"WWII North Atlantic Convoy Rules?" Topic

I know Mal is working on these, and has produced some other sets for rules around the periphery, e.g. the UK to Gibraltar convoys, Arctic Convoys, etc.

What I'd really like to know though, is if anyone has documented how the Wrens and the other naval personnel involved did it in WWII, in order to develop the tactics used to win the battle of the Atlantic?

From the bit I've read, supposedly, their tactical acumen was superb, and that they would put a lot of naval captains to shame, since they had the opportunity to learn the latest intel, and to game repeatedly against one another, in order to develop many of the tactics used during the war.

I don't recall ever hearing about any books on the subject, but do know there was a group also involved with using math and statistics to select the best options too, like aerial search patterns, tactics to search for subs with sonar, analysis of convoy sizes and ratios of escorts for them, etc. I think their name was the Operational Studies Group, or something like that.

Anyway, I'm interested in more info on the wargames and strategy sessions the Wrens conducted, if anyone has any intel to share.

Don't recall reading or hearing anything about that. If you can find it, SPI's Wolf Pack was a decent solitaire boardgame of the battle for the Atlantic. Don't think it would translate well to the tabletop, though. AH's Submarine, would though, if you just counted each hex as x inches.

I remember AH's Submarine. I think it was squares, not hexes. It was simple enough I recall non-gamers playing it, like my buddy's sister.

Anyway, I'm interested in more info on the wargames and strategy sessions the Wrens conducted, if anyone has any intel to share.

They might well have used the Fletcher Pratt rules:
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A long time back I read a book which included some references to the sort of thing Mako11 is looking for. I think the book was "Captain Gilbert Roberts R.N. and the Anti-U-Boat School". This is probably long out of print but secondhand copies may be available through Amamzon or specialist book sellers.

vtsao, that was the original Submarine, or it might have been called U-Boat, released in the '60s, I think. Submarine was put out in the '80s and used hexes.

Unfortunately I can't add anything to the original question, but I can confirm Sundance's information that the first Avalon Hill game was "U-Boat" and was the first war game I ever owned and played in 1960. My high school buddy, Richard Van Natta, and I played the blue off the game map which had a square grid and small metal ships as playing pieces. Richard was well advanced for his years and was a tactical genius. He used to regularly sink my destroyers, and when I thought the game was biased against the destroyers we would switch sides and he would regularly sink my submarines! The game was not complex, but did model the essentials of World War II anti-submarine combat reasonably well. Richard's sister Cathy played it too, and being a genius herself, she went on to major in Math and minor in Chemistry in college and was also the most beautiful girl in our school, and in her university too! Avalon Hill also published the game "Submarine" in 1977 and the map used a hex grid with really tiny hexes slightly less than a half-inch across providing a large playing grid with three map boards. Submarine is more complex than U-Boat, both are fine games, and are still in my library to this day, although not played as regularly now as Mal Wright's Convoy series of games.

Enjoy your games!

Jan

Pontius is right (book published by Cassell, 1979). Unfortunately, the author (Mark Williams) does not give references to original documents, so I have been unable to find any reference to how the game was played in documents from the National Archive. It is to be hoped that the Western Approaches museum in Liverpool (which occupies the old Western Approaches Command building) might retain some original sources.

We know that the game as played used 3-minute turns, written messages, 1000-yard squares, and a series of cut-outs to restrict each ship commander's view of the board from his command booth. They certainly did not use Fletcher Pratt's rules.

And "submarine!" is a wretched game, which should be blamed on Battleline rather than AH. When considering the geometry of torpedo attacks, I really cannot be doing with a game that revises Euclid so that there exist numerous pairs of points on the plane that cannot be joined by a straight line.

All the best,

John.

I really cannot be doing with a game that revises Euclid so that there exist numerous pairs of points on the plane that cannot be joined by a straight line.

You are soooo conventional.