The Defense of Pearl Harbor

How to Play Pearl Harbor

by Marvin Scott

The Pearl Harbor game has two sheets with five targets on each, one for the P-40 pursuit plane and one for the P-36. Originally the sheets were on 8" x 11 l/2" paper, but the printing process has probably changed that. Feel free to copy the targets and enlarge them as you like. There is no official standard size. You play the game by taking "shots" at certain targets in turn.

There are several ways you may take "shots." You could simply make a cardboard triangle with two sides of 1 inch and the third 1/4 inch. Hold the triangle above the target about 3 inches or so, and drop it. The sharp end of the triangle indicates where your shot hit. Feel free to adjust the height from which you drop and the shape of the triangle, as well as the material you use to make it.

Here is how it goes step by step. Select the target sheet, either P-40 or P-36. To find how many planes will be ready for service and will take off to intercept, drop on the target labeled, "Planes." If the triangle's sharp angle is in the black, you get 39 planes - all that were on the island. More likely the triangle will land in circles marked 20, 10, or 5. You have that number of planes flying. Next, go to the target labeled "shots" and drop the triangle. If the point is in the black, each of your planes gets two shots. If you are in the white, you get one shot. Notice that the target is divided into three segments labeled "Val," "Kate," and "Zeke." Whichever segment the triangle point lands in, that type will be the plane you will engage.

Let's assume you got only 5 planes up and you got one shot at "Val." You take one shot at the Val target for each plane you have flying. Move to the Val target and drop the triangle. If the point of the triangle is touching on any part of the silhouette of the Val, you have shot down one Val. However, if the point of the triangle lands inside the arch marked above the plane, your plane has been shot down by friendly fire. If you shoot and hit open space you score no hit and return to base undamaged.

If you had chosen the P-40 targets you could have as many as 69 planes and as many as three shots per plane. Please note: if a plane with three shots is shot down on the first shot, it does not get the remaining 2 shots. You may want to scale down the number of planes you fly; take 4 instead of 20 for example. In my first trial run with the triangle clipped from a note card using the scissors on my Swiss army knife, I got 39 P-36s flying taking one shot at Vals. My first five shots were 1 hit by friendly fire, 3 no-hits in a row, and one Val shot down. The triangle point hit the rudder

There are other ways to use the targets. You could enlarge them, mount them on cork, and throw darts at them. You could enlarge them, put them on a proper backstop and shoot at them with an air pistol or air rifle. The distance you choose is strictly between you and your conscience. You could even build a striker of the type used by Fred T. Jane in his 1898 naval wargame. It looks sort of like a fly swatter with a pin stuck through it. Unfortunately all these methods chew up the target, so be sure to make several copies before you start.

Some of the more computer literate of you may be able to convert this into a computer game. Scan in the target sheets. After that, you need a program that allows you to shoot somehow. At this point I have no idea how this can be done but I expect somebody reading this is thinking how easy it is.

It seems reasonable to wonder how I arrived at the comparative sizes and shapes of the targets. The black silhouette of target aircraft is not intended to be a scale representation of the aircraft. Instead, the fuselage is enlarged to give an aiming point and to reflect the relative chance the plane has of being hit. This is largely based on speed and maneuverability. This means the Zeke (Zero) is always the smallest target. The other planes are larger than the Zeke because they are slower and less maneuverable than the Zero. Actual size of the aircraft has little to do with it.

The arch above the plane silhouettes shows my attempt to assign a likelihood that the target, say Zeke, will shoot down the attacking aircraft P-40 or P-36. As you might expect, the Zeke has the best chance of shooting down intercepting aircraft and the other two have less of a chance proportional to the number of guns they have, their speed etc. Number of guns was by far the most important consideration.

The two intercepting planes have different speeds and armaments. The P-40 is about 50 mph faster and has heavier armaments. This means that Japanese planes were more likely to be shot down by the P-40. That is reflected in the size of their silhouettes. Also the P-40's speed is reflected in its slightly smaller chance of being shot down. There is also some consideration of the P-36's better maneuverability. These show up in the arch above the silhouettes.

The friendly fire arch. under the black silhouettes reflects the chances of anti-aircraft gunners confusing a P-40 or P-36 for a Japanese plane. One of the American planes that got off the ground in the actual air raid was shot down by friendly fire. Anything in the air was suspect. The P-40 was quite different in profile than the Japanese planes. The P-40 was shark-nosed and flat fronted. The P-36, however, had an air-cooled engine and was frequently confused with Japanese planes. Thus its chances of drawing friendly fire were much higher. It seemed to me that a plane's chances of drawing friendly fire was the same no matter what enemy type it was engaging.

I based number of planes on the following. The black bull's eye represents all planes on the island -- 99 P-40s and 39 P-36s. The next ring out represents the number of planes operational at the start of the raid -- 69 P-40s and 20 P-36s. After that, I'm guessing. The target for number of shots is based largely on speeds. The P-40 seems to me to be much better able to catch the Japanese planes and get shots at them.

More Pearl Harbor

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