SPI shipped its own best argument against Fast Carriers in the same issue as the game.

Two 1970s naval classics, one question: what can a wargame effectively or honestly simulate, and where does it start to fake it?

I’m reviewing them back to back with Fast Carriers here, Wooden Ships & Iron Men next, because the line between them is one I’ve been chasing for years. This one is the carrier war. It’s where the faking starts.

Strategy & Tactics #51 ran Fast Carriers and a companion history article on the same carrier war, back-to-back. That’s the setup the three witnesses keep circling back to, and it’s the sharpest way into this game: not “was it good,” but “did it simulate what its own magazine said the war was.”

The article isn’t shy about what made Pacific carrier combat decisive. It’s built around a handful of catastrophic hits. The Lexington takes two torpedoes and two bombs at Coral Sea, stabilizes, and then a spark ignites leaked gas vapor and the ship is abandoned. At Midway, three Japanese carriers “were set on fire by two, three, and four bomb hits respectively,” and the fires not the bombs are what finish them, “a fact attributed to the presence of rearming and refuelling planes on the carriers’ decks” (S&T #51, p.33–34).

The Hornet, by contrast, absorbs four bombs, two torpedoes, and two suicide planes and still doesn’t go down clean. The article’s whole thesis about the early Pacific war is that a carrier’s fate hinged on what was sitting on its deck when the bombs landed a small number of hits, catastrophically amplifies the end results.

Fast Carriers’ own combat math doesn’t work that way. Ships take four hits to sink on a differential CRT, resolved wave by wave, and as Jim puts it in his 2010 retrospective “it requires multiple attacks to sink ANYTHING even a carrier with readied planes on its deck” (Jim, Spi, The Fast Carriers (1975)).

He names the exact cases the article dramatizes: “the Arizona was sunk, and the flight deck of the Akagi was turned into an inferno by lucky hits from attacking dive bombers; neither event can really be duplicated in THE FAST CARRIERS.” That’s a 2010 blogger reading the 1975 rulebook and landing on precisely the gap the 1975 companion article had already, if unintentionally, exposed. This has been a long slow burning fuse for me, I wrote this article after playing several different games and explored their Air to Ship mechanics: https://bigboardgaming.com/air-to-ship-combat/.

Here’s the part that turns this from an opinion into perhaps measured fact color by my expsoure to PAcific era titles: buried in the game’s own supplementary analysis (bound into the rules booklet, working through the actual Midway sequence turn by turn) is a probability count.

Running McClusky’s dive-bomber attacks on Kaga and Akagi through the game’s own tables, the piece concludes that all three Japanese carriers sinking the way they historically did “has about a .05% chance of happening in the game,” and adds: “the sinkings were not all that lucky… the real luck came in the lack of fighter cover and AA defenses, and in the way in which the carriers were caught with all that ordnance on the deck. Factors that were already present in our recreation. Yet it is next to impossible to recreate this epic in the game” (FC rules booklet, Midway combat analysis).

It then proposes a house-rule Fire Results Table to patch in lingering fire damage — an addition, not a base rule. So this isn’t a reviewer’s complaint against a designer’s intent. The published material admits the gap and hands you a fix for it.

That admission lines up with a contemporary review that ran the year after release. Fire & Movement #12 (1976) called Fast Carriers “well conceived but marred by premature delivery,” praising the search system as genuinely original while flagging that “only a first, all-out strike with undepleted plane complements has a chance of significant success against a task force of more than just a ship or two,” and that “dive bombers are next to useless; they are sitting ducks as they must hover over their target for a full tactical turn before diving” (F&M #12, p.43–44). .

The same analysis piece in the rulebook independently confirms a related complaint from that review — that “attacks on bases are futile under rules as written” — conceding “it is next to impossible to damage an airbase through bombing; the power just isn’t there.”

So: a 1976 zine review, a 2010 blog post, and the game’s own bound-in errata all name the same mechanical shortfall, thirty-four years apart in the case of the outside witnesses. That’s not a verdict that shifted with fashion. It’s a flaw diagnosed on delivery and never repaired in the base rules — only patched, optionally, for players willing to do the extra bookkeeping.

Search fares better, and here the witnesses genuinely split. F&M #12 called the search system “highly original” and “even fun to play at least for those who enjoy staff work,” and Wargamer #12 agreed that “in play Fast Carriers produces the goods” with search (Wargamer #12, p.50–51).

But an uncredited technical piece in Moves #36 caught something the rules got wrong on the numbers: the SBD Dauntless’s rules search radius is five hexes, but its cruising speed 134 knots against the two-hexes-per-turn (180 knot) rate the rules assume for search should cap it at three (Moves #36, p.22). The rulebook confirms the five-hex figure is exactly as written: “a circle search pattern covers a radius of five hexes from its search base” (FC rules, §7.22). Nobody in the packet claims this breaks the game Wargamer #12 still calls the search-and-strike cycle the game’s high point  but it’s a small, concrete case of exactly what Fire & Movement #12 diagnosed in general: “well researched. Unfortunately, this seems to have exhausted the budget and left little for shake-down and play-testing.” The other factor here is design for effect. Yes speed to hex is wrong, but this makes it work?

The designers knew it, too. In Moves #25, Dunnigan writes, “Boy, did I ever get crucified doing this one! It took three to four times longer than it should have,” and developer Irad Hardy adds that the game “underwent quite a number of changes before being launched” and that “even the simplest mistake can slip past… the by-now classic case being the solitaire scenario, in which the Japanese air units cannot win” (Moves #25, p.7). Jim’s 2010 post reaches the identical conclusion about that scenario from the other end of the telescope: “the ‘introductory’ Pearl Harbor solitaire scenario is actually unplayable without the inclusion of the game’s follow-up Errata.” Designer, developer, and blogger all name the same bug, decades apart, without any of them citing the others.

None of this tanked the game commercially. S&T #53 shows Fast Carriers debuting new at #6 on SPI’s Nov-Dec 1975 bestseller list, and Feedback from S&T #51 rated the companion article 6.47 — the issue’s 5th-highest-rated item, on an overall issue rating of 6.68 (S&T #53, p.37). Readers bought it and liked reading about it, flaws and all.

What’s actually changed between 1976 and 2010 isn’t the verdict it’s the room the verdict is delivered in. The contemporary reviewers place Fast Carriers in a running conversation with its rivals: Wargamer #12 traces a lineage from Solomons Campaign through Fast Carriers to Flat Top and CV; Wargamer #62 compares its search-chit resolution directly against a competitor called Carrier Battles; Fire & Movement #26 covers Carrier Strike as a barely-disguised clone. Jim’s 2010 post drops all of that. Fast Carriers is judged alone, as “an interesting elaboration on previous Dunnigan air-sea simulations” and “a worthwhile addition to the collection of anyone who specializes in naval or early SPI games” — a museum piece, not a contender in an active market. The flaw held steady. The field it was being judged against is what disappeared. .

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Conclusion:

So the game can’t reproduce Midway. But hold off before you blame SPI because I went looking for this exact problem years ago, cataloguing every air-to-sea action I could find in the Pacific [see blog post above] , and I came away convinced there simply isn’t enough data, and there’s far too much luck, to ever build a ‘realistic’ let alone effective table for it. Which leaves a question worth sitting pondering: if air-to-ship combat can’t really be modeled. Which makes me wonder, what about the naval war that came before the airplane? I have put Fast Carriers next to a game that answers that, next.

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Sources used

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Appendix — Jim’s original review, in full

The retrospective witness this piece is built around. Reproduced in full, with respect, from Map & Counters by Jim — 2010-02-16. Original: https://mapandcounters.blogspot.com/2010/02/spi-fast-carriers-1975.html

Spi, The Fast Carriers (1975)

THE FAST CARRIERS: Air-Sea Operations, 1941-77 is an integrated strategic/operational/tactical level simulation of historical and hypothetical naval air combat from 1941 to 1977. The game was designed by James F. Dunnigan and published by Simulations Publications, Incorporated (SPI) in 1975.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Damaged battleships in Pearl Harbor: The USS Arizona, USS Tennessee and USS West Virginia At 07:40 on 7 December 1941, a mixed-force of Japanese carrier aircraft composed of 45 fighters, 54 dive bombers, 40 torpedo bombers, and 50 horizontal bombers appeared in the sky over the island of Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands. This was the first wave of a devastating aerial attack on the American naval and air forces in and around Pearl Harbor. Fifty minutes later, a second wave of Japanese carrier-based aircraft struck the island again in a follow-up raid. As a result of these two short, but devastating Japanese air attacks, eighteen U.S. ships — including seven battleships — were either sunk or so badly damaged that they would be out of action for months. In addition, of the nearly 400 military aircraft on the island, 188 were destroyed, and 159 were damaged. Total American casualties were 3,581, of which 2,403 were killed. On 6 December 1941, the United States was still a more-or-less neutral, if uneasy, nation. Americans, as a people, were concerned about events on the Continent, but still mainly wanted to stay out of the life-or-death struggle in Europe and North Africa against fascism; a conflict that had already been raging for over two years. One day later, the American people were suddenly, and without warning, catapulted into the struggle they had hoped to escape. On 7 December 1941, the conflict in Europe finally reached around the globe and struck Americans in Hawaii; in the months to come, it would rapidly spread in all directions until it had engulfed the whole of the Pacific.

DESCRIPTION

THE FAST CARRIERS is a historical and semi-historical simulation of the complex air-sea operations carried out by carrier task forces from the beginning of America’s entry into World War II through and until the late 70’s. This is a two player game, with each player commanding either carrier-based or land-based air units. The goal for both players is clear: locate and destroy the enemy force before he can do the same to you. As is typical with naval games, many of the actions performed by both players during a game turn will be executed secretly and simultaneously.
What makes THE FAST CARRIERS particularly interesting from the player’s perspective (as well as challenging), is the melding of strategic, operational, and tactical mission planning and execution in a single all-encompassing game design. This melding of different time scales, however, also significantly slows the action for both players; this ‘slowness’ is, undoubtedly, the biggest shortcoming of the game system. In any case, as the game’s introduction explains: “During each game turn a player may move Task Force markers on the Strategic Map, shift air units on his Task Force Operations Displays, and move air units on the Tactical Display to attack naval units. Ships can bombard shore targets, air units can attack air units, ships can attack air units, and air units can bomb or torpedo ships. Each type of combat is handled separately and in sequence.” Thus, players transition in terms of map scale and time increments as they move from the Strategic Stage (four hours) to the Operational Stage (one hour) to the Tactical Stage (forty seconds). Given the multi-stage design architecture of THE FAST CARRIERS, it is hardly surprising that the game’s turn structure turns out to be a little unorthodox. Each of the different scenarios is composed of an open-ended number of from one to seven ‘days’. Each ‘day’ is then further divided into five daylight turns, and one night turn. The opposing sides maneuver on one of five different strategic maps, each of which represents a specific geographical sea area. Strategic naval movement is handled using Task Force (TF) markers; and although both players’ markers are always visible on the strategic map, the combination of ‘dummy’ TF markers, restrictive search procedures, and simultaneous movement plotting pretty much eliminates the specter of unrealistic ‘perfect intelligence’ from the game. Each ship counter represents a single vessel, and each two-sided (to represent damaged and undamaged status) air counter represents six aircraft.

eThe game mechanics of THE FAST CARRIERS are probably a little too involved to describe in any great detail, but a brief description of the different phases of each stage may still be helpful in conveying the flow of an individual game turn. The starting point for each game turn is the Strategic Stage which is composed of three steps: the surface combat phase; the strategic movement phase; and the strategic search phase. At the conclusion of each Strategic phase, players transition to the portion of the game directly oriented around carrier operations. This (carrier) Operations Stage is, in turn, made up of four steps: the aircraft launch phase; the change of status phase (aircraft move from hanger to flight deck, fuel and arm, etc.); the recovery (landing) phase; and the aircraft movement phase (aircraft move or set-up for air strikes, etc.) If and only if, an airborne strike force arrives over its target do operations shift to the game’s Tactical Stage. At this point, assuming that an airstrike is not going in against a land base, the attacking player must determine whether his striking force has found its target. And this is where playing THE FAST CARRIERS is anything but fast. Finding or not finding the enemy fleet depends on two factors: the number of ‘waves’ (determined at the time of take off) conducting the airstrike; and the range flown by the attacking aircraft. A quick word of explanation: ‘waves’ can be comprised of from one to three aircraft counters, but must always be composed of the same type of aircraft. Assuming that part or all of the strike force actually locates its target, then the attacking aircraft and their escorts enter from one of six sides of the Tactical Display and proceed to run the familiar gauntlet (one wave at a time) of enemy CAP, followed by naval anti-aircraft fire. Once these steps are completed, the attacking waves of aircraft can finally conduct their runs against individual enemy ships. Dive bombers, not surprisingly, must approach their targets at higher altitude and then dive to attack from the stern; horizontal bombers perform their attacks after completing a straight, high altitude bomb run; torpedo planes, on the other hand, can attack from any angle, but must fly three hexes in a straight line before attacking the enemy vessel from an adjacent hex. Combat results are computed using a ‘differential’ CRT, and, since attacks are resolved wave by wave (up to a maximum of six waves) and negative differentials have ‘no effect’, the combat system occasionally leads to some very odd situations. Ships are damaged as a result of hits (four hits being necessary to sink a vessel); aircraft counters are inverted to their ‘damaged’ side to show hits, and damaged air groups are eliminated if hit again. One perverse aspect of this combat system, particularly for a player like me who cut his ‘carrier game’ teeth on Avalon Hill’s original MIDWAY, is that it requires multiple attacks to sink ANYTHING — even a carrier with readied planes on its deck.

The other really cumbersome element in THE FAST CARRIERS is the seemingly interminable quasi-abstract Search subroutine. Searches are conducted on the players’ Search Charts, and search aircraft, once launched, are committed to their search area for the entire day. And searches, as might be expected, can be conducted with varying numbers of aircraft, using different search patterns, and at different ranges. Not surprisingly, the more aircraft searching a sea area and the shorter the range, the better the prospects are of locating an enemy force. Unfortunately, even when the enemy task force is found, a randomly drawn chit will still determine how effective the search actually turns out to be. This process is both predictably time-consuming and, more often than not, incredibly frustrating for the player conducting the search. Winning is determined by comparing victory points at the end of the scenario being played. Victory points, of course, are typically accumulated by inflicting damage on the enemy force.

THE FAST CARRIERS offers five historical, and four semi-historical (hypothetical) scenarios that simulate air-sea operations from the start of World War II up to the 70’s. The scenarios follow the chronological order of the naval actions they recreate; they are: Pearl Harbor, 7 Dec.’41 (this is the only solitaire scenario offered); the Coral Sea, 8 May ‘42; the Battle of Midway, 4 June ’42; the Eastern Solomons, 24 Aug. ’42; Santa Cruz, 26 Oct. ’42; Northern Solomons, 1943 (hypothetical); Action Off Korea (hypothetical); Action In the Tonkin Gulf (hypothetical); and Action In The Denmark Strait (hypothetical). In addition to the various scenarios, THE FAST CARRIERS also offers an optional Weather rule (which is actually a whole weather sub-routine), and a rule on Oilers, for those players who don’t think they already have enough to keep track of.

A PERSONAL OBSERVATION THE FAST CARRIERS is a detailed and, in several respects, really quite an ingenious attempt by Jim Dunnigan to simulate carrier operations. As such, it does a pretty good job at the strategic and operational level. Where the ’wheels come off’ the design is in the tactical portion of the game system. Conducting air strikes — in my opinion, the whole purpose of setting up and playing the game in the first place — are tedious to execute and, against undamaged ships, surprisingly ineffectual. The built-in limitations of the game’s tactical combat system inevitably lead to some odd and unrealistic outcomes. For example, the Arizona was sunk, and the flight deck of the Akagi was turned into an inferno by lucky hits from attacking dive bombers; neither event can really be duplicated in THE FAST CARRIERS. This means that — in this game, at least — carrier engagements tend to require multiple attacks in order to bring about any sort of decisive outcome. Ships are just very hard to knock out of action or sink. Still, the game, despite its several flaws, is probably worth a look from players with an interest in air-sea combat operations.

In that context, THE FAST CARRIERS is really at its best when simulating World War II carrier actions; the hypothetical ‘modern’ scenarios, on the other hand, have that distinctive SPI “let’s throw a few extra game situations in at the last minute” feel to them. Moreover, the ‘introductory’ Pearl Harbor solitaire scenario is actually unplayable without the inclusion of the game’s follow-up Errata. THE FAST CARRIERS is certainly not for everyone, but it does introduce several novel concepts into the design mix of carrier-based combat operations; so for naval buffs, at least, it might not be a bad choice. Novices and casual players, on the other hand, should definitely give this title a pass. Finally, from a purely ‘game design history’ standpoint, this title is an interesting elaboration on previous Dunnigan air-sea simulations and, as such, probably represents a worthwhile addition to the collection of anyone who specializes in naval or early SPI games.

Design Characteristics: Time Scale: Strategic Stage (4 hours); Operational Stage (1 hour); Tactical Stage (40 seconds)

Map Scale: Strategic Map (90 Nautical Miles per hex); Tactical Display (1000 yards per hex) Unit Size: individual ships, aircraft compliments of six aircraft Unit Types: individual ships, carrier based-air, land-based air, and information counters

Number of Players: two Complexity: high Solitaire Suitability: low (except for the Pearl Harbor Scenario)

Average Playing Time: 4 + hours Game Components: One 22” x 34’’ hexagonal grid Map Sheet (with various Strategic maps, the Tactical Display, Terrain Key, Turn Record and Sequence of Play Track, and various Combat Results Tables incorporated) 800 half-inch cardboard Counters One 8.5” x 11”

Rules Booklet (with Surface to Surface Probability Table, Strike Contact Table, Wave Arrival Table, Anti-Air Combat Results Table, Anti-Ship Combat Results Table, Anti-Submarine Contact Table, Jet Age Strike Contact Table and Scenario Instructions incorporated) Two 7.75” x 12” Search Pattern Templates (one for each player) Sixteen 8” x 11.75” Task Force Operations Displays (eight for each player) One small six-sided Die One SPI 12 x 15 x 1” flat 24 compartment plastic Game Box (with clear compartment tray covers) and clear plastic game cover with Title Sheet

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