At an HMGS show in the early 1980’s a modern naval wargame was played by a group that would do something that would be remembered by a few people. I do not remember all who played or their names, but a few are still hanging around playing with toy boats: Don Smith (the Chief), Vince Stella and myself Tom Gallagher. I was commanding the United States Task Force. Vince was in command of elements of the Soviet fleet while the Chief was a referee.

The situation as I remember it was this, an American task group was off the Pacific coast of Central America. It was dawn and the task group was replenishing itself from an underway replenishment group. A Leahy class Cruiser (England) was preparing to take on fuel oil after it had been rearmed, while a destroyer, I do not remember the class, was being rearmed. Two other ships were maneuvering to link up to waiting replenishment ships. All four ships were at a reduced state of readiness with all radars at standby.

There was one other ship in the task group, an O.H. Perry class frigate. This was an important ship, she was stationed off to a flank with all radars radiating and all weapons ready. The Soviets had not been detected since the previous day by a recon aircraft, we even had a wonderful Polaroid photo of the Soviet fleet taken from an altitude of six feet. There was a war being played out in Europe as the ships awoke to a fine day. It had been going on for a couple of weeks and things were not going well for NATO, was this an important piece of information?

The Soviet presence was made known by massive jamming and a warning from the Perry class frigate that Surface-to-Surface Missiles were about to impact in the area. Impact they did, a tanker, a stores ship and an ammunition ship were hit by numerous missiles. The ammunition ship exploded and took the destroyer with it. The tanker and the stores ship were damaged and burning. They proceeded to withdrawal to safer waters. The American task group immediately went to general quarters. The Soviets were still jamming and it was impossible to detect the ships launching the missiles, I still say we were using Soviet dice, but the missiles themselves were being detected, especially by the Perry class frigate. She saved the day by acting as a long range sniper and covering the task group while it recovered from the initial surprise.

At the same time Harpoon missiles began to be launched on a reciprocal bearing to that of the detected Soviet surface-to-surface missiles. A cycle began of the American task group using all means available to detect incoming missiles and then shoot them down while launching Harpoon’s on a reciprocal bearing to the Soviet missiles. The Soviet group used passive and active means to detect and shoot down any Harpoon missiles that came their way, while at the same time they continued to launch surface-to-surface missiles at the American task group. They seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of surface-to-surface missiles. We were at a standoff, no more American ships were hit and neither were any of the Soviets.

This situation went on for a few turns. I conferred with my compatriots and we determined that something had to be done, but we were not sure what. At this point the Chief discussed with me the situation report and admonished me for not paying closer attention to it. I read it one more time, this time paying more attention to each sentence. There to my disbelief was some important intelligence. Hidden among some of the usual double talk was the fact that nuclear weapons had been used in Europe and the freedom to use them by U.S. Navy combat units had been given. I immediately questioned the Chief as to the weapons load onboard my task group. To my wonderful surprise four Standard missiles armed with nuclear warheads had been loaded onboard the U.S.S. England before the ammunition ship was destroyed. No missiles had been transferred to any other ship before the ammunition ship went down. With neither fleet having an advantage and ammunition starting to be a worry, I did the only thing any patriotic fun loving American would do. I launched all four missiles, two air burst and two surface burst.

Up to this point in the game various people had been stopping by the table asking questions and commenting on the game. A nice format was being used, the two sides were at separate tables at either end of the gaming hall. The only communication between the two sides and the referees was by 2-way radio. The only time we would physically see the other side would be if the ships came into visual range of each other. Some nice comments had been made about this format with quite a few people liking it. At this point the nice comments stopped. I began to be interrogated by total strangers as to why I would be so barbaric as to launch nuclear weapons.

People were slinking away from the table trying not to be seen talking to me. One person when told what I had done said “Oh my God!” and ran away as if he had discovered a colony of lepers. People were going out of their way to avoid the table and when they did come near they began talking in hushed whispers because I assume any normal conversation would have detonated the warheads. During the next game turn we watched the S

To my astonishment I overheard a couple of gamers at the last Cold Wars commenting on the launch of nuclear weapons a long time ago in an ocean far away. I have to admit that this was one of the most memorable games that I have ever played at a HMGS show, I bought a model of a Leahy class cruiser later that weekend. There was some good friends involved, though the Chief was his usual devious self, and that is what made the game great.