Submarine (wargame)
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Submarine is a board wargame published by Battleline Publications in 1976 that simulates submarine warfare during World War II. The following year, Avalon Hill bought the rights to the game, expanded the rules and republished it with new cover art.
Gameplay
Submarine is a two-player board wargame in which one player controls a submarine trying to sink a target such as a freighter or aircraft carrier, while the other player controls the target and anti-submarine defenses such as destroyer escorts. The map is a blank isomorphic hex grid in three sections, which can be transposed to provide new map space if a battle moves off the original board.[1]
The game has basic and advanced rules. In the advanced game, the submarine commander uses a hidden movement system to plot the submarine's movement one turn in advance, and the submarine is not placed on the map board until it has been discovered by sonar, radar or visual means.[1] At the same time, the anti-submarine player must plot the target's movement three turns in advance. However, the movement of the target's escorts do not need to be pre-plotted, allowing the escorts to immediately react as events unfold.[1] Movement is simultaneous.
The game includes several scenarios, which can be combined into a long campaign game — critic Jon Freeman estimated that the complete game would take upwards of 40 hours to complete.[1] The weapons and technology available depend on the year of the scenario, with technology becoming more efficient and deadlier as the war progresses.[1]
Publication history
Submarine was designed by Steve Peek and published by Battleline in 1976. Avalon Hill bought the rights to the game, and game designer Mick Uhl greatly expanded the advanced rules,[2] adding much more complexity to the game.[3] The new edition was released in 1977. Avalon Hill revised the rules and published a second edition in 1981.