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.

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.

Down in Flames session report

So my old and good friend Carl came by after a long hiatus and we played something old and something new. The old was Down in Flames, which we last played more than four years ago.


Carl's an excellent all-around player, as today demonstrated yet again. Over the years he's been somewhat of an ASL specialist, but he's pretty deadly any time.

We played the Winter War December campaign of Down in Flames, (Rise of the Luftwaffe) with the updated Zero! rules, although in this case it didn't matter much.

The first mission was a bombing run against some ground troops by a four-bomber flight of Soviet SB-2 medium bombers under the the command of Comrade Carl. Carl took the Deceptive Course resource, which shortened the flight time, but that had no effect because his mission was unopposed by Finnish air. Instead I took some extra Flak Guns. The extra guns didn't do much good, however, as just one SB-2 was damaged on the bomb run, although the Soviet accuracy wasn't too good either and just light damage was done.

The second mission really decided the campaign, as both sides went all out. Comrade Carl's mission was to attack a freighter bringing vital war supplies to Finland. This major effort was led by four IL-4 torpedo bombers escorted by a pair of I-16 fighters and a pair of I-153 biplane fighters. The Finns also made a major effort, committing four Fokker D-XXI fighters. A fierce air battle ensued, and three of the Soviet fighters went down and one was damaged, for the loss of one Fokker, but they managed to keep the torpedo bombers unmolested and they had little trouble sinking the freighter. While losses were heavy, a clear victory for the Soviets.

The third fight saw a pair of Fokkers unsuccessfully dueling with a pair of biplanes. Again the two Sb-2 bombers were not bothered as they hit some ground troops. The damage wasn't impressive, but both Fokkers went down.

The final and fourth flight didn't promise much hope for a Finnish turn around and so it proved. While the intercepting pair of Fokkers managed to shoot down a biplane this time and damage the other one, the four SB-2s again attacked with no interference and this time they plastered the ground target, leaving it shattered.

The final score was a net of 59 VPs for the Soviets, an "outstanding performance and just one shy of an "exceptional" one. Likewise the Finns were "miserable" and if one more bomb had hit might very well have been "dismal."