Components
All sheets are legal (8½”x14”) sized.plain brown cardboard box
small wooden pieces (labels were provided for 169 Japanese and 130 American ships, and for 700 Japanese and 736 American aircraft)
Introduction - 4 sheets
Surface to Surface Combat - 13 sheets
Surface to Surface Night Combat - 6 sheets
Island Combat - 6 sheets
Aerial Combat - 9 sheets
Air to Surface Combat - 15 sheets
Strategic Combat - 28 sheets
Miscellaneous maps, labels, tables, charts, records, logs and scenarios - 80 sheets
The designer says:
“Early Pacific Battles simulates tactical and strategic naval warfare in the Pacific during WWII on a ship/aircraft scale. The game is sold in 3 parts: (1st) Tactical Surface Combat for $15; Tactical Aerial Combat for $6; and (3rd) Strategic Combat for $11. Each part of the game enlarges the scope of the game to include more parameters. Tactical Surface Combat is divided into 3 sections: Surface-Surface Combat explains how ships attack, are damaged and move on a hex grid where each hex represents 4,000 feet and each turn represents 10 minutes; Surface-Surface Night Combat expands the previous section to cover the night actions that occured around Guadalcanal; and Island Combat details Japan’s amphibious assaults on Wake and Midway Atolls on a squad/800 foot hex/ 10 minute turn scale. Tactical attack on a 3 dimensional aerial board, where each hex represents 8 nautical miles and each turn is 10 minutes long; and Aerial-Surface Combat combines Surface- Surface Combat with Aerial Combat so that the ships and aircraft move on a hex grid, where a hex represents 4,000 feet and each turn is 100 seconds long. Strategic Combat is the only section of the last part -- it combines all or some of the tactical sections into a strategic game.”The reviewers say:
Early Pacific Battles is at its absolute best when played in free form with several commanders on each side, an umpire thoroughly familiar with the rules, Orders of Battle unknown to the enemy, and limited intelligence and communications. (Try to get hold of Issues 48 and 49 of Swabbers if you want to read a fascinating account of such a match.) As a conventional ‘game’ Early Pacific Battles is unplayable, but as a simulation it is phantastic.” Friedrich Helfferich in F&M 12. “[P]lay shifts very smoothly on demand (think-tank people, I am told, call this ‘next event’ basis) back and forth between no less than five different scales, the largest with no fixed length. Tactical combat is accommodated with all the detail the most dedicated fan might ask for!” Fred Helfferich in F&M 67. “Physically, EPB is quite impressive -- if you happen to own stock in a papermill or a mimeo company. It contains innumerable sheets of paper, both light and heavy gauge, on which is printed a collection of information the effect of which is akin to your first glance at the pilot’s cabin on a 747. Also included for the rather exhorbitant price of $30 is a large number of Risk-like wooden counters onto which you are instructed to graft a great deal of numerical information in an operation guaranteed to try both your patience and your belief. But the heart of the matter is the actual game, or rather games, for EPB is a compendium of differing scenarios. I would say that, despite the somewhat amateurish production values, the game should prove to be a goldmine for the naval connoisseurs who are dissatisfied with the playability rationalizations of CA, Midway and even Solomons Campaign.” Richard Berg in Moves 20. “Maps and counters somewhat primitive. Turn equivalent varies; highly complex and possibly quite long.” Richard Berg in S&T 49.Collector’s value
Information is available to the effect that only 130 copies of this game were ever produced, but it is not clear whether this refers to all three modules together, or separately. In any event, there is no doubt that this game is rare, as is borne out by Boone, who lists low, high and average prices of 80/160/113.30 at auction and 375/375/375.00 for sale.Other games by this designer
Battle of the River Plate (self, 1971).Back to Simulacrum Vol. 4 No. 2 Table of Contents
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