroyer is British, and rather than ending up as acknowledging each other as honourable adversaries the two captains end up in punch-up. But I have always considered the movie to be leadership training, and Robert and Kurt to be leaders to aspire to emulate). Sadly, if you are looking for such nail-biting subtlety, you won’t find it in Halsey.

The submarine op in Halsey is abstract to the extent of being mundane. Submarines may either spot and reveal a concealed enemy or attack a revealed one. There are no individual submarines, instead you use your ship building points to buy a level of submarine activity. This cost rises by a factor of three for each level. The lowest level, which spots and hits on a dice score of 6, costs 4 points, about the same cost as a destroyer. The middle level which needs a 5 or 6 to spot and hit costs 12 points, about the same as a cruiser. The highest-level spots and hits on a 4,5, or 6, and costs 36 points, about the same as a battleship. In a marked departure from the normal “level playing field” of this game German and Italian, (and, for some reason French too), submarines come at half price. If you are going to have a points system then I approve of this skewing the cost to represent historical numbers and doctrine, but by the same token you could, say, argue for doubling the loss cost of German battleships because they were not to be risked.

Before the submarines attack every destroyer in the defending task force throws, and if they get a 6 they drive off the attack, no matter what its level, but the subs suffer no further penalty. (Yes, the American Humane Society certifies that no submarines were harmed in the making of this narrative). If the attack goes in it is directed at one, and only one ship in the task force. I appreciate that against naval task forces the submarines would go for the highest value target – as the Courageous, Ark Royal, Barham, Wasp, Yorktown, Shōkaku and Shinano, to name but a few, all attest – but Halsey allows you to field merchant convoys too, and no wolfpack ever attacked a convoy all aiming at the same ship.

In campaign terms you can only perform one submarine op per turn, but the system spreads exactly the same level of submarine activity over half a million square miles of ocean completely evenly, like a layer of jam. Thus, you can do a submarine op in one area, and eight hours later apply the same level of submarine activity to an area 750 miles away. So much for careful tasking, coordinating wolfpacks, and concentrating on choke points…

Despite having discriminated in favour of the Germans, Italians and French in acquiring submarine power, Halsey is remarkably democratic when it comes to exercising that power – everyone is exactly the same. American and German submariners are not cursed with wonky torpedoes, (although their surface brethren are). Italian and Japanese destroyers are just as good at ASW as British and American escorts despite the Allies’ technological and training advantages. HUFF DUFF, Radar, improving ASDIC/SONAR, ULTRA, Hedgehog, Squid, ASV aircraft, and the Terror of Tobermory all count for nothing when it comes to hunting the Enemy Below in Halsey world.

So, the submarine rules in Halsey have the virtue of being quick. But that is it. They are not interesting, fun, historical, or particularly logical.

Tora! Tora! Tora!

The air op in Hasey works much better than the submarine op, and at least gives you a feel for the process. Aircraft are considered to be in flights of four to six machines, and are rated for their range in Halsey squares, and their air-to-air, “dogfight,” ability, and surface attack capability with bombs and torpedoes. There is a limit to how granular you can get with a D6 based system, but most of the factors seem fair enough to me, and the few that you can cavil about are easily fixed. The system has everything that you might expect: you ready an airstrike, it has to find its target, it is intercepted by the target’s CAP in a dogfight, the surviving strike planes brave long range AA fire from the task force which affects them choosing their targets, and then the planes attack their individual targets and brave their close range AA fire. The system works well, although there are a couple of quirks and one major howler.

In our Force Z scenarios, the Japanese bombers attacked in six waves about 30 to 40 minutes apart. Halsey can’t handle this. An air op will bring all the aircraft in at the same time, or not at all if they fail to spot. Nothing in between. Nothing daunted we played out both games with six separate attacks and it worked well.

The dogfight sequence has an unusual quirk in that instead of pairing off specific interceptors with specific escorts, and surplus interceptors having a go at strike aircraft, you just throw against the dogfight value of all the aircraft involved, i.e. all the interceptors, all the escorts, and additional strike aircraft to match surplus interceptors not engaged by the escorts, and then compare the total number of hits scored by both sides. If this number is equal both sides lose one flight chosen by the opponent. If one side has more hits it shoots down enemy flights equal to the difference but loses none itself. This results in some strange outcomes.

Firstly, if the dogfight involved any incoming strike planes a drawing or winning interceptor will choose to take these as destroyed first, before knocking down escorts. This doesn’t really bother me, if the interceptors outnumber the escorts, (which they would have to do for strike planes to get involved,) I would expect the strike planes to suffer. But, apparently, it did raise eyebrows in playtesting, especially in a draw or marginal victory where that is the only plane lost, (p.114). More importantly the losses are not affected by the number of aircraft involved, but by the winning hit differential. This is a dogfight not a tug-of-war where two equally matched sides can pull each other to a standstill. The greater the number of aircraft involved, the greater the risk, and in a balanced fight more aircraft will be lost if more aircraft are involved. Finally, the victors taking no losses does not even apply to the most lop-sided of aerial battles, like the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor and Colombo, or the American successes at the Marianas Turkey Shoot and the Formosa Air Battle. At the Marianas for example the American interceptors racked up a 12-to-1 kill ratio, but they still lost 30 aircraft… Not in Halsey they wouldn’t.

Mr. Mustafa says that he has adopted this approach because “I wanted to resolve dogfighting in a single simple step, not break it into the tedium of peeling off individual planes in pairs... We want the action to proceed to the important part: attack runs.” (p.114). Well, they are his rules and his design choices, but I feel that a relatable narrative adds enjoyment to a game, not tedium.

Radar has no appreciable effect other than in 1944 to raise the average number of interceptor flights a base or carrier can scramble from 2.5 to 3.5. There is no allowance for ASV making it easier to find targets, or for land based or aircraft direction ship radar enabling a distant CAP in an advantageous tactical position. Again, at the Marianas the Japanese were met between 70 and 50 miles out from the American task forces, giving more time for longer and more deadly American attacks.

Having got this far the strike faces the long-range group AA fire of the target task force. This is very well done. The Nimitz “flak” factors do not overstate AA ability, and in our scenario the Brits, with only one modern battleship, the Prince of Wales, and the barely modernized Repulse were at the lowest level of AA defence. When Indomitable arrived in the second scenario, Force Z just scraped itself into the next level but was still not great. Each strike plane throws and on a 5 it is discombobulated to some extent depending upon the level of defence. This can range from aborting the strike, proceeding half-heartedly, or being shot down. On a 6 the strike aircraft is allocated its target by the defender – representing the aircraft becoming disorientated, miss-identifying its target, or just bombing the first thing it sees. This little system works well, introduces a reasonable level of uncertainty, and is good fun. (The rule needs a little bit of tinkering to cater for the Allies’ introduction of VT fuses from1943 onwards that at least tripled the effect of their long-range fire, but that is easy enough to do). As an aside, it strikes me that a similar system to model submarine attacks on task forces and convoys will work well too.

Having braved the heavy AA fire, the strike planes now come barreling-in on their targets, facing the 40mm, 37mm, 25mm and 20mm cannon fire. How will they fare against the barrage of Bofors fire from a battlewagon, or against the two machine guns on that landing craft? In Halsey they will fare exactly the same…. Pardon? What? Please repeat that.… In Halsey they will fare exactly the same. Mr. Mustafa explains his reasoning:

“The close defense of a ship typically relied upon machine guns, manned by whatever crewmen were available in that moment. Given the short range and limited arcs of fire, a machine gun defended the ship from an attacker coming more or less toward that machine gun. In other words, from the perspective of the pilot’s survival, the close defense of most ships was effectively similar.” (p.90).

This is wrong on practically every level.

Tenedos Alone: 1000 hrs, 10^th December 1941

Mitsubishi G3M “Nell” bombers attack HMS Tenedos 140 miles SE of Force Z. She survived, as she did in our game. But this is not a soft option for the Nells as they each have a 16.6% chance of being shot down by Tenedos’s AA. They face the same odds from this obsolescent destroyer that they would face against the AA barrage of the most modern battleship Prince of Wales.

Firstly, there is a reason why the guns were called cannon – the rounds had explosive charges rather than the solid rounds of rifle calibre or larger machine guns, making them much more potent AA weapons. (In fairness to Mr. Mustafa’s nomenclature I will concede that the quadruple “Chicago Piano” AA guns that equipped American ships at the beginning of the war were known as 1.1” Machine Guns, but in any other navy they would have been called 27mm cannon, and the 1.1” were rapidly replaced by better cannon, the Oerlikon and the Bofors).

Secondly, the idea that AA guns were manned in an ad hoc manner “… by whatever crewmen were available in that moment...” is patent nonsense. Whilst this accurately describes the experience of Doris Miller on the West Virginia at Pearl Harbor, that was a unique situation. Gun crews certainly had other duties when not at action stations, but for battle they were permanently allocated to their guns, and drilled and trained as a team that was necessary to aim in azimuth and elevation and feed the prodigious amounts of ammunition these guns consumed. Whilst this was often done under individual direction, usually there was manual group direction, High Altitude Director Control, and later radar control, especially for heavier cannon. (For a good interpretation of this see the great movie “Yamato” which follows the story of a group of young cadets on the battleship. Their routine duties are in the ship’s kitchens, but at action stations they man a cluster of triple 25mm cannon that are directed by a petty officer).

Finally, the notion that only zero-deflection shots counted, so as far as pilots were concerned there was no difference in attacking a ship with one light AA gun or a hundred, defies common sense. Certainly, zero-deflection shots were easier, but there was a massive difference in the possible consequences for a pilot depending on the particular AA gun he was flying directly at: was it a double .303” Lewis mount, a twin 20mm Oerlikon, a triple 25mm, a quadruple Chicago Piano, an octuple 2 pounder pom pom, or a quadruple 40mm Bofors? Several mounts near the flight path, would share a zero-deflection advantage, and the guns near them would not be faced with impossible aiming solutions. Clearly both size and number of guns count when it comes to determining the chance of pilot survival.

In our 1941 Force Z battle both HMAS Vampire and HMS Prince of Wales were bombed. The former was defended by 2 twin .303 Lewis machine guns, 1 quadruple .5” Vickers machine gun, and 1 40mm 2pounder pom pom. The latter mounted 7 20mm Oerlikons, and 1 quad and 6 octuple 40mm 2pounder pom poms, (52 pom poms in total,) but in Halsey both have the same chance of knocking down an attacker. To further rub home the point, in 1943 the USS Iowa was exercising her 2^nd Amendment rights with 76 × 40mm Bofors, and 52 × 20mm Oerlikons; and the Yamato as built fielded 24 x 25mm cannon and 4 x 13.2mm machine guns, but by 1945 the 25mm cannon had been increased to 162 but no further machine guns had been added. Clearly the practitioners did not share Mr. Mustafa’s assessment of how light AA fire works. The “Devil’s Advocate” did suggest that the “throw a 1 and you are dead” no matter what you are attacking mechanism could also represent overall mission attrition, but in that case it should also affect high level bombers and fighters that do not face light AA.

If you don’t throw a 1 the aircraft’s score is compared to its bombing or torpedo factor and hits obtained. Bomb hits cause critical damage but torpedo hits don’t. Mr. Mustafa clearly considered rules for enhancing multiple torpedo attacks by experienced crews, and for making it harder to hit smaller, maneuvering targets, but decided against them for lack of data, (p.115). If you disagree, a simple +1 for coordinated torpedo attacks from the same squadron, and a -1 to high level bombing attacks against small targets, would not be a major complication. I think that there is sufficient data to justify both adjustments. By way of examples, the attack on the Tirpitz on 9^th March 1942 failed partially because the inexperienced Fleet Air Arm squadron making it could not coordinate its attack properly; and in all theatres the difficulty of high-level bombers hitting small, maneuvering targets was well demonstrated.

In our Force Z battles Vampire was sunk, and Prince of Wales hit by a torpedo, but, without special effects knocking out her AA fire, she stayed in fighting trim and fought off the later waves of Bettys and Nells. When Indomitable’s Fulmars and Hurricanes were added to the defensive mix in the second battle there were not enough of them to decisively defeat all the bombers, but enough of them to give an edge to Force Z which suffered no serious damage.

One final glaring omission is that there are no air operations at night. Admittedly safe night flying took special training and experience, but it was common throughout the war, and became even more prevalent as ASV radar became widespread. But Taranto, Sommerville’s attempted night strike on the Kido Butai off Ceylon, the Black Cats, the Operation HAILSTONE night attacks on Truk, and the Japanese nighttime retaliation that crippled the carrier Intrepid, just don’t happen in Halsey world.

The Hunting of Force Z. Noon, 10th December 1941

Mitsubishi G3M “Nell” and Mitsubishi G4M ”Betty“ torpedo bombers attack Force Z. Three of the attackers have misidentified their target and are attacking the unhappy HMAS Vampire instead of the Prince of Wales and Repulse. The well-orchestrated “scissors” attacks avail the Japanese nought under the rules.

Conclusions – The Cruel Sea

By now you can be forgiven if you are asking yourself: “If these rules have so many things wrong with them, why even bother? Just bin them.” The answer lies in one of those re-runs that I watched on gloomy, winter, Sunday afternoons. In “The Cruel Sea” there is a lovely scene where Jack Hawkings’s frigate is engaging a U-Boat but loses contact. He initiates a lost contact search, to no avail, so he orders another lost contact search, and another, and another... This goes on all night. The entire crew, including Jack’s loyal First Lieutenant, are convinced that the sub is long gone and that they are wasting their time, but Jack is sure it is still there and persists in the search, to everyone’s annoyance. Exhausted, very testy with everyone doubting his judgment and orders, and desperate to stay awake, Jack prevails upon Dr. Cameron, (aye Janet, Scotland’s favourite GP), to prescribe something to keep him going. Jack has just swallowed one benny when the ASDIC picks up the U-Boat again! He spits out the second benny and goes on to sink the U-Boat in a triumphant finale to the movie.

When it comes to Nimitz I, like Jack, am convinced that there is something worth pursuing here. The basic systems have some great ideas, and these can easily be enhanced. The rules that I have problems with can easily be replaced. Would the resulting changes be as quick to play and as balanced as the RAW? Certainly not. But would it be a better game? That all depends upon your personal taste.

When it comes to taste, Mr. Mustafa and I approach the idea of rules from opposite directions. To get a “good” game he is willing to strip out anything that gets in the way of a balanced and quick experience. I contend that it is these stripped out factors, such as weather, radar, and historical national advantages and disadvantages, that give the game its interest, nuance, and historical verisimilitude, and, when included, make it a “good” game. To use a food analogy, Nimitz is like a good piece of steak. It is up to you whether you go for speed and simplicity, like the RAW, and bang it in the microwave. Or you can lovingly grill it to your exact, preferred degree of pinkness, sear the crosshatch marks on to it to enhance taste and appearance, and serve with an intriguing sauce, your favourite mustard and all the trimmings. Which would you prefer?

“Finished with main engines…”

[1] He wasn’t barehanded on that icy, swaying mast, but let’s not let too much historical accuracy get in the way of a good story.

[2] I appreciate that this failure was not caused directly by enemy fire, but it was certainly a side effect of combat. There are plenty of other examples of damage caused electrical failures debilitating a ship.

[3] Some sources give 18 minutes.