At the August PW meeting, Brian Dewitt set up a WW II "ship game", based on the ol' time Fletcher Pratt (FP) rules. As I can recount, and my failing memory does me no good here, in the FP procedures, all ships start cut with a number, a base value, equal to their tonnage. Each hit knocks off some of the tonnage, and the ship sinks when the resultant is zero. For example, if a ship, a small destroyer, weighed in at 22,000 tons, and had three 5-inch gun batteries, the table of values might look like that of Chart A. Chart A Chart B 22,000 22,000 17,000 (5-inch destroyed) 18,000 (5-inch destroyed) 12,000 (5-inch destroyed) 14,000 (5-inch destroyed 10,000 (half speed) 12,000 (3-inch destroyed) 7,000 (5-inch destroyed) 11,000 (half speed) 6,000 (5-inch destroyed) - Under Chart A, when the first 5,000 points of damage occurred, and there were 17,000 points left, the ship would lose a 5-inch battery. The next battery would disappear when the 12,000 mark was. reached. When the tally was 10,000 points, the speed would be reduced, and so on. In Chart B, provision is made for a secondary 3-inch battery, and the total of 22,000 points adjusted accordingly. In our battle, I was given the Japanese battleship Ise, with a total of 184,680 points. I was the big kid on the block, or so I thought. My other ship was the cruiser, Chikuma, with a piddling 71,780 points. The Japanese fleet had some six ships, as did the American force. At the battle's beginning, it appeared we Sons of Nippon were doing rather well, as one American ship after another went down. Movement was plotted simultaneously, and then a round of simultaneous fire took place. A ship's commander would guestimate the range to the enemy, and at that point, indicate the number of batteries, i.e., the number of shells which he wished to fire. He could space the shell bursts, i.e., produce a straddle, by stating, for example: First Round 2 shells at a range of 53 inches Second Round 2 shells at a range of 51 inches Third Round 2 shells at a range of 49 inches Fourth Round 2 shells at a range of 47 inches The above distribution indicates that a total straddle of 6 inches (from 47 inches to 53 inches) is produced. Each type of ship was given a "shadow" area, and if any of the rounds fell within the shadow, a hit occurred. For example, my battleship, the Ise, had a shadow area of 6 inches at ranges less than 50 inches, which meant that any shells landing in the 6-inch region scored as hits. The Ise's shadow decreased to about 2 inches at a 10-foot range, so that a straddle would be more difficult to achieve. Not My Cup of Tea Naval wargaming is not my cup o'tea, and so both the Ise and the Chikuma sort of floundered around the ocean, as I took my time deciding upon the proper tactics. None of the Japanese commanders coordinated with one another, and our fleet's movement appeared rather chaotic... which it was. For my part, I was deciding whether or not I should charge forward, guns blazing, ram the nearest enemy ship, and fill out the form for the Emperor's highest award, the Iron Cross. As I previously indicated, American ships were sinking one by one, and I thought a11 was going well, when an American battleship, the Iowa? Baltimore? suddenly began to take control of the seas. Cap'n Bill Rankin, in command of the American ship, had gotten his sea legs... prior to this, Cap'n Bill had done a lousy job of range estimation, and had failed to zero in on any of his targets. Cap'n Bill targeted the Ise, straddled it succesfully and... WHAMMO!... he got 10 hits with his 14-inch guns, and 2 with his 16­inch guns. Each hit with the 14-inch battery produced around 10,000 points damage, and each 16-inch hit produced 17,000 points damage. Adding these up, this one barrage resulted in over 140,000 points damage (out of 184,000 total) on the Ise. I abandoned all thoughts of earning the Iron Cross and concentrated on mere survival. Calling upon my clever oriental background, I decided there was only one way I could survive this horrendous outpouring from the American battleship. My next straddle was a narrow one... all of my 14--inch guns (12 of them) were going to dump their shells at three specific locations, 1/2 inch apart (a total straddle of 1 inch), and at each location, 4 shells would be concentrated. The American ship had a fairly large shadow, and I thought my range estimation capabilities were sufficient to land my entire 3-point, 1-inch straddle within its shadow. Alas!... Cap'n Bill's maneuvering was too much for me... I missed and he hit. There went my dreams of glory, my Iron Cross, my future in the Japanese navy. I discovered, after the battle, in discussions with Cap'n Bill, that the American battleship started out with some 260,000 points, dwarfing the Ise's 184,000. Tojo was right.., you just can't trust those devious Americans. Back to PW Review September 1994 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1994 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