2019 International Naval Wargaming Day

In 2017 David Manley, well know rule writer and naval gamer, kicked off the first International Naval Wargaming Day as a day to "Celebrate the birth of the father of naval wargaming, Fred T. Jane, by running or taking part in a game of your own!"

With August 6 being a weekday (and due to my own poor planning), I played a solo naval wargame again this year. My idea was to try out a relatively new set of World War 2 naval rules by the aforementioned David Manley called Find, Fix and Strike. I took a quick look through my ship miniatures and decided to use the Second Battle of Guadalcanal to try out the rules. Here is the setup and special rules I used for the scenario. 

My setup for the battle (click for a larger image)

Before I get to the game, here is a little more about the rules. Find, Fix and Strike is available on Wargame Vault. It is a fast playing set of naval rules designed for use with models from 1/2400 to 1/6000. Bookkeeping is minimal, with damage recorded through a series of levels rather than keeping track of damage points. The rules also include a set of operational level campaign rules that provide a framework for linked battles and club campaigns.

The turn sequence is:
• Initiative Phase
• Ship Movement
• Air Phase (launch and move aircraft, resolve air-to-air combat, resolve air-to-ship combat)
• Gunnery combat
• Surface ship torpedo attacks
• End Phase (Resolve damage control and Remove dispersing smoke screens)

The rules are pretty easy to get into and most naval gamers will have them down in a couple of turns. Gunnery and air attack combat is resolved by competitive D6 die rolls, which are modified by the attacking ship's attack factor and defending ship's defense factor, along with some other modifiers for damage, range, etc. If the defender's modified roll beats the attacker, there is no damage. If they are equal, the defender is straddled and has a temporary negative modifier for attacks. If the attacker beats the defender, the defending ship is damaged with multiples of the defender's roll doing more damage. The levels of damage are Light, Heavy, Crippled, and Sunk, and there is also a chance of special (i.e. critical) hits. Light and Heavy damage still allows a ship to move and fight, but with negative modifiers for combat and, for Heavy damage, movement. Ships with Crippled damage cannot move and shoot with large negative modifiers. Players roll to repair ships during the End Phase. Players can use various methods to track ship damage, from keeping notes on paper to using markers. For my game I used some Litko explosion markers to show each level of damage.

For torpedo combat, the attacking player first rolls for a hit. It a hit occurs; a competitive die roll is made to check for damage. There are special rules for the Japanese long-range torpedoes.

Now, on to the game, I used 1/6000 scale miniatures for the game and my camera had trouble focusing on the small ships. So apologies for the fuzzy photos. Looking at the special scenario rules, I chose to have the Japanese Screening Unit enter on turn 4 at area B and the Bombardment Unit to enter on turn 6 at area C. I was thinking that this would give the Japanese a chance to catch the Americans in-between both forces. 

U.S. battleline ready for action

On the first turn the Americans won the initiative, closed with the Japanese light cruiser and destroyer, and caused heavy damage to both ships in the gunnery phase. 

Japanese light cruiser Sendai takes the first hit of the game

On turn 2, the other two destroyers from the Screening Unit entered, but, seeing the fate of their comrades, decided to keep their distance and move toward the Screening Unit entry point. The American finished off the two damaged ships.

American radar gave them an initiative and combat advantages. On turn 3 they were able to use those advantages to damage the remaining sweep Unit destroyers, putting the out of the fight, and get into position for the Screening Unit. The Screening Unit finally got some hits on the leading American destroyers with guns and torpedoes. But they had no luck against the battleships. 

U.S. destroyers (foreground) take damage while the lead Japanese ships take hits

At the end of Turn 5 most of the Screening Unit ships were damaged or sinking. The Americans left their damaged destroyers behind and moved to intercept the Bombardment Unit.

Japanese heavy cruisers (left and center) and battleship Kongo (right) move in for action

As the two forces engaged, the Japanese attack dice got better, and they were able to hit the battleship South Dakota with torpedoes. But it only resulted in light damage. Meanwhile, the Japanese battleship Kongo took heavy damage from the American 16” guns.

View from the Japanese side as Kongo (foreground right) and Takao (foreground left) take damage, while South Dakota (background left) and Preston (background right) are also hit

The two forces continued to slug it out, but the damaged Kongo and 8” cruiser guns weren’t able to do any more damage to the American battleships.

The view from the American side as Kongo (left background) and Atago (center background) take damage

With all the Japanese capital ships heavily damaged and unable to do anything to the Americans, I decided to call the game in favor of the Americans. The Americans did a lot more damage than they did historically, while taking close to historical damage.

The game played quickly, finishing up in a little more than an hour. The American dice were hot throughout the game, while the Japanese started cold and moved to average. With the limited visibility range, the American radar really helped out with initiative, spotting, and combat. The Japanese used searchlights during combat to negate some negative modifiers, but they could not effectively use their long-range torpedoes.

Overall it was a fun little game and the rules lived up to the fast play promise. I'm a fan of David Manley's rules, so you can take my comments with a grain of salt. The downside for the rules is that they could use a little more editing to clear up some confusing parts and clarifications around fighting night battles. I also wonder if torpedoes are a little under-powered (it seems like it is really hard to get hits), but I'll need some more playing time to really determine that. The rules work well for moderately-sized and large battles, where record keeping can really slow things down, but might not be good for small battles with small ships (although I expect they would play quickly). The campaign rules look like they could be fun to try out.