The War at Sea is a strategic World War II board wargame published by the Australian game publisher Jedko Games in 1975 that simulates naval warfare during the Battle of the Atlantic. A revised second edition was published by Avalon Hill in 1976, and a third edition was released by L2 Design Group in 2007.
Description
The War at Sea is a board wargame in which one player controls Allied naval forces (Great Britain and Russia), and the other player controls Axis naval forces (Germany and Italy). United States starts as a neutral spectator, and both players have a chance to bring America to their side. PrezCon, and via play-by-email.
Reception
In his 1977 book The Comprehensive Guide to Board Wargaming, Nick Palmer noted that the playing time of this game was only an hour, and called it "a pleasant little contest without being a full-fledged wargame in the more sophisticated sense." In his 1980 sequel, The Best of Board Wargaming, Palmer described War at Sea and its sister Victory In The Pacific as "excellent introductory fare to entice newcomers into the hobby" with the former having a mere four pages of rules. He criticised the mechanism whereby damaged ships “sprout wings” (albeit affected by the ship’s individual speed factor) and return to port as “the most outrageous element in a pair of games with scanty claims to realism”. However, the games offer “light relief and fast movement” although they can also be played as “deadly serious contests of logic and mathematics”; the games are “primarily for beginners or statisticians, but also quite good as an occasional change from weightier things”. He praised the “honesty in advertising” by which War At Sea admits that it is only loosely a “simulation” in that it is based on “historical data” about ship design and is intended as a fun introductory game. He gave the game a high rating for excitement (70%) but a derisory 5% for realism.
In Issue 36 of the British wargaming magazine Perfidious Albion, Myles Robertson noted the lack of historicity of the game, saying, "Any connection between War at Sea and historical reality is unintentional and purely coincidental. This does not mean to say, however, that the game is rubbish. Its is a fun game." Robertson concluded, "All in all a very enjoyable game ... it is good fun, something which is not found in too many games nowadays, and I would highly recommend it to all"
In the 1980 book The Complete Book of Wargames, game designer Jon Freeman called this "the simplest real wargame on the market and ideal for introducing newcomers to the hobby." Freeman concluded by giving the game an Overall Evaluation of "Good", saying, "Although it's no great shakes as a simulation, and the bane of adherents of the SPI school of realism-by-complexity, it's a pleasant little game."
In The Guide to Simulations/Games for Education and Training, Martin Campion commented on its use as an educational aid, saying, "In spite of its historical distortions and lack of realism, War at Sea is some help in seeing the situation in the Atlantic and shows why the British feared the small German Fleet." Unlike other critics, Campion did not think this was a good introduction to wargaming, pointing out that "its system is not even distantly related to the systems used in more complex games."
Other reviews and commentary
- Casus Belli #16 (Aug 1983)
- Campaign #76 & #103
- Fire & Movement #62
- Panzerfaust #70
- Games & Puzzles #61