Designer: Charles Callahan
Publisher: NMS Games, 1982
Players 2 or more
Playing time Long, several hours bare minimum
Scale Strategic for time and distance, quasi-tactical for combat resolution
Turn scale Variable from one year per turn at the start of the war to as little as three months toward the end of the war
Map scale Area type map with variable scaling
Unit scale Individual capital ships
Era WWII Naval

Components

Two copies each of an East oceans map concentrating on the Atlantic and Mediterranean and of a West Oceans map concentrating on the Pacific and Indian. Maps are 23”x19” each and made of some sort of plastic acetate material. They are front-printed only with a total of three colors when including the blue plastic color, the other two being brown and black. Between them the world is divided into 39 ocean areas.

The game comes in an 8 1/2 ”x11”x 3/ 4” white shipping box for the rules booklet and playing pieces, and a 24” cardboard shipping tube for the maps.

The rules booklet is an 8 1/2 ”x5 1/2 ”, 52-page self-covered booklet with type writer-composed rules. There is an additional single page of errata of the same size. There are no player aids.

The playing pieces are 1” squares of plastic printed on one side only with a ship silhouette and numbering system similar to that used in the generator games for this product, War at Sea and Victory in the Pacific from The Avalon Hill Game Company.

Counter Manifest
Nationality	Color	Markers	Blanks
US	blue	171	3
Japan	red	120	3
Britain	gold	155	7
France	yellow	32	1
Russia	purple	16	5
Germany	grey	71	7
Italy	green	48	1
Dutch	light gold	7	0
Greek	light blue	5	0

The Designer says:

“The basic design of Two-Ocean War is to provide a game where all the major warships of the major navies of World War II can be incorporated. Historically, many sea battles were fought with small task forces. In Two-Ocean War the number of sea areas compels you to divide up your fleets. If you concentrate too much, you may win the battle but you could lose the war.

The components of Two-Ocean War can be used in 3 different ways ... simple substitution of the counters in place of those provided in Avalon Hill’s War at Sea and Victory in the Pacific ... using all the major warships on our expanded maps ... with special rules to resolve combat with naval miniatures.”

The reviewers say:

“The Two Ocean War is both a pleasure and a pain ... First, the good news: the counters ... The[y] can be purchased separately, but the order of appearance comes only with the rules and maps of The Two Ocean War. And that is where the pain comes in: The rules and mapsheets are a nightmare.” --Loren F. Sperry in F&M 36.

“Its highlight is the 600 plastic ship counters; the rules and mapboards are disorganized and haphazard. For War at Sea afficianados, the counters may be nice; otherwise, Two-Ocean War is little more than a curiosity.” --John Vanore in F&M 62.

Reference was made to The Two Ocean War in the AH General issue 28/5.

Collectors’ Value

Boone lists low, high and average prices of 40/80/60.00 at auction and 40/ 160/100.00 for sale.

Steve Newberg is the founder of Simulations Canada and SimCan’s head designer. Although SimCan has not produced a board wargame in quite a while now, the possibility exists that Steve might just decide to get back into it in the near future. I am pleased that Steve took the time from a busy schedule of sailing (the summer is just too short in the Maritimes) to produce this. -ed

[Not exactly as illustrated. In fact there was no illustration. This is from the cover of the book by the same name. -ed]