From: costello@cylink.com (Bruce Costello) Subject: Re: Sending in Replay Reports REPLAY REPORT OF AN OLD FAVORITE: SIMCAN'S "SEAPOWER AND THE STATE". I just finished playing "Seapower And The State", the only dedicated, global 'WWIII sea' game I am aware of and an old favorite of mine. For modern naval warfare gaming, Victory games Fleet Series are the Best there is but they do not depict combined maritime strategy on a global scale, as Seapower And The State did (and still does). Although the graphics are not up to modern standards (the game published around 1983) the counters are nice and have accurate silhouettes of the ships depicted. The game scale is ten four-day turns and 900km to the hex. Units represent individual capital ships (down to Cruisers) or groups of subs, DDG's or FG's. Land-based air is kept track of separately and assigned to battles during the turn (carrier based air is independently factored into CV's 'a' combat ratings) from land bases. 'Localization', or in other words, detection, is required to attack something and this is based on ew ratings plus die modifiers such as SOSUS (!), RSAT's (Recon Satelites) and Weather. As in real naval war, this system makes for some challenging surprises during play.The game has a lot of chrome, including western 'lone wolf' sub tactics, Soviet command coordination issues with certain types of attacks, satellite operations, SOSUS, mines, political defection (and entry of neutrals), and much more. Combat units have various numeric strengths including EW, Anti-Aircraft, Anti-Sub, defense, movement, and surface attack strength, quantified as letter A B, C, and D next to the numeric strength. A strength units have the longest ranges and get to fire first, combat being simultaneous at that range, then B, C and so on. Longer range systems thus hold the advantage usually, though not by all means always. CV's have ranges of 'A' typically; British lite carriers have a B range. All in all, the scales seem to me appropriate and accurate. There are five levels of conflict which players select secretly at the start of each turn, then they reveal their selection. The most violent level is in effect that turn. Level 1 represents no combat, during which players are free to move units at sea and attempt to find position. Level 2 is conventional combat, and is violent and somewhat destructive. Level 3 is Tactical Nuclear warfare, and units with range A and B have their strengths at these ranges quintupled. There is no victory point cost to go to Level 3, by the way. Land Bases are not automatically attacked, though they may be during the turn. Level 4 things really get hot. A general nuclear war has broken out and all units in bases are automatically eliminated, all stacks of five or more units at sea and all CV/CH/ BG units must roll for survival. Aircraft totals are drastically reduced and civilian shipping halved. Sea routes through the Suez and Panama canals are rerouted around the capes, and the player initiating Level 4 must pay 75 vp penalty. Level 5 is Armageddon, and the game stops immediately while players are awarded VP's for how many SSBN's/SB's in range of target hexes… Cities busters! One hundred fifty victory points are subtracted for the side that initiates Level 5. Victory is won based on comparison of accrued points. The Soviet gains points for sinking civilian shipping and the West, for keeping shipping lanes open. There are other point awards (mostly minor) and a fair number of point debits. I altered the VP awards to give a +5 vp bonus to any player who sinks an enemy SSBN, which is the opposite of what the designer originally did. I believe this makes for a more lively and satisfying game, and closer to what I believe an all-out war would have been like. The game takes awhile to set up and there is a high counter density but after the first or second turn of combat, play starts to go very smoothly and rapidly as more and more ships end down in "Davy Jones' locker".. To me, this game is truly a joy to play. 1/28/99; T-1 (day 1-4) I selected the '84 scenario to play, and assumed a sudden furious all-out Soviet attack to defeat the west as a very plausible situation. On the first turn, the Soviets selected 'level 3 conflict', meaning tactical nuclear war at sea. Three U.S. CV's were destroyed along with most of their battlegroups. Soviets dominate the indian and western Pacific oceans. A number of U.S. SSBN's were tracked down and sunk, and severe damage was done to the west's merchant fleet. In the Med, however, a U.S. CV evaded a Soviet SAG, losing it's escorts in the process, and turned around and sank all the Soviet warships in the eastern Med. During the western turn, one of the three SSBN bastions the Soviets had formed were attacked up near Norway and a handful of boomers were sunk, each unit rich in victory points. Elsewhere Soviet SSN's and SS' units were hit and sunk, plus the remainder of the Soviet Med units were all taken out. U.S. battle fleets began to assemble in the central Pacific and north Atlantic, their intended objective in the next turns being to execute the U.S. maritime strategy of the era and attack Soviet home waters and sub bastions. Adjustments were made by both sides to the positioning (hence detection coverage) of reconnaisance sattlelites. One Soviet rsat malfunctioned trying to do this, and was removed from play. They have a stockpile more than they can launch, but will have to wait a turn to do this... The west has slightly more victory points at the end of turn 1 but the French, Italians, and Netherlands have sued for peace and those units, especially the strong French fleet, have been removed. Also, due to the interdiction of shipping lanes, the base hexes in Tokyo and central Germany no longer function. On my next turn I will first consider for both sides whether it would be wise to escalate to operational nuclear combat (in which case all bases and units at sea are subject to immediate attack) which would probably leave mostly subs afloat, remain at tac nuke combat, or de-escalate. It's even possible for the game to end if both sides bid for level 1 combat, which would create an armistice. T2; (day 4-8 of the war) At the start of the turn, the west used an optional rule to re-assign civilian shipping so as to make them less vulnerable to subs and land based air attack at the end of the turn. The Soviets choose Level 3 again, the west level 1 (thereby gaining +10 vp for being seen as peacemakers). Much quieter than t-1 as both sides recoiled from the shock of the recent carnage. Soviets consolidate their two SSBN bastions and hold the artic, meanwhile scurrying after vp's by using land-based air and tactical subs to hunt and hurt western assets, especially the valuable boomers. The biggest fight in the turn occurred when the Black Sea fleet came out into the Med and were able to attack the two Sixth fleet CV's, which had grouped in the western Med behind the french and Italian fleets the previous turn. The path to them was opened by the surrender of those two countries and removal of their navies. Both the Soviet and the American units were entirely destroyed in the exchange of nuclear) combat. With the exception of one Spanish DDG group and a Soviet cruiser, nothing remained afloat in the Med. Soviet forces everywhere regrouped in stacks of four or less.. ominous as it seems to presage a general nuclear war including attacks on U.S. home bases in future turns. The west meanwhile massed U.S. carrier taskforces (four of them forward in the Atlantic protecting the SSBN's remaining there. In the Pacific, land-based air from the remaining Japanese bases ganged up on and destroyed three Soviet SSBN's in a bastion in the Sea of Okhotsk. Other Soviet subs and SSBN's were tracked and attacked by SSN and long range air, wherever they could be reached. In the Indian, Ocean, a gambit by remaining U.S. forces to destroy remaining Soviet Forces failed, though one Soviet DDG got sunk. U.S. forces re-deploy To four-unit stacks as a precaution to level 4 conflict. By the end of the turn it is apparent the Soviet 'Bear' is in trouble. The west is racking up the victory points and has successfully contained most Soviet forces to the Baltic, Artic, or Sea of Okhotsk. Western navies are in such a position that Soviet options at level 2 or 3 combat are not good. T3 (day 9-12) Soviets proclaim Level 4 conflict - operational Thermonuclear War. All forces in bases and all 5-up stacks at sea are automatically Eliminated by Soviet ICBM counterforce strikes. Half of all merchant shipping of the west is destroyed, yielding enough victory points to overcome the -75 vp cost of going to Level 4. Strangely perhaps, the Soviets suffer about 1/3 rd more warship losses. This is because Soviet forces in port mostly can't be logistically sustained at sea and therefore are useless anyway once most bases are destroyed. The west's better logistics are represented by the rule that ships stacked with US supercarriers are in supply, up to six units, whereas the Soviets only have a handful of lite CV's which can only supply 3 units including the CV (nuclear powered ships, such as most CVn, SSN, SSBN, do not need to account for logistics in this game). Even in four-stacks, ships must roll for survival (though not SSN's or SSBN's at sea). So, the seas now contain mostly Soviet and western SSN's, SSBN's plus the five remaining western CV battlegroups. The Soviets ominously move the bulk of their SSBN's from their safe positions under the Polar Ice-Cap to firing positions off northern Canada, and put out a barrier screen of SSN's to cover them. Elsewhere, SSN's deploy to attack shipping routes (2/3's or more of all land based air having been destroyed by the strategic exchange) and a pair of SSN's from the baltic go for a western CV group in the Atlantic and a stack of SSBN's. They fail vs the SSBN's, but take out a CV battlegroup of DDG's and FG's; the CV itself is not localized and in turn destroys the SSN. At the end of their part of the turn, Soviet asat's destroy all western csat's, a prelude to strategic nuclear war. SSBN;s not within 14 hexes of csat's during Level 5 receive only half the victory points for being able to hit targets. The west attacks and destroys all remaining Soviets in the Indian and the Med and takes out 3-4 SSN's loose in the Pacific. The Pacific fleet begins to approach kamchatka to deal a knock-out blow in future turns to remaining Soviet bases and the other SSBN bastion in the sea. Off Norway, the remaining western surface forces in the Atlantic move decisively north and penetrate all the way to Murmansk and Archangel and destroy what's left of those bases, fulfilling the tenets of western maritime doctrine. Due to foul weather, they are not able to localize and destroy a small number of Soviet CV's and SSBN's north of those ports, nor penetrate far under the icecap with SSN's. Western SSBN's move into a position from where they can hit all target hexes in the Soviet union. The Soviet vp's for destroyed merchant shipping is a paltry 4 pts, while the west racks up a total of 39 pts for the turn. The Soviets would suffer a major defeat, should the game end now. T-4 (13th and last day of the war) Soviet analysis is that they could gain 22 vp from going all-out nuke, busting western cities with their slbm's on the SSBN's. From this, they would lose 150 vp per game rules due to going to level 5. Also, the west would pick up 19 vp's for destroyed Soviet urban hexes. Since I went through the exercise in game turns of level 5 and don't find it particularly cool, I opt for the Soviets to declare level 1 conflict, gaining 10 vp for so doing. The west also opts for level 1 (having nothing more to gain from warfare and risking the defection of the UK, their one remaining european ally with an appreciable fleet. Thus, the game ends - the victory point margin is now 1.98 - and the western victory is now a substantial one but not major. Is peace not it's own reward? In real world terms, I concur. In Europe, the U.S. has lost much of Germany - To the Rhein, plus Denmark, and part of Turkey (the bosporous). Also, France, Netherlands and Italy as allies. Losses at sea have been very severe bothways but the Soviets have been all but swept from the oceans. Were fighting to continue below level 5, eventually most or all Soviet SSN's and SSBN's remaining would be destroyed and a few sea lanes still would remain open. Germany survives, though barely. Japan has suffered major loss of it's forces and some bad damage surely to it's cities to the point where it can't fight any longer. Chinese and Indian naval forces were destroyed in port when conflict went to level 4 but the U.S. has sufficient strength to keep the Pacific an American lake. Millions lay dead, but it could have been far worse. The U.S. has paid very dearly for staying as THE power. The Soviets still exist but not in a shape to challenge anyone for international supremacy again for generations, if that country doesn't just break apart as it eventually. A serious and frightening game but very interesting material for the Armchair strategist or historian. Damn good fun, too! -Bruce