"Submarine Warfare Ruleset" Topic

I am looking for a ruleset simulating a submarine warfare scenario involving convoys, escort ships and submarines, during WWII, Atlantic or Pacific, to be played with miniatures.

The game should be played with a master and two team of players with hidden movements.

I cannot find any good ruleset and your help is welcomed.
Many thanks in advance.

Use the Avalon Hill rules for "Submarine" It works well for our group of players. With the GM and advanced rules it really becomes a tense game for the players.
Terry

Agreed that AH's Submarine would work well but we use 3W's Run Silent, Run Deep. The mechanics are simpler while still retaining a high level of detail with faster game play:

link

Yea, Submarine is a good one.

Mal Wright has developed several Convoy boardgames too, which are very nice for solo play, but which can easily be used for multi-player games.

I forget all the names of them, but there are several – Convoys from the UK to Gibraltar, and Russia.

You can read about, and contact him over on the Naval Wargames Facebook page, or on the WWII Convoy Yahoo Groups.

Please only purchase from him, or his designated, preferred seller(s), since another major name seller of naval games allegedly is cheating him out of his royalties.

He deserves better for all his hard work, and research.

My all time favorite was

I like Submarine and Run Silent, Run Deep, but they work best on hex grids. Which isn't always good for miniatures.

I like Mal's games, which do work well for solitaire play. But he hasn't released a Pacific version.

For submarine actions, I think the Command at Sea rules are good and work well with a GM. Alternately, you can look at the GQ III rules, which also has rules for sub/ASW actions.

There are U-boat vs convoy (+ escort) rules in Paul Hague's book Naval Wargaming – strongly recommended. I've played them and while they can involve some prep and working out they really capture the tension of not knowing where that damn sub is!

The rules don't require an umpire so everyone can play. Instead it uses a hex grid with U-boats moving freely while on the surface and the convoy and escorts following a fixed (zig-zag) track. Once Escorts spot a sub they can also move freely but when the sub dives they must follow a pre-determine course of action, i.e. which escorts hunt for the sub for how long and how do the remaining escorts support / re-position around the convoy. Submerged movement is plotted on a hex map and is pre-planned/fixed until it raises its periscope at which point it can move freely or re-plan some more moves with the periscope down.

There's much more but I hope this gives a flavour. The book covers many periods from ancient galley warfare to carrier battles in the Pacific and is full of good mechanics, although these are not always linked by a defined sequence of play.

If you let me have your email I'll send you my extracted short version of the rules, play-sheets, etc.

Thank you very much for all your interesting answer!

The is a set of rule at Wargame Vault called Grey Wolves at Dusk that might fit the bill.

This one is pretty interesting:
link

Wolfhag

Captain Sonar is interesting. Almost as tense as actually being there (which is really damn hard to do)! Not a miniatures game, however.

I've played a Subs v Convoy game with Seapower before, with an umpire, even. Was pretty tense, as the Umpire would move the escorts while the submarines were out of the room, but after we'd written our movement orders. Simulates being at periscope depth but only sticking the scope up every so often, which reduces detection chances.

I'm not sure what would be good for WW2 (and earlier) submarines, where the primary targets are merchant convoys. Nuclear subs tend to think more about sub v sub, and I ended up modding Full Thrust for a sub-v-sub game.

We had good luck with "Submarine" by Battleline. I ran a large scale PQ17 campaign way back when (the whole shooting match from Reykavik to Murmansk, includin all the Allied, German and Soviet forces that historically took part – naval, air, subs. Any time a contact involving a sub was generated, it was resolved using "Submarine". It was a well done game, especially considering its age (copyrighted 1976).

It is hex-based, but I don't recall that having posed any problem in terms of play or reasonable results.

FWIW.

B

Many thanks for the kind suggestions.