A nice full day of gaming -- Hold the Line, CCA, Midway and more

My Bay State friend Mark K. came down to visit for a nice full day of gaming -- our second in a monTH!

It's a long drive, so we try to make it worth his while by getting in a bunch of games.

We started off with a match of Hold the Line, one of our staples. We've played a couple dozen scenarios now. This time it was the Battle of Harlem Heights from 1776, which is one of the lesser-known battles of the war -- remarkably so, considering that it was one of the rare American victories.

Game Two of HOTL

History repeated itself, as Mark and I each won as the Americans in turn. It looks to be a tough scenario for the British, frankly. While they have an impressive looking force on the map edge it's hard to see how they'll play a significant role in the battle, which sees the whole American army basically fighting the three elite British foot and two light infantry units of the advanced guard.

Mark and  I tired very different approaches as the British, but neither worked. I tired to be aggressive with the high quality light and elite troops to pick off some American militia while trying to bring up some of the supports from the British main body. This didn't work out at all well and the Americans were able to destory most of the British front line and take two fo the 3 VP hexes for the win.

When it was Mark's turn as the British he tried to fade back, but that didn't work either as the Americans were able to advance in strength and overwhelm the British by the fences.

One bright spot was that this broke my losing streak against Mark. Last time we played a few weeks ago I was 0-7 on the games we played that day. 

We then played the Battle of 300 Champions scenario from the Commands & Colors" Ancients expansion The Spartan Army.

One aspect of the Borg game system (Memoir '44, Commands & Colors, Battle Cry, etc) I really like is the evocative color. It's not high simulation, but it really makes the history come alive. In the case of the Battle of the 300 Champions, it's mostly a legendary affair, which little relaibly known from this 6th Centruy BC battle between the Argives and the Spartans. The game starts with a special "Battle of 300 Champions" roll-off between eight Medium Hoplite blocks on each side, with the survivors beefoing up their respective armies and winning the initiative.

End of Game 1

Both armies are essentially just medium hoplite masses. The Spartan army is comprised of five Spartan units with 5-6 blocks each and two allied units with 4 blocks. The Argives have a couple of units of Auxiliary Infantry at 4 blocks each and nine units with 4-5 blocks of Medium Hoplite infantry. Each army ahs three leaders.

Both battles saw me win the early advantage with the Battle of Champions but unable to turn that into a win. As so often happens in Commands & Colors the fickle fortunes of war can turn in an instants and the second game, especially, saw a very promising start for the Argives fall apart at the end.

The nice thing about both Hokld the Line and CC:A is that the play rather quickly and we got in all four battles in a little over two hours. The next two games took somewhat longer.

Near the end

First, we played GMT's rather abstract battle game Maneouver. Mark was willing to label it a "wargame." I have a fairly liberal definition myself (I'll call Memoir '44 a wargame, for example) but Maneouver falls outside my definition. I think it's a war-themed abstract. It's very chess-like, actually, even down to the 64-square battle area.  While I can see being interested in the game, I felt it was a little plodding for my taste and it came off my "to-buy" list based on this playing. The game itself ended up being very close, ending in a Nightfall Victory for Mark's British by one point (11 to 10).

We ended with a real classic -- Avalon Hill's Midway, which was my first ever wargame back in 1969. It holds up well. Mark had played it back in the day, but said he hadn't tried it in a couple of decades. While I haven't played it anywhere near as much as I'd like,. I have played  it within the last few years and my greater experience showed.

The big raid on the US Fleet

I took the Japanese and I basically followed a modified Combined Fleet strategy. I threw out some screening cruisers to try to avoid any early American surprises and I detached the Hiryu with a  small escort in an attempt to ambush mark's Americans if he found my main fleet. As it turned out he wasn't able to spot either Japanese carrier force, although he did pick off a CL. On the second day I was able to find and strike the US fleet (which was all together) without a return strike. I only had three carriers worth of aircraft (Hiryu was out of position) but was still able to sink two US carriers.

The rest of the game was somewhat anticlimactic from that point on, as the surviving US airpower wasn't enough to threaten Japanese fleets and he had to content himself with picking off isolated cruisers.

Follow up strikes by the Japanese sank some more US cruisers and started softening up Midway. With little choice the US Fleet make a suicide run at the Invasion force at Midway which comprised the Atago, two other cruisers and the four Kongo-class battleships. After a valiant effort the last of the US ships went down, taking down two Japanese cruisers and almost the Kongo -- it has one hit box left.

USS Yorktown under attack during the Battle of Midway

Today is the 70th anniversary of the first and most critical day of the Battle of Midway.

On the one hand, the battle is among the best remembered of the war because of its obvious importance and the high drama of the situation and how it played out.  You had an enormous Japanese fleet, heretofore highly successful, being defeated in the most dramatic fashion possible by the outnumbered, plucky Ameircans.

that's certainly the popular image anyway, as shown by Hollywood  in the movie Midway and in popular books such as Incredible Victory and Midway: The Battle that Doomed Japan.

Of course more recent scholarship, most vividly in Shattered Sword, shows that it wasn't quite as one-sided a situation as all that and that the odds were not as much against the United States as the raw numbers might suggest.

This is no news to wargamers, of course. Midway is one of the original, classic wargame situations in the hobby, ever since the seminal Avalon Hill game Midway appeared in 1964. The appeal of Midway, from a wargaming standpoint, is that it's not only an important battle, but a remarkable even one. Yes, the Japanese had a large fleet, but at the critical point the two sides were very comparable in strength. The Japanese carrier task force was comprised of four fleet carriers carrying 225 aircraft escorted by five battleships and cruisers while the American task force was comprised of three fleet carriers with 233 aircraft and an escort including eight cruisers. The island of Midway formed a fourth "aircraft carrier" with another 81 combat aircraft.

Each side had advantages. For the Japanese this included highly trained and experienced aircrew with  first-rate planes using  advanced carrier doctrine and techniques. For the Americans there was the advantage of code-breaking and superior damage control. While the Japanese held an advantage in plane quality generally, the American Wildcats were learning to hold their own against the Zero and the Dauntless Divebombers were excellent.

Perhaps nothing helped the Americans more than their good luck and some good leadership. The key decision by Wade McClusky leading the Enterprise divebombers to follow an errant Japanese destroyer to the carriers and the fortuitous timing of the various uncoordinated American attacks created the conditions for victory.

But no one can read the details of how this all happened without seeing that it could very easily have turned out the other way. The Hornet divebombers strike, for example, completely missed the Japanese fleet and ended up landing on midway. If the Enterprise strike had done likewise then only the Yorktown's strike would have ended up finding the Japanese fleet. That attack sunk the Kaga. Historically the counterstrike by the Hiryu was enough to sink the Yorktown, but what would have happened if there had been three surviving Japanese carriers available to launch? We can't know for sure, of course, but Capt. Wayne Hughes analysis in the book Fleet Tactics suggests that under the conditions of 1942 carrier battles each carrier deck load could be expected to sink or disable one opposing carrier on average. So it's quite likely that the US might have lost all three of the Yorktown class ships on the afternoon of June 4th. 

Midway itself probably would not have fallen, as the projected Japanese invasion force seems wholly inadequate to defeat the marines present on the base, but the Japanese would have been well-placed to follow up their success. Certainly there would have been no Guadalcanal campaign as the United States would have had to husband its remaining carrier assets (primarily the Saratoga and the Wasp) until the Essex class ships started to arrive.

The Japanese naval aviation would also have been in much better shape as there would have been no heavy attrition in the Solomons and the carrier pilots would have been kept aboard their carriers.

As to whether the Japanese would have ultimately prevailed, it's hard to say. They still had to cope with the fact that their industrial strength was inadequate to compete with America over the long haul, but they would have had many opportunities to make the long and challenging drive across there Pacific and even longer and more challenging affair -- at least until the atom bomb weighed in.

For me, personally, Midway has always been one of my favorite topics in wargaming. My very first wargame was Avalon Hill's Midway, which I still think is one of the best classic wargames. I also have a half-dozen other Midway wargames as well.

The Other Shoe drops -- Lexington sunk 70 years ago

USS Lexington afire after being hit during the Battle of Coral Sea on May 8, 1942.

 
On the morning of May 8 both carrier forces spotted each other and launched strikes, and while both strikes found their opponents the more experienced Japanese aviators got the better of the exchange.  Both the USS Yorktown and the USS Lexington were hit, while only the Shokaku was hit in return.

While the Shokaku and the Yorktown ended up surviving their hits, the Lexington was hit by at least two bombs and, more critically, by two torpedoes. As it turned out in the Pacific war, torpedoes were the bane  of American aircraft carriers. Every US fleet carrier that was lost was lost after receiving torpedo hits.

While the Japanese got the better of the tactical exchange, however, from a strategic standpoint things were quite different. The Americans hurriedly repaired the Yorktown and it was available for the Battle of Midway less than a month later. Meanwhile the Shokaku's damage took much longer to repair and the Zuikaku, while undamaged, had taken such heavy losses in its air group that it also missed out the key Battle of Midway. Overall, the Japanese would have been much better served by skipping the whole affair. Having all six fleet carriers for Midway would have been a big advantage, even if the Americans retained the Lexington. The US Navy in mid-1942 had not developed doctrine or experience in operating carriers together (indeed, the pairing of the Enterprise and Hornet at Midway was an innovation for the Americans) so having four carriers would have been an awkward situation. In contrast, the Japanese had highly honed their capability to operate all six fleet carriers as a unified force. A 6-4 edge in carriers would have been much better than the 4-3 advantage they had in the actual event.

In June a new Essex-class carrier being built in Massachusetts was renamed the Lexington (CV-16) in honor of the lost ship. The other three fleet carriers lost later in 1942 -- the Yorktown, Hornet and Wasp -- would likewise be memorialized by new Essex class ships (CV-10, CV-12 and CV-18, respectively).

Battle of Coral Sea - 1942

The Shoho under attack during the Battle of Coral Sea, May 7, 1942

The Battle of Coral Sea started on this date, 70 years ago. Notable as the first naval battle in history where the opposing ships never sighted each other, the first day was marked by a number of blunders by both sides that included attacks on friendly ships, massive strikes launched against minor targets and even confused aircraft trying to join landing patterns on opposing carriers.

The score ended up being in the US favor as the sun set. While the fleet tanker Neosho and destroyer Sims were sunk, the Japanese lost the aircraft carrier Shoho and called off their planned amphibious landing at Port Moresby.

The Shoho was attacked by more than 90 aircraft that gave the Americans some dramatic photographs and the catch phrase "Scratch one flattop!'

Coral Sea is well covered by wargames, among them are SOPAC from the Second World War at Sea, The Fires of Midway and the classic Avalon Hill game Midway through its Coral Sea expansion kit.

Midway cruiser action at Havoc XXVIII

The defenses of Midway

I've been wanting to do this particular scenario for a long time -- years as a matter of fact.

It was inspired by scenario article from the Naval SITREP in 2002, which postulated that admiral Kurita's cruiser task force (the four Mogami-class cruisers familiar to any player of Avalon Hill's Midway) was NOT recalled at the last minute but pressed on to bombard Midway at dawn on June 5th.

I gathered the necessary miniatures over the years, has a custom map prepared and got some LITKO plane markers. The rules, naturally, were the Fourth Edition of Command at Sea, Larry Bond's World War II entry in his Admiralty Trilogy of 20th-century naval wargaming rules -- which in turn is descended from his Harpoon rules set. The Admiralty trilogy is very detailed and backed by voluminous research. Indeed, the data annexes alone are worth getting for the information alone.


In this case I made mostly minor changes from the published scenario and had three players take part. Two players commanded the Japanese force, which was comprised of the four Mogami-class heavy cruisers of Cruiser Division 7.

A single player commanded the American forces, which were comprised of a mixed squadron of Vindicator and Dauntless dive bombers with 12 planes; an 8-strong PT-boat squadron; the shore batteries of Midway, comprised of two 7-inch batteries, three 5-inch batteries and a pair of 3-inch batteries, each of two guns; and an anti-aircraft group of 8 batteries.

The Japanese force entered the playing area from the southwest in darkness, while the PT boats cruised back towards Midway from the northwest.

The Americans decided to launch a dawn search pattern with four 3-plane flights of bombers searching from southwest to southeast. Meanwhile, the Japanese launched a pair of float planes to search to the north. Two more float planes were launched to form a close-in anti-submarine patrol.

Within a few minutes one of the float planes discovered the PT squadron and shadowed it from above AA range. Knowing they had been discovered the PT boats adjusted their course more towards the south in the direction the Japanese plane had approached.

A few minutes later the cruisers were spotted by one of the three-plane bomber elements, which proceeded to shadow them and call for reinforcements.

As so often happens, things started to happen quickly at this point. While the first element of dive bombers waited over head, the PT boats spotted the cruisers and were soon spotted themselves. As they closed the range a hit from one of the cruiser secondaries took out one boat, causing the rest to shy away and begin evasive maneuvers. The Japanese pressed on towards Midway.

A second element of bombers showed up and the Americans decided not to wait any longer. The two elements of Vindicators targeted the lead two ships in the Japanese column. Faced with the airborne threat, the Japanese secondary batteries moved to AA mode while their main batteries blasted way at the elusive PT boats.

The first two elements of attacking planes were Vindicators, whose pilots were not trained in dive-bombing techniques and therefore made a glide-bombing attack. The Japanese AA fire was reasonably effective, bringing down three planes, but the Marine pilots were also accurate and landed a couple of hits, causing damage to both Japanese cruisers, including the flagship Kumano.

Another element, this time of Dauntlesses, now arrived overhead and also picked on the Kumano. Trained in dive-bombing tactics they planted several more nits on the leading cruiser, while losing one of their own. These hits caused severe damage, including a critical engineering casualty, that slowed the cruiser and forced it to haul out of line. The Japanese ship, interestingly, chose to turn port, towards the PT boats, instead of the safer starboard.

As the fourth, and final, element of Dauntless dive bombers appeared and made their attack runs the PT boats made a sudden dash at the Japanese line. With the Japanese secondaries fully engaged with the dive bombers the main batteries were not enough to hit any of the nimble torpedo boats, which launched a full 28-torpedo salvo at the Japanese cruiser line.

The dive bombers were able to get another hit on one of the cruisers still in line, but at the cost of two planes. The retiring PT boats also lost a boat to an 8-inch shell as they departed. During this portion of the action the Japanese launched two more float planes, with the intention of using them to spot for cruiser fire against Midway.

One torpedo hit the already heavily damaged Kumano, leaving it dead in the water, while the Japanese cruiser line turned away from the torpedo spreads and began firing on the airfield.

The first hapless Japanese float plane was blasted from the sky by an intense barrage from the island's AA batteries -- and the second plane decided against trying its luck. Unspotted and at long-range, the Japanese shells did minimal damage to the airfield or facilities, while suffering occasional hits form the 7-inch shore guns in return. Around this time one of the PT boat torpedoes hit one of the undamaged cruisers. While having little immediate effect on the Japanese ship's fighting ability, it seemed to be one of the last straws for Japanese morale.

After a few more minutes of exchanging fire with the 7-inch battery the surviving Japanese ships turned away. An attack by the three hastily re-armed Vindicators came to a bad end as all three planes were shot down, but this success did not hearten the Japanese enough as they continued to head away at full speed.

The re-armed Dauntless element tried to finish off the crippled Japanese cruiser, but lost two planes to its desperate defensive fire. Still, dead in the water and within range of a 7-inch shore battery, the ultimate fate of the cruiser was not in doubt.

So a resounding American victory. For the loss of 11 planes and 2 PT boats the Americans sunk one heavy cruiser and damaged two of the remaining three cruisers. Damage to the airfield was minimal -- a couple of cuts and some buildings damaged.

Overall an interesting an instructive scenario. Despite the powerful cruise force, the Japanese appear to have a tough job, as it takes considerable nerve to bring the cruisers in close enough to be able to engage the camouflaged shore batteries. The American commander was quick to take advantage of the fortuitous accidental arrival of the dive bombers to make a coordinated attack by PT boats and bombers.

Midway maintenance

One of the things I miss about Avalon Hill is the ability to maintain my favorite games. For example, I replaced the box for my Midway game at least three times that I can remember. But with the demise of AH my third box has had to soldier on for many years rather battered.

So I was pleased to find a used copy of Midway at The Citadel game shop with a nearly prsitine box. I'll consolidate the the new copy and the old copy and have a nice one again.

I came to dislike the AH flat box package because it really didn't hold up well at all to either stacking or carrying, unlike the bookcase box package, which has proven reasonable sturdy.

Still, after a long spell in the wilderness where every wargame maker seemed to use flimsy boxes, the trend these days is for much stronger boxes. I particularly like the GMT "armored boxes" that have been used lately. Those look like they'll last a lifetime.

My favorite battle -- Midway

The Midway Objective card from Lightning: Midway by Decision Games.

It should be hard to pick a favorite battle for study and gaming, there being so many fascinating possibilities, but I have to say that it's never been a difficult call for me. I've been enthralled with the story of Midway since my first wargame, which was Avalon Hill's Midway. About the only historical engagement that rivals it for me is Gettysburg.

But unlike Gettysburg, which I think has proven difficult so simulate and even more difficult to create a good competitive wargame for, Midway is a natural. Nearly every Midway game is a pretty decent contest for players and the historicity of most isn't bad. As a matter of fact, the 1964 Midway probably holds up better as a wargame today, nearly a half century later, than any of its land-based peers.

There's a lot of drama at Midway, of course. It was a battle of strange twists of fate. But it was also a remarkably even fight. Yes, it's true that the combined Imperial Fleet vastly outnumbered the American force defending Midway -- except that the Japanese didn't combine their fleet. Japanese naval planners were absolutely in love with intricate, complicated battle plans that relied on nearly split-second timing. As a matter of fact, they remind me a lot of a certain sort of wargamer we've all seen at the table. He's always a really smart guy and he comes up with these amazing, detailed plans. On the wargame table you can even sometime s make this stuff work, but in real operations the best rule of thumb is to keep it simple.

But Japanese battle plans were rarely simple and even among the universe of complicated Japanese naval plans the Midway operation was one of the worst.

So the bottom line was that at the tip of the spear, the critical point of engagement, the two sides had almost the same effective strength. Each had four "airfields." For the Japanese these comprised their four most elite carriers and their air crews. The Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu and Soryu and their air units were undoubtedly the premier carrier force on the planet in early June, 1942. They could operate four carriers together (and actually they could operate six together, but two fleet carriers were missing). In contrast, the Americans were breaking some new ground doctrinally by operating the Hornet and the Enterprise together in one task force. And even this was a baby step, as the two carriers still maintained seperate screens. By 1943 and 1944 the U.S. Navy was habitually operating large numbers of carriers together as integral tactical units, but that lay in the future.

So the Japanese had four first-class carriers available and the United States Navy had three comparable units. The USS Enterprise was a crack unit, as was the USS Yorktown, although the Yorktown still had some unrepaired battle damage from the Coral Sea battle and had a composite air group aboard. The third carrier, the USS Hornet, was the newest of the class, and it's air group was the greenest of the bunch. In addition to being new, the ship had missed out on some additional training time because of the Doolittle Raid. Finally, Midway itelsef provided a fourth airfield that had the advantage of being unsinkable but was, naturally also fixed in place. The Midway air force was a mixed bag of types, quality and effectiveness, but it was numerous.

The Japanese carrier strike force had a total of around 225 aircraft, the U.S. carriers had about 223 aircraft and Midway added another 110 or so. Escorting the Japanese carrier strike force were two battleship,s three cruisers and a dozen destroyers. Screening the U.S. task forces were 8 cruisers and 14 destroyers. It was really about as even a fight as you can get in a historical battle situation.

The Americans had an important edge in intel, but the two task forces were, for all intents and purposes on their own. The USS Saratoga and escorts was on the way but clearly would be too late to take part in the battle. Meanwhile the Japanese, while suffering from a self-inflicted wound of dispersal, did have a huge fleet of potential reinforcements available to support the carrier force -- as many as four light carriers, 9 more battleships, 18 more cruisers and 53 destroyers.

On June 4, 1942 the two carrier fleets met in battle and by the end of the day all four Japanese fleet carriers were sunk, while only the Yorktown was mortally wounded on the US side. But it was hardly a foreordained outcome and it would not have been a shocking result to see the tally reversed, with the US carriers wiped out. Besides the material losses, such an outcome would have had huge strategic impact. There would have been no Guadalcanal campaign. And the Japanese carrier air arm would have avoided the awful battle of attrition that wasted it away in 1943.

A lot was at stake at Midway -- probably a lot more than was at stake at Gettysburg. Gettysburg is often styled a turning point in the popular accounts, but few Civil War historians see it that way. Most would rank Vicksburg much more significant. A Union defeat at Gettysburg would have been unfortunate for the federal cause, but it would have been just one more in along string of such defeats. The primary effect probably would have been to bring Grant to the East earlier.

In contrast Midway was a true turning point. The vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean and Japan's fanatical resistance meant that the road back was long and hard, but the initiative had already shifted, permanently to the Allies.

Yes, to me Midway is the ultimate wargame -- a very even fight that was also very important and filled with drama.

Things that are very difficult to simulate

USS Neosho under attack

Today is the anniversary of the opening day of the Battle of the Coral Sea, which is notable for being the first naval battle where the opposing fleets enver came within sight of each other.

One interesting aspect of the battle was the Japanese strike against the oiler USS Neosho and an accompanying destroyer. the USS Sims. Japanese scout planes had erroneously reported the small task force as comprising a carrier and a cruiser, so the Japanese task force sent a full-strength air strike that included more than three dozen dive bombers. This powerful attack smothered the US ships. The USS Sims took at least three direct bomb hits and blew up. The Neosho in the meantime took 7 direct hits and 8 near misses. Amazingly the ship stayed afloat for another four days before sinking.

From a wargaming point of view this sort of event is hard to simulate. Even double blind systems such as Midway don't allow for that sort of extreme misidentification. Only an umpired game could hold that potential and yet one wonders how well the players would accept being misled by the GM that much. For a regular 2-player game it's virtually impossible, which is why even a pretty detailed naval wargame such as SOPAC has trouble really capturing the essence of the battle.

Pearl Harbor Day

When I was a child, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was a fresh memory for the adults in my life, so it hardly needed special reminders that it was an important day. But today, 68 years later, one can sense that the event is fading into history, as all events do. Americans today have a new nationally traumatic shock foremost in the minds. Our world is a far different one than 1941. Japan is an ally, China a competitor, our biggest international threat a religiously based fanaticism, instead of the political fanatics of the 30s and 40s. So today it is appropriate to take a moment to specially mark this event, despite the amount of new history that's been added to the annals of America in the meantime.

Despite its importance, the Pearl Harbor attack hasn't been the subject of many games. Some strategic-level Pacific wargames do start off with the attack on Pearl Harbor (Victory in the Pacific) while others just assume it's results (Pacific Victory) or give you a choice of starting conditions (Asia Engulfed).

As far as depicting the actual attack goes, there are few. Zero! from the Down in Flames series, has a solitaire scenario about the attack (the map is shown above). The Avalanche Press game Midway also depicts the attack explicitly, and it may be the most comprehensive treatment of the battle in wargame form. It has a battle scenario (No. 1) showing the air raid itself where the Axis player controls two separate attacking waves of planes and the American player the defending ships. While not described as a solitaire scenario, it really plays like one. But the game also provides an operational scenario (No. 5) that gives the U.S. player a much more active role.

That operational scenario starts with the Japanese surprise air raid, but illustrates the risks the Japanese might have faced if they continued to hang around Hawaii making follow-on attacks. While having a powerful air arm in its four fleet carriers, the Japanese strike force doesn't have a strong escort, with just two battleships, two heavy cruisers, one light cruiser and 8 destroyers. Even after a successful air raid, the American Pacific Fleet is likely to have a mobile battleship or two as well as up to eight heavy and light cruisers and a couple of dozen destroyers to sortie for retaliation. Already at sea are two U.S.carrier task forces, each with a fleet carrier, three heavy cruisers and 5 or 9 destroyers. Two other American heavy cruisers with escorts are also at sea sea Hawaii. Sticking around could have been risky.

Of course, the biggest risk of an attack on Pearl Harbor seems to have been missed by Japanese planners -- that the Americans would be so enraged by the attack that they would not stop until they had achieved total victory. One really wonders if the Japanese might not have been better off awaiting the American fleet on their side of the Pacific, especially given their advantage in carrier doctrine.

So what is a wargame, anyway? War(card)games muddy the waters

Every few weeks there's a vigorous -- and sometimes vehement -- debate on Boardgame Geek about the proper definition of a "wargame." Or perhaps more on point, which games should be considered wargames and which ones should not.

There are lax definitions that would include almost anything that has a warlike theme and strict definitions that would exclude anything that doesn't include a rick of the player getting shell shock.

Most definitions are someplace in the middle, of course, but there;s still a wide range of legitimate difference of opinion over how "realistic" or "authentic" a game needs to be in order to be called a wargame. Most of the time the debate revolves around where to draw the line on a continuum of maneuver-oriented games that range from very simple military-themed games such as Stratego or Risk to highly detailed simulations such as Harpoon4 or Advanced Squad Leader. The line seems to be resting somewhere in the vicinity of Memoir '44 or Axis & Allies, which strike some people as too much game to be considered wargames and by others to be too much war not to be considered wargames.

Muddying the waters considerably are wargame-like card games such as Up Front or the Down In Flames series.

On the one hand they're clearly games geared to appeal to wargamers, with considerable detail, numerous intricate rules that reflect real-life considerations, manufactured by wargame publishers and marketed to wargamers. If wargames are "whatever wargamers play" then they certainly qualify as wargames.

On the other hand, as card games (and not card-drive wargames, which still revolve maneuvering on a board) they are necessarily highly abstract. The problems of hand management, deck management and the interactions between cards, players and rules are entertaining, but don't bear much resemblance to the actual activities and decisions of submarine commanders (Attack Sub), sergeants (Up Front), pilots (Down in Flames), generals (Lightning: D-Day) or admirals (Lightning" Midway). They are not simulations.

My inclination is to consider most of them as wargames, but I'll admit that I'm not sure I could come up with a hard and fast rule that would categorise them. I've posted a Geeklist on Boardgame Geek to solicit some opinions on the matter.

The summer of '69

It's hard to believe 40 years have gone by. It's sort of a Biblical-sounding length of time. Does that make me a Methuselah?

In March of that year I bought a copy of Midway, and my friend Andy R. and I played it at least 6 or 7 times that spring time. I got into wargaming in the first place due to my interest in naval gaming, but naval gamers are definitely the smaller part of the wargaming crowd and my friend was no exception. It wasn't until I got my second wargame -- Stalingrad -- that I can say that my hobby really took off, because we played that game constantly all summer long. I still have the turn record chart from that era and it reflects dozens of games, nearly all of which were from that summer and fall.

Shortly after that the wargame collection began to grow with titles such as Guadalcanal, Waterloo, Afrika Korps, Jutland and 1914 and the number of plays for any one title dropped off a bit. I started subscribing to Strategy & Tactics in 1970 and the collection really took off.

But the real foundation for the hobby was laid in those summer days and nights in 1969 as my friend and I (and eventually his older brother) self-taught ourselves about wargames. It was a grand summer.

Just how important was Midway, anyway

From a comment on my BGG posting on the Big 3 of Naval Wargaming.

Regarding Midway's importance.

I'd like to suggest that Midway may be a "bigger" deal than some are giving it credit for. (It still might not make the Big Three of all time though).

While it is true that the US was embarking on a huge shipbuilding program, including carriers, that Japan could not hope to match, the context is still important.In the historical case, the Japanese lost their four most experienced carriers, many of their crew and the well-practiced elite organization that was the carrier strike force. Combined with the earlier rendering of the other first-line carrier division temporarily ineffective, the balance of power for 1942 was evened up, making the Guadalcanal campaign possible. Even with the damage done to the IJN at Midway, the Guadalcanal campaign was extremely hard-fought and both sides were reduced to almost no fleet carriers before it was over.

Historically, after conceding Guadalcanal the Japanese spent all of 1943 rebuilding their strength -- but the US strength increased much more quickly. The US forces were also very active and had time to perfect a much more sophisticated level of carrier ops than they practiced in 1942.By the time the fleets met again in 1944 the Japanese fleet was stronger (on paper) than they were at Midway, having reassembled a 5-carrier strike force, supported by 4 light carriers. What was lacking was the well-drilled expertise of the earlier fleet.

In contrast, the US fielded four task groups EACH of which was roughly equal to the whole US fleet at Midway. And each task group was much more proficient than the Midway forces, not even considering the improved equipment. Now consider the possible alternative history if the outcome had been reversed. Assume the Enterprise divebomber strike force also fails to find the Japanese fleet, as the Hornet package did. The Yorktown attack sinks the Soryu, but now the three surviving Japanese carriers launch a counterstrike against the now-revealed US fleet.

Under 1942 conditions a deckload strike by a carrier could be expected to sink or disable one opposing carrier (based on Hughes' book Fleet Tactics) so it's reasonable to believe that the expert aircrew from the three Japanese flattops could sink all three of the US carriers.

This would have put the events for the remainder of 1942 and 1943 into a much different context. Barring a later "Midway" style disaster the Japanese strike force would have remained more-or-less intact as a unit. Historically much of the Japanese experienced air crew was attritted away in the Solomons flying from land bases. This would not have happened if their carriers were still available.

Meanwhile the US Navy would have been under increased pressure (and the historical pressure was severe enough) to contest the Japanese, yet would have had little opportunity to assemble and practice the historical formidable forces. Instead there's a good likelihood that the available carrier forces would have been committed piecemeal under tactically disadvantaged conditions. This would have been the best case scenario for the IJN, repeatedly facing portions of the US fleet and defeating each in turn. Over the long-term attrition would have still eventually evened the odds. Japan simply could never hope to do more than possibly replace battle losses in carrier hulls. And one presumes that the hard school of experience would still have resulted in US improvements. Unless the Japanese reformed their air crew training policies. one would expect that some level of parity in capability would eventually be reached. But a US unable to begin a strong advance until 1944 or 1945 would have resulted in a very different war.

How would repeated US naval defeats have affected US public opinion? Pearl Harbor provided a powerful incentive to press on for a final victory, but the historical US public only had to endure about 6 more months of disaster before seeing the tide turn. How different would it had been if you tack on another 18 months of failure?Japan took a huge gamble taking of the US, a much more powerful country. But smaller powers have defeated larger powers before, and the Japanese themselves had the recent memory of beating Russia. They might still have lost in the end because of further events. But to have a chance of winning they needed to have a good outcome at Midway and if they had achieved that outcome I think it's being a bit too deterministic to think that they were doomed to lose anyway. History is full of less surprising victories than Japan achieving its war aims against the USA.

Anniversary of the Battle of Coral Sea

It's worth noting that today is the 67th anniversary of the Battle of Coral Sea.

While somewhat of a stalemate, or even a tactical victory for Japan, it was a clear strategic defeat and had a big impact on the Battle of Midway a month later. Consider how differently that pivotal battle would have gone if the Japanese strike force had been stronger by 2 fleet carriers -- or if the Yorktown had been sunk has the Japanese believed.

I have several games that cover the Coral Sea action in whole or part, although I've also owned others over the years.

Currently I have the Coral Sea expansion, which adds maps, counters and scenarios to the classic game Midway.

I also have SOPAC, which provides a somewhat more detailed look at the same action.

The Zero! game in the Down in Flames system has a Coral Sea campaign game. This game covers plane-to-plane fighting so it's representative of the kind of tactical engagements involved but doesn't purport to show the entire battle.

And finally the Coral Sea battle with an abbreviated OB is one of the scenarios in Shipbase III.

One irony of Avalon Hill's "50th" anniversary

Hasbro selected three games for "Anniversary" editions to mark the 50th anniversary of Avalon Hill's founding.

While all three games are worthy classics (Acquire, Axis & Allies, and Diplomacy), none of them are original Avalon Hill games. Acquire was published by 3M and brought into the AH line when it took over the 3M line. Diplomacy, of course, is just as old as AH, but was first published by Gamescience before being bought and published by AH. Axis & Allies was never in the old Baltimore-based Avalon Hill's lineup at all.

It would have been nice to see a real Avalon Hill classic republished, but there are few candidates that might match Hasbro's market. Perhaps the most likely candidate would be an updated edition of Football strategy that reflected the way the NFL is played today.

Among the wargames I think there are few games that could make the transition. Most of the better games are in the hands of MMP or being republished elsewhere. Maybe, just maybe, a heavily revised Midway with plastic Axis & Allies style ships could catch the eye of the modern bit-oriented gamer. Of the classic hex-and-counter games Afrika Korps has probably held up the best, but I don't see it appealing to Wal-Mart shoppers.

No, it's easy to see w hy Acquire, Dip and A&A made the cut.

Lightning: Midway review

Lightning: Midway is published by a wargame company and is about one of history's most famous, dramatic and consequential battles -- but it's not a wargame.

But Lightning: Midway is a game so permeated with the flavor of its topic that is not a simple military-themed card game like Battle Line or Naval War.

The basic structure of the game is exceedingly simple. Each player has four objective cards the opponent may target, four Japanese aircraft carriers on the one hand, and on the other, three American aircraft carriers and an island base that's indistinguishable from an aircraft carrier in game terms. These objectives are attacked and defended by various "force" cards as modified by different "action" cards. On a player's turn he/she can either attack an objective put up to three force cards into play or draw cards up to a hand size of nine cards.

That's pretty much it. It's a very spare game design and the rules included with the game reflect that, being included on two sides of a single 8 1/2-inch sheet of paper, with plenty of white space and illustrations. While I didn't have any trouble understanding how to play the game, the very minimalist presentation did cause some problems for players used to more elaborate explanations and less experienced players. The company Website includes FAQ that are easily longer than the base rules, although to be fair, this isn't really a reflection of any real problems with the rules. The game is perfectly playable out of the box. Nearly everything in the FAQ merely makes explicit many provisions that are implicit in the rules.

Of the 110 cards included, two are "country cards" that review the sequence of play, describe the starting force cards and tell players who goers first (The U.S. player). Eighty more are the objectives, leaving 100 cards to actually play with -- 50 for each side.

The cards fall into five types:

The first are "force" cards, which in Lightning: Midway all represent groups of aircraft such as B-17 bombers, Zero fighters, Dauntless Dive Bombers and the like. Each is rated for its strength in attack and defense. Some have bonuses based on certain conditions (such as defending a carrier) and some are "dependent" on a specific objective and are removed from play if that objective is take out of play.

Supporting the force cards are three types of "action" cards: leaders, events and tactics. Each of these provides various modifications in combat. The key aspect of playing these cards is that there can be just one of each in any combat. Note, not one per side, but one total. So playing these cards is very much a zero-sum move that causes a big swing. Not only do you get whatever benefit your leader may provide, you also deny your opponent the benefit he might have gained from his leader. The same goes for tactics and events.

This provides some interesting game play while also providing a way to introduce many colorful personalities and real-life events to the game with few rules.

Filling out the card roster are a few "special action" cards that are played outside of combat resolution to affect the game in some way. I think the use of the term "special action" is one of the truly confusing aspects of the rule because they are not "action" cards as otherwise defined. I would have just called them "special" cards and left it at that.

The game plays very fast, the box says 30 minutes and that seems about right. It's an excellent two-player "filler" game for wargamers. For non-wargamers the unfamiliar terms and too-sparingly worded rules may make the game seem a bit more difficult than it really is.

Victory at Midway review

Victory at Midway is a low-complexity hex-and-counter wargame covering the pivotal 1942 naval battle.

It was the issue game in Command Magazine No. 14. The 10-page rule book lays out what became the signature approach of designer Ben Knight -- simple mechanics that capture the key elements of a historical situation, with just enough chrome to add some flavor.

Each turn represents 3-3 1/2 hours and each hex is 100 miles. The large unit counters represent single ships or small groups of ships. The 1/2-inch counters represent air units of 6-12 aircraft or land units of company (US) or battalion (Japanese) strength. Filling out the counter mix are various informational counters.

Like many carrier battle games, Victory at Midway uses a "double-blind" system where each player has his own map and searches for his opponent by calling out search hexes, similar to the game "Battleship" or the classic Avalon Hill game "Midway."

Players secretly move their units on their own map, conduct searches, and then secretly assign air strikes. Both sides reveal their strikes and resolve them. After that any surface combat, bombardment or invasion combat is resolved.

The combat system is likewise straightforward, with units rated for their fire strength against air or surface units. Each step fires by rolling a 10-sided die and comparing the result to its strength. Each roll equal to or less than that strength scores a hit. For example, the deadly Japanese Zero fighters are rated a "7" so they have a 70 percent chance of causing a hit in air-to-air combat, while the obsolete Buffalo fighters flown by the Marines at Midway are a mere "3." All combat (air-to-air, air-to-ground, ship-to-ship, ground combat, etc.) is handled the same way.

The third factor on most counters is a movement factor (naval) or range (air). Like most Knight designs these are suprisingly low, with nearly all naval units rated "1." Some are rated "1/2" or even "1/3" meaning they move every second or third turn. Likewise nearly all the aircraft have a range of just "2" with the most notable exception being Midway's B-17's with a range of "6." In a Ben Knight design maneuvering is a multi-turn concept.

The game components are the usual XTR standard. The map naturally is mostly a blue expanse of sea, with a handful of items. One corner of the map is shaded to indicate it is covered by a huge fog bank at the beginning of the game.

Japanse units show overhead views of aircraft or side views of warships on red counters with yellow print. American naval units are on blue counters with yellow print, Marine and Army Air Corps units are olive green. For both sides the one-step side of the counter is a lighter shade of the base color.

Victory is determined by victory points. Most are scored by getting hits on enemy units (carrier hits are worth 5VP, each air unit step just 1/2VP) but occupying Midway is worth 11 VP.

Set up is less than five minutes and it should be possible to play the full 25-turn game twice in an evening.

There are a handful of optional rules that add little complexity and should always be used.

There are solitaire rules that pit the player as the USN against the historical Japanese plan, which was rather inflexible.

Recommendations: (Yes) For wargamers. A nice simple wargame depicting a fascinating battle.

(No) For collectors. Nothing special.

(Yes) For Eurogamers. While component quality is not up to current standards the game is light on intricate details and has straightforward rules that may make it accessible for nonwargamers who want to try one out.

Featured Game: Midway

I can't be objective about Avalon Hill's naval wargame Midway from 1964. It was my first "real" wargame and launched me into the hobby that I've enjoyed these 38 years.
In late 1968 I saw an ad in Boy's Life magazine for an outfit called Alnavco, which sold miniature model warships (back then all in 1:1200 scale). Being a middle-school kid with no money I wasn't able to indulge in buying the beautiful ship models. I bought one, a model of the USS Olympia of Dewey fame, that sadly was destroyed through youthful carelessness.
In the Alnavco catalog they also listed some naval boardgames by a company called Avalon Hill. I think they offered U-Boat, Bismarck and Midway. The games were just $4.95 and you could fight an entire battle with a fleet of ships. As this was about the price os a single small model warship the boardgames sounded like a good deal for someone on a limited budget like me.
So I ordered a copy of Midway in March of 1969 (I still have the invoice) and a hobbyist was born. I persuaded my best friend to play and before long we had an active little gaming circle going. Besides Midway we played Stalingrad, Guadalcanal. Anzio, Afrika Korps, Waterloo, 1914. Jutland from Avalon Hill plus some of the early SPI games like Centurion and Battle of Moscow.
My best friend's older brother brought back Diplomacy from college and we also tried out nonwargames such as Football Strategy, Stock Market and Ploy.
Most wargamers have a soft spot for the game that first brought them into the hobby, even if it's not an especially good game. Fortunately Midway is better than most of its contemporaries and still holds up rather well despite the passage of 40 years. It's still possible to round up a game now and then. The situation is classic and the execution is entertaining. While newer games are more realistic, Midway is not a howler as far as historical accuracy goes and it has the virtues of playing pretty quickly and being well-balanced.
Most beginning players find it a little easier to play the Japanese, but between experienced players the game is an even match. The Japanese and U.S. fleets are very close in strength during the early going when the game will most often be decided.
The game uses a screen and separate search boards to provide limited intelligence, similar in some respects to Battleship. The U.S. has an advantage in searching power which makes up for its disadvantage in carriers.
Once fleets are located air strikes can be launched with fighters, dive bombers and torpedo planes. Simple and straightforward rules cover the air-to-air and air-to-ship combat while capturing some of the nuances of strike tactics such as "anvil" attacks.
While there are simple rules for resolving surface battles, they rarely occur as the U.S. fleet normally strives mightily to avoid any surface contact with the much larger Japanese fleet.
The game succeeds in capturing the essence of the "Incredible Victory" at Midway. It's certainly possible for the U.S. player to replicate the historical result, but it's equally possible for the Japanese to achieve their sought-for "decisive victory."
One nice additional feature is Rear Adm. C. Wade McClusky's personal account of the battle contained in the battle manual.
Other valuable add-ons include the Wargamer's Guide to Midway, a 36-page booklet published in 1979 that contains a digest of the best Midway-related articles from the Avalon Hill General.
Another great add-on is the Coral Sea variant that adds counters, rules and a map to cover the other 1942 carrier battles around the Solomons. With some slight rules modifications, players can use the Midway game system to refight the battles of Coral Sea, Eastern Solomons, Santa Cruz and Guadalcanal. The system works remarkably well for these battles. While not quite as detailed as some of the other carrier battle games depicting this campaign, the Coral Sea variant plays quickly without affronts to historical sensibility.
Overall, Midway is still one of my favorite games and a real "classic" in the best sense of the term.

Midway 65 yers later

June brings many significant anniversaries related to military history. Summertime is prime campaigning season in the northern hemisphere, after all. Among them are the Waterloo campaign, Marengo, D-Day, the Six-Day War and Barbarossa.
But the one that I most associate with early June is the Battle of Midway, I've always had a particular interest in that fight because it was the topic of my first serious wargame, Avalon Hill's classic Midway of 1964.
Since then I've built up a small collection of games on the topic, including, besides the original, the later Smithsonian edition of Midway, plus Command Magazine's issue game, the Second World War at Series game and even the Lightning War: Midway card game. Still, the original is my favorite of the bunch.
It's a fascinating battle because it's a rare example of a truly decisive battle that could easily have gone either way. Actually, despite the deterministic viewpoints popular among many students of history, I would argue that the most likely result, despite the over-complexity of the Japanese plan and the American code-breaking, was Japanese victory.
Had the Japanese won at a similar scale as the US did, sinking three carriers while losing one, (which was a likely result, see Hugh's Fleet Tactics for a discussion why) it would have had a profound impact on the course of the war. While Pearl Harbor ensured that Japanese hopes for a short war ending in a negotiated peace were untenable, it's very easy to imagine how winning Midway would have bought them a year or maybe two. For one thing, I doubt the Americans would have felt strong enough to contest the Japanese seizure of the Solomons.
Australia was probably too big for Japan to conquer, but it could have been neutralized as an offensive base.
Also, the Japanese Naval air arm was decimated by the grueling Solomons campaign. If this fight did not happen, or occurred at a less intensive rate, then the Japanese carriers could have maintained their quality far longer. The large U.S. Essex-based carrier fleet of 1943/44 might have faced a far more formidable Japanese carrier fleet in a new major battle. No "Marianas Turkey Shoot" but another potential Midway instead.
Another major Japanese victory might have forced the U.S. to resort to atomic warfare in earnest as the only means for victory. A gruesome outcome, surely.
A lot was at stake in 1942 at Point Luck. We're fortunate that things worked out as well as they did.

Coral Sea, Chancellorsville and The Wilderness

One of my wargaming affectations is to try playing battles on or near their anniversary dates. Early May sees a few significant battle anniversaries.
One of the most significant is the Battle of the Coral Sea, fought 65 years ago in 1942. It usually rates a mention in general histories because it was the first naval battle where the opposing fleets never closed within visual range of each other. While this is a catchy headline, it's true significance rests in the fact that it took two of the Imperial Japanese Navy's fleet carriers out of action just before the Battle of Midway. While neither the Zuikaku nor the Shokaku were sunk, one was damaged and the other's air wing was battered enough that both ships were unavailable in June. It's hard to see how the USN could have prevailed against all six of the IJN fleet carriers, even with the Lexington added to the US force.
I've got quite a few games on the Coral Sea (Midway/Coral Sea variant; Smithsonian Guadalcanal/Coral Sea variant; Shipbase III; SOPAC and Carrier) but it doesn't look like I'll have a chance for an anniversary game unless I can get in a session of Carrier, which is solitaire).
I'm having better luck with the Civil War battles because of Hexwar. I'm wrapping up a batch of Mayre's Heights games (from the Battle of Chancellorsville) and close to finishing The Battle of the Wilderness, too.
Mayre's Heights was the fight that took place on the old Fredericksburg battlefield in 1862 at the same time as the main engagement at Chancellorsville. It's one of the old SPI Blue & Grey series games. It's really wild and wide-open and it looks like I'll be either splitting the matches or ending with a slight losing record. I'm having much better luck with the Wilderness (1864) matches (another Blue & Grey) and I think I'll end up having won more than I lost from that set.