HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
At 07:40 on Sunday, 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, part of the American territory of the Hawaiian Islands. This was the first wave of a devastating surprise 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 Japanese 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. The pillars of black smoke billowing up from the burning ships and airfields at Pearl Harbor after the Japanese airstikes bore witness to the stark fact that, although no formal declaration had yet been made by either nation, the United States and the Empire of Japan were now at war.DESCRIPTION

USN is a strategic/operational simulation of combined land-sea-air combat in the Pacific Theater of Operations during the first years of World War II. The game covers the intense fighting between the Allies and the forces of Imperial Japan during the period 7 December, 1941, through the end of June, 1943. A game like USN, which combines ground, naval, and air operations, can be expected to have a complex turn sequence. And so, in fact, it does.


A PERSONAL OBSERVATION
USN is an interesting game on a number of different levels. Clearly, its appearance in S&T #29 shows that Jim Dunnigan was already beginning to think about designing and publishing large-scale, highly detailed, complex historical simulations. STRATEGY I had appeared a few months earlier and, for the reasons already mentioned, had been a tremendous disappointment to the majority of those loyal SPI gamers who had actually attempted to play it. Unfortunately, neither Redmond Simonsen (creatively) nor SPI (financially) was quite up to the job of developing and publishing a true monster game when STRATEGY I and USN first saw print. The appearance of such a true monster game would have to wait until SPIs publication, in April, 1974, of WAR IN THE EAST.Design Characteristics:
- Time Scale: 1 week per game turn
- Map Scale: 200 miles per hex (approximate)
- Unit Size: army/corps/division/regiment/battalion, single capital ship, naval squadron, air squadron (ten aircraft per air point)
- Unit Types: BB, CA, CL, DD, CV, CVL, CVE, submarine (Japanese only), transport, assault transport (U.S. only), oiler, naval air, land-based air, infantry/marine/SNLF, paratroops, artillery, engineer, and information markers
- Number of Players: two
- Complexity: above average/high
- Solitaire Suitability: below average
- Average Playing Time: 3-50+ hours (depending on scenario)
Game Components:
- One 22” x 28” hexagonal grid Map Sheet
- 400 ½” cardboard Counters
- One 6” x 11” map-fold Set of Rules (with Scenario Instructions incorporated)
- Three 6½” x 22” identical back-printed Combined Charts (with Land Combat Results Table, Air Combat Results Table, Air to Surface Combat Results Table, Combat Damage Table, and Time Record/Reinforcement Chart
- One 8½” x 11” back-printed Allied Naval Air Unit Strength Chart and USN Designers Notes
- One 8½” x 11” back-printed Japanese Naval Air Unit Strength Chart and USN Game Notes
- Two 8½” x 11” back-printed Air Mission Allocation Charts
- One 8½” x 11” Errata Sheet (31 May 73)
- One small six-sided Die
- One 4” x 8” SPI Customer Complaint Card
- One SPI 12” x 15” x 1” flat 24 compartment plastic Game Box (with clear compartment tray covers) with Title Sheet
The Burma Campaign scenario is incredibly simplistic, but so is the entire land warfare system in this game.
I'd say USN is really focused on the air and sea warfare aspects of the World War II Pacific campaign before the Aliies got into "island hopping" mode. The Japanese can be quite dangerous with their DD and CL units moving ("sneaking"??) in a regiment here and there on the Allies through the use of "emergency transport".
The land warfare system is "ok", but the deployments of Dutch & British units at the start of the war in Dec. 1941 really needs some reworking. I still experiment with placing a few homemade 2-6 battalions around the DEI area rather than the scenario-specified regiments or divisions. That makes the Japanese invasions and resulting conflicts seem more realistic.
The original British placements in Malaya seem flawed to me; too strong whereas historically those units were kinda weak and poorly led. Almost makes me wish USN had a "morale" subsystem to simulate those effects on unit performance in combat.
As for the map, it needs some help also. A few carefully placed atolls can help the US immensely while restoring some historical flavor. A few atolls that made up some of the original US air transport system to Australia are nice to have, but keep their airbase size to a "5".
I think (don't have the map out right now) that the French Frigate Shoals are missing, but they were used as ship & seaplane anchorages by the US, and seaplane/submarine rendevous points by the Japanese. Ports cannot be placed here, but anchorages would be nice. Limiting their airbase size to a "5" pushes "realistic" a bit too far. So creating rules for "anchorages", "seaplanes", and "seaplane tenders" would be needed.
Overall I liked USN and found it fun to play. I still have my copy on the shelf. I pull it out now and again to examine what changes I would make to the design. I keep those notes inside the box for each game that I study in that way.
Greetings Anon:
It sounds like you are a man after my own heart.
Whenever I wanted either to take a break from the 5 to 8 PBM games that I had running, or a change of scene from the Russian Front (my specialty in face-to-face during this period), I would set my copy of USN up on my drafting table and start tinkering.
You are quite correct that the Burma/China land campaign just didn't work. And it also struck me as a perverse rules twist that the Japanese BBs were best used in the early game to smash Allied coastal usits; nonetheless, there was much about the basic premise of the game system that I liked.
Ultimately, like you, I did quite a bit of fiddling with rules; I also hand-drew about 250 additional game counters. Interestingly, when I finally put the game up for good, I had probably accumulated about thirty pages of game notes (the only games with even more notes were DNO/UNT and WItE).
USN was, it is clear, an ingenious effort; regrettably, it was also probably beyond the still-developing talents of both Dunnigan and Simonsen at the time it was published.
Best Regards, Joe