War Game Simulating Submarine Combat

The convoy ships, the prize in play for both sides, would automatically plod on at each turn of the game toward their destination, the battle raging around them, just as at sea. Next, Roberts explained the rules of the game. Players were given two minutes in which to submit their orders for the next ‘turn’, to replicate the urgency of a real battlefield. The movements of the U-boats were drawn in green’ chalk on the floor, a colour chosen as it was impossible to make out against the floor’s tint when viewed from an angle. This ensured the U-boat positions were undetectable to the players peering through the canvas screens. The escort ships’ movements would then be added to the floor in white chalk, which was, in contrast to the green markings, legible to those peeking from the canvas holes. Turn by turn the pieces would move around the floor, as the escort ships dashed to the site of an explosion to drop depth charges, and the U-boats performed their feints and dodges in an effort to pick off convoy ships, while evading the escort.

Okell’s role, Roberts explained, would be that of an umpire, measuring distances and marking movements in chalk to ensure that the game played out as accurately as possible. Finally, at the end of the game, the players would come together and, sitting around the board, now criss-crossed with chalk markings, Roberts would reveal how everyone had fared. More details needed to be worked out, Roberts explained, and by necessity the game was a simplification of real U-boat action, but there was enough here, he said, to begin staging recent sea battles. The objective was to experience the action from the perspective of the U-boats and, from that knowledge, assess what the escort commanders might have done differently to save ships, supplies and lives.