The Fast carriers review



The Game:
This Jim Dunnigan design was released by SPI in 1975. It contains one standard sized map (22” x 34”), two sheets of 400 counters, a rule book, 8 US and 8 Japanese task force displays, 2 search templates, and a flat-pack box plus a d6.

Theme:
Fast carriers is concerned with aircraft carrier operations, from 1941 to the present day. Well, 1975, at least. The players take on 3 roles: strategic, operational and tactical, represented by task force assignment and movement, air search and air strike activities and tactical combat.

The game has 5 strategic maps, each covering a separate part of the world (South Pacific, Central Pacific, Gulf of Tonkin, Sea of Japan and Norwegian sea). There are no rules for combining regions or campaigns, given that each game turn represents 4 hours. The strategic maps have a small number of hexes, each 90 nautical miles across. There is also a large, hexagonal tactical map. Modern gamers might be disappointed by the limited colour scheme employed, but the whole thing is functional.



Units are divided into single sided ship counters (1 ship each) and double sided aircraft (6 planes each). The remainder are markers, including 30 search report markers, more of which later. Allied ships and planes are blue (including dark blue for jet era scenarios), while opposing forces are yellow or dark tan. Ships are rated for anti aircraft fire (up to 3 values for different ranges), surface attack and defence. There is no room for pretty silhouettes, although carriers (only) have a triangle representing the bow/ stern orientation, which is necessary for tactical combat.



Air units have an air to air, air to surface, endurance and tactical move rating, although the latter is replaced by a J for jet aircraft. The rear side represents damaged (halved) air units.

Game turn sequence:
Most scenarios have an undetermined number of “days”, to a maximum of 7. Each day has 5 day turns (the first of which is actually from 1 am to 5 am, enabling the players to get search aircraft into the air by dawn (turn 2). The 6th turn of each day is a night turn: aircraft still in the air are lost.

Strategic turns
Each strategic turn has 3 steps:
- surface combat (opposing task forces (TF) in a hex).
- Strategic movement (each TF must plot a move of up to 1 hex, then all are revealed and move simultaneously)
- Strategic search (aircraft on the search displays roll to detect TF)

One important facet is that all TF are placed on the same strategic map, and are thus visible to both sides. They cannot be attacked by air unless detected, however. Each player may also place dummy TF equal to the number of real TF, to a maximum number of TF of 8 per side. In the move phase of every night turn the players can reorganise, split up or regroup, and deploy dummy TF on the map.

Operations:
After each strategic phase, there are 4 operational phases. These are primarily concerned with carrier operations. In order:
- Take offs ( all planes currently in the flight deck box of their carrier or base)
- Carrier / base status (planes move between hanger, fuel and arm and flight deck boxes, maximum 1 box each per operational phase).
- Landing ( aircraft in a carrier or base hex land, including search and CAP, if required).
- Air movement (air strikes plot their new position (there are no strike markers) Aircraft move 2 strategic hexes ( 1 for helicopters, 4 for jets) minus one on the phase they take off).
- All air strikes decrease their endurance by 1 (they may be reduced to 0 at this time, but must land in the next ops landing phase or be lost))
- Strike contact (strikes in their target hex now roll to contact the enemy – success moves to the tactical stage)

Tactical stage
When a strike reaches it’s target, it must try and find the ships before it can attack (bases are always found). This depends on the number of waves (at least 1 air unit per wave, up to a maximum of 6 waves) as determined at take off. It also depends on how far the planes have had to fly, from near- certain in the same hex to impossible at 7+ hexes.

If something is found, the defender places his fleet on the tactical display, carriers at or near the centre. Each ship must be at least 2 hexes from every other ship. The defender also places all combat air patrol (CAP) aircraft on the display, anywhere.

The attacker then tries to fly in the first wave. There is a chance that each wave could miss, or that up to 3 waves could appear together. Waves appear on one of the 6 edges of the display.

Assuming attacking waves appear, the defender’s CAP move (and change altitude, if desired). Carriers (only may then displace: each carrier can then rotate 60 degrees in either direction: all non- carriers within 4 hexes which are in the wedge shape the carrier turned through are displaced 1 hex away (and may displace further ships, until all are 2 hexes from each other. This might be useful to force dive-bombers (which must attack from the stern) or torpedo bombers (which suffer a penalty for stern attacks) to alter their attack. Non carriers all face in the initial direction of the fleet at all times.

Defending CAP in the same hex and altitude as strike aircraft can attack them. After this, anti-aircraft (flak) damage is resolved, each ship allocating fire to a single hex at short, medium (3-4 hexes) or long (5-6 hexes) range.

Finally, strike aircraft move, attack enemy aircraft and finally attack ships (or bases).

Dive-bombers start at high altitude, dive to low and attack. Torpedo bombers must fly 3 hexes in a straight line then attack (from an adjacent hex) and level bombers must fly straight 6 hexes before dropping their payload.

Special rules:

Search:
Aircraft are allocated to a spiderweb like display on their TF sheet. The display shows which areas relative to the TF or base they search. Searches can be up to 5 hexes away, and areas can be a full 360 degrees, 120 degree fan or 60 degree wedge. The larger the slice, the more aircraft required. The players may search every TF in the area. Search aircraft remain aloft for the rest of the day, and must land before night.

If successful, the owner of the TF draws a report chit (maximum one per TF per search phase), declares what the searcher has found, and places the chit on the TF, where it remains until attacked. Twenty (out of 30) chits are placed in one pool, the remainder in a second pool. Chits are drawn from the second pool only if the first is empty. Every night, all chits on the map return to the big pool. The idea is that only certain chits will appear repeatedly, I think, but this is actually rather cumbersome and irrelevant.
Chits may be marked “True”, “Approximate +/- 1” or “2”, “Error +/-1” or “2” or false. The owner then describes what the search has found, within the limits of the chit. Error allows the reporting of no carriers at all, even if they are present. False lets you report anything you like.

Other rules:
Weather:
The game suggests you chuck 1-6 blank markers onto the map to represent storms. The move randomly, and prevent air ops in their current hex.

Submarines:
These rules are primarily for modern (post WW2) scenarios.

Tactical abstraction:
Modern combat does not use the tactical display. In addition, CAP may intercept out of it’s base hex.

Modern search:
There are no task forces or searches except against submarines. All surface ships are always detected accurately.

Oilers:
Destroyers must refuel every 3 days.

Pack Ice:
Only submarines can enter and fight in pack ice hexes.

Land based search aircraft and seaplane carriers.


Scenarios:
1) Pearl Harbor: solitaire learning scenario
2) Coral Sea
3) Midway
4) Eastern Solomons
5) Santa Cruz
6) Northern Solomons (hypothetical)
7) Korea
8) Tonkin gulf
9) Denmark Strait.

Overall Pros and cons:

The game is ambitious in attempting to compare both WW2 and modern carrier operations. Unlike Flat top, it concentrates on air strikes and tactical combat, and abstracts the search aspects of the game. There is a very good chance that airstrikes will fail to contact the target, and even when they do, waves may still fail to individually arrive.

Combat is differential based. Up to 3 air units can stack and attack together, if they are of the same type. Unfortunately, this means Japanese dive bombers can never attack undamaged battleships (a total of 9 attack factors against a defence of 12 – a differential less than +1 is no effect). Even worse, it is impossible for any single air attack to score more than 2 hits on a ship (4 hits are required to sink it). Having more planes just makes those 2 hits more likely. The secret therefore is to attack repeatedly, using the smallest number of planes you can, hoping to get at least 2 hits, to reduce the defence of the target for subsequent attacks.

There are no rules for critical hits, either. This means that the Akagi, critically damaged by a single bomb hit and a near miss, would still be afloat (2 hits). Having planes on deck and planes refuelling give a -1 to defence, each, but no increase in damage taken.

In conclusion, fast carriers is an interesting and quite complex look at carrier aircraft, paying particular attention to airstrikes.