Fred Haub and I commanded a huge invasion fleet… 2 carriers, 3 battleships, and some 6 ‘other ships’ capable both of fighting and unloading landing barges chock-full of troops. Opposing us were Bob Hurst and Terry Sirk, commanding the defensive forces on the Island of Babu. This was a carefully researched and documented re-creation of the historical attempt of the American Pacific Fleet (APF), during World War 2, to capture the key island in the Babu chain. Babu Island lay on one half of my ping pong table… the approaching fleet was on the other half. The island was divided into areas, each about 6 inches square, capable of holding a maximum of 6 tokens… each token was termed a ‘division’, hence one might call the 6 tokens a ‘corps’. The division tokens we used were teeny-weeny 6mm tankies… at each convention, I always pick up several such tankies, and my current collection permits me to field a swarm of tankies. The sequence was derived from a combined, i.e., a common, deck of 10 action cards… 5 cards for each side. The 5 cards that we attackers had in the deck, for example, contained the following: 1 card Land forces 1 card Sea forces 2 cards Air forces 1 card Wild (can be used for any of the above) There were 5 similar cards for the other side. When, for example, a “sea” card for the defenders was drawn, all their ships could move (3 inches) and fire. Similarly, when an ‘air” card appeared for a side, its planes could move and fire. Note there are 2 cards for each side for the air forces… since planes moved at a rate of 5 inches per card, they easily outdistanced the ships. I used poor tactics… we APF commanders had a total of 13 aircraft, and I squandered my entire air fleet (half of our air force). And this was after explaining to our opponents what the correct air tactics should be… do as I say, not as I do. I had 6 of the APF’s total of 13 planes. When an ‘air’ card was drawn, I diced to see how many planes could take off from my carrier: 01 to 33 4 planes 34 to 66 3 planes 67 to 100 2 planes On my very first dice throw, 4 aircraft took off, and they were joined by my remaining 2 planes a moment later. The rules regarding the aircraft were interesting: First, each plane had 4 boxes, i.e., 4 lives. When it was hit 4 times, it was destroyed. Second, When a plane had been damaged, it could try an “emergency return to base”. Instead of flying back to base at the normal 5 inches per ‘air’ card, it could attempt to zip back home. The chance of doing so was: P = 100 - (distance to base) - (5 x number of hits on plane) Terry did this a couple of times… his aircraft had been damaged, and since the only time you could repair a plane was if it was on the ground at the base, he tossed his dice. His plane was around 25 inches from his airbase, and had 3 hits on it… P = 100 - (distance = 25) - (5 x 3 hits) P = 60 percent Third, after all 10 cards in the sequence deck had been drawn, there was a ‘repair phase’… each side diced to see how many units it could repair… if a plane was back at its base, it was eligible for repair… it could add boxes to its data sheet. Fourth, when the air card appeared, a plane could attack any land, sea or air target within 5 inches. It tossed two 10-sided dice (Hit Dice… HD) and a toss of 1 or 2 was a hit. Fred’s half of our air force, 7 planes in all, kept clustered together, wing to wing. In fact, it was more than wing to wing… it was wing-on-wing, so closely assembled were the Haubian aircraft. The cluster gave Fred a total of 14 HD, and there were few targets that could stand up to the Haubian strike force. I noted that the defenders were quite shy about attacking the Haubian sky monster. After our APF grand fleet had approached to some 20 inches of the island, we drew a sea card for our side, and we launched several landing craft. In contrast to the ship movement of 3 inches per card, the landing craft moved at a rate of 10 inches per card. Each of the craft had 5 tokens (divisions) aboard. The landing craft, while still at sea, were immediately attacked by the defender’s air force. Each hit registered on a craft removed one division. BANG! WHAMMO! BOOM!… the units aboard two of our landing craft disappeared in the smoke… we managed to land three corps out of about six. I mentioned there was a repair phase at the end of the draw of all 10 action cards. One of the options available to a side was to reinforce a land corps. Each land corps started out with 5 divisions, and could be reinforced up to a maximum of 6. Our attacking landing forces, each of 5 divisions, couldn’t be reinforced until they actually reached land after disembarking from the landing craft. The defenders made good use of this rule… they would, each turn, reinforce a land corps to its maximum size. The result was that, when our own APF corps landed, we were both outnumbered and outgunned. It’s now time for the usual “Alas!”… Alas!… the great APF fleet had to return home, empty handed, much battered and very unhappy, while Babu Island remained in enemy hands. The game required a wee bit of record keeping. Each plane had to be tracked (4 hits each), and each ship had to be tracked (5 or 6 hits, depending upon the type). Aside from this, a kill was a kill, and a hit resulted in a removed token. I think that next time we try this game out, we’ll buffer the attacking force by giving it additional ships and land corps. The number of planes assigned to each side (13 for the attacker and 10 for the defender) appeared adequate. Back to PW Review July 2000 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com