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Readers of my review of Sam Mustafa’s WWII naval rules “Nimitz” will know that I consider them a flawed masterpiece. I use that artistic description intentionally, for in a more perspicacious, and much shorter, review than mine Charles Vasey, for whom I have always had massive wargaming respect, uses an artistic analogy that the rules take an ‘… impressionistic approach (“We paint not light, but the impression of light”)... ´ His phrase struck a chord with me because, as a lad, when I was not wandering around the Cardiff Central Library ascertaining the barbette armour of HMS Anson, I was wandering about the National Museum of Wales which has a marvellous collection of Impressionist art. One of the important things about Impressionism is that it is not abstract. Monet might have painted Rouen Cathedral over 30 times each with a different impression of light, but each time he painted it the subject was still, clearly, a cathedral.

Putting my money where my mouth is I had already drawn up a draft set of amendments to see if we could cure Nimitz of what I considered its flawed bits, named, from the other side of the pond, “Cunningham,” (included here in their final form, not the interim version used in this playtest.) Get the midshipman to bring you a nice hot mug of naval cocoa - Kai, (or Kye, spellings vary,) peruse them, and feel happy to use any that you see fit. [hyperlink to follow.] The major changes include halving the length of the turn, revising the torpedo and night-fighting rules, enhancing the special effects, and minor changes to the gunnery. The changes seemed sensible, but did we still have a work of art? And just as importantly, could we still see the cathedral? A playtest was in order, and it is always my belief that if you want to find out if a set of rules is up to snuff, then a historical playtest is in order.

Tony, with his usual speed and efficiency, (I’m sure he has a sweat shop in his back room, no one can possibly paint stuff as quickly as he does,) had produced both sides for the Battle of Midway in 1:6000 scale using Figurehead miniatures and Litko bases. This enabled me to put together the historical OB for the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal on 13th November 1942. All the class types were correct except that Tony didn’t have a Brooklyn class “machine gun cruiser” so the CA Northampton had to impersonate the CL Helena. Out of the 27 ships in the battle 16 were as named and the other 11 were represented by ships of the same class, so I have used the latter’s new names in this account rather than the original historical names.

Tony played Rear Admiral Daniel J. Callaghan commanding Task Force 67 consisting of two heavy cruisers, three light cruisers, and eight destroyers. Bill was Vice Admiral Hiroaki Abe with two fast battleships, one very light cruiser, and 11 destroyers. In Nimitz points values the Americans had a 10% advantage with 107 points against 98 Japanese. This was only Tony’s and my second Nimitz game, and Bill had never played before, so it was a good test to see if we had retained the simplicity and playability of the basic Nimitz rules whilst enhancing their historical accuracy. I don’t think that either admiral knew enough about the historical action to affect their responses, indeed Bill’s favourite feature of the Guadalcanal Campaign was that when HMNZS Kiwi rammed the Japanese submarine I-1 the Japanese officers replied with swords. Clearly there would be no lack of samurai spirit from a man of such tastes.

Both sides received a historical briefing. It was a dark night that had seen heavy rain, with no moon. Visibility was about 3,000 yards. The south side of the table was the northern coast of Guadalcanal, and thus impassible. Abe could form his squadron into three columns. His aim was to reach the south-east corner of the table whence he could bombard Henderson Field. To this end his two battleships had their guns loaded with, and their ammunition hoists full of, “Sanshikidan” air-bust shrapnel ammunition. Whilst very effective against planes and unarmoured structures these shells were much less effective against armoured targets, and it would take several salvoes to fire them off before the guns could reload with armour-piercing rounds. Because of a heavy rainstorm Abe had circled his squadron to use up time and let the rain squall precede him so that he could bombard Henderson in the clear. Abe had put is squadron into three parallel columns, one with the light cruiser Nagara leading the battleships Kirishima and Hiei (flag), followed by destroyers in the centre; and then a column of destroyers on either flank. Bill chose three columns of destroyers, with the columns led (from south to north) by Nagara, Hiei and Kirishima.

Callaghan’s Flagship San Francisco had been hit in a bombing attack the day before and had suffered structural damage and had its radar knocked out. A Japanese attack that night was anticipated, but it was not known whether this would be directed on Henderson Field as had happened a month earlier; or against the American supply ships that had sailed east from Guadalcanal that evening; or be in support of a troop landing. Callaghan had to guard against all three possibilities. With limited command and control capabilities, doctrine required Callaghan to field TF 67 in one column. Callaghan put destroyers in the van and rear of his line, with the cruisers in-between and the San Francisco (flag) in the centre. Tony did the same.

Thus, in the early hours of 13th November 1942, four columns of ships were sailing on parallel courses off the coast of Guadalcanal. The Americans were closest inshore, heading north-west, whilst further out were the three Japanese columns led by Nagara, Hiei and Kirishima respectively, heading south-east. With no radar on his flagship Tony was reliant on the other radar equipped ships of his Task Force to see for him – a most inefficient arrangement. It was Helena who gave the first warning, reporting a contact 14 miles off her starboard bow at 0124hrs. Whilst Tony was digesting this information the other radar ships reported their own contacts, but blocking each other’s transmissions on the Talk Between Ships, (TBS), and giving relative bearings rather than true ones, which without a Combat Information Centre to collate and plot all this information left Tony with little more spatial awareness. With the contact closing at a mile a minute, (and we were using six-minute turns) Tony ordered a starboard turn for his line to the north which would “cross the T” of the contact. Callaghan has done the same.

For his part Bill had no radar to tell him what was in the offing, but he could trust to his squadron’s superior optics, hand-picked lookouts, and well-drilled night-fighting skills to give him the edge and sight the enemy before the enemy sighted him. But a battleship is a much bigger target to see on a dark night than the lead American destroyer, so their sightings were almost simultaneous at 0142hrs. A rather shocked USS Ducan reported a battleship 3,000 yards away and was ordered to illuminate the target with star shell. The refight of the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal had begun.

With his advantages in night-fighting Bill was well placed to win, and go on winning, the initiative. But having done so he was faced with the Nimitz dilemma of moving first or second, and thus giving the enemy the chance of reacting to his moves, and then firing first or second, when firing second may be too late. He had no idea what the enemy forces were but had clearly put his battleships to the fore for a reason, so opted to swallow the disadvantage of moving first for the promise of shooting first.

Duncan has illuminated Kirishima. The situation before the Japanese move. Admiral Abe realises that his formation is not as neat, nor compact, as he had thought . . .

Normally in Nimitz sides alternate moving individual ships or groups of ships, starting with the slowest and progressing to the fastest. Since in this first on-table move all ships happened to have the same speed on and the Americans were in one, still predominantly unseen, group, I put my umpire’s cap on and got both admiral’s intentions before moving what ships could be sighted for them. It was only now that Bill realised that his neat formation, with three columns advancing on a level front, had been disrupted when he had performed that loop in the rain squall and had broken up into four, unevenly spaced columns with Kirishima well to the fore. (Abe had faced a similar problem). Nothing daunted the Japanese turned to engage and by closing the range sighted three more American destroyers behind Duncan.

0148hrs, the Japanese turn to engage and sight McCalla, Barton and Cushing behind Duncan. The Americans only have sight and firm radar tracks on the heads of the Japanese columns, in the darkness and confused radar echoes are five more unseen Japanese destroyers.

To Tony it appeared that he had a numerical advantage with 13 ships to nine, so a close-range knife-fight seemed a good proposition. The leading American destroyers could have turned away, but Tony threw them into the melee just as Callaghan had done before him. Unlike Callaghan, who followed his destroyers with his cruisers in-between the Japanese columns, issuing the unusual order: "Odd ships fire to starboard, even ships fire to port” Tony turned his cruisers sharply to port to bring their starboard arcs to bear on the Japanese outside column.

Duncan has led the American destroyers in between the Hiei’s (flag) and Kirishima’s columns. If the destroyers survive they will be well placed to end the battle in six minutes with torpedo attacks on the Japanese battleships. To the south the 6” cruiser Helena, (portrayed here by Northampton,) followed by the 8” heavy cruisers Portland and San Francisco (flag) can engage the Nagara but cannot see Hiei. Behind the San Francisco are two more light cruisers and four destroyers, as yet unseen by the Japanese.

Bill’s decision to move first and thus fire first seemed to pay off. In the real action some of the American destroyers had passed so close to Kirishima that the battleship could not depress its guns enough to engage them. On the other hand, the destroyers were too close to use torpedoes. In this re-fight the three lines were separated by at least 1,000 yards each, so the battleships had clear shots, but any surviving destroyers would have perfect targets for their, albeit very unreliable, torpedoes.

There was to be no torpedo attack. In Nimitz both sides alternate firing individual ships or groups of ships. Hiei and Kirishima opened-up with their 6” secondaries and then Kirishima and her consort destroyer added their 14” and 5”, to boot. Duncan was crippled and McCalla sunk by this onslaught. In reply the plucky Cushing hosed Kirishima’s upperworks with 5” shells, damaging her directors which would debilitate her fire for the rest of the battle. As the other Japanese groups joined in, Ducan was finished off, Hiei sank Barton, and Nagara zeroed in on Cushing’s gun flashes and sank her. The battleships’ Sanshikidan shells would have been deficient against armoured targets, but they were more than adequate to deal with the “tin can” hulls of the destroyers.

Duncan is crippled and McCalla sunk. Barton and Cushing have replied with their 5”. Hiei and Nagara are about to finish the job.

From Callaghan’s column only the lead ships of the Nagara column were initially in sight, but when Hiei opened-up with her secondaries the gun flashes gave the American cruisers an aiming point and they used their own 5” secondaries to illuminate the battleship with star shell. (So, there can be benefits to firing second). As the star shell hung over Hiei like chandeliers, the three cruisers had a clear target and all shot well. Helena struck Hiei’s forward barbette. At this range there was an outside chance of a 6” shot penetrating the 10” of armour – but it was not to be, and the shell inflicted little damage. Portland struck Hiei’s superstructure and knocked out her main director. But, when San Francisco fired that strange magnetism that attracted Helena’s fire was still working, and another hit on Hiei’s magazines was scored – this time the 8” shell punched through, (it was about 5,000 yards away and could have gone through 10” of armour at 9,000 yards.) So ended the Hiei’s and Admiral Abe’s participation in the battle.

Word of the loss of the flagship was passed through the Japanese squadron with a sort of whispered incredulity and was received with incomprehension by those below decks who had not witnessed the explosion. In game terms, with Abe nine fathoms deep in Ironbottom Sound[1] the Japanese command and control problems had cancelled out their night-fighting advantage for the initiative test, and the Americans now held a marked heavy gunnery superiority. For the only time that night Tony won the initiative and, with his line in perfect order opted to move first to maximize his gunnery advantage by shooting first. As the groups on both sides alternated movement and emerged from the darkness into the flames and the smoke of battle, for the first time both commanders were finally able to judge the odds against them. The Americans still had two heavy and three light cruisers, plus four destroyers, the Japanese one battleship, one light cruiser, and 11 destroyers.

0154hrs: Before the Deluge

The American line at the bottom is led by five cruisers, followed by four destroyers. At the top left Kirishima has reversed course to avoid being a torpedo magnet for the American destroyers, whilst the light cruiser Nagara (almost dead centre, leading the bottom Japanese column,) and ten destroyers sail into harm’s way.

Tony issued the clear, if a trifle redundant, order: “All ships open fire to starboard!” The Americans were in a perfect gunnery position, with all their “A” arcs open and two Japanese columns within 2-3,000 yards. Eighteen eight-inch, 15 six-inch, and no less than 60 five-inch, (almost half of which were contributed by the 14-gun broadsides of the light cruisers Atlanta and Juneau,) guns belched forth their broadsides. Against this the Japanese could only initially bring to bear 6 six-inch and 36 five-inch guns, with a handful of five-inch joining in later firing at the Americans’ gun flashes. San Francisco and Atlanta smothered the light cruiser Nagara with fire and sank her, the American destroyers dispatched the destroyer Asagumo leading the second Japanese column; and Helena and Juneau, (first and fifth in the American line), set their opposite numbers on fire, and others received lighter damage. When the surviving Japanese ships tried to return the compliment they had little obvious effect, although a 5” shell exploded in Helena’s boiler room intakes temporarily reducing her speed.

0154hrs: Broadsides! Commence, Commence, Commence!

Ninety-three American guns pour fire into the Japanese lines.

Nagara and Asagumo leading the Japanese columns are sunk, Sazanami and Takanami, (the latter not yet marked,) are set on fire. Others are damaged but not crippled.

It is a tribute to the way that the rules were playing that both Tony and Bill had fully entered into the spirit of this rather strange, decidedly hectic, and disturbingly sudden-death, night action. The Americans had, as is their wont, taken guns to a knife fight. If the point-blank exchange of gunfire continued like this there would be little left of the Imperial Japanese Navy. For their part the Japanese were out to prove, as is their wont, that the battle was still a knife fight, to be decided with knives, or at least Long Lances. It was not difficult to imagine the Japanese destroyer commanders turning their eyes from the sight of Nagara being destroyed ahead of them, brandishing their swords, pointing right, and ordering their 24” torpedo tubes to train to starboard…

The Type 93 torpedoes were still pretty much of a mystery to the USN at this stage in the war, but what mattered most in this engagement was not their long range, but their high speed and heavy warheads. Fired from the optimum position – forward of the target’s bow but not in a small aspect - eight quadruple spreads of Long Lances closed the American cruisers at a combined speed of over 70 knots, and stopwatches on board the Japanese destroyers were set for 80 seconds.

0201hrs and 20 seconds: The Night of the Long Lances

From left to right Helena, Portland, San Francisco, and Atlanta are cut down by 24” torpedoes.

From the bridge of the Juneau, the fifth ship in the American line, it seemed as though the Pacific Ocean has erupted in a paroxysm of explosions and fire, as every ship ahead of them had their backs broken by the Long Lances. Admiral Callaghan joined Admiral Abe nine fathoms deep in Ironbottom Sound. Further down the battle lines more destroyers were adding yet more “fish” to the mix, with the Americans targeting the damaged Takanami, and the Mochizuki aiming at the Aaron Ward. These torpedoes would take six minutes to run, and that night in Ironbottom Sound a lot could happen in six minutes.

Putting her helm hard to port Juneau led the American destroyers south towards the coast of Guadalcanal, hoping that the Kirishima would not follow, but the Japanese had the bit between their teeth and turned south too. The American gunfire was still potent, Juneau and Aaron Ward sank Isokaze, and Buchanan sank Kagero. But Juneau’s gun flashes disclosed her position to the Kirishima, which, firing by local control, exhibited remarkably good shooting in these debilitating circumstances and brought down a hail of 14” shells on the light cruiser, crippling her.

0205 hrs The Run South

American gunfire sinks Isokaze and Kagero, but Juneau, exposed by her own gun flashes, is targeted by Kirishima on the extreme left.

The blue datum markers show where the Japanese and American torpedoes were lunched from five minutes ago. They still have 60 seconds left to run.

On board three destroyers men watched as, with what seemed to be agonizing slowness, the hands of stopwatches and chronographs ticked down the seconds from 360 to zero. From the south there came a flash, followed 25 seconds later by the sound of a crashing explosion as the USS Aaron Ward disintegrated. To the west there was no flash and no sound. The chronographs ticked on – 390 seconds, 420 seconds – the American torpedoes had missed. (In game terms torpedo shots at these ranges and aspects had only a 1-in-6 chance of hitting, so with four American and two Japanese spreads in the water only one hit was par for the course. But, again, the torpedo gods had chosen to smile on the Japanese this night).

As the torpedoes sank to the bottom of Ironbottom Sound the guns continued to thunder in a final paroxysm of death and destruction as both sides ran south towards Guadalcanal. USS Farenholt sank Urakazi, and, for the last time that night, Kirishima found her target and sank the Lardner. By now however Kirishima was approaching the five-fathom line – a matter of some concern since she drew 31 feet of water. Bill turned north-west, and Tony south-east. Just after 0212 hrs the refight of the First Naval Battle of Guadalcanal had ended.

Some Conclusions, Some Thoughts, and Some Tweaks

I was a very happy little bear….

The rules amendments had worked well, I think Bill and Tony had had a good time, (or as good a time as you can have when you have four cruisers shot out from underneath you in one turn), and although the refight was different to the historical fight we had not exceeded the bounds of historical possibility and nothing ahistorical had reared its ugly head.

The real battle had lasted about 40 minutes and our seven turns added up to 36 to 42 minutes, so spot on there. This had taken about two and a half hours of play, so about 20 minutes a turn. This is slower than the “real time” aimed for in the Nimitz RAW, i.e. a 13-minute game turn played out in about 13 minutes, but it is difficult to see how this historical match-up would have worked with the RAW at all. Both sides would have been in clear vision at 13,000 yards, (12”). There would have been no deductions for gunfire effect, although there would have been fewer chances to fire. Torpedoes would have been (even more) devastating, hitting instantly at 12” with no deductions for range. With both sides closing the 12” sighting distance at a maximum of 24” a turn, (in fairness, more practically a 16”+ closing speed), anything still afloat after the first turn would have passed the opposing ships and spent the next two turns to turn 180⁰to re-engage. It would have been quick, and very bloody, and could well have been all over in real time of three 13-minute turns played out in 40 minutes. But it would probably not have had the historical feel, nor given the satisfaction of the revised rules. The revisions are aimed at maximizing Nimitz’s good points – interactive movement with no pre-plotting, and a clean, innovative, gunnery system – whist doing away with some of the simplifications that reduce the game to a dice-fest of bumper cars at sea. As it was, with the revisions, Bill and Tony were constantly being called upon to make interesting decisions about what to do and how to do it, and that, to me, is the essence of a good game.

We had a higher casualty rate than the real battle, but that is not unusual in wargames. Yes, by halving the move time, and adding the point-blank rule, (and a lot of this game was fought at point blank range because of the nature of the historical battle,) the effectiveness of gunnery has been increased over the RAW, but I think that the two main contributory factors to the ship-killing were the lack of confusion, and the torpedoes.

Confusion is hard to do in a wargame, unless you want it to descend into random anarchy, which might be accurate, but is not much of a game. We were playing in an air-conditioned room, after a nice lunch with a bottle of wine. Most of the ships were in clear view, even though they were not within “sighting” distance of each other, and they would always go where they were ordered to go. To model the confusion of the real battle I should have put Tony in a dark metal box, hit the outside with sledgehammers, fired strobe lights in his eyes, let off fireworks near his trousers and had him shout out orders to ships from memory of where they were supposed to be. Appealing as so torturing Tony in pursuit of wargaming excellence this might be, the more practical wargaming answer is to tweak the rules to add a bit more confusion by catering for friendly fire, (a continuing factor in Pacific night actions right up to Surigao Strait, in our historical battle, for example, San Francisco clobbered Atlanta), derelicts, and collisions. There would be more hazards to navigation if there were less ships sunk immediately, and more ships becoming stopped or manoeuvring erratically to break up the neat groups. This brings us to the torpedo effects.

The power of the Long Lances to sink ships immediately is not a rules accident. Mr Mustafa discusses this on page 36 of the RAW. As the rules stand, they have a 50% chance of immediately sinking a heavy cruiser, a 66% chance of sinking a light cruiser, and will automatically sink a destroyer. So, on this basis Bill’s performance of sinking three out of three heavy cruisers, (Helena has the same protection as a heavy cruiser,) amounted to a one-in-eight chance, difficult but far from impossible. The odds were further stacked against Atlanta, and once Aaron Ward was hit she had no chance of surviving. Unfortunately, the real-life odds do not stack up that way.

This list gives combat damage to American ships in WWII and from it you can extract the ships hit by surface launched Japanese torpedoes. If you want to be more complete you can add in the ABDA ships that suffered the same fate, (one heavy cruiser, three light cruisers, and some destroyers).

Of the 11 heavy cruisers, (including Helena and Exeter,) hit by Long Lances, only three were sunk immediately, three others were eventually sunk taking between 50 minutes and three hours to go down, (I include Exeter in this, as rather like Bismarck she was in the process of scuttling herself when the torpedoes hit,) and five survived. Of the five light cruisers, (including three ABDA ships,) two sank immediately, one took three hours to go down, one was scuttled the next day, and one survived. Of the 14 American destroyers hit, for seven it was not an instant death sentence. Three survived to fight again, and the other four survived for between 81 minutes and a month before succumbing to their wounds. (My favourite is the USS Chevalier, the 81-minute case, which had its bow blown off by a Long Lance, was then rammed in the stern by a friendly destroyer, and still managed to fire torpedoes and sink a Japanese destroyer before she went under herself.)

Clearly Nimitz’s Long Lances are a little overrated. They should still be better than other nations’ torpedoes, but a reduction in strike value from 5 to 4 will achieve this. The amendments give the warhead weights, which go along with the justification for a 3 to 4 rating for British and Japanese torpedoes, (I appreciate that if you used the square of the warhead weights that would give you a 3 to 5 ratio, but I think that using squares to determine effect is the sort of thing that you would find in rules by Fletcher Pratt, not Sam Mustafa). Whilst looking for unintended consequences in the rule change, I found that the Italian and French torpedoes are already rated at 4, i.e., better than the British, German and Later US torpedoes. I don’t understand the reason for this. The Italian torpedoes were slightly faster, but had smaller warheads, than other nations, and the French torpedoes were about average, so I have downgraded both of them too.

The 5 to 4 reduction should mean that at about 66% of heavy cruisers, 50% of light cruisers, and 17% of the destroyers survive being hit by Long Lances, albeit mostly as "mission kills". This is not perfect, especially for the destroyers, but there is a limit to what you can do with a D6 based system. I don’t think that I am being too negative on the Long Lance here. Also, the addition of non-broken back torpedo special effects enhances the effects of all torpedoes and can also lead to the destruction of ships.

Rules tweaks notwithstanding, the most important takeaway from this game is that two players controlled 27 ships, and manoeuvred and fought them to a reasonably historical conclusion in an easy afternoon’s play. Most other reasonably complex WWII naval rules that I know of begin to creak and groan if a player has to command more than four or five ships, and commanding double figures is usually unthinkable, or it reduces the action to a snail’s pace as plotting, calculating and recording take over from moving and shooting as the main features of the game. This is a great tribute to Nimitz’s original design. My amendments merely add some of the factors that Mr. Mustafa left out in search of a really quick game.

So, if you are new to WWII naval wargaming, or if you have spent a lifetime, man and boy, before the mast searching the seven seas for a good set of rules, give Nimitz a go. If you want a fast and furious fight use the RAW. If you want something more nuanced and, if I say so myself, more historical, to challenge you, try the Cunningham amendments, or any of them that you personally approve of.

Above all, Nimitz is fun. Admiral Abe, whose last memory was an almighty flash and bang as Hiei’s forward magazine went up 50 feet in front of his face, was well enthused. Never having played WWII naval before he left considering buying the British and Italian fleets, and a new samurai sword to replace the one that lies nine fathoms deep in Ironbottom Sound.

[1] I have no idea how deep the waters south-east of Savo Island are, The line is stolen from the Ancient Mariner.